Phi8

1. The module links to Plato's "Euthyphro" where Socrates discovers that EITHER God's will is arbitrary OR God is subject to forces beyond his own control.  What do you think about this

What People Believe about Morality and God

In the Pew Research Center’s 2007 Global Attitudes Project, respondents

in various parts of the world were asked whether they agreed or disagreed

with the following statement:

 

“It is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values.”

 

Click here to see the 47-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey. What do you think could explain the pattern in the responses?

During this module you are required to read the following in Ethical Choices:

 

•Introduction, pp. 263-264

•Divine command theory, pp. 268-269

•An alternate dependency account, pp. 269-272

God as Creator in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

All cultures have a spiritual dimension. Their practices and beliefs express an area of concern that goes beyond the here and how. About 31% of the world population are Christians and 23% are Muslims. About 0.2% are Jewish. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam profess belief in a creator God. The word “god” capitalized is usually understood to refer specifically to such a being, rather than to spiritual forces or dimensions that are common to all human cultures. This module addresses some points that arise with the assumption of a creator God. If everything owes its existence or operation to God-as-creator, what implications does this have for the existence and force of standards, especially moral standards?

Prevalence of Belief in God as Requirement for Morality

As you have seen from the results of the Global Attitudes survey, many people do accept that belief in God is required to be moral. Looking at the charts, one can see that they tend to live in areas of the world where Christianity and Islam are influential. But not all people have this belief. One can infer, given the charts and information about population in various countries, that over 2 billion people do not believe that moral standards require the existence of God. However, currently, the greatest incidence of wars and wide-scale acts of atrocities happens to occur in countries in which the majority do profess belief in the existence of God, not in those that don’t.

Divine Command Theory

Is the good and the right something that all humans can uncover and live by, using human abilities, or are acting rightly and being good only really available to people who believe in a creator God? The issue cannot be resolved by polls or by looking at where people who believe in a creator God happen to live. This topic has actually been a matter of long-standing debate in Western philosophy and theology. The view that moral right and good depend on what God (understood as a creator God) commands is known as the Divine Command Theory

William of Ockham and Divine Command Theory

One of the strongest statements of this viewpoint was made by 13th-century philosopher and theologian William of Ockham. God’s will is unlimited. “God is under no obligation to no one; and He is neither bound to cause that act, nor the opposite act, nor not to cause it. And hence He does not sin, however much He may cause that act” (Ockham book 3). There is no standard that can be applied to God’s intentions and actions. Rather moral standards owe their force to God’s authority.

Divine Command Theory and the Issue of Justifiability

On this view, moral norms are not justifiable, but authoritative. Their authority derives its force from the supreme authority of the highest commander, God. However, moral norms are justifiable only if they can be supported by moral reasoning. A blanket assertion of authority does not count as justification. The Divine Command Theory does looks like it has a problem with the issue of justifiability. If you do something that God does not approve, you get punished. We have an aversion to punishment, so we will act in ways that God approves. That’s all there is to morals. If you recall our second module, this answer looks surprisingly similar to egoism: We act in ways that are approved of because we fear punishment. We really only care about ourselves.

God Could Command Otherwise: Implication for Justifiability

Ockham’s way out of this problem was in also admitting that God happens to have made matters such that we can understand what is right through the use of reason. So, using reason, we can come to understand God’s commands. However, Ockham also thought that, God being perfectly free, nothing prevents God from commanding that things could be otherwise. Think of the implication of this. Suppose Ockham is right. Imagine that people claim with sincerity that God has commanded that girls ought not get an education. They sincerely believe it is a moral imperative that they do everything in their power to prevent girls from getting an education, including throwing acid and shooting at them. If you believe in Divine Command Theory, how could you compellingly argue that they ought not commit these acts? Might not God have commanded that girls ought not get an education? How would you know?

Euthyphro: The Virtue of Showing Reverence to the Gods

One of the most influential discussions of the issue of the justifiability of norms is in Plato’s dialogue, Euthyphro. You have heard of the Socratic method. Reading Euthyphro will give you a good sense of what it was like, since it features Plato’s mentor, Socrates, at work doing the kind of thing for which he became famous: engaging others through discussion in trying to uncover what constitutes the excellence of a human being as member of a community. The aspect of human excellence that is pursued in this dialogue is the virtue of showing reverence to the Gods, piety, or holiness. Socrates believed that a full, concentrated focus on understanding what makes a virtue what it is, would be conducive to enacting it.

The Unending Job of Delivering the Baby: The Definition of the Holy

In the dialogue, Socrates plays the role of intellectual midwife. The “baby” to be delivered is the definition of the virtue of reverence for the gods, or holiness (or piety, depending on which translation you look at). Socrates firmly believes that there is such a thing as virtue, including the virtue of showing proper reverence to the divine. He himself does not know what the virtue of holiness is, but he is intent on finding it out. Pursuing an understanding of virtue is, for him, the most worthwhile pursuit of all. His job is to help a know-it-all pillar-of-the-community type, Euthyphro, come to greater clarity about what the virtue of showing proper reverence is. The discussion does not come to a definitive conclusion. But what Socrates achieves is helping others reexamine the things they take for granted. That is already a step on the road to human excellence.

Relevance of Euthyphro for the Issue of the Justifiability of Moral Norms

This dialogue is important for the process of reasoning it asks us to go through. You will see that the fact that the Ancient Greeks were polytheistic does not really affect the relevance of this debate for understanding the issue of the justifiability of moral norms. The dialogue places us squarely at the intersection between religious belief and moral standards since it asks what is the definition of the moral virtue of showing reverence for the gods. We will just look at a few of Euthyphro’s attempts to define what is the virtue of holiness or piety.

Following Exemplary Behavior

In seeking to put his finger on what, here is Euthyphro’s first attempt at putting his finger on what makes all and only acts of piety pious: “I say that the holy is what I am now doing, prosecuting the wrongdoer who commits murder or sacrilegious robbery, or sins in any point like that, whether it be your father, or your mother, or whoever it may be” (Plato 5d). We could already stop to reflect on the first part of the proposed definition: The holy is what I am now doing. This is similar to definitions you might be familiar with: The holy is whatever Jesus did or do what Jesus would do. The question arises: What part of the example would you be following? You would have to figure out what aspects of the example are relevant, so you would have to exercise judgment in interpreting examples. Socrates is asking for us to exercise our judgment.

Following a List of Examples

Euthyphro does not just tell people to follow his example, but also gives a list of examples of things that count as being holy actions. Here Socrates points out that Euthyphro gives us too much information, and information of the wrong kind. Ask yourself the question: How would we know how to complete the sequence that Euthyphro began? Do we include giving alms to the poor? How about blowing up skyscrapers? What Socrates was asking for is not a laundry list of holy acts, but the principle that would allow any one of us to construct such a list when we need to. What is it that all holy acts have in common? This is what Socrates is asking for. How would you answer Socrates’s challenge at this point?

A First Stab at Finding a Principled Answer

Euthyphro, rising to the challenge, comes up with the following definition: “What is pleasing to the gods is holy, and what is not pleasing to them is unholy” (Plato 7a). This might seem irrelevant to us. But it, and Socrates’s response, are directly relevant to us today. Socrates points out that there can be disagreement among the gods. For instance, to make up an example, what is pleasing to the god Zeus (making an offering to one of his many amorous conquests) would definitely not be pleasing to his wife, Hera. So the same act would be both holy and unholy. That is a contradiction. And contradictions show defects in either reasoning, assumptions, or both. The source of these defects must be rejected. So the definition proposed is to be rejected.

The Relevance of Euthyphro’s First Attempt at a Principled Answer

Suppose you say that this dialogue is irrelevant to true believers in the One God, creator of the universe. Nevertheless, something very similar crops up even among believers in the creator God. Imagine two individuals, A and B, debating what it is that pleases God. In A's interpretation of what pleases God, it pleases God that we not blow up skyscrapers. In B's interpretation, it pleases God that we do blow up skyscrapers. So the very same act is holy and unholy. Again, we are led to the same conclusion: We must reject the source of the contradiction; there must be something odd in the proposed definition of holiness.

A Second Stab at Finding a Principled Answer

Euthyphro, getting the hang of things, now proposes a definition aimed at avoiding contradiction.” The definition will restrict itself to acts that all gods agree to either approve or disapprove. The revised definition is the most famous one: “I would indeed affirm that holiness is what the gods all love, and its opposite is what the gods all hate, unholiness” (Plato 9e). Among believers in the one true God, creator of the universe, this is equivalent to restricting the definition of the holy to what both A and B agree on.

Socrates Still Searching For What Makes Something Holy

Socrates’s intervention at this point is often called the “Euthyphro Dilemma,” although it is not a dilemma for Socrates. Socrates is looking for that characteristic that makes all holy acts and only holy acts, holy. Acts might have all sorts of characteristics. They might be done slowly, frequently, in the evenings, in the presence of many people, few people, etc. Are any of these characteristics (being slow, frequent, occurring in the evenings, being done in the presence of many people, few people, etc.) absolutely required for an act to be holy, or are they just incidental? Think of an example of a holy action. What absolutely must be part of it; what can be omitted without loss? (If you can’t answer the question, that’s all right.)

Socrates’s Famous Questioning of Euthyphro’s Proposed Definition

Socrates is looking for what belongs to holiness “on its own.” Let us consider the following example to help drive the point. It happens to be true that horses like oats. Suppose we define “oats” as what is liked by horses. Socrates would object that this characterization does not tell us what belongs to oats on their own. There is something that makes oats be what they are, and it is because oats are what they are that horses like oats. We must search for what it is about oats that makes them be oats “on their own.”

Euthyphro’s Proposed Definition

Although this is a cute example (Socrates did not talk about oats and horses), it is meant to drive a very serious point home: Socrates points out an inherent ambiguity in Euthyphro’s definition of the holy. Socrates is looking for a definition of the holy that captures what the holy is on its own, whether it is liked or approved or not. Whatever makes the holy be liked or approved must belong to the holy as holy. Euthyphro’s definition does not deliver the goods because his definition can be interpreted to mean that the holy is holy just because it is approved by the authority of all divine forces in agreement. This is basically the position of the Divine Command Theorist. The Divine Command Theorist would define the holy as what is approved by the one true creator of the universe.

The Pursuit of Excellence

For Socrates, such an answer is deeply unsatisfactory. Human excellence is served only if we pursue the answer further. Refusing to pursue the matter beyond the assertion of authority, even divine authority, is giving up on the pursuit of excellence. Euthyphro gets the point and tries to come up with a definition of the holy in and of itself. The discussion gets bogged down, and no satisfactory definition is found. But we have learned something important. Even if, and especially if, we do not find the answer to our quest for defining the holy, human excellence rests in the process of looking for the answer. It arises in the concentrated attention in seeking what the holy is “on its own.”

 

What do you think?