The Euthyphro Problem, Old and New

Class Poll
Brief Announcements

1. Slides will be posted to Perusall Library. Starting next week, handouts will be posted
containing the core text from the slides.

2. This is a split-level class, with students from different levels of exposure to philosophy.
Reading assignments will reflect this fact. There will typically be a canonical "required"
reading bundle as well an "optional" reading or two that may be especially challenging
without prior background with philosophy.
Everyone is encouraged to read all of the papers, but you are not expected to master the
material from the optional readings.
Students with significant philosophy background should read the paper from Sharon
Street for next week: "How to be a Relativist about Normativity." If you've already read
the other works you may focus your annotations on Street.
THE EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM

1. The Secular Euthyphro Dilemma

2. The Euthyphro Dilemma for Religious Morality
 Does morality depend upon religion?

Many theists and atheists alike agree that the belief in objective morality
turns upon a belief in some supernatural standard of moral authority.

Consider the following quote: What is the basic idea behind it? Do you
agree?
Only a God "If there is no God, everything is permitted."
Can Save Us: (A popular misattribution to The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor

Morality and Dostoevsky,

Dostoevsky, first attributed by Jean Paul Sartre)

Religion
A SECULAR EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Values

 REVIEW: In discussing whether Euthyphro should prosecute his father,
Socrates asks a series of questions designed to grapple with the following
metaethical question:

“What makes an action pious?"

As mentioned, while the conversation is couched in terms of the notion

of piety or holiness, the very same question can be posed for a range of
ethical concepts, including:

"Values": What does it mean for some object or state of affairs to be

The Euthyphro valuable – e.g. good or bad, beautiful, tasty, funny, etc.?

Problem "Norms": What does it mean for an action to be "right" or "wrong"?

 FINAL DEFINITION: “The holy is whatever all the
gods love; and its opposite, whatever all the gods
hate, is unholy.”
Euthyphro's
Final (i) Why does Socrates find this answer in need of
further clarification?
Definition
 What is the difference between holding:

(a) “An action is morally right because it is loved by

God”

Euthyphro's
(b) “An action is loved by God because it is morally
Final right”?
Definition
 CHALLENGE: How might we pose a
secular Euthyphro Dilemma for these garden
variety evaluative judgments?

The video is humorous/not

The
Secular The music is beautiful/not
Euthyphro The Cilantro is tasty/not
Problem
The Secular Euthyphro
Problem
A SECULAR EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Moral Values

A SECULAR EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM:

What is the difference between these two claims:

X is good because we have a positive response towards it

We have a positive attitude towards X because it is good

 Intrinsic Properties: Properties that something has in virtue
of its internal features or characteristics, independent of its
relation to other considerations

The Secular E.g. Your height as a simple measurement

Euthyphro
Problem: Pro-Tip: A property of X is intrinsic could be tokened in a
'lonely universe' in which there is only X
Intrinsic Value
Vs.
Extrinsic Value
 Extrinsic Properties: Properties that something has only
in relation to some other consideration

The Secular E.g. Being Taller/Shorter than Gertrude

Euthyphro
Problem: Pro-Tip: Could not be tokened in a 'lonely universe'

Intrinsic Value
Vs.
Extrinsic Value
 Which of the following is an INTRINSIC vs. EXTRINSIC
moral determination:

(a) “an action is morally right because it is loved

The Secular by God”
Euthyphro
Problem:
(b) “an action is loved by God because it is good”?
Intrinsic Value
Vs.
Extrinsic Value
A SECULAR EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM:

Which of the following is an INTRINSIC vs. EXTRINSIC moral determination:

X is good because we have a positive response towards it

We have a positive attitude towards X because it is good

 Extrinsic Value

X is beautiful/pleasant/tasty because we have a

positive attitude towards X

The Secular Intrinsic Value

Euthyphro
Problem: We have a positive attitude towards X because it is
beautiful/pleasing/tasty
Intrinsic Value
Vs.
Extrinsic Value
 CHALLENGE: Are moral judgements intrinsically
determined or extrinsically determined?

OBJECTIVISTS:

In your view, what challenges are there

for thinking about moral judgements as
The Secular EXITRINSICALLY determined facts?
Euthyphro
Problem: NIHILISTS & RELATIVISTS:

Intrinsic Value In your view, what challenges are there

Vs. for thinking about moral judgements as
Extrinsic Value INTRINSICALLY determined facts?
 THINK: Why might one think that humor is best
thought of as an extrinsic feature of a state of
affairs?
A Euthyphro
Problem for
the Value of
Humor
 THINK: If truths about the humorous
that are extrinsically determined by response
dependent facts – e.g. facts about what we do in
A Euthyphro fact laugh at – what unpalatable consequences
Problem for could this entail?
the Value of
Humor
 On the Response-Dependence of Humor: "A racist
could find the […] joke funny. How can an act be
Michael's considered objectively wrong because only a
majority of people feel that it is wrong?"
Annotation
A Euthyphro
THINK: What parallel point could be made about
Problem for extrinsic moral values?
Extrinsic
Values
 THINK: If there are truths about the humorous that
Intrinsically are intrinsically determined, what unpalatable
consequences could this entail, especially if we are
Funny? committed to a scientific worldview?
Intrinsic Gustatory Values?

THINK: If we suppose that there are truths about gustatory

values – e.g. "Cilantro is tasty" – that are intrinsically determined,
what unpalatable consequences could this entail, especially if we
are committed to a scientific worldview?
 What analogous point might we make about
Intrinsic moral values?
Moral If we say that an action is intrinsically right, or
Values? a state of affairs is intrinsically good, why
might this sound strange given everything we
know about the natural universe?
 Goodness as an "INTRINSICALLY NORMATIVE" Property

“Something's being good both tells the person who knows this to
pursue it and makes him pursue it. An objective good would be
sought by anyone who was acquainted with it, not because of any
contingent fact that this person, or every person, is so constituted
that he desires this end, but just because the end has to-be-
pursuedness somehow built into it. Similarly, if there were objective
principles of right and wrong, any wrong (possible) course of action
Mackie's would have not-to-bedoneness somehow built into it.”
Argument
from The same point can be made in terms of a range of evaluative
responses: e.g. to-be-lovedness, to-be-admiredness, to-be-
Metaphysical hatedness

Strangeness Ontological Strangeness: “If there were objective values, then they
would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort,
utterly different from anything else in the universe.”
 THINK: If there are truths about the humorous that
are intrinsically determined, what unpalatable
consequences could this entail, especially if we are
committed to a scientific worldview?
Argument In most forms of systematic inquiry, we typically find
from a trend of consensus in determining the intrinsic
properties of objects.
Disagreement
If moral values were intrinsic properties of actions
and states of affairs in the world, why on earth is
there so much moral disagreement?
 Challenge for Intrinsic Values: How do we explain intrinsic
moral facts or properties, given that most of our knowledge
The Secular about the intrinsic features of things in the world is grounded
in empirically observable naturalistic facts?
Euthyphro
Challenge for Extrinsic Values: How can moral properties or
Dilemma fact be extrinsically determined without giving up the idea
that there are correctness conditions on moral judgments?
 Only a God Can Save Us?

One historically predominant solution to these problems:

Moral facts are extrinsically determined by some infallible

transcendent source of normative authority
Only a God
Can Save Us
 Does morality depend upon religion?

Many theists and atheists alike agree that the belief in objective morality
turns upon a belief in some supernatural standard of moral authority.

Consider the following quote: What is the basic idea behind it? Do you
agree?
Only a God "If there is no God, everything is permitted."
Can Save Us: (A popular misattribution to The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor

Morality and Dostoevsky,

Dostoevsky, first attributed by Jean Paul Sartre)

Religion
 Divine Command Theory – An action X's being right or
wrong is explained solely by the fact that God
commands/prohibits X

The Divine
Command
Theory
 The Divine Command Theory has historically been advanced
in conjunction with a traditional Western monotheistic
conception of God as a personal creator who is omnipotent,
omnibenevolent, and omniscient

It is important to keep in mind that this is only one

conception of the Divine

Posing challenges for the Divine Command Theory is not

The Divine only an opportunity to critique and/or defend the
traditional conception of God, but also an invitation to
Command reconsider whether religious morality might find
grounding in an alternative conception of the Divine
Theory
RELIGIOUS MORALITY AND
THE EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM
DIVINE COMMAND THEORY
 The First Horn:
Good Because Commanded By God

The Second Horn:

Commanded By God Because Good

EUTHYPHRO'S THINK: Why might we think that each horn presents its
own challenge for the religious conception of morality?
HORNS
 THINK: What challenges are posed by
claiming that an action is morally right
The First because it is commanded by God?
Horn:
Good Because
Commanded
 The Problem of Arbitrariness
The First
Horn:
Good Because
Commanded
 God's Commands as Arbitrary and Potentially Heinous

Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688):

[C]ertain it is, that diverse modern theologians do not only

seriously, but zealously contend. . . that there is nothing
absolutely, intrinsically, and naturally good and evil, just and
unjust, antecedently to any positive command or prohibition of
God; but that the arbitrary will of God...by its commands and
The First prohibitions, is the first and only rule and measure thereof.
Horn: Whence it follows unavoidably, that nothing can be imagined
so grossly wicked, or so foully unjust or dishonest, but if it
Good Because were supposed to be commanded by this Omnipotent Deity,
Commanded must needs upon that hypothesis forthwith become holy, just
and righteous.
[Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 1.1.5]
 Praise Be...to What Exactly?
The Vacuousness of God’s Own Goodness

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716):

In saying… that things are not good according to any

standard of goodness, but simply by the will of God, it seems to
The First me that one destroys, without realizing it, all the love of God
and all his glory; for why praise him for what he has done, if he
Horn: would be equally praiseworthy in doing the contrary?
Good Because
Commanded [Discourse on Metaphysics, 2]
 God Can Make Anything Meritorious

William Ockham (1280-1349):

"Hatred, theft, adultery, and the like may involve evil according to the
common law, in so far as they are done by someone who is obligated by a
divine command to perform the opposite act… [However] they can … be
performed meritoriously by someone on earth if they should fall under a
divine command, just as now the opposite of these, in fact, fall under a

The First divine command. God can perform them without involving any evil."

Horn: "God is a debtor to no one, and therefore he is not obligated to cause either
that act or the opposite act; nor is he obliged not to cause that act.
Good Because Therefore, however much he might cause that act, God does not sin." [Opera
Commanded Theologica V]

THINK: Why might someone like Ockham think that the omnipotence of
God necessitates the radical contingency of moral facts? Do you agree?
 Why not just say that God commands X
because X is good?

The Second THINK: Why might taking the second horn

present trouble for a religious conception of
Horn: morality?
Commanded
Because Good
 A Blasphemous Contradiction with
Omnipotence?
John Duns Scotus (1265–1308):

"[I]f the precepts of the Ten Commandments … had [independent]

necessity—say, if the following were necessary: “One’s neighbor is not to be
killed or hated,” “Theft is not to be done,” and so on— it would follow that,
The Second Horn: independently of any willing whatsoever, they would be necessary for any
intellect apprehending such propositions...Therefore, God cannot make them
Commanded false. Therefore, he cannot make what they mark out as good to be anything
but good, and he cannot make what they prohibit to be anything but
Because Good bad." [Ordinatio III]
 DEBATE:

In your view, does the rejection of the Divine Command Theory

contradict or undermine the traditional Judeo-Christian
conception of monotheistic God?

How might someone argue that belief in an independent

objective foundation for morality represents an outright
contradiction with the traditional monotheistic conception of
IN-CLASS God? Do you agree?

DEBATE
 Omnipotence Within Boundaries?
Hugo Grotius (1583–1645):

"The [moral] law of nature, again, is unchangeable—even in the sense that

it cannot be changed by God. Measureless as is the power of
God, nevertheless it can be said that there are certain things over which that
power does not extend; for things of which this is said are spoken only,
having no sense corresponding with reality and being mutually contradictory.
Just as even God, then, cannot cause that two times two should not make
four, so he cannot cause that that which is intrinsically evil be not evil." [Law
of War and Peace, 1.10.5]
The Second Horn: DEBATE: Does the limitation of God's power provide a
Commanded solution? Is this a contradiction of the traditional conception of
God?
Because Good
 DEBATE: How might someone argue that belief in an
independent objective foundation for morality, even if
compatible with a traditional conception of God, renders the
latter unnecessary or superfluous? Do you agree?

IN-CLASS
DEBATE
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