We're getting well into stuff that I don't really know here, but as I understand it, classical Catholic moral theory bases moral truths not upon God's will but upon his nature. So truth, justice, etc. are good because they reflect the divine nature, which is in some sense Truth, Justice, etc. The Euthyphro Dilemma, at least as it's normally constructed, is really directed against forms of Divine Command Theory, which bases moral truths not upon God's nature but upon his will, i.e. telling the truth is good because God commands it, and so on. This is vulnerable to the objection that if God has a reason for commanding truth-telling rather than lying, then that reason is what really makes the one good and the other bad; whereas if he doesn't have any such reason, there's nothing intrinsically good about telling the truth or bad about lying, and God is just whimsical in his commands. If, however, the goodness of truth-telling rests ultimately in God's nature rather than his commands, then truth-telling is necessarily good (because God's nature couldn't be other than it is) and there is a reason for this, but the reason doesn't lie outside God. So, as I understand it, a divine nature account of moral truths isn't really susceptible to Euthyphro, at least as usually put. Of course that doesn't mean it doesn't face other objections.
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We're getting well into stuff that I don't really know here, but as I understand it, classical Catholic moral theory bases moral truths not upon God's will but upon his nature. So truth, justice, etc. are good because they reflect the divine nature, which is in some sense Truth, Justice, etc. The Euthyphro Dilemma, at least as it's normally constructed, is really directed against forms of Divine Command Theory, which bases moral truths not upon God's nature but upon his will, i.e. telling the truth is good because God commands it, and so on. This is vulnerable to the objection that if God has a reason for commanding truth-telling rather than lying, then that reason is what really makes the one good and the other bad; whereas if he doesn't have any such reason, there's nothing intrinsically good about telling the truth or bad about lying, and God is just whimsical in his commands. If, however, the goodness of truth-telling rests ultimately in God's nature rather than his commands, then truth-telling is necessarily good (because God's nature couldn't be other than it is) and there is a reason for this, but the reason doesn't lie outside God. So, as I understand it, a divine nature account of moral truths isn't really susceptible to Euthyphro, at least as usually put. Of course that doesn't mean it doesn't face other objections.
That seems to be trying for the best of both worlds - so the fact that God commands it demonstrates (but does not define) that it is good?
I think so. There's also a variant on Divine Command Theory which says something similar, but along the lines that God's command makes it a moral obligation, but its goodness derives from his nature. I'm not sure that that really works (can we really distinguish between goodness and moral obligatoriness?) but I think the Divine Nature Theory makes somewhat better sense of things. None of it really works very convincingly in my opinion, but it's no better or worse than non-religious meta-ethics, really.
Do you think that the whole 'burning in hell forever' thing is part of the reason for Christianity's success? Do you think it resists heresy or apostasy better than an equivalent religion that does not have a hell?
(I know that not all Christians believe in it.)
(I know that not all Christians believe in it.)
That's a very speculative question and it's hard to answer it. I don't see any particular reason to see that doctrine as key to Christianity's success. I don't think that it spread widely because missionaries preached hellfire to the heathen. It would be more plausible to think about ways in which Christianity addressed needs that people had in a successful way.
Intention, I should think. An act that 'brings about a greater good' could very well not be a good act in itself. And then still, an act perceived to bring about a greater good might actually bring about something... not so good. That doesn't make the intention bad, however. At any rate, Catholicism recognizes certain 'good works' (as in addressing the needs you mentioned in the last post). But I'd agree that in the end the Catholic stance towards 'what is good' is, as you say, not very clear. (Human almost, one might call it.)
ParkCungHee
Deity
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If I'm understanding this correctly, I think the distinction is pretty clear at, least at first.
For example, there's no inherent good in painting your house red. But if you paid me, and I accepted payment to do so, I would have a moral obligation to follow through and paint your house red.
Since god granted you life, and sustains your life, with certain expectations in mind, even if those commands aren't moral in and of themselves, you owe it to god to fulfill those obligations.
However, as I see it, the problem is where do Moral Obligations come from? If you believe DCT then your moral obligation to fulfill your duties comes from god. And at this point, the solution just becomes turtles all the way down.
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Jewel Runner
I don't see much evidence Christianity has been especially successful at resisting heresy or apostasy.
Intention is central to the question whether a particular agent is culpable (or praiseworthy) for her act. But that's distinct from whether the act is a good one or not. I think traditional Catholic moral theology would understand both of these things in non-consequentialist ways. That is, whether an act is intrinsically good or not has nothing to do with its consequences. And whether I was culpable or not in performing an act has nothing to do with the consequences I intended to result from it.
Quite right, but note that on this theory there's no explanation of "good" at all, only of moral obligation. If my obligation to paint my house red and my obligation not to murder both derive from God's command, then we still lack an explanation of why one of these is good in itself and the other isn't. We also lack an explanation of why God commands either of them.
By Plot's summary of the argument, it's not that similar - it's a bit more like a famous artist telling you to paint your house red. You therefore know that red is a good colour for your house, because the artist has told you so, and the artist has good taste. So you should paint your house red, but because that is a good thing to do, not because (in itself) the artist told you to.
That's how a theist who doesn't subscribe to DCT at all would see it. E.g. this is Richard Swinburne's view. He thinks that moral facts are independent of God, and that what God does is understand these moral facts perfectly (owing to his omniscience) and communicate them to us. So if God tells us to do something, we should do it, because God knows that it's the right thing to do, just as if the great artist recommends a house colour, we'd be wise to follow the recommendation.
It's a little more complicated than that, because Swinburne also thinks that there are many things which might be morally neutral in themselves but become morally binding because God tells us to do them, specifically because of God's status as our creator and sustainer. Just as (according to Swinburne) a child is morally bound to obey its parents (within reason) because of the good the parents have done it, so too we are morally bound to obey God. But he doesn't think that all our moral obligations come from God's commands.
A DCT theorist of the kind I was talking about, though, would say that all moral obligations do come from God's commands, and it's God's commands that make them moral obligations. So on this view there's more to God's commands than just the recommendation of an expert.
It's a little more complicated than that, because Swinburne also thinks that there are many things which might be morally neutral in themselves but become morally binding because God tells us to do them, specifically because of God's status as our creator and sustainer. Just as (according to Swinburne) a child is morally bound to obey its parents (within reason) because of the good the parents have done it, so too we are morally bound to obey God. But he doesn't think that all our moral obligations come from God's commands.
A DCT theorist of the kind I was talking about, though, would say that all moral obligations do come from God's commands, and it's God's commands that make them moral obligations. So on this view there's more to God's commands than just the recommendation of an expert.
madviking
north american scum
Plotinus, are you familiar with Robert Adams' take on the DCT? Do you think it is stronger or weaker than other takes on DCT?
Yes, I am. Adams argues for a kind of mixed theory (although he keeps on modifying it!). He suggests that divine commands are what make an action right or wrong, but what we mean by the words "right" and "wrong" varies in different contexts. Within a theistic context, "right" means "commanded by God". But in a non-theistic context it doesn't. So when (say) the Pope says "murder is wrong", he means "God commands us not to murder". But when (say) Richard Dawkins says "murder is wrong", he means something else. However, what actually makes murder wrong is God's command not to do it. So Adams' "modification" of DCT is at the meta-ethical level rather than the normative ethical level, or so it seems to me.
This certainly has advantages over meta-ethical versions of DCT that seek to root the meaning of all moral terms in God's will. Such versions would imply that the statement "There is no God, and murder is wrong" is not simply false but incoherent, or possibly even meaningless. And that seems implausible.
But an obvious problem with Adams' approach is that if the Pope says "abortion is wrong" and Dawkins says "abortion is not wrong", then if Adams is correct, the Pope and Dawkins are not actually disagreeing with each other, because they mean different things by "wrong". But this seems even more implausible.
This certainly has advantages over meta-ethical versions of DCT that seek to root the meaning of all moral terms in God's will. Such versions would imply that the statement "There is no God, and murder is wrong" is not simply false but incoherent, or possibly even meaningless. And that seems implausible.
But an obvious problem with Adams' approach is that if the Pope says "abortion is wrong" and Dawkins says "abortion is not wrong", then if Adams is correct, the Pope and Dawkins are not actually disagreeing with each other, because they mean different things by "wrong". But this seems even more implausible.
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Jewel Runner
I saw a talk by Robert Jenson in which he talks about the modern Church having a self-same identity with the ancient Church. Since Jenson is a Lutheran, I was a bit curious about the claim. Do you know how Jenson justifies that in light of the obvious institutional discontinuity? What do you think are the strongest arguments a protestant could make on the matter?
I think its pretty clear that morality is a limited instrument related to the nature of human mentality. In animals mental activity is rudimentary fixed on instincts and vital processes and as such is inframoral. Human creature is through its mind partly self-aware and mentaly world-aware through the formation of ego-sense.
Ego in itself is great step forward but it hold within itself great danger since it can channel the already destructive capacities of animals of mainly vital nature adding to it full mental potential and thus multiplying it. This is being corrected through sense of sin and morality.
Just like in case of animal life energy instincs play the role of guide-light. Intuitive capacity which in its practical form translates itself into a moral code is a guide-light for mental creatures. Eventualy when man will make further progress and will be in position to incorporate into itself more reality-truth from intuitive planes he will move beyond human mentality and just like God becomes supramoral.
Ego in itself is great step forward but it hold within itself great danger since it can channel the already destructive capacities of animals of mainly vital nature adding to it full mental potential and thus multiplying it. This is being corrected through sense of sin and morality.
Just like in case of animal life energy instincs play the role of guide-light. Intuitive capacity which in its practical form translates itself into a moral code is a guide-light for mental creatures. Eventualy when man will make further progress and will be in position to incorporate into itself more reality-truth from intuitive planes he will move beyond human mentality and just like God becomes supramoral.
Wouldn't any such assumptions be highly based on what the said strong evidence was?
Well, depends what you mean by 'plausible'. Lots of stuff that the Abrahamics say happened didn't happen. It's like asking how plausible the movie Air Force One was after learning the Americans have a president
Let's say no. You just knew it somehow.
