The Euthyphro Question:
"Are actions good because God commands them, or does God command them because they are good?"
There are four distinct ways in which God and religion might be related to morality:
1) Foundation: God is the source of right and wrong.
2) Motivation: God is the divine judge who ensures that goodness is rewarded and evil is punished; religion reminds us that God is watching.
3) Education: Religion teaches us right and wrong; instills virtues through character training.
4) Implementation: Religious organizations sponsor many good works through charities, hospitals, schools, and so on.
Plato's Euthyphro is about the foundation of morals. Specifically, it points out problems with the view that actions are good (pious) because God commands or approves them, that is, problems with defining 'good' in terms of God's commands.
Assume that whatever God commands (call it 'X') is good. There are two possibilities: either (A) X is good because God commands it, or (B) God commands X because it is good. Both possibilities present difficulties.
A. X is good because God commands it. (Divine Command Theory) (held by William of Ockham, Duns Scotus, Karl Barth, and-in modified form-Robert Adams)
Problems:
1. makes God's commands arbitrary: if God commands us to throw our firstborn into volcanoes, or to rape, or to murder, then doing so would be good.
2. renders "God is good" an empty claim. To say that God is good, on this view, is simply to say that God does whatever God commands. Big deal.
3. seems to confuse goodness with power; implies that "might makes right"
In Leibniz's words: "So in saying that things are not good by any rule of goodness, but sheerly by the will of God, it seems to 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 would be equally praiseworthy in doing exactly the contrary?" (Discourse on Metaphysics, #167;11)
These problems have led many philosophers to endorse...
B. God commands X because it is good.
(held by Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, and Kant)
Problems:
1. seems to imply that there is a standard of goodness "above" God
2. leaves open the question of how moral precepts obtain their obligatory force (i.e. who is the commander behind moral commands?)
Latest Update by DLH: March 1, 1999