15. The ancient problem of morality solved: Euthyphro's dilemma

There is a dilemma in philosophy about morality coming from God known as Euthyphro's dilemma in which the philosopher Socrates asks if the good is good because God commands it or if the good was good regardless of the command of God? Now these two possible horns of this dilemma (as if you are trying to grab a bull by the horns) throw back more problems:

First horn: that rightness is grounded in God's commands (divine command theory). The supposed problem here is that by accepting this horn, then you have abandoned the notion that morality is based on reasons. This means that morality must issue purely from God's whims, and they have to be whimsical. (If God has reason(s) determining his dictates, then it's those reasons that actually ground morality.)–This wouldn't say much about God: what kind of God determines something as important as rightness on the basis of whims?–This also wouldn't say much about our moral code: we would only have the rules we do because of a kind of cosmic whims- which means you have to admit that killing babies was good if God commanded it!

Second horn:rightness is grounded in facts independent of God's commands. –This acknowledges that God's role is limited to assigning to us as our duties actions that are already independently right. This would mean that there is an independent source of guidance, wisdom and rules to God- implying that God is limited in His authority. 

This second horn has led some philosophers to even propose that the philosophers are able to uncover these universal truths and issues of what is good and that they are therefore not bound by religious commandments as they do not need God to reveal these truths to them. Religion is for the non-philosophically minded and it communicates the laws in the language of the common man which the philosophers do not need.

This whole dilemma is built on false assumptions and is wrong for the following reasons and the dilemma can be resolved using the rational approach in thinking which we discussed earlier but briefly explained here: 

The rational approach is to base your thoughts and conclusions upon the reality that you can sense only and not upon any unsensed reality that may exist (including God’s reality and His reasons). From our human perspective we need to consider our end of life and what we can conclude about why we exist. If we conclude that there is a creator of the universe and man, then it becomes the source for our knowledge about the after-life as it is this creator that will know more about our life (and its end) that it has created. So in terms of what our purpose is in this universe, what it mentions about how to fulfill this purpose; what rules we have to follow; whether we can uncover those rules ourselves or whether it is the only source of those rules; what it defines as good and bad- all of these are relevant and directly linked to our purpose from the creator if we conclude that it exists. However if we don’t think that a creator exists then again our purpose in life will guide our moral code- so for example if you thought that your purpose is to enjoy the pleasures of life then your morality could be driven through a sense of good being delivering maximum pleasure or utility for yourself - similar to the idea known as utilitarianism. 

Therefore if we accept the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, that good is what God commands; then to argue over what are God’s reasons for good and evil and whether He has reasons, is actually beyond our reality and irrational to ponder over unless God actually reveals those answers to us. And as we will see later on- the irrational way of thinking leads to speculative and unproductive thoughts- no-one will base their serious actions like crossing a road upon irrational thinking as it would mean speculating whether a driver would stop for you if you were to step out in front of him (as that is the driver’s reality); but no- you base your action and thinking upon your reality of whether it is safe for you to cross the road. So if we judge crossing a road upon our reality rather than the driver’s then how about when the issue is far more serious like your purpose for your entire life? This should also be judged upon the reality that we exist in and not upon God’s reality! 

In terms of the accusations of what accepting this leads to: that this type of morality based on God’s desires means that morality is arbitrary and not based on any principles, thus God has no reasons to will what he does. This means that there is no rational structure to morality, which then leads to the view that it would be right to murder babies if God willed it which doesn’t seem right. The correct rational way to understand this is not to put yourself in God's place and judge from His unsensed reality. It may seem arbitrary to us, however within our limited reality of understanding there will be limits to how far we can think of morality and the effect of our actions upon the complex relationships that exist in society. The expanse of our knowledge will never match the unlimited knowledge of the creator and the creator may have put a limit to our thinking in this way. This is apparent in the obvious reality that our minds can not know about the future or about the unsensed realities. For example take a simple rule like drinking alcohol. What is so immoral about an individual drinking alcohol if they want to? You may think that this is an individual action however it has wider impacts upon society. The public health burden of alcohol is wide ranging, relating to health, social or economic harms. These can be tangible, direct costs (including costs to the health, criminal justice and welfare systems), or indirect costs (including the costs of lost productivity due to absenteeism, unemployment, decreased output or lost working years due to premature pension or death). Harms can also be intangible, and difficult to cost, including those assigned to pain and suffering, poor quality of life or the emotional distress caused by living with a heavy drinker. The spectrum of harm ranges from those that are relatively mild, such as drinkers loitering near residential streets, through to those that are severe, including death or lifelong disability. Many of these harms impact upon other people, including relationship partners, children, relatives, friends, coworkers and strangers. (UK government report: The Public Health Burden of Alcohol and the Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of Alcohol Control Policies: An evidence review).You can now take any other issue which might be a bit more complex- say an action involving more than an individual (such as marriage) and then imagine the consequences and problems that could unfold if they were to be incorrect. Again you could extrapolate the consequences to society over ‘morally acceptable’ affairs and the broken homes that may result!

When it comes to the second part of the consequence of accepting the horn of this dilemma that it would mean if God had willed for murdering babies to be good then that would be detestable. The reason why we find it detestable is because it goes against our instincts to preserve our life and that of our species. This is how we are created in our nature. However we do not find it universally detestable to kill and consume baby cows (veal) for instance or baby sheep (lamb). The reason why we find it detestable to kill human babies is because God has programmed us to do so ( assuming we have proved that God created us). So God could have programmed us not to find it detestable and then it would not seem immoral. So for instance in the animal kingdom it does not seem detestable to kill their own babies. Mother bears, felines, canids, primates, and many species of rodents have all been seen killing and eating their young. Insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds also have been implicated in killing, and sometimes devouring, the young of their own kind. This type of infanticide is also found in almost every primate species, including chimpanzees and gorillas.

  [side note: This type of morality is different to the ethics that philosophers aso debate which is hypothetical. For example, would everyone agree that it is wrong to kill an innocent child? If yes, then what if you knew that this child was going to grow up to become an evil dictator that would wage war and kill many innocent lives? This is similar to the “runaway trolley/train problem”. Philosophers have debated over ethical dilemmas such as these throughout the ages. However these are hypothetical and not a good starting point for this type of question as you could argue that they have no grounding in reality and that there are always other options available. For instance- no one knows the future about whether children will grow up to do evil. So it would be unfair to conclude the non-universality of morality based on the differences that people will have on this issue. However we can still conclude that morality is not universal because of the differences we see between people and cultures on their views of what is good and bad- such as the eating of certain meats like pig or views on relationships outside of marriage etc.]