God as the Grounding of Moral Objectivity: Defending Against the Euthyphro
(S. Lovell)
ABSTRACT: The Euthyphro Dilemma (is x good because God says it's good, or does God say x is good
because it is good?), has been used as an argument against Theistic Ethics for hundreds of years. Plato
was the first to use it. Since then Bertrand Russell, Kai Nielsen and many others have sought to really
push it home. My aim in this paper is to show that the dilemma (as posed by both Russell and Nielsen)
is a false one. Theistic ethics does survive the euthyphro dilemma. I take up and defend Aquinas' (?)
position: that God himself (or his nature) is the standard of goodness, and not his commands. This
position avoids the dilemma since God's commands / morality will not be arbitrary (since they are/it is
rooted in God's nature), and Goodness will not be in any sense anterior to God either.
Section 1: Introduction
The aim of this essay is to examine meta-ethical theories which, one way or another, take God as
their foundation. The focus will be an argument against such theories known as the "Euthyphro Dilemma".
I contend that this dilemma doesn’t undermine (all) theistic ethical theories. In particular, I will
put forward and defend a theory I call "Divine Nature Theory". I will not be arguing that this theory
is true, rather that it avoids the Euthyphro Dilemma, and various other objections besides. The structure
of the paper is as follows: first, I will set out the Euthyphro Dilemma in its traditional form, then
look a more modern version of it put forward by Kai Nielsen. Nielsen’s version of the dilemma has a
distinct epistemological twist. I argue that Divine Nature Theory answers the original questions raised
by the Euthyphro Dilemma, and also the epistemological queries raised by Nielsen’s contemporary version.
Following this I state and respond to two objections, specifically directed at theories like mine. The
first is an epistemological objection, arguing that my theory undermines moral knowledge. The second
argues that my theory reduces to Ideal Observer Theory, and so God drops out of the picture. Section
seven is a discussion of the content that one may give to the phrase ‘God is good’, another issue raised
by the Euthyphro Dilemma.
Section 2: The Euthyphro Dilemma
Since the main topic of this essay is the Euthyphro Dilemma, it would clearly be helpful if we knew
just for whom the Euthyphro is intended to be a dilemma. Traditionally the dilemma is aimed at Divine
Command Theories of ethics (DCTs from here). The aim of a DCT seems to be to capture the nature of the
"Thou Shalt’s" of the Bible (such as the Ten Commandments), where being commanded by God and being
morally required seem to be equated. As such, DCTs say that obligatory acts are all and only those which
God commands to be done. The Euthyphro has also been aimed at other theistic ethical theories, specifically
those which say that if God doesn’t exist, there can be no such thing as moral goodness. This will all
become clearer as we continue. Plato, from whom the Euthyphro originates, put the dilemma brilliantly:
SOCRATES: Then what do we say about piety? Isn’t it [what is] loved by all the gods,
according to your definition?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Just because it is pious, or for some
other reason?
EUTHYPHRO: No, because it is pious.
SOCRATES: So it is loved because it is pious,
not pious because it is loved?
EUTHYPHRO: It seems so.
SOCRATES: But it is because a thing is
loved by the gods that it is an object of love or god-beloved.
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES:
Then what is god-beloved is not the same as what is pious, Euthyphro, nor is what is pious the same as
what is god-beloved, as you assert; they are two different things.
Euthyphro held to some form of theistic ethics. Socrates was making enquiries about the theory to see
if it really held any water. Basically, he put the following question to Euthyphro: ‘Is God’s approval
of certain acts the explanation of the fact that they are good acts, or is it rather that the fact that
they are good acts explains why God approves of them?’ [1] The question actually in
the text is ‘Does God approve of good acts because they are good, or for some other reason?’ Since
Euthyphro holds that the proper definition of ‘good acts’ is ‘Those acts which God approves of’, these
questions raise problems. If the goodness of certain acts explains why God approves of them then they
cannot be good in virtue of the fact that God approves of them. This would mean that goodness is somehow
prior to, and so ‘separable from’, the approval of God. On the other hand, if we say that certain acts
are good because God approves of them, what answer can we give to the question ‘why does God approve of
those acts?’ It would seem (or so the argument goes) that there is no morally satisfactory answer to this
question. This would mean that it is arbitrary what God approves of, and hence if God had approved of
murder and rape then those things would be good - but surely that’s absurd.
Taking the second option (saying ‘These acts are good because God approves of them’) produces another,
perhaps related worry. Theists want to say that God is worthy of praise. However, a necessary part of
saying this is saying that God is good. Unfortunately, if we endorse this option we may remove all content
from the phrase ‘God is good’. How does taking the second option make ‘God is good’ empty? Well, the
thought is that a person is good if and only if they do what they ought. Since God’s approval fixes what
a person ought to do, then applying this principle to God, ‘God is good’ becomes ‘God does the things of
which He approves’. But this looks the same as ‘God does what He wants’. If this reduction is right, then
either we must reject this second option or we should stop saying ‘God is good’ since being good is a lot
different from doing what one wants!
To summarize: The Euthyphro Dilemma is that if we hold that good acts are all and only those acts which
God approves of, then it would seem [2] that we will be committed to either:
(a) The goodness of certain acts explains why God approves of them, or
(b) That
God approves of certain acts explains why those acts are good.
The problem with endorsing (a) is that it takes God out of the picture. The acts, which God approves
of, are good ‘before’ He approves of them (since that is why He approves of them) and so would be good
even if He didn’t approve. Endorsing (b) produces two problems: first (i) it makes morality arbitrary,
and second (ii) it removes the content from ‘God is good’. Section seven will be devoted to the ‘content
of "God is good"’ issue - which will be completely ignored until then.
Section 3: Nielsen’s Version of The Euthyphro
Before I give any response to the Euthyphro Dilemma (henceforth ED), I want to outline a more modern
version of the dilemma put forward by Kai Nielsen. As stated in the introduction, this version has an
epistemological twist. In light of this, my response will also have an epistemological aspect. Nielsen’s
argument is, I believe, as follows:
Those who put forward theistic ethical theories want to say that from
(1) God wills A to do X.
we can deduce
(2) A ought to do X.
But in order for this to be a valid deduction we need the extra premise
(3) God is good. [3]
Obviously the theistic-ethicist believes (3), but we must ask: On what basis? She
needs a standard of goodness that is independent of God’s will in order to make this judgment. This is
because, if the standard is one that results from His will then we need to assume God’s goodness
to prove it. So assuming she can prove that God is good (without circularity) there must be an independent
standard of goodness, and so goodness doesn’t depend upon God. That is, even if God doesn’t exist there
is such a thing as (moral) goodness.
Section 4: Divine Nature Theory
This is the section where I put forward my critique of these two versions of ED, and based upon that
critique, develop my own position. I will look at Nielsen’s argument first.
Nielsen’s argument is, I think, fairly persuasive. But it does have some serious problems. The main
problem is that in so far as it is valid it begs the question, and in so far as it doesn’t beg the question
it is invalid. What do I mean by this? Well if we look at the argument we see that Nielsen asks us to give
a justification for our belief that God is good. That is, he asks us a question regarding knowledge, or
‘epistemology’. On the basis that the question can’t be answered in a non-circular way (and that circular
ways of answering such questions are unacceptable), he concludes that there must be a standard of morality
that does not have its roots in God. But this conclusion is about what is the case in the world.... it is
metaphysical. But a metaphysical conclusion cannot be drawn from purely epistemological premises. Something
has gone wrong. Lets look a little closer to see what the problem is.
Nielsen is assuming that we can make a judgment as to whether or not God is good. He further assumes
that in order to make this judgment we need some epistemological grasp of a standard of goodness. So far,
so good. Nielsen thinks that from these two premises we can deduce that there is a moral standard which
is separable from God. But this just doesn’t follow.
Compare the following case: Assume we can judge whether or not a certain town has a rail station. In
order to do this we need some method of making the judgment. Lets say we look at a map. Now it clearly
isn’t the case that this entails that there be some other thing - entirely separate from the town - which
ensures that the map got it right. The map is ‘epistemologically prior’ to the town but the town is clearly
‘metaphysically prior’ to the map. In other words though we come to know of the map showing a station
before we come to know of the town having one, the town actually has a station before the
map can show it. [4] The same might be true of God and of goodness. Though we come to
know of goodness before we come to know of God’s goodness, it still may be the case that God’s goodness
must be metaphysically prior to our knowledge of goodness.
Of course to show that Nielsen’s argument is invalid is not to show that its conclusion ought to be
rejected. Indeed, until I show that there is actually a way for God’s goodness to be metaphysically prior
to our knowledge of goodness, I have done little to show that Nielsen is really wrong. This is a
task I shall come back to after I look back to the original statement of ED. The Dilemma was whether we
ought to say that God’s commands fix that which is good, or that which is good fixes what God commands.
DCTs, we recall, are trying to ensure the coincidence of the two categories of being an act, which is
morally good, and being an act, which is commanded by God. The desire to do this is natural, given such
Biblical texts as the Ten Commandments, all in the form of ‘Thou Shalt...’.
However, such a coincidence of two categories does not ensure a direct causal relation between them.
There are other ways of accounting for the coincidence. The first would be to say that the connection between
the two categories is linguistic - that ‘is commanded by God’ just means ‘is good’. This makes the statement
‘All acts commanded by God are good acts’ an analytic truth - much like ‘All puppies are young dogs’. I
will say a little about this option shortly. Another way of accounting for the coincidence of the two categories
would be to give them a ‘common cause’ as it were. So that the thing which causes God to command X also
causes X to be good. Murray MacBeath [5] makes this very suggestion. He says that it
may be that an act produces maximal happiness that accounts for these two facts. Of course, this completely
evades ED since it takes neither horn of the dilemma. Unfortunately, it makes ethics entirely separable
from God. However, as I will show later in this section, one can take this common cause option without
taking God out of the picture at all.
I just want to say a little about the ‘analyticity response’ mentioned in the previous paragraph. This
is not a response I will be looking at all. There are two basic reasons for this. Firstly, I find such a
response implausible due to (a) basic features of all ‘analytic’ meta-ethical theories [6]
and (b) various peculiarities of this case. [7] Secondly, because I think that I can
build a good reply to the challenge of ED without using this particular move, and what I am attempting to
do here is simply to show that there is a version of theistic ethics which survives ED.
Okay, I have now pinpointed weaknesses in both of the arguments. The rest of this section is devoted
to building a theistic-ethical theory that can take advantage of these weaknesses. My theory, Divine Nature
Theory has two main parts to it. It has an epistemological part, designed to take advantage of the problems
with Nielsen’s argument, and a metaphysical part, which exploits the problems of ED as originally posed.
I’ll take the metaphysical part first.
The basic idea presented in this paragraph is that rather than having God’s commands as the standard
of morality, we could have God’s nature as the standard. Since God’s commands are presumably rooted
in His nature (or His character), this will ensure that the things He commands are the things we ought to
do. Hence, God’s nature could be seen as a ‘common cause’ of the moral standard and of His commands. I
use inverted commas here since there is a sense in which God’s nature doesn’t cause the moral
standard at all, since it just is the moral standard. However, we still get the advantages of the
‘common cause’ response. The suggestion of making God’s nature the standard is an attractive one. God is
thought of as benevolent, omniscient, fair, and so on... in other words He seems to have just the
characteristics we would want any (personal) moral standard to have. It is from this suggestion that my
theory derives its name: Divine Nature Theory. [8]
This paragraph puts forward the epistemological part of my theory. Though the theory derives its name
its metaphysical part, it should be noted that both parts are equally important. Hence it might just as
well have been called ‘Divine Implantation Theory’ [9]. Just why this name would also
have been appropriate will be revealed shortly. Remember the problem with Nielsen’s argument was that it
confused the ‘epistemologically prior’ with the ‘metaphysically prior’. To take advantage of this fact a
theistic ethical theory must come up with a way in which someone might ‘come across’ morality without
‘coming across’ God - and so could ‘come across’ morality first. But it must do this without separating
the two.
With the emphasis on commands this seems difficult to do. We read God’s commands in the Bible, or if
you happen to be Moses you receive them - carved by the finger of God - on the stone tablets, or if one
is a prophet or seer one might directly hear God’s commands. But if these commands were all we had to go
on, Nielsen’s challenge would have succeeded. According to Nielsen, we shouldn’t obey commands unless we
know that their source is morally good. But, as Nielsen points out, to know this we have to start with
some moral knowledge. But if we have some moral knowledge where the only input from God was his commands,
then we must have used an alternative standard to make our judgment. However, my suggestion (in which I
am following numerous others [10]) is that God’s commands have not been His only
input. The further input from God is as follows: He has made us a certain way. He has made us with an
innate ability to recognize the morally good and the morally bad. He has ‘implanted’ in us a faculty of
attaining moral knowledge - a faculty of moral intuition. This, combined with the first suggestion (i.e.
the move from ‘commands’ to ‘nature’) clearly solves the problems raised by Nielsen.
Let me paint a quick picture of the resulting position. God’s nature is the standard of morality. His
commands are fixed by His nature. Hence the position is called Divine Nature Theory (DNT from here on).
In addition to this we posit that God has made us able to recognize the moral features of certain acts
and so made us able to make moral judgments. The first point enables us to defuse the dilemma in a sensible
way: DNT requires that God’s nature is the standard of goodness, not God’s commands. Obviously there is
a sense in which ED, as originally stated, completely fails to even touch this position. The dilemma was
"Does God’s approval of X explain X’s goodness, or does X’s goodness explain God’s approval of X?" But
my position isn’t committed to either of these options. Rather I hold that God’s nature ‘explains’ X’s
goodness, and that God’s nature explains God’s approval of X. The second point enables us to answer Nielsen.
How do we know that God is good? Well, we simply exercise the moral faculty, which God has given us.
I suppose that ED could be re-stated as "Does X’s being in accordance with God’s nature explain X’s
goodness, or does X’s goodness explain why it is in accord with God’s nature?" But it is now obvious that
I would endorse that first option. Actually the second option seems somehow peculiar. The peculiarity
results from the fact that ‘nature’ is intended to be read in a broadly ‘essentialist’ manner. This means
that whatever God’s nature turns out like it couldn’t have turned out otherwise. This ‘couldn’t’ is a
strong metaphysical one, not an epistemic one. If we look back to Kripke’s work [11]
we remember that it is a necessary truth that the Morning Star is the Evening Star. Epistemically, things
could have been otherwise - but metaphysically they couldn’t. Similarly, it seems a necessary truth that
humans are rational animals. That is a statement about the ‘nature’ of humans. The statement - ‘God is...’,
where the dots are filled by a description of His nature, should be read in a similar way. If we read
‘nature’ in this way then something that doesn’t have the nature that God actually has couldn’t even possibly
be God. Given this understanding of the word ‘nature’ it becomes clear that God’s nature isn’t the kind
of thing that can be explained [12], so the second option in this ‘re-vamped’ dilemma
is impossible. It is also clear that taking the first option can’t produce any arbitrariness worries:
Morality couldn’t have turned out different since God’s nature couldn’t have been different.
So the position I am advocating seems to dissolve ED. Nevertheless some objections are expected, and
each of them can be seen as parallel to the objections raised embracing one of the two horns of the
original dilemma. The first objection is really aimed at the ‘Implantation’ part of the theory. The
second is aimed at the ‘Nature’ part.
Section 5: Objection: DNT undermines moral knowledge
In this section I consider an objection that I believe amounts to an ‘arbitrariness’ objection, or,
as I said, parallels the standard arbitrariness objection. Here’s the thought: DNT says that God
has implanted moral knowledge in us, or alternatively that He has implanted the means to moral knowledge.
It is due to this ‘implantation’ that we are able to tell that God is good. Consider a ‘parallel’ to DNT:
Suppose that an evil tyrant has somehow (without you knowing) inserted a microchip into your brain. The
function of the chip is to make it seem to you that everything that this tyrant does is good, and that
everything he says is true. Now, whatever the tyrant said or did, it would appear to you that this tyrant
was ‘doing the right thing’. Suppose that you discovered the truth about the microchip: wouldn’t this
undermine your belief that the tyrant is a good man? It would seem so. But then since DNT has the same
structure as our skeptical scenario, shouldn’t DNT actually undermine our belief that God is good? The
worry is that just as the tyrant is evil, but must always appear as good to us - doesn’t DNT make it an
open possibility that the same could be true about God? Whatever God’s nature is in fact like, the Divine
Implantation part of the theory would entail that we thought God’s nature to be good.
This argument looks strong, and seems to pose a real threat to DNT since it argues that one part of DNT
undermines our justification for believing another of its parts. In short, if DNT is the truth then -
according to this objection - it ought to be an unknowable truth. It strikes me that this objection has
a valid point, namely that explicit justification of these beliefs will be circular. But we can happily
concede this point, for the circularity need not be vicious and it is not at all peculiar to DNT.
Actually any theory that posits ‘objective values’ will face the problem being advanced against
DNT here: that ‘seems so’ doesn’t entail ‘is so’. Wholesale skeptical challenges pose a threat not just
to my theory, but also to all theories (even certain skeptical theories). Consider the following example
(from outside of ethics): We claim that evolution has fitted us with our cognitive faculties. Shouldn’t
this claim lead us to worry about the status of the theory of evolution? Well, it is from the use of the
aforementioned cognitive faculties that our belief in evolution results. This is normal. Any belief or
cognitive faculty we have will have its historical causes. Not only this but it is always our beliefs
and cognitive faculties which lead us to our conclusions about where those faculties come from. Circularity
is unavoidable. It is, therefore, irrelevant that DNT happens to have a marked structural similarity with
our skeptical scenario. Similar scenarios can be dreamed up to create worries about the other circularities.
[13] If I ought be worried about my theory, everyone else ought to be worried about
theirs! I also remind the reader at this point that I am not trying to show that DNT is true but rather
that it has not been refuted.
If there is any worry remaining for DNT here then perhaps it is in the thought that ‘whatever God
wanted to appear good to us would appear good to us even if it were actually bad’. I think however that
the DNT theorist can and should simply admit this is true. They can deny that this truth poses a threat
to the theory by saying that since God is good He will not so deceive us. [14] Put
another way the worry is that whatever God made our moral faculties latch on to, those things would appear
good to us. For this to be a genuine worry it has to be true that God could make our moral faculties latch
on to anything at all. But it simply isn’t true that God could do this, since He is by nature good and
can’t do anything contrary to His own nature. In other words, although God could make anything He liked
appear good to us, He can’t actually likejust anything.
Section 6: Objection: DNT collapses into Ideal Observer Theory
John Chandler, [15] among others, has argued that theistic ethical theories such
as DNT reduce to Ideal Observer Theory (IOT). IOT traditionally asserts something like ‘X is good if an
omniscient, impartial, dispassionate and benevolent observer - an Ideal Observer - would (if such existed)
commend of X’ [16]. IOT doesn’t depend upon the existence of the Ideal Observer; it
merely says that good things are the type of things of which an Ideal Observer would commend. The
emphasis is heavily on the ‘would’. It can certainly be true that a person of type T would approve
of action A, even if no person of type T exists.
I believe that Chandler’s argument is a little confused, and that two quite distinct types of argument
are being conflated. The first type of argument is broadly metaphysical, the second is more epistemological.
The first argument has the strong conclusion that Chandler requires, but suffers in other respects. The
second argument is more subtle. It is (I think) valid and has acceptable premises... the only problem
with the second argument is that the DNT theorist can happily grant the conclusion. I give two readings
of the first type of argument, and one of the second.
‘Broadly Metaphysical Argument 1’
Assume that DNT is true, so: an act is good due to it’s being in accord with God’s nature. Then since
(contra the ontological argument) God’s nature is logically separable from His existence we can say, indeed
deduce from DNT, that ‘an act is good due to its being such that it would accord with God’s nature, were
He to exist’. However, this is no longer DNT, it is something more akin to IOT. We should therefore abandon
DNT in favor of IOT. [17]
I think that the reasoning here is faulty. If the conclusion is intended to be that DNT is false, then
argument is certainly unacceptable. Consider the following parallel:
You hold that a certain place, X, is sunny because a certain entity with properties P,
Q, R (i.e. the sun) stands in a certain spatial relation to X. But the sun’s nature and its existence are
logically separable, so why don’t we say that ‘X is sunny because a certain entity with properties P, Q,
R would (if it existed) stand in a certain spatial relation to X’. We don’t need to say that the sun really
exists in order to make good sense of a place’s being sunny.
The argument plainly begs the question. If the sun really is the cause of ‘sunniness’ then removing
the sun from the real world ontology will prevent all places from being sunny. Similarly, if God
is the standard of morality then removing God just will be the removal of the standard, and as a result
renders all talk about morality false if not senseless. Therefore, the argument cannot be trying to establish
that DNT is false. Before we ditch this first line of argument let’s try to reinterpret it. [18]
‘Broadly Metaphysical Argument 2’
Perhaps it is just trying to say that to get the essentials of DNT all we really need is IOT. The
argument doesn’t prove that DNT is false but that it (DNT) introduces unnecessary ontology. This seems
more plausible, and leaves the argument with a metaphysical slant, but does this mean that we ought to
drop DNT in favor of IOT? I don’t think so. Firstly, if our only reason for thinking IOT true is that
we think DNT is true then we can’t simply abandon DNT. Consider the short argument:
(a) X is good if X is in accord with God’s nature
(b) X is in accord with God’s nature if X is a loving act (since God is loving)
(c) X is good if X is a loving act
Now (c) could easily be a tenet of IOT (or another more naturalistic theory), and is derived from two
premises which are themselves entailed by DNT. But if our reason for thinking (c) true is that we think
(a) and (b) are true, we can’t simply drop (a) and (b), and so we can’t simply drop DNT. Perhaps the thought
is that it was really the intuition that (c) is true, which made us think that (a) was required. Now this
seems a little more sensible, since (c) certainly doesn’t entail (a) or (b), and we could happily construct
a moral theory around (c) rather than (a). But this will only be a compelling point if believing (c) is
our only reason for believing (a) and (b). However, I think that there are more reasons for holding
to (a) than simply because it fits with the intuition that (c) is true. I’ll come back to these reasons
shortly. First let me talk to the second (more epistemological) argument that I mentioned earlier.
‘Broadly Epistemological Argument’
This second argument is also based on the short argument (a)-(c) above and says that if (c) is true
then knowing that (a) is true gives us only supplementary reasons (not essential reasons) to do the required
thing. Furthermore, we can think (c) true without thinking (a) true. Unless this is to amount to something
more than we said in the previous paragraph it’s not clear that it is really an objection to DNT. DNT
theorists can happily suppose that people do certain acts because those acts are loving, and not often
for any other reason. I suppose that if (a) was thought to give no extra reason to do ‘the right
thing’ then this could be damaging to DNT. However, in that instance I’m not sure that Chandler can make
his case stick (again - I’ll come to this later). The DNT theorist doesn’t need to say that it is only
our belief in the truth of (a) that can help us perform morally good acts. In fact the divine implantation
part of the theory says that since we have a built-in sense of moral value we almost certainly will have
some motivation to perform such acts, and that this motivation is (epistemically, but not metaphysically)
prior to the fact that (a).
The attraction of IOT being considered here is, I suppose, that it does all the work that a standard
theistic ethical theory does, but without the ontological commitments. In the next few paragraphs I intend
to show that at the very least this is unproven, if not false. I want to show that there are reasons to
endorse (a) other than that we accept (c). Theistic ethics does have attractions not had by IOT. Some of
these attractions come as ‘reasons to be moral’ that are not there in IOT. If this section is successful
in demonstrating these points then I take it that I will have shown that DNT does not (or does not so
easily) reduce to IOT.
Firstly, a perennial problem for Ideal Observer Theory has been defining this observer without
implicitly bringing moral evaluations into the definition. That is to say that the Ideal Observer analysis
of ‘goodness’ has faced problems in making the analysis non-circular. Theistic Ethics can, I believe,
bypass these difficulties fairly easily. The DNT theorist can simply provide an ostensive definition,
they can ‘point’ to an actually existent being who instantiates the properties had by an Ideal Observer.
[19] Since the DNT theorist holds that God has implanted some moral knowledge in us,
and this is most plausibly knowledge of particular moral facts, there may be other ways to solve this
problem too. This is because it gives the opportunity for a definition which although technically circular
is still useful (The suggestion takes us back to the ‘how do we know that God is good?’ issue.). It seems
pretty plain that if God exists and if there is an objective morality then it is in virtue of certain
features that God has given us that we come to be aware of moral facts. But this will then make it look
plausible to say that God is also interested in morality, and hence that He is good. [20]
But if He’s good then He must have a nature such as to approve of the acts we know to be good. [21]
So from those acts we know to be good we could build up a ‘picture’ of what God’s nature is like. I
suppose that this will not determine God’s nature exactly, that is we won’t have so much evidence as to
determine the type or extent of God’s benevolence, or to determine the precise details of His other moral
attributes. But I’m not sure why we have need to do this anyway.
Secondly, this whole line of objection forgets that the theory has two elements. As well as
the ‘Divine Nature’ part there is the ‘implantation’ part. However, we have not been given a suggestion
for fitting this part of DNT into IOT. But since the implantation part as it stands clearly requires the
actual existence of God then even if the reduction of the other part is possible the reduction is unsuccessful
as it is incomplete.
Third, DNT makes the relation between man and morality fairly perspicuous, but this is not so
for IOT. Both man and morality have God as a common denominator, as it were. What do they have in common
on the non-theistic view? If we appeal to a common history then this throws us into evolutionary ethics,
which will undoubtedly be different from IOT. [22] If man himself is taken as the
common denominator then we may end up in subjectivism. [23] Just what IOT should
say here seems unclear. It may be thought that this is because the question itself is unclear. So let’s
clarify it a little. The question is basically this ‘What is the relation between man and morality?’ Since
for morality to be binding upon man there must be some relation here, some relation other than the "bindingness".
Perhaps this is still unclear, but it seems patent to me that there must be some relationship between
morality and man in virtue of which morality is binding upon man. The nature of this relationship is unclear
unless God remains in the picture. It may be thought that it is unclear even if God does remain in the
picture. But even if this is so, and in the next paragraph I try to explain why it is not, at least the
theistic framework gives us the possibility of some further relations between man and morality... IOT
doesn’t even allow for the possibility.
A fourth point, (and one which may help to explain the ‘bindingness’ of morality) is that it
is often said that evaluations only make sense within teleological frameworks. If this is true then since
DNT provides such a framework and IOT doesn’t, then we have strong reasons to prefer DNT. What does all
this mean? An example is the best way to illustrate this point. We evaluate the workings of a watch by
reference to what those workings are supposed to do. Watches are supposed to keep time, and a good watch
is one that does so accurately. Since DNT theorists are (mostly) Theists [24] then
they will say that God created us and that we are ‘supposed to be’ a certain way. The IOT theorist
however has no such story to tell. Put another way, this point is that every complete theory of ethics
has at its core a picture of the nature of man, where he has come from, perhaps where he is going, and
(again perhaps) why he is here. [25] IOT theory doesn’t answer any of these
questions (by itself) but the theist has answers to each of these questions. Without introducing God,
the IOT theorist will be pushed to the resources of evolution, but even then at best two of the questions
will be answered... not the third, which is undoubtedly the most important at this juncture. [26]
I suppose it may be thought that these are mere assertions if I cannot give the reader any idea of what
the DNT theorist will say about the question ‘why are we here?’ On the other hand it may all seem pretty
obvious. Those who think the latter can skip to the next section. Now those who remain are likely to be
thinking even the most devoutly religious person cannot answer such a question, for the mind of God is
inscrutable. This seems a fair thing to say, and hence my answer is firstly not a complete answer to the
question, secondly it isn’t the result of a priori reasoning... it comes from God’s self-revelation in
the Bible. The book of Genesis (chapter 1 verse 27) tells us that God created man in His own image. I
take this to mean that not only do we have several characteristics in common with God (personhood, intelligence,
free agency and the like), God intends us to reflect His nature - as fully as we are able. But if God
is good, then it will follow that we ought to be good too. Other scriptures confirm this: ‘Be Imitators
of God’ (Ephesians 5 v1), ‘Be holy because I [the LORD your God] am holy’ (Leviticus 11 v45). I conclude
then that my assertions were not ‘mere’ assertions.
Section 7: On the Content of ‘God is good’
This section (which was promised at the end of section 2) is something of an addendum to the rest of
the essay, and consists simply of a few thoughts about the content of the phrase ‘God is good’. Many people
would regard this phrase as true but trivially so. Others would regard it as meaningless. I will first
give an argument aimed at the second type of person, who regards ‘God is good’ as meaningless. After this
I will move on to consider whether or not we can give the phrase any content.
It puzzles me (even in the present context) why anyone might deny that the phrase ‘God is good’ is
meaningful, but nevertheless let’s have a look and see what we can discover. The alleged problem with
the phrase ‘God is good’ arises because God is the standard of goodness, how can the standard of goodness
itself be good? In order for something to be meaningfully said to be good it must be judged by a standard
external to itself. But if God is the final standard of goodness then no such judging can be done.
This line of reasoning seems to draw on Plato’s ‘third man’ argument [27]: Imagine
a set of ten items each having the property X. So of these items (call them ‘a’ through ‘j’) it will be
true that ‘a is X’, and ‘b is X’, and so on though to ‘j is X’. Now, these items have this property due
to standing in relation to something else, to the property itself, that is to X-ness. But if X-ness itself
has the property X, that is if ‘X-ness is X’ is true then we now have a collection of eleven things which
all have the same property. This set must get its unity by standing in relation to something else, the
‘real X-ness’... but this could go on infinitely. Unfortunately, we then won’t have explained how the
items came to have the same property. So we oughtn’t start on the regress at all, that is we ought to
deny (in all cases) that ‘X-ness is X’.
To me these arguments seem lamentably weak. I agree that the regress mentioned would be a bad thing,
but (depending upon ones understanding of ‘universals’ or ‘properties’) there is more than one way to
avoid it. We can say that X-ness is X in virtue of standing in a certain relation to itself. It will
follow that it won’t always, in every case, be true that ‘X-ness is X’ but no-one need by committed to
that! Another, more pressing point is that God isn’t being said to be the universal ‘goodness’,
but rather the standard of goodness - the thing which other things are ‘put up against’ in order
to tell whether or not they are good. The third-man argument simply doesn’t work here, and its correlates
are not compelling. I agree that sometimes we are making a category mistake (i.e. confusing two distinct
categories) when we say that the standard of X-ness is X. But this isn’t always the case. Consider the
set of positive integers:
{1, 2, 3,...}
The number 1 is a member of the set of integers. Now it has always seemed to me that the number 1 is
also (at least part of) the standard of ‘integer-ness’. To see this we only need to reflect on the fact
that the number 1, and the operator, or function, + (plus) are all we need in order to produce the whole
set of (positive) integers.
1 = 1
2 = 1+1
3 = 1+1+1
The right hand side of each equation in this infinite chain consists only of 1’s and +’s. So, we can
say that two is equal to a single ‘one’ plus another ‘one’. Three is simply two plus one more one. Similar
things can be said for the non-positive integers (Only we would then subtract our 1’s [28]).
The number one does seem to be the standard of ‘integer-ness’ but it is also an integer. Hence, it follows
that it is not always a category mistake to say ‘The standard of X-ness is X’.
Consider another question: Is the ‘meter-rule’ in Paris a meter long? For readers who don’t know, there
is a ‘ruler’ kept in Paris that serves as the official standard by which the meter is defined. It seems
patently true that this ‘ruler’ is a meter long. If there were a dictionary that served as the standard
by which all spellings where judged correct or incorrect, it would plainly be true that it contains ‘correct
spellings’. We cannot just rule out the phrase ‘God is good’ as meaningless. We must first find a reason
to say that it is a category mistake to make such a statement. I know of no such reason. Since it seems
plain to me that it is not a category mistake, I will continue in this assumption while I move on to
consider the question of whether ‘God is good’ has any content.
The question of whether ‘God is good’ has content will undoubtedly be affected by what criterion we
judge a person (rather than an act) to be good. All we need to consider here is how a DNT theorist should
understand a person’s goodness. It would seem to me that a DNT theorist ought to say (roughly) that human
acts are good acts when and only when they are sufficiently like what God would do (if He were human?).
However, the DNT theorist now has two options as to how to define ‘good person’. The first is ‘a good
person is one who consistently does good acts’. The second is ‘a good person is one whose character is
sufficiently (morally) similar to God’s character’. Applied to God himself the two definitions in turn
will yield:
(1) God is good if He consistently does the kind of things that God does.
(2) God is good if His nature is similar to God’s nature.
Both of these two options seem to be trivially true. However it seems clear that there is a sense in
which neither of these statements need be considered trivial, that is that they are both entailed by a
theory that is non-trivial, and that both would otherwise (that is without the support of DNT, or other
theistic-ethical theories) be implausible. However, (1) and (2) - as they stand - are trivial. It strikes
me that though ‘God is good’ is true but trivially so on DNT, the statement ‘God is goodness’ (Or more
properly ‘God is the standard of goodness’) is much more informative. Also, it strikes me that
(2) offers the DNT theorist an opportunity that, perhaps, (1) doesn’t afford. This is the opportunity
to praise God for who He is, though not (in many cases) for what He does. God’s acts flow from His nature,
but His nature just is His nature. We can think something or somebody worthy of praise even if it
isn’t by their choice that they are so worthy - we can admire the beauty of a painting... or even the
elegance of a proof. God can also be admired for who and what He is. Not only this, God can be praised
for revealing His nature to us. Though He only has one nature to reveal to us, and couldn’t have revealed
another - He needn’t have revealed it... but He has, even in creating the world in all its beauty and
splendor, and in showing us His love.
Section 8: Conclusion
My aim in this essay has been fourfold. But first let me say what my aim has not been. My aim has not
been to give a moral argument for God’s existence, nor has it been to show that any brand of theistic
ethics is correct. My aim was rather to show that there is a form of theistic ethics (Divine Nature Theory),
which avoids ED, and answers the more epistemological worries raised by Nielsen. ED has traditionally
raised three problems. The first being a problem of arbitrariness, the second being that perhaps God can
be taken out of the picture, and the third being the problem of giving content to the phrase ‘God is good’.
The first two problems, as such, are neatly avoided by DNT. However, each of them has a counterpart problem
when it comes to Divine Nature Theory. The ‘Arbitrariness problem’ became the ‘Problem of Undermining Moral
Knowledge’. The ‘Non-necessity of God problem’, became the ‘Reduction to Ideal Observer Theory problem’.
The third problem remained largely unchanged. Each of these problems was shown not to pose a real threat
to Divine Nature Theory, and hence I now conclude that Divine Nature Theory has successfully weathered ED.
As a final token argument in this paper I offer the reader the following ‘Euthyphro’ dilemma: Do you
say things are good because they are good, or are they good because you say they are? If the latter, then
your moral standard is arbitrary (and you can’t object if God’s turns out likewise). But if you say the
former then you have to explain where the moral standard comes from... and Divine Nature Theory is certainly
an option!
Steve Lovell's personal note: Contrary to the
most people's expectations, I have found Christianity and Philosophy to be not only compatible, but even
mutually supporting... at least when both are bolstered by a healthy common sense.
To illustrate this we might briefly consider the most popular argument for atheism, which contends that
(1) an all-good God would want to prevent whatever evil he could, that
(2) an all-powerful God would be able to prevent any evil he wanted, and that since
(3) not all evils are prevented,
(4) no all-good, all-powerful God exists.
There are many questions that might be raised about this argument, but here I raise just one.
Premise (3) refers to certain events as "evil", but by what standard do we judge these
events to be less than ideal?
Does not the very idea of imperfection imply an idea of perfection?
And in a Godless world, from where did we get this idea?
If the atheist's argument is to work, the universe cannot merely fail to be as I would
like it to be, it must be genuinely unjust. But - in a Godless world - from where do we get this idea of
just and unjust? It seems, in fact, that the premise at the heart of the atheists argument
(that the world contains much evil), implicitly contradicts the atheists view that the world is fundamentally
amoral.
Another form that the argument takes is that if God were good and all-powerful, He would intervene to
prevent calamities on a more regular basis. While I sympathize with this, I can't help but notice that if
I point out an occasion where God does seem to have intervened, the atheist will typically either say
that the event did not happen at all, or that the correct explanation has nothing whatever to do with
God. But it is surely inconsistent to complain at God for not intervening and then go on explaining away
all alleged interventions no matter how good the evidence for these events may be.
These typical atheistic strategies suggest to me that the atheist's problem with God is not that there
is conclusive evidence against His existence, and nor is it that there is no evidence for His existence.
The problem is more likely to be that it's that the evidence is not nearly so clear as they would like.
In other words God must be sought, and not only that: we must (at least sometimes and perhaps always)
trust Him and "lean not on our own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5).
A perspective from Steve Lovell.
Steven Lovell lives in Sheffield, England, with his wife. His doctoral studies in philosophy centers
upon the works of C.S. Lewis, and he aims to become a teacher of mathematics.
For more of his articles on philosophy, visit Philosophical Themes from C.S. Lewis.
Footnotes
1. From here on I will speak of ‘God’ rather than ‘gods’, and of
‘goodness’ rather than ‘piety’, since these are the terms in which theistic ethical theories are now
couched.
2. By using italics here I simply indicate where one might fault
the argument. Indeed in section four I do fault the argument at this point.
3. We may need other premises too, such as ‘A ought to do what a
good being wills A to do’. But this is beside the point, (4) is at least a necessary condition of a
(plausible) valid argument here.
4. Some things are shown on maps before they exist, but this doesn’t
in any way mean that the map is metaphysically prior to the town (in the required sense of ‘prior’).
5. In his paper ‘The Euthyphro Dilemma’ [3].
6. The main weakness is (in my view) that analytic theories run the
risk of being highly subjective. A version of Moore’s ‘Open Question Argument’ should suffice to illustrate
this: If someone says ‘by "Goodness" we just mean "N-ess"’ then why shouldn’t someone respond ‘You may
mean "N-ness", but I certainly don’t’. The meaning of language can be highly contingent, and very
subjective... not so morality - or so I believe.
7. The main peculiarity I have in mind is that not many people today
believe in God, and would be very surprised to here that by ‘goodness’ they mean ‘commanded by God’.
8. I don’t mean to suggest in this section that God’s commands
never produce obligations. Lets take as our example God commanding Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit
of tree X. Now it would be odd to suppose that it was God’s nature that fixes the morality of such an
action, so that it was immoral ‘before’ the command was given. However since God did (we’ll suppose)
command that action, the action (or refrain) is required... but not just because He commanded
it, but also because He - having the divine nature - commanded it.
9. Basinger, in [4], puts forward very much
the same position, and this is the name, which he gives it.
10. Moreland [1], Basinger [4],
Chamberlain [9], and Geisler [16], all seem to take very much
this position.
11. S. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Harvard, 1980).
12. If this is unclear just try giving a causal explanation of
why the Morning Star is identical with the Evening Star. Remember citing evidence in favor of some
proposition is a lot different from saying what it is which makes the proposition true.
13. If the reader worries that the justificatory circle in DNT
is too small, then I just beg the reader to believe me when I say that there are ways of enlarging it
(Such would make use of ‘general revelation’ in nature among other things.).
14. This reply has strong (epistemic) externalist overtones. But
this needn’t be seen as a bad thing. Externalism has its strengths... and the fact that it can make this
kind of move when faced with skeptical scenarios is one of them. Obviously externalism is inadequate in
many respects, and the fact that the reply given here seems odd only serves to illustrate this point.
But now that we are talking in terms of epistemology it should be clear that the worries here simply are
those of a Cartesian skeptic... and no theory can answer those worries.
15. John Chandler ‘Divine Command Theories and the appeal to love’
[2].
16. There are numerous other formulations of the characteristics
of the Ideal Observer - for instance I think that ‘otherwise normal’ is often used in the place of
‘benevolent’ - here I just attempt to get the Ideal Observers features to closely parallel God’s nature.
For an exposition of IOT see R. Firth [15].
17. I briefly mentioned the ontological argument (OA) above, and
it seems to me that even if its traditional form is faulty someone putting this argument forward might
still be caught in a version of OA. This is because some modal versions argue from God’s possible existence
to His necessary existence. This is a problem here because making sense of what an ideal observer would
command seems to entail the possibility of such an observer, but since these modal versions of OA argue
from possibility to actuality then holding to IOT may necessitate holding that the ideal observer actually
exists.
18. My reply here is not supposed to show that God exists, nor
is it supposed to show that DNT is true. My objection is simply that the argument is supposed to be
assuming the truth of DNT, when actually the argument sneaks in the assumption that DNT is false!
19. Alternatively there are other definite descriptions (such as
‘the creator of the universe’) available to the theist, which will pick out God without mentioning His
moral attributes.
20. If God is interested in morality then He presumably would want
to be morally good, but then God’s omnipotence will ensure that He is morally good.
21. Given DNT theory none of this talk about moral knowledge will
be particularly mysterious either.
22. If evolution is going to furnish us with a genuine moral theory
then it cannot merely tell us how we came to have the moral inclinations we do in fact have... it must
tell us why we must follow those inclinations. Presumably the answer will be because they are the key to
survival. So survival becomes the chief good: this is clearly not IOT.
23. It may be the case that no strong form of objectivism (such
as DNT can sustain) is true, but nonetheless if IOT is pushed into any form of subjectivism so as to
account for ‘bindingness’ then we may still have reasons for adopting DNT that wouldn’t be had by IOT.
Remember this isn’t an argument for the truth of DNT. Rather I am arguing that it is a sustainable position,
and, in this section, that it does not reduce to IOT.
24. They need not be, they could be atheists and go in for some
kind of error theory.
25. The question ‘Why are we here?’ may be thought to be the same
as ‘Where did we come from?’, but actually is better read as ‘What are we here for?’ This second reading
of the question makes it clear that these two questions are distinct.
26. Evolutionary theory, as scientific theory, is purely descriptive.
It clearly answers (to some extent) the question ‘where did we come from?’ Combined with other scientific
data we may get an answer to ‘where are we going?’, but science alone can’t give us an answer to ‘where
should we be going?’, or ‘why are we here?’ (see previous footnote). Given what was said in footnote
#22 it may be thought that we are here to ‘survive’, or ‘to do the things that have led/will lead to our
survival’. But to be honest not only do these things seem plainly false, they are also very distant from
IOT, which was what we had in play as a possible reduction of DNT.
27. This argument is at least intimated in Plato’s ‘Parmenides’.
28. Actually plus could be omitted too, since subtraction of a
negative is the same as the addition of a positive - So 2=1--1 for example.
Bibliography
[1] J.P. Moreland. Scaling The Secular City (Baker Books, 1987).
[2] J. Chandler. "Divine Command Theories and the Appeal to Love." American Philosophical Quarterly (1985).
[3] M. MacBeath. "The Euthyphro Dilemma" Mind (1982).
[4] D. Basinger. "Kai Nielsen and the Nature of Theistic Ethics."
[5] R. Gascoigne. "God and Objective Moral Values" Religious Studies (1985).
[6] P. Carruthers. Human Knowledge and Human Nature (Oxford, 1992).
[7] R. Zacharias. Can Man Live Without God (Word Publishing, 1994).
[8] K. Nielsen. Ethics Without God (Prometheus Books, 1990).
[9] P. Chamberlain. Can We Be Good Without God? (IVP, 1996).
[10] B. Russell. (ed.). Why I am not a Christian. (Allen & Unwin, 1957).
[11] P. Helm. Divine Commands and Morality (Oxford, 1981).
[12] R. M. Adams. "A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness", in [11].
[13] R. Swinburne. "Duty and the Will of God", in [11].
[14] Plato. "Euthyphro", in The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin, 1969) trans. Hugh Tredennick.
[15] R. Firth. ‘Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1952).
[16] N. Geisler. Christian Ethics: Options and Issues (Apollos, 1989).
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