this is a lecture on the euthyphro dilemma what is the euthyphro dilemma uh it's a dilemma the simple question of which is the following are good things good because the gods prefer them or do the gods prefer them because they are already good so it's a it's an issue concerning the relationship between morality and goodness on the one hand and divine preferences on the other the dilemma is commonly attributed to plato um however if you read plato's euthyphro dialogue where the question uh are pious thinks pious because the gods prefer them or do the gods prefer them because they're pious where that question does arise what you'll see is that they only discuss one horn of the dilemma and so a lot of presentations of the euthyphro dilemma mine included that that pursue both horns of the dilemma are going farther than plato ever went so for this reason i'm not going to restrict myself merely to what plato said in fact i won't pay much attention to what plato said the question appears in plato's euthyphro dialogue and it's an issue that's been discussed in the history of philosophy um so i'm just not going to restrict myself to what plato's actual youth of row dialogue says well isn't this mere semantics isn't this uh a completely trivial non-substantive issue not really worth investigating well i want to say something in defense of the question when two things correlate it's often a substantive question which is the case because of the other so if if we notice that that a and b correlate perfectly that doesn't settle the question of which is the case because of which is a the case because of b is b the case because of c is there some third factor that is directly producing both a and b these are substantive questions that are not settled uh merely by noticing a correlation so let's assume that the gods exist and that they prefer only good things so what and let's let's say that that that all good things are such that the gods prefer them so they prefer all and only good things um what that establishes is is that there is a perfect correlation between divine preferences and the facts about goodness um if the gods prefer something it's got to be good and if it's good the gods have to prefer it so that that gives you a perfect correlation a perfect harmony between these divine facts and and the facts about goodness but that doesn't settle the question of which is the case because of which is kindness good just because the gods preferred it or is it rather that the gods saw that kindness was already good and for that reason preferred it for example suppose that there was a perfect thermometer it's it always reads the temperature and it always uh indicates it correctly well what that would mean is that there's a perfect harmony a perfect correlation between the thermometer facts and the the temperature facts but that wouldn't settle the question of which is the case because of which so here's a view that seems true the thermometer says it's 70 degrees because it is 70 degrees but here's a view that seems false it's 70 degrees because the thermometer says it's 70 degrees that doesn't seem right it's not the facts about temperature aren't being produced by the thermometer the thermometer isn't creating the facts about temperature it's rather measuring pre-existing independently obtaining facts about the temperature this is not a mere semantic difference the difference between someone who thinks the thermometer says it's 70 degrees because it is 70 degrees and someone who says no it's 70 degrees because the thermometer says so um that is not a mere semantic difference that's different that's the difference between having uh a correct perception of of reality and having a mistaken one so let's look at these theories let's start with divine independence theory this is what it's called in the reading that you did for the class divine independence theory according to divine independence theory it's true that the gods prefer kindness but what explains the fact that they prefer kindness is that kindness was already good so on this on this view the gods prefer kindness because kindness was already in and of itself good divine command theory says that this gets things exactly backwards what they say is kindness is good but the what makes kindness good what explains the fact that kindness is good is just that the gods prefer it so before we go any farther let's uh let's let's think about how we might avoid circularity when we're thinking about these issues take divine independence theory suppose that you're sympathetic to divine independence theory you think the gods prefer kindness because kindness is already good so far there's nothing circular about that that that view may be true it may be false but it doesn't seem to be circular however notice that if you say this if you say that divine independence theory is true that the gods prefer kindness because kindness is good you can't non-circularly turn around and then say that kindness is good because the gods prefer it that would be to go in a circle right [Music] and something similarly can be said about divine command theory if you say that kindness is good because the gods prefer kindness then you can't non-circularly turn around and say the gods prefer kindness because kindness is good so so i'm not saying that either of these theories is in itself circular the point rather is this if you say that the one fact is explained by the other you can't non-circularly turn around and say that the other fact is explained by the one so let's look at divine independence theory remember it says that the gods prefer kindness because kindness is good kindness was already good it wasn't made good by the god's preferences rather it was already good and the gods knew that they recognized that and that's why they preferred kindness well if the gods prefer kindness because kindness is already good then the goodness of kindness isn't explained by divine preferences and that would entail that facts about goodness obtain independently of divine preferences and this is plato's view plato believed in god but plato didn't believe that god gets to decide what is good and what is bad rather there are independently obtaining facts about what is good and what is bad and god looks to these facts and recognizes them and forms preferences in accordance with um the things that are good and against the things that are bad well now let's look at divine command theory suppose that you say that kindness is better than cruelty because the gods prefer kindness over cruelty well that raises a question why do the gods prefer kindness over cruelty what explains the fact that they prefer kindness over cruelty again notice that you can't non-circularly say because kindness is better than cruelty remember we're trying we're considering the view now that the reason kindness is better than cruelty is just because the gods prefer it so notice that given divine command theory prior to the gods preferring things nothing is better or worse than anything else because remember on this theory it's it's it's divine preferences that make things good and bad um independent of divine preference nothing is good or bad divine preference is just the standard of what is good and bad it it makes things good or bad but now it looks like we might have a problem this is a problem that many critics and defenders of divine command theory have felt the need to discuss it's an arbitrariness problem if the gods don't prefer kindness over cruelty because kindness is better than cruelty then it seems that their preference is arbitrary well why does that seem true well here's an argument that divine command theory makes divine preferences arbitrary premise one the only way you can have a good reason for preferring a to b is by recognizing that a is in some way better than b right so imagine that you're standing between two identical glasses of water uh you're equidistant from both um since there's no way in which the one glass is better than the other it seems impossible for you to have a good reason to prefer one of the glasses to the other you might have a good reason to prefer drinking one or another of them as opposed to not drinking anything because you're thirsty and it's better to quench your thirst than not but it doesn't seem like you can have a good reason to prefer the one on the left over the one on the right given that there's no way in which the one on the left is better than the one on the right they are identical glasses of water premise two if divine command theory is true then the guides did not prefer kindness to cruelty because they recognized that kindness is better than cruelty right the divine command theory just is the theory that uh the only thing that makes kindness better than cruelty is just that the gods preferred it so again we can't non-circularly say that the gods prefer kindness over cruelty because they recognize that kindness is better than cruelty that's divine independence theory that's what the divine independence theorists say say they say the gods prefer kindness over cruelty because they see that kindness is already better than cruelty so if the divine command theory is true the gods had no good reasons to prefer kindness to cruelty they just arbitrarily had that preference if we asked the gods why did you prefer kindness over cruelty is it because you recognize that kindness is better well the divine command theorist is going to say the gods are not going to say yes we recognize that kindness was better and that's why we preferred it remember that's divine independence theory so the arbitrariness problem is a significant problem for the divine command theorist i'm not saying it's a fatal problem but it's a problem that that should be addressed by someone who wants to defend the divine command theory point of view now here's an objection that someone might raise this argument is no good because we shouldn't think that we understand all of the reasons the gods have for what they do we are mere mortals we we have finite minds but the gods are omniscient uh divine beings so we should have no confidence that we understand all of the reasons that the gods have for what they do is this a good objection here's a reason perhaps for thinking it isn't notice that no premise of the argument uh on the left side of the screen notice that no premise of that argument says or implies that we know all of the reasons that the gods have what premise one asserts is that a necessary condition of it even being possible to have a good reason to prefer a to b is that a be in some way better than b right that's a necessary condition for for it to even be possible for anything to have a reason that's not a that's not a detailed claim about what particular reasons the gods have for what they do that's a mere statement about a necessary condition of it even being possible for there to be a reason to prefer one thing to another here's an example that might be helpful suppose i'm watching a master chess player and i'm very confident that they are only going to make a move if they have a good reason to do so and suppose i see them make a move and i'm i'm terrible at chess i don't understand what reason they have for making that particular move um i trust that they have access to reasons that i just don't have access to they're a master expert chess player and i'm not so they make a move and i don't know what reason they have for making that move well even though i don't know what reason they have for making that move here's something i do know the only way that could be sorry the only way they could have a good reason for doing what they did is if in some sense what they did is better than the alternatives right um that's uh if what they did is in no sense better than the alternatives then it's not possible for them to have a good reason for doing what they did what they did would just be arbitrary they wouldn't have a reason for making that particular move over the alternatives and that's something i can know even if i don't understand what particular reasons they have for making the move that they made so we might state the dilemma as follows either the gods prefer kindness because kindness is good or else kindness is good because the gods prefer it if the gods prefer kindness because it is good then facts about goodness don't depend on divine preferences if kindness is good because the gods prefer it however then divine preferences are arbitrary so either facts about goodness are independent of the gods or at least independent of divine preferences or else divine preferences are arbitrary so that's a that's a nice way of stating the youth of road dilemma well what's so bad about arbitrariness maybe a maybe a proponent of divine command theory could just say that the gods their preferences are arbitrary what's the big deal well i want to i want to read an excerpt from leibniz uh this is from his discourse on metaphysics which was published in 1686 or written in 1686 in any event um i want to uh uh read an excerpt from this text this is a section where leibniz is discussing divine command theory and leibniz even though he believed in god was a critic of divine command theory i'm going to start in the in the middle thus in saying that things are not good by virtue of any rule of goodness but solely by virtue of the will of god it seems to me that we unknowingly destroy all of god's love and all his glory for why praise him for what he has done if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing the exact contrary so that's an interesting question one of the challenges that leibniz raises for the divine command theorist is this why on your view is god praiseworthy it seems like when you praise somebody what you're saying is what you it's good that you did what you did had you done the other thing it would have been worse or bad and so i'm going to praise you for doing the good thing you did the good thing when doing the other thing would have been worse but notice that if divine command theory is true then no matter what god had preferred it just would have been good and so leibniz is asking this if you're a divine command theorist why do you praise god for god's love of kindness you after all would have given god just as much praise if god had preferred cruelty or mass murder or mayhem um so leibniz thinks that one of the one of the bad consequences of of saying that god's preferences and actions are arbitrary is that we lose any reason to praise god for what god does when you praise somebody for doing a instead of be what you are suggesting is it was better for them to do a and had they done b that would have been worse so if the euthyphro dilemma as stated is a sound argument then it leaves us with two options either say that facts about goodness don't depend on divine preferences even if there is a divine reality on this view facts about goodness wouldn't depend on divine premises instead divine preferences would depend on the facts about goodness so that's one option or else the dilemma says that we are stuck saying that god's preferences and actions are arbitrary