The Euthyphro Question

In just about any introductory philosophy class one is bound to encounter what is known as the "Euthyphro" question. The aptly titled quandary - or, it is at least assumed to be a quandary by some - comes from a short Platonic dialogue (meaning written by the Greek philosopher Plato) by the same name in which Socrates inquires of his interlocuting guest - Euthyphro, from Greek meaning "right thinking" or "Mr. Straight Thinking" according to Aryeh Kosman - a perplexing question. Euthyphro claims that a pious act is one that is loved by the gods, to which Socrates responds with the question: But is an act pious because it is god-loved, or is it god-loved because it is pious? In other words, are pious acts made pious by the gods, or do the gods merely observe actions which are pious and then label them as such?

Now, some people have attempted to bring this question over into a theistic setting and claim that this same objection can apply to belief in a single God (forgetting the historical context of a Greek culture - Athens - which believed in a pantheon of gods many, many gods). As this pertains to the problem of evil - my current study - I will offer a brief account of this objection and then a brief response. Precisely what the objection is supposed to be can become complex to explain, but it is mostly an attempted refutation of Divine Command Theory - that morality is a set of commands from God. While I do not necessarily advocate DCT, I think that it must be devalued based upon legitimate objections and not this one in particular from the Euthyphro dialogue which I believe to fall short of accomplishing its goal.

So here is the Euthyphro question applied to theism: Are right acts right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right? I will assume that the distinction between these two concepts is clear enough that I do not need to explore the nature of actions and passions.

My brief response to the Euthyphro question is that it is quite possibly an incoherent charge to level at theism. To begin, if God has existed from eternity (as is the theistic hypothesis), then certain moral facts have also - in a semi-Platonic sense - existed from eternity with Him; allow me to give an example. If we suppose that God is all that exists, that He has not yet created anything, then let us ask a question: If God were to create a Universe exactly like ours, and then command His creatures to torture innocent babies for fun, would this be wrong on God's part? I think that if we can assume it to be true that torturing babies for fun is wrong, then we can say that it is true that in a Universe like ours then torturing babies is wrong as a means of logical consequence (even for God). This is tantamount to saying that in a Universe like ours atoms are smaller than molecules. It is simply the way that things must work given the structure of existence. Hence, because certain observations we have made like these would be true as hypothetical statements even if our Universe did not exist, then it is possible that true statements about moral dilemmas exist as necessary and contingent truths which are dependent upon God to actualize certain Universes in order for the moral dilemmas to exist. So it would be true to say that if God created a Universe exactly like ours then it would be wrong for a person to torture innocent babies in that Universe, even though that Universe does not exist. The non-existence of that Universe, however, does not negate the truth of the hypothetical statement. This is equivalent to saying that in every possible Universe bachelors are unmarried males, because it is inconceivable that there is a possible Universe in which bachelors are married. Now, we have seen that it is possible for true statements about morality to exist without the actual instantiations of the moral situations themselves being realized.

The next thing to do is argue that the nature of morality - that is, why it would be hypothetically wrong to torture babies in a Universe exactly like ours - depends upon God. That is, in order to defend the claim that morality is both dependent upon God and not His arbitrary commandment, one needs to first demonstrate that morality is not arbitrary - it has perhaps become necessarily true as I have stated it - and then that things are still moral or immoral because of how they relate to God. This argument follows logically - I think - from the claim that it is possible for necessarily true statements about morality to exist. That is, if there are such things as necessarily true statements about morality then what else could we appeal to except God for explaining why they are necessarily true? If nothing else exists except God, then how can they be dependent upon anything else?

In any event, there are still problems with what I have written here which I will not explore, but I think the fact that on the hypothesis of theism that moral truths potentially exist eternally with God is at least one response to the Euthyphro question.