Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainMaybe I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but the other day I finally figured out why the euthyphro dilemma is, in fact, a dilemma. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the dilemma revolves around divine command theory - the notion that morality comes from God. Now either morality comes from God (divine command theory) or it comes from someplace else. I think that's a pretty safe claim, right? In other words, what is moral is so because God has decreed it to be moral or God has decreed it to be moral because it is so. The second part of that is fairly easy to comprehend: if God says murdering is wrong because it is wrong, then it is implied that morality is external of God. The problem with the first bit, however, was harder for me to pick up on. That is, until now.
The problem with the notion of divine command theory is essentially that it is meaningless (that is, of course, presuming a "moral" God). If God gets to set the rules of the game, and sets those rules around his traits, then it's an empty statement to say that "God is good". If good is whatever God says it is, then of course God is good. I'll put it into more concrete terms.
For the sake of argument, let's say that I am God. In all my wisdom and power, I have created everything that you see around you (I admit I've been a bit lax in the evil department ever since...well ever since we've been around, but stuff happens). Back in the day, I needed to create some kind of a moral code that people could follow so things like murdering and stealing and Paris Hilton wouldn't happen. So, I sat down for a while and came up with ten things that I really would prefer people to do.
varkam's Ten Commandments
1. Thou shalt drink coffee. Lots of coffee.
2. Thou shalt never listen to AM radio, for it is unholy.
3. Thou shalt not kill (that's right, kill - which includes murder).
4. Thou shalt own a Chihuahua, for they are God's chosen animal.
5. Thou shalt remember thine girlfriend's birthday (I figured that one out the hard way).
6. Thou shalt respect other people's autonomy.
7. Thou shalt drive a Cadillac, for they are extremely comfortable.
8. Thou shalt support human rights organizations.
9. Thou shalt incorporate as much vulgarity as is fucking possible into your communication.
10. Thou shalt not believe in an afterlife, lest you blow yourself up for 72 virgins.
Not so bad, right? See? I'm a pretty cool God. I've got coffee in there...human rights too...autonomy, that's a good one. It was pretty easy to come up with, since these are all things I generally do (or try to do).
Get the picture? If I get to set the rules of the morality game, and I set them up around things I do or traits that I possess, then it follows that I am "good" but only because I've defined what it means to be so! Sorry folks, but that's not morality: it's rationalization.
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Oh, oh. I suspect a certain pachyderm will be wearing her angry spots today. 
I'm not sure your argument works though. If you were actually a supreme all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful being who created the universe and everything in it then since everything comes from you so wouldn't morality as well. That's the problem with gods (well, some gods anyway). They're such egotists. Usually narcissistic too, but that's another issue. Everything is always about them. Me, me, me, me... Kind of tiresome.
But I think we can all agree. Coffee is good.
Do you ever get tired of me misinterpreting your posts?
Aye, I agree then. It becomes entirely arbitrary. Good and bad merely become words with no external meaning (thus probably necessitating the whole burn in hell thing).
It could be that God created the Law of Physics and Laws of Evolution framework, and guided the process, in those places where there is life, so that intelligence evolved. The moral code could be different for each particular species, yet the different specific codes could "harmonize" at a interspecies level to the good for all life on earth.
So humans would have one code, dogs another, and cats.......well, cats are cats. (Anybody who has been owned by a cat will understand.)
