Pete Hughes

The Euthyphro Dilemma

In Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates asks Euthyphro, “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”  Another way to ask the question is to ask is something good because God said it is, or does God call it good because it is?  It is the difference between something having a moral values because it is called such or having a moral values because it is such. 

Answer 1: Voluntarism

One answer to the dilemma is called voluntarism.  “Voluntarism is the view that someone’s will – either God’s or humanity’s – projects right or wrong upon the neutral canvas of reality”1.  Obviously, this is not merely one way to see the world, there are a group of different ethical frameworks that fit under voluntarism.  For example oxygen is good because it keeps us alive.  But according to voluntarism we choose to define life as good and therefore we define oxygen as good.  Oxygen, it and of itself is neutral.  In this case when God calls creation good in Genesis 1, it is neutral and God is imposing his value on it.

Answer 2: Moral Order

The other answer is what is called moral order, moral realism or naturalism2.  “[moral order is to]…describe how things really are, whether or not people believe it.  Moral realists generally hold that we inhabit a moral order – a kind of moral ‘ecology’ that sets the conditions for what know as goodness and badness”3.  In this case when God calls creation good in Genesis 1, he is recognising a goodness that is already there, a goodness that he has instilled upon it by making it so.

Seeing this in practise

One of the difficulties is that people tend to move between the two views without acknowledging that they’re there.  It may be easier to see the difference in practise:

“When a human-rights activist declares that the right not be murdered is independent of local cultures where people might quite like to kill others, the activist is morally realist mode”4

“In voluntary euthanasia, people respond to pain and suffering by hating their life, and we kill them.  The fight over this practice shows the basic commitments in play.  The voluntarist believes in the sufferer’s estimate of his or her life as a worthless evil.  The moral realist claims that the good of human life is bigger than our perceptions of it”5

Christian thinkers have been seeking to resolve this dilemma in different ways, including Stanley Hauerwas, Oliver O’Donovan and Andrew Cameron. One of the problems with moral realism is that people have to know what the order is.  When it comes to the Bible, Cameron and O’Donovan show that ethical moral realism is important.  O’Donovan points out that this means that ignorance is not an excuse6.  It does not matter if you agree or not, an action is wrong in and of itself.  It should be noted that O’Donovan does have a sophisticated understanding of what that order is, connecting it with time and space.

Cameron argues in his book “I take the position in this book that Christian thought about ethics is morally realist, but that decoding moral ecology is almost beyond each individual”7.  This does not mean that theology is problem, quite the opposite, it is the solution: “According to Christian thought, we need God to decode moral order because moral knowledge best occurs in partnership”8.  Cameron uses the example of Proverbs 8 to most clearly explain why the Bible proposes a moral realist position. 

Voluntarism has its own set of problems, the main one being who decides what is right and wrong.  In our current society the main thing that decides is it what philosophers categorise as “Non-cognitive emotivism”.  This is based on the idea that while we don’t all know everything about moral decisions, we all feel what is right and wrong.  So we need to base our decisions and arguments on what feels right.  Moral realists response with – what has felt right in the past, like slavery, as not actually been right.  Further the assumption that we all feel the same thing about what is right and wrong needs to be questioned.

Public Debate and Discourse

This is important to be able to engage with public discourse for two reasons.  Firstly, if Cameron and others are right, there is a moral realism that is revealed in the Bible then the public voice of Christianity is good for the society we live in. If you hold the moral reality framework of ethics then you need to engage in public debate to stop or encourage the right thing to do, since morality is hardwired into the world9.

Secondly, people hold the different views in different ways and not recognise this.  For example in public discourse many Australians hold a morally realist position in terms of human rights.  On the other hand many hold a very voluntarist position when it comes to redefining marriage.  Christians may see marriage as a morally realist position.  The point is that the presuppositions of the two sides of the debate mean it cannot be reconciled unit those presuppositions are made explicit.

Questions:

  • Where do you hold a voluntarist position on ethics?  Why?
  • Where do you hold a morally realist position on ethics?  Why?

FOOTNOTES:

  1. Andrew J. B. Cameron, Joined-up Life: A Christian Account of How Ethics Works. England: Inter Varsity Press, 2011. p149 ↩︎
  2. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma for more options of the names. ↩︎
  3. Cameron, p149 ↩︎
  4. Cameron, p150 ↩︎
  5. Cameron, p150 ↩︎
  6. Oliver O’Donovan,.Self, World and Time: Ethics as Theology Vol 1. Vol. 1. 3 vols. Grand Rapids  Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2013. p24ff ↩︎
  7. Cameron, p151 ↩︎
  8. Cameron, p151 ↩︎
  9. By world, I mean the specific time and space we exist in. ↩︎

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