Introduction
It’s widely thought that morality is somehow bound up with God. One way of cashing out this intuition is in terms of the normative theory known as Divine Command Theory (DCT), according to which God is the ground of moral normativity. My aim is simply to show that DCT is a respectable view that is not, despite a view perpetuated in too many Philosophy 101 courses, refuted outright by the much-discussed Euthyphro Dilemma.
Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma
Divine Command Theory, as I understand it, holds that moral obligations are grounded in divine commands, while moral goodness is grounded in God’s nature. The general idea is intuitively compelling to many people — including some non-theists — precisely because it seems to explain how moral obligations could have genuine authority, given that they are one and the same as commands issued by a perfect being at the foundation of reality.
DCT has long been thought to face a decisive objection that traces back at least to Plato’s early dialogue, the Euthyphro. In the Euthyphro, the title character has brought charges against his own father for killing a slave. Socrates presses Euthyphro to explain what could justify such an extraordinary act. Euthyphro replies that morality — specifically justice and piety — demand it. Since uncovering the nature of morality is among Socrates’ deepest philosophical concerns, the discussion quickly turns to the question of what morality itself consists in.
Euthyphro initially proposes that what is pious is simply what the gods love. Socrates immediately identifies a problem: the gods, as conceived by the ancient Athenians, frequently disagree. Some love what others hate. If so, the same action could be both pious and impious, which is absurd. In response, Euthyphro revises his account. What is just, he now suggests, is that which is universally loved by the gods. In effect, Euthyphro moves towards a general view that can easily be recast in monotheistic terms.
Socrates presses once more. Do the gods love what is just because it is just, or is it just because they love it? If the former, then justice is independent of the gods’ attitudes toward it. If the latter, then justice seems to depend on a divine preference that could, in principle, have been otherwise, rendering the truths of morality arbitrary.
Recast in explicitly monotheistic terms, the Euthyphro Dilemma can be stated as follows:
1. Either: (a) God has reasons for what he commands, or (b) he does not.
2. If (a), then God’s reasons (not God’s commands, per DCT) determine what is morally required.
3. If (b), then God’s commands (and thus the moral facts) are arbitrary.
Therefore,
4. Either morality is independent of God’s will (i.e., DCT is false), or the facts of morality are arbitrary.
The arbitrariness horn of the dilemma is particularly troubling. If God’s commands are unconstrained by reasons, then any act could be rendered morally obligatory by divine decree. That’s deeply implausible. It seems impossible that acts such as slavery or the deliberate harming of innocents for fun could be made morally permissible simply because God commands them.
Some thinkers have been willing to accept this implication. William of Ockham, for example, was prepared to allow that if God were to command lying or even hatred of God himself, those acts would thereby become obligatory. Most contemporary defenders of Theological Voluntarism, however, are unwilling to accept this consequence. For this reason, many (including my own past self) have taken the Euthyphro Dilemma to decisively refute Divine Command Theory.
A Classical Theistic Response
The force of the dilemma depends on a crucial assumption — namely, that if God has reasons for commanding what he does, then those reasons must be external to God. Classical theists can reject that assumption.
On classical theism, God necessarily exists with a perfectly good nature, and his commands will flow from that nature. On this view, God’s reasons are internal to — or flow from — God’s own nature. They are constitutive of who God is and thus are not properly construed as external constraints. God cannot command cruelty for its own sake because such commands would be incompatible with his very nature (and divine omnipotence does not include the power to act contrary to oneself).
This response preserves DCT while avoiding the arbitrariness concern.
Conclusion
The Euthyphro Dilemma has long been regarded as a decisive objection to DCT. But as we’ve seen here, that verdict depends on a particular — and questionable — conception of the relationship between God’s will and God’s nature. If we adopt a classical view of God, DCT remains a viable account of morality.
DCT was treated as Euthyphronically refuted in the Ethics 101 course I TA'd, too; maybe you TA'd for the same one. I find that puzzling now because the Bob Adams style of solution, where God's commands are motivated by the goodness of things—is elegant and seems kind of obvious once it's on the table (whether or not DCT is ultimately a good approach). Like, do we think that _human_ commands and the like are all either arbitrary or redundant? (smdh)
I think that just takes the argument one level meta. The question then becomes is God's nature perfect because it agrees with some perfect prototype or because the perfection is defined by God, which means it is arbitrary.