The Euthyphro Dilemma,

Part 1: The Question and

the Options
MARCH 6, 2019 BY JASON THIBODEAU
46 COMMENTS

The Euthyphro dilemma has been used for centuries as a basis for
undermining theories that account for moral value in virtue of God’s
will, activities, and/or nature, including various versions of Divine
Command Theory (DCT)[1]. Beginning in the latter half of the
20th century the arguments directed against DCT that are grounded in
this dilemma came in for sustained and penetrating criticism,
especially from those philosophers who were attempting to articulate
and defend modern versions of DCT. As a result of such criticism,
anyone looking into recent scholarship about the dilemma will
frequently find philosophers claiming that the objections to DCT
stemming from the Euthyphro dilemma have been undermined or
refuted. By no means is this the consensus view of professional
philosophers, but I think that, within the specialized sub-discipline of
theistic ethics, there is a widespread view that the Euthyphro problem
has been effectively enfeebled. Here are some examples of
philosophers making claims to this effect:

the Euthyphro Dilemma has been, in our estimation and in that of

many others, definitively answered in the recent literature . . . (Baggett
and Walls, 6)
In light of these reasons, there seems to be no reason to take the
Euthyphro dilemma seriously. (Copan 167)
It is my contention that what is generally construed as the Euthyphro
Dilemma as a reason to deny that moral facts are based on theological
facts is one of the worst arguments proposed in philosophy of religion
or ethical theory, and that Socrates, the character of the dialogue who
poses the dilemma, was both morally bankrupt in his challenge to
Euthyphro, but more importantly here, ought to have lost the
argument hands down. (Peoples, 65)
In short, a nuanced divine command theory can finally put Socrates’
troubling question to rest. Arguments for the autonomy of ethics can
no longer rely on the Euthyphro problem to undermine the conceptual
coherency of theistic approaches. (Milliken, 159)
I will argue that the Euthyphro dilemma represents no threat to the
DCT. (Joyce, 50)
Adams’ version of a DCT evades this dilemma by holding that God is
essentially good and that his commands are necessarily aimed at the
good. This allows Adams to claim that God’s commands make actions
obligatory (or forbidden), while denying that the commands are
arbitrary. (Evans)
And here is a video of William Lane Craig articulating the view that the
Euthyphro dilemma is not a problem for DCT:

The claims that Craig makes to the effect that the Euthyphro dilemma
has been refuted, as well as the similar claims I quoted above are all
deeply problematic. The Euthyphro dilemma, and the arguments it
gives rise to are not some of the worst arguments proposed in ethics or
philosophy of religion. The Euthyphro dilemma has not been
definitively answered. There is no relevant third option available for
defenders of DCT. And no modern version of DCT has been shown to
effectively evade the dilemma. Indeed, my considered view is that no
version of DCT can evade the problems associated with the Euthyphro
Dilemma; that the dilemma poses a mortal threat to all versions of
DCT, including modern versions defended by philosophers like Robert
Adams, John Hare, C. Stephen Evans, and others. In a series of posts,
I will carefully explain the dilemma, the different aspects of what is
often called the “Euthyphro problem,” and the objections to divine
command theories that the dilemma gives rise to. In addition, I will
look at the most influential and significant responses that have been
offered to the dilemma and show how and why these responses fail.

My goal in this introductory post is to carefully explain the nature of

the dilemma. The dilemma comes from a question that provides two
options that are mutually exclusive. I will explain the question, state
and explain the two options for answering the question, and explain
why the options are mutually exclusive.

As Craig says in the above video, the Euthyphro dilemma takes its
name from one of Plato’s dialogues, Euthyphro. The central
philosophical issue of the dialogue is the nature of piety. Euthyphro
insists that he knows what piety is, which leads Socrates to ask
Euthyphro to explain his account of what it is in order that they might
put that account to the test. Thus, the initial question that guides the
dialogue is, “What is the pious?” and Socrates makes it clear to
Euthyphro that, in asking this question, he is looking for that
characteristic (or characteristics) in virtue of which all pious things are
pious.

The answer the Euthyphro gives, once he understands the question, is

that the pious is what all the gods love. But Euthyphro’s answer, as it
stands, is ambiguous. It is not clear whether Euthyphro intends to
indicate merely that the gods love all pious things or, on the other
hand, to indicate that the feature in virtue of which something is pious
is that the gods love it. Only if Euthyphro intends the later has he
provided the kind of account Socrates is looking for. To resolve the
ambiguity, Socrates asks the following question:

Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious

because it is loved by the gods? (Plato, Grube (trans.), p. 12).
I will call this the Euthyphro Question (EQ). Though I will be offering
an interpretation of EQ and an account of the meaning and
significance of the question, I am not here interested in the role that
Socrates’ question plays in the Euthyphro dialogue nor with offering
an account of any argument that Socrates makes in the dialogue.
Everything that I say with respect to interpreting what Socrates says is
aimed at understanding EQ and not at getting Plato’s or Socrates’
argument right.

EQ presents two options, which options are mutually exclusive. That

they are mutually exclusive is a point that I will return to, but for now
let us get clear on what the options are. They are

(A) The pious is loved by the gods because it is pious.

and

(B) The pious is pious because it is loved by the gods.

There is one potentially interesting but, for our purposes, probably

irrelevant issue that I will briefly mention and then set aside. As it
appears in the dialogue, a natural interpretation would have it that
Socrates’s question involves an attribution of the property of being
pious to the form of the pious. Option (B), for example, seems to be
saying that the form of the pious is itself pious because the gods love it.
It is an interesting problem for Plato that the forms seem to exemplify
the properties of which they are the forms; that, for example, the form
of the good is itself good. The prospect that they do exemplify
themselves yields a famous objection to Plato’s theory of the forms,
namely the third man argument, which Plato raises and considers in
his dialogue Parmenides. While this is an interesting argument (and
has applications that extend beyond Plato’s theory of the Forms), it is
not relevant to the Euthyphro dilemma. This is because, despite the
wording of the question given above, we need not interpret Socrates as
making any claim or asking any question that implies or assumes that
the form of the pious is pious.
What Socrates is saying, in offering option (B), is not that the form of
the pious is pious because the gods love it, but rather that a pious
thing is pious because the gods love it. To eliminate this potential
confusion, I suggest the following revised versions of (A) and (B):

(A1) Pious things are loved by the gods because they are
pious.

(B1) Pious things are pious because they are loved by the
gods.

With that potentially complicating issue out of the way, we can now
turn our attention to clarifying what the two options are saying. As
currently stated, the options can be misunderstood. EQ uses the word
‘because’ twice, once for each option, but importantly, ‘because’ does
not have the same meaning in (A1) as it does in (B1). This is probably
the most important point when it comes to understanding the
Euthyphro dilemma: ‘Because’ is not univocal in (A1) and (B1).[2] The
‘because’ in option (A1) indicates motives or reasons while the
‘because’ in option (B1) indicates a making (or in-virtue-of) relation.
To get clear on this distinction, notice that the two options are
accounts of distinct phenomena, or, to put it slightly differently, the
options are answers to different questions. Option (B1) is an attempted
account of what it is that makes something pious. It is an attempt to
answer the question, “In virtue of what is something pious?” or “What
is the feature (or features) that makes something pious?” Option (A1)
does not attempt to answer this sort of question, rather, option (A1) is
a proposed account of why the gods love pious things. It purports to
answer the question, “Why do the gods love pious things?” or “For
what reason do the gods love pious things?”

So now we have two questions that correspond to the two options in

the dilemma. They are:

(Qa) For what reason do the gods love pious things?

(Qb) In virtue of what feature(s) is something pious?

Option (A1) is a proposed answer to (Qa). Option (B1) is a proposed

answer to (Qb). Given this, we can see that the ‘because’ in option (A1)
is not the same ‘because’ as that in (B1).

Let me say a bit more about the ‘because’ of (B1). When we say that
some object, o, possesses some feature, f, because the object satisfies
some other predicate, P, we are saying that o is f in virtue of the fact
that o satisfies P. Another way of saying this is that what makes it the
case that o is f is the fact that o is P. Thus, to say that something is
pious because the gods love it is to say that an object is pious in virtue
of the fact that the gods love it, or, equivalently, that what makes
something pious is that it is loved by the gods. This in-virtue-
of/making relation is not necessarily a causal relation. We should not
think that Socrates is looking for a feature that causes pious things to
be pious. Some making relations are causal relations, but not all. That
is, while a causal relation is often a making relation, not all making
relations are causal. When an umpire calls a pitch a strike, that makes
it the case that it is a strike (it is a strike in virtue of the fact that the
umpire called it a strike), but it would not be correct to say that the
umpire’s calling it a strike causes it to be a strike. The upshot is that
when Socrates ask what it is that pious things have in common in
virtue of which they are pious, he is not asking for what causes them to
be pious.

Thus, options (B1) can thus be reworded as follows:

(B2) Pious things are pious in virtue of the fact that the gods
love them.

And option (A1) can be made more clear by rewording it as,

(A2) The reason that the gods love pious things is that they
are pious.
These options are mutually exclusive. That is, if we accept option (A2)
then we cannot accept option (B2) and if we accept (B2), then we
cannot accept (A2).

And this leads us to the crux of the dilemma: if Euthyphro is offering

an account of what makes something pious, then, on his view,
something is pious in virtue of the fact that the gods love it. But if
something is pious in virtue of the facts that the gods love it, then it
cannot be that the gods love it because it is pious. On the other hand, if
the gods love pious things because they are pious, then their being
pious is logically prior to the god’s loving them; and therefore, things
cannot be pious in virtue of the fact that the gods love them. To put it
succinctly, option (A2) logically rules out options (B2) and option (B2)
logically rules out option (A2).

In the context of the dialogue this is significant because, if Euthyphro

maintains that (A2) is the correct answer to Socrates’ question (as in
the dialogue, he does), then he has not offered an account of the pious.
That is, if Euthyphro thinks that the reason that the gods love pious
things is that they are pious, then, since on this option it cannot be
that what makes something pious is that the gods love them,
Euthyphro, in saying that the pious is what all the gods love has not
thereby told us what all pious things have in common in virtue of
which they are pious. This is a purely logical point: If the reason that
the gods love a pious act is that it is pious, then the act’s being pious is
logically prior to the gods’ loving it. And, if what makes an act pious is
the fact that the gods love it, then the gods’ loving it is logically prior to
its being pious.
I will offer two analogies that I hope will make this point clearer:

Example 1: Film Quality

Suppose you are talking about films and film quality with a friend and
you want to know what the characteristics are that make a film good.
Suppose your friend says something like, “Ultimately, a good film is
one that I like.” You might ask, in the manner of Socrates,

(Qf) Do you like good films because they are good or are they
good because you like them?

For this question, the two options are

(C) You like good films because they are good.

Or, in other words,

(C1) The reason that you like good films is that they are good.

And

(D) Good films are good because you like them.

Or, in other words,

(D1) What makes a film good is the fact that you like it.

In asking (Qf), you are attempting to determine whether your friend is

offering an account of what makes a film good or is merely indicating
that she likes films when and because they are good. Option (D) offers
an account of what makes a good film good. Option (C) offers an
account of the reasons why your friend like good films. If your friend
answers (Qf) with (C), then she has not answered your original
question, which just was the question of what features make a film
good. We know this because if the reason that she likes good films is
that they are good, then their being good is logically prior to her liking
them. On (C), a film must already be good before she likes it. If, on the
other hand, what makes a film good is the fact that she likes it, then it
cannot be that the reason that she likes it is that it is good. That is, if
(D) is correct, then her liking a film is logically prior to its being good
and thus its being good cannot be her reason for liking it. If there is a
reason for her liking it, it must be something other than that it is good.
Example 2: To-do List

Henry has been presented with a list of things that need to be done
around the house. The list includes tasks such as replacing a faulty
electrical outlet, cleaning the kitchen floors, repairing the leaky
bathroom faucet, etc. Suppose we ask,

(Qt) Are the tasks on the to-do list on the list because they
need to be done or do they need to be done because they are
on the to-do list?

For this question, the two possible answers are,

(E) The reason that the tasks are on the to-do list is that they
need to be done.

(F) The tasks need to be done in virtue of the fact that they
are on the list.

If the reason that a task is on the to-do list is that it needs to be done,
then it cannot be that a task needs to be done in virtue of the fact that
it is on the to-do list. And this for the purely logical point that if the
reason that the task in on the list is that it needs to be done, then its
being a task that needs to be done is logically prior to its being on the
list.

If (E) is correct, then, as Henry tries to think of what additional tasks

to add to the list, he will try to think of tasks that need to be done.
And, as he discovers additional tasks that need to be done, he will add
them to the list; and the reason that he will add them to the list is that
they need to be done. But, precisely because of this, it cannot be that a
task needs to be done in virtue of being on the list. It is only added to
the list if it needs to be done; thus, its needing to be done must be
logically prior to its being on the list.
In this example, (E) is obviously the correct answer, and (F) is
implausible. But to understand the nature of the Euthyphro dilemma,
we should consider (F) and its logical implications. Thus, if a task is
something that needs to be done in virtue of the fact that it is on the
list, then it cannot be that the reason it is added to the list is that it
needs to be done. In this case, if Henry is considering what new tasks
to add to the list, he cannot add a task to the list because this task
needs to be done. That is, Henry’s reason for adding it to his list
cannot be that the task needs to be done since nothing can appear on
the list (and thus need to be done) until it is on the list. This is a purely
logical point: a task is not one that needs to be done, on (F), unless
and until it is on the list. On (F), Henry can add things to the list, but
he cannot add them to the list because they need to be done. If he does
add items to the list, he must add them to the list for some other
reason than that they need to be done since, on (F) they are not tasks
that need to be done prior to their being on the list.

Notice that if (F) were the correct option, then even if Henry do not
know that (F) is correct, it cannot be that his reason for putting
something on the list is that it needs to be done. And, again, this is for
the purely logical point that, if some task’s needing to be done is for it
to be on the list, nothing could be a task that needs to be done unless it
was already on the list. Henry might think that the reason that he has
added a task to the list is that it needs to be done, but since, on (F),
what makes a task one that needs to be done is that it is on the list, it
cannot be that a task’s needing to be done is a reason for (counts in
favor of) its being on the list. And this is so, on (F), regardless of
whether Henry knows this or not.

So, if (E) is true (F) cannot be true; and if (F) is true, (E) cannot be
true.

EQ and DCT
I will close with some observations about how the (EQ) applies to
DCT. Suppose we believe that our moral obligations are those actions
that are commanded by God. We can ask, in the manner of Socrates,

Does God command that we perform morally obligatory

actions because they are morally obligatory or are they
morally obligatory because they are commanded by God?

The options for answering this question are:

(I) The reason that God commands that we perform morally

obligatory actions is that they are morally obligatory.

(II) Morally obligatory actions are morally obligatory in

virtue of the fact that God commands that we perform them.

One important point is that these options are mutually exclusive. Just
as with the two examples just discussed (and for the same reasons), if
the first option is true, the second cannot be true and if the second
option is true, the first cannot be true. And so, we have the following
two claims:

Claim 1: If the reason that God commands that we perform morally

obligatory action is that they are morally obligatory, then actions
cannot be morally obligatory in virtue of the fact that God commands
that we perform them.

Claim 2: If morally obligatory actions are morally obligatory in virtue

of the fact that God commands that we perform them, then the reason
that God commands that we perform them cannot be that they are
morally obligatory.

No modern version of the divine command theory or defender of such

theory has refuted Claim 1 or Claim 2. If the Euthyphro Dilemma has
been defeated and/or effectively answered, it is not because Claims 1
and 2 have been shown to be false.
Since DCT accepts option (II), it follows from DCT and Claim 2 that
the reason that God commands that we perform obligatory actions
cannot be that they are morally obligatory. This is the source of the
Euthyphro problem for DCT. It is unclear what reasons God could
have for commanding that we do something other than that it is
morally required. Since DCT rules this out, it appears that DCT might
imply that God can have no reasons for his commands. I will discuss
this issue in my next post.