A dilemma about the relation between morality and divine will, drawn from a question Socrates puts to Euthyphro in Plato's dialogue of that name: is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? Applied to divine command theory, the dilemma asks whether God commands an act because it is good, in which case goodness is independent of God's will, or whether an act is good only because God commands it, in which case morality appears arbitrary. Both horns have been resisted, most influentially by appeal to God's own necessarily good nature as the standard commands flow from, rather than an external standard or an arbitrary decree.
Facts
Origin YearCirca; Plato's Euthyphro is usually dated to the years around Socrates's trial, 399 BCE, with the dialogue itself composed somewhat later. Classification
Position Kind Connections
Associated With
Plato is the dialogue's author; the dilemma is posed to the character Euthyphro by Plato's Socrates.
Source Euthyphro Dilemma (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
In Branch
Sources
1. Euthyphro Dilemma (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Divine Command Theory, section 3 A Persistent Problem: The Euthyphro Dilemma (p. 14)
Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?
- Associated With: Plato
View the SourceEuthyphro Dilemma (Wikipedia)
WikipediaEuthyphro dilemma (Wikipedia), introductionQuote, Euthyphro dilemma (Wikipedia), introduction
The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Platos dialogue Euthyphro, in which 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?
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