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P11. L has been established by a “ fi rm and unalterable experience ” of many
instances of A ’ s that were followed by many instances of B ’ s without
exception (DEF - 1).
P12. That A was the case provides the strongest possible evidence E * for
the proposition that B was the case (instantiation, P2, P11).
P13. ET is stronger than the strongest possible evidence E * (conjunction
P9, P12).
C1. It is not the case that ET is stronger than E * .
C2. It is not rational to accept that M occurred ( modus tollens , P10,
C1).
The (sub)conclusion above is derived without further specifying the
nature of the K - testimony in favor of a miracle (namely, independently of
the number, reliability, opportunity, etc. of the witnesses reporting M that
identify the relevant K). So, at least to this extent, the argument is a priori .
Importantly, the conclusion is still compatible with its being rational, on
the basis of testimony, to withhold belief as to whether a miracle occurred.
As already anticipated, however, in the second part of Chapter X of the
Inquiry , Hume presents empirical considerations about the K - testimony
48 Tommaso Piazza
which is actually available that allow one to derive a logically stronger
conclusion.
There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a suffi cient
number of men, of such unquestioned good - sense, education and learning as
to secure us against all delusion. [ … ] The passion of surprise and wonder,
arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency
towards the belief of these events. (Hume, 78)
Empirical observation of the nature of the witnesses who have testifi ed
to a miracle and the general psychological remark that men are far too
prone to believe in the marvelous suggest that the testimony for a miracle
that is actually available is of a kind K that is unable to deliver evidence
ET that is strong enough to equal to (not to say to outweigh) the evidence
we have to expect nature to proceed along the course we have always
experienced. So, it arguably enforces:
C1. Evidence ET is weaker than E * .
C2. It is (more) rational to believe that M did not occur ( modus ponens ,
P5, C1).
11
The Euthyphro Dilemma
David Baggett
Antony Flew once said that the test of one ’ s aptitude in philosophy is one ’ s
ability to grasp the force and point of the “ Euthyphro Dilemma, ” a traditional
objection to theistic ethics traceable to an early Socratic dialogue.
The dilemma has long been thought to be an effective refutation of the
effort to locate the authority of morality in the will or commands of God
(or the gods). In the original context, the dilemma referred to the Greek
pantheon of gods and what they loved and hated, whereas in more recent
times the formulation is typically in terms of God and God ’ s commands.
The point of the dilemma is that God, even if God exists, does not function
as the foundation of ethics. At most, God satisfi es a prudential or epistemic
function when it comes to morality, but not an ontological one, if the argument
goes through.
About halfway into Plato ’ s Euthyphro , Socrates asks the young Euthyphro
a question that has come to be known as the “ Euthyphro Dilemma. ”
Expressed in contemporary and monotheistic terms, it can be put like this:
Plato . The Collected Dialogues of Plato , edited by Edith Hamilton and
Huntington Cairns . Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press , 1961 .
Adams , Robert . Finite and Infi nite Goods: A Framework for Ethics . Oxford :
Oxford University Press , 2000 .
Baggett , David , and Jerry L. Walls . Good God: The Theistic Foundations of
Morality . New York : Oxford University Press , 2011 .
Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy,
First Edition. Edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone.
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
50 David Baggett
Does God command something because it is moral, or is something moral
because God commands it? In the original context, Euthyphro, a fi rm
believer in the Greek pantheon of gods, argues that the essence of holiness
is what the gods love. After Socrates elicits from Euthyphro the admission
that the gods, according to legend, could disagree, Euthyphro ’ s view became
that the holy is what all the gods loved and the unholy what all the gods
hated. At this point, Socrates shifts gears and introduces the Dilemma, both
horns of which are problematic for the theistic ethicist: for either God is
merely reporting what ’ s moral apart from God or God can render as moral
whatever God ’ s whim happens to choose.
Many classical theists fi nd both horns of the dilemma unacceptable,
because as moral realists they are unwilling to think of morality as infi nitely
malleable, and as robust supernaturalists they resist the notion that God is
essentially irrelevant to a matter so important as moral truth. One common
effort at the solution is to disambiguate “ morality ” between its deontic and
axiological dimensions, distinguishing between obligation and value, and
rooting God ’ s commands only in the former. God ’ s commands thus provide
a way to delimit among what ’ s good what ’ s also obligatory, since some
such mechanism is necessary because not everything that ’ s morally good is
also morally obligatory (otherwise there would no room for the category
of supererogation, moral actions that go above and beyond the call of
duty, a category that act utilitarians have a notoriously hard time
accommodating).
A principled affi rmation of divine impeccability (sinlessness) helps resolve
arbitrariness and vacuity concerns, because if God is essentially good and
loving, then God would never issue commands in irremediable tension with
nonnegotiable moral intuitions.
A series of six additional distinctions can also be useful in diffusing the
Euthyphro Dilemma. A scope distinction between defi nition and analysis,
a semantic distinction between univocation and equivocation, a modal
distinction between conceivability and possibility, an epistemic distinction
between diffi culty and impossibility, a metaethical distinction between
knowing and being, and an ontological distinction between dependence and
control collectively can enable the theistic ethicist to defend her view against
the Euthyphro Dilemma. Therefore, God ’ s commands can provide the right
analysis of moral obligations even if not a defi nition of “ moral obligation, ”