Euthyphro Dilemma

Question 1

Who wrote ‘Euthyphro’?

Answer 1

Plato

Question 2

What are the circumstances in the problem?

Answer 2

A man called Euthyphro takes his father to court after his lack of attention kills one of his workers. Socrates is also waiting for a trial, and asks the now famous philosophical question of “is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”

Question 3

What did the Euthyphro dilemma introduce?

Answer 3

The two horns of morality

Question 4

What is the sentence that sums up the First Horn?

Answer 4

“X is right because God commands it”

Question 5

What is the sentence that sums up the Second Horn?

Answer 5

“God commands X because it is right”

Question 6

Explain 2 issues associated with Horn 1.

Answer 6

• Morality being based on God’s will and command means that it becomes arbitrary for humans, it could change at any time.
• Morality is devalued, if things are right and wrong simply because God says so, then our traditions of holding ‘good’ so high and ‘bad’ so low seems foolish.

Question 7

Explain 2 issues associated with Horn 2.

Answer 7

• God cannot be omnipotent, as if He commands based on previously established ideas of good and bad then this implies there is a scale of morality that exists independent to God.
• God becomes ‘messenger’, arguable devalues the entirety of Christianity.

Question 8

Explain a positive of Horn 1.

Answer 8

God’s omnipotence remains, therefore backs up Christian idea of God.

Question 9

Explain a positive of Horn 2.

Answer 9

Morality remains absolute and objective, meaning it cannot and will not change.