[Vision2020] Re: More Qualified Writer

[josephc at mail.wsu.edu]

Thank you for clarifying your remarks, Doug. Thanks to Wayne, Saundra, and
Scott also for tying to set Doug straight. Let me give it a try.

You say, Doug, that I am guilty of a false dilemma but you are wrong about
this. For one thing, you have confused my claim with Socrates’s dilemma,
phrased above as a question by Wayne (as it was originally phrased in
Plato’s Euthyphro): “Is something good purely because God says so or does
God say so because it is good”?

As you and Wayne both note, my claim is based on this dilemma but my claim
is not a dilemma, it is a conditional statement: If one accepts that the
Divine Command Theory (DCT) is true, then one is a relativist, for in that
case "goodness is an arbitrary judgment of God," as Wayne notes. This is
putting forth only one horn of the dilemma, so to speak.

Furthermore, Doug, you are simply wrong when you suggest that your essay,
"Euthyphro Droning," shows that Socrates’s dilemma is a “false dilemma.”
Your essay is not an endorsement of DCT. It is an endorsement of a
related, though quite different, view. You write: "Instead of speaking
about God's will determining morality, we would be more correct to say
that God's own (not independent) unchanging (not arbitrary) nature
determines the standards of good and evil." You admit that DCT is wrong.
It is neither God’s word or God’s will alone that determines morality, on
your view, but God’s nature. This is a clear rejection of one horn of
Socrates’s dilemma, the one that both he and I reject. Alone it does not
prove that Socrates’s dilemma is false, since the view is consistent with
the other horn of Socrates’s dilemma.

Lastly, the move to the God’s nature view of morality (GN) that you
endorse is problematic for a few reasons. First, the very same move is
open to other ethical theorists (something you even seem to acknowledge at
the end of your essay). Hume, for instance, can say that the unchanging,
non-arbitrary sentiment of human beings determines the standards of good
and evil. If this move is less attractive than your own, I’d like to know
why.

Second, DCT has a nice view about the truth-makers of moral claims that
your theory clearly lacks. What, for example, makes it the case that
masturbation is wrong? DCT has an easy answer: It is so written! Hume has
an easy answer, too: Masturbation is not wrong, for it is not found to be
distasteful by all human beings. According to GN, the wrongness of
masturbation somehow manifests itself in God’s nature. How is this so?

Third, GN seems to strip scripture of its moral authority. It is no longer
enough to show that it is so written in order to prove that something is
wrong. A further step is required. One must now show the connection
between the claim of wrongness and the nature of God. Good luck with this
endeavor!