Re: Divine command and moral value in Judaism


"D.M. Procida" <real-not-anti-spam-address@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message
news:1hvqznp.958ef5v2xobfN%real-not-anti-spam-address@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Micha Berger <micha@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I get out of the dilemma by offering a third alternative in
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/05/hashem-and-morality.shtml>.

Interesting - though I'm not sure your "third way" is possible, if it
can be stopped from collapsing back to the "it is pious because the gods
love it" fork.

That's pretty much my take on Micha's article too. Much of Micha's
argument seems to hinge on the thesis that God's creation of
morality does not make it arbritrary and so this is said to provide
a third alternative to the two that were discussed by Plato.
But that IMO in no way upends the Euthyprho Dilemma.
The gods might have their reasons for loving what they love
but their reasons are not necessarily our reasons (and vice
versa). If we choose to accept their commands as being
morally binding on us that's because we have made
a determination that those commands (and the reasons
behind them) are good. As I said before, moral standards can never
be justified merely by an appeal to authority, whether human or divine.
Any morality based on authority tacitly presupposes that
the authority in question is good and that his/her commands are right.
Such a presupposition cannot be simply the tautology that what he/she
commands
is what he/she commands.



By the way, Euthyprho is not a young student of Socrates (Plato would
have been nicer to him if he were, and he makes him really pompous and
slow on the uptake) - he's a self-styled legal expert, who's full of his
own moral and legal righteousness.

Daniele


.

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