PHL105Y5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Whopper
Document Summary
Euthyphro wants to bring murder charges against his father (because he let a criminal die) If euthyphro is confident that he can make such a prosecution, he must be perfectly informed of the nature of piety and impiety (holy and unholy) Euthyphro believes in the theory of divine command. The belief that what is moral, and what is immoral (what is right and wrong), is commanded by the divine. Comes from the thinking that in order for morality to be binding by all, it must come from god. Socrates counters this belief and proposes two questions, bringing up a whopper of a dilemma. If god determines the rightness and wrongness of everything just by saying so, the the entire concept of goodness and value becomes inane. In other words, god commands what he feels like commanding. This implies that value does not stem from god, instead, someone or something else has created it, and god just uses it.
