QuestionsWhat makes something right?The Euthyphro dilemma
What makes something right?Nature or conscience

The Euthyphro dilemma

Plato c. 428 BC · c. 348 BCBeyond appearances, the eternal Forms.
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What it claims

Being pious and being god-loved are different things: the gods' love is not the definition of goodness.

Why

The gods love the pious because it is pious; if their love made it so, the reasoning would go in a circle.

In short

"The Euthyphro dilemma" is an argument by Plato (Euthyphro, 10a-11a) on the question "What makes something right?" (answer: nature or conscience). Its claim: Being pious and being god-loved are different things: the gods' love is not the definition of goodness. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 3 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 0 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Euthyphro, 10a-11a
Valid

Euthyphro defines the pious as "what the gods love". Socrates asks him a question that still runs through every debate on religion and morality.

P1The gods love the pious because it is pious (Euthyphro grants this).
P2What is "god-loved" is so because the gods love it: their love makes it so.
P3If "pious" and "god-loved" were the same thing, the pious would be pious because the gods love it, contradicting P1.
Therefore being pious and being god-loved are different things: the gods' love is not the definition of goodness.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
The argument is valid: P1 and P3 suffice, P2 explains why P3 holds. To escape it, one must reject P1 (good would be good because God wills it) or find a third way.
Analogy. A teacher gives an essay full marks. Is it excellent because he gave it full marks, or did he give full marks because it is excellent? If the latter, excellence exists independently of the mark.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

D
Divine command theory (Ockham) 1320 · attacks premise 1

One can accept the other horn: good is good because God wills it. There is no standard above the divine will.

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in 1320, after the author's death (-348).
Contemporary theists (Robert Adams, William Alston) 1979 · attacks premise 3

The dilemma is false: goodness is neither above God nor arbitrary, it is God's very nature. God commands the good because he is essentially good.

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in 1979, after the author's death (-348).
What today's voices say
Defend it
Alex O'ConnorHe uses the dilemma: if God forbids rape because it is wrong in itself, then the wrongness does not come from God.
Peter SingerHe uses it to answer the claim that goodness means what God wills.
Daniel DennettOn the Euthyphro question he says no one's approval, God's included, makes something good: reasons must be given in public.
Matt DillahuntyHe uses the Euthyphro dilemma against divine command theory: is something good because God says so, or does God say it because it is good?
Criticize it
William Lane CraigHe calls the Euthyphro dilemma a false dilemma: God's own nature grounds goodness, so his commands are neither arbitrary nor above him.