In: Psychology
In lecture, we examined Plato's Euthyphro in which Socrates asks (roughly): "Are actions right because the gods command them or do the gods command them because they are right?" 1. What is one problem for each of the two positions contained in the above question? 2. Further, what is problematic about saying, “God wouldn’t command torture because God only commands good things”?
Plato’s Euthyphro is one classical example of his argumentative skill and his ethical stand. The position that Gods accept an action because it is right or the action becomes right just because Gods propose it. If we say that whatever Gods propose is good, then there are plenty of Gods and which God is right? Most of the wars were fought because Gods didn’t have any agreement on many actions. If we say that Gods accept actions because they are right, then whose action is right? Gods should take anyone person’s actions as right if two people pray to the same God for the same reason.
The statement that “God wouldn’t command torture because God only commands good things” doesn’t make any sense because it’s against the fight of goodness against the evil and it’s against the legal set-up for fighting the evil. So, whatever Gods like may not suit the humans after all thus making them only creations of men who never exist in reality.