As Socrates was awaiting trial at the law courts in ancient Athens, he happened to meet a young man named Euthyphro who was prosecuting his own father for what he claimed was murder. Socrates was astonished at Euthyphro’s confidence in his own sense of what is just and right, but Euthyphro assured him that he was “far advanced” in wisdom and clearly knew what was holy or good. Socrates, always eager to learn something new, asked Euthyphro to teach him exactly what it is that makes an activity ‘good’.

As Socrates continued to ask for more clarification on Euthyphro’s answers, Euthyphro found himself facing a dilemma:

Is an activity morally good because the gods like it, or do the gods like it because it is morally good? If moral goodness depends upon what the gods like, they disagree among themselves about what they like. On the other hand, if they like it because it is morally good, then there must be something higher than the gods that defines what is right or just. So what is that higher thing that defines moral goodness?

Is an activity morally good because the gods like it, or do the gods like it because it is morally good?

Euthyphro’s Dilemma, as it is referred to today, poses a similar problem for the morality of our own culture, which believes that it is humanity who decides what is right and wrong. Just like the mythical Greek gods, however, people and societies disagree among themselves as to what is morally right. In the midst of all these different ideas, some cultures are thought to be morally better than others. But the moment we say someone’s moral ideas are better than someone else’s, we implicitly concede that there is an even higher standard of morality that transcends humanity, to which one society’s moral ideas conform more closely than the other’s.

When calculating a sum, there is the perfect or correct answer, and then there are all the other answers and estimates, some closer to the correct answer than others. Just as we cannot speak of arithmetic answers being closer to being correct than other answers without implying there is a correct answer to measure up to, so we cannot speak of some moral ideas being better than others without a perfect moral standard to compare it to. This perfect moral standard is what philosopher Alvin Plantinga describes as maximal excellence - that degree of excellence beyond which it is not logically possible to be more excellent.

Just as we cannot speak of arithmetic answers being closer to being correct than other answers without implying there is a correct answer to measure up to, so we cannot speak of some moral ideas being better than others without a perfect moral standard to compare it to.

Necessarily, a maximally excellent being does not dispute within Himself about what is morally right for humanity, so one horn of Euthyphro’s dilemma vanishes. As for the other horn, if there were two perfect beings where one of them adhered perfectly to some external standard of perfection but the other was perfect without even having to refer to some standard of perfection, the latter would be more excellent than the former. It follows from this, therefore, that a maximally excellent being does not need to refer to something higher to determine what is morally right. A maximally excellent being is perfection personified, rendering any other external standard of perfection redundant.

Moral goodness defined:

If maximal excellence is an attribute of God, then the following definition of moral goodness is a solution to Euthyphro’s Dilemma:

Since God is maximally excellent, an activity is good if, and only if, it corresponds to the way God is.

Further Reading:

1. ‘Euthyphro’, Plato.

2. Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil.