Phil 170 - Soctrates

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Both arguments are not valid by themselves but together they can become a bit stronger. God came first before morality, therefore He created morality. He also created free will, to let us decide on our own what is right. In a way God created the guidelines for what actions are considered pious, then gave us the power to think for ourselves to decide what actions can be pious. The same ideas can be used for the gods, the gods created the guidelines for it but it depends on how you see the actions to be considered pious. It was first independent from the gods then became dependent. Obviously, this idea is better seen when only talking about one God and not multiple. This argument still has its flaws like the others, just not as many. For example, multiple gods mean multiple attitudes towards a certain situation. Also, this can imply that the higher powers are not the source of morality. Technically it no longer is when it becomes dependent, it becomes our own morality system based on the one given by that higher power.

Conclusion

In this paper I have shown that neither independent morality or dependent morality is better, rather that together they hold a more valid argument. For reasons that if something is subjective it is dependent on the emotion of that higher power which is not reliant at all. If it is objective then that implies that morality can be randomly placed and also that morality comes from an even higher power than the one in question. If it is both, first subjective then objective it makes better sense. It is subjective because it gives us a guideline of how to live righteously and then becomes objective where it give us the power to decide on our own and not rely on a higher powers emotional state, rather we rely on the guidelines set for us and ourselves.

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Work Citied

Plato, The Trail and Death of Socrates: Euthyphro. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2000.

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