Robotic Euthyphro
March 5, 2010
Just in time for my unit on Socrates, Robologues do Socrates’ dialog with Euthyphro:
(HT: Abnormal Interests)
2 Comments
Comments are closed.
The musings and wanderings of an academician.
-
Legal Stuff
- Views expressed by Jim Getz are his and his alone.
- Views expressed in comments are solely those of the commenter and do not necessarily represent those of Jim Getz.
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Author
Feed Me
Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr. 
interesting vid… i believe or have a theory. one is made pius by the image of his own heart.
and no one can judge what is or isnt but He who understands all hearts not us.
For all have different opinions on what is (moral or sane) but God weighs why and justifies through one’s heart, reasons and motives.amen.
Ben,
Thanks for commenting. That’s a good starting point, but Socrates still wouldn’t let it go with that. The issue then becomes how does God weigh one’s heart as pious?
The use of the term “weigh” seems to indicate an objective measurement outside of God. If that’s, if there is a measurement outside of God, then God’s sovereignty is at stake. God is limited in some way and not truly the all mighty Almighty.
However, if you go the other way and say that one’s heart is declared pious simply on the basis of God’s decision (because God commands it so), another set of problems crop up. Suddenly, you have a God that is capricious, and all God’s laws are ultimately arbitrary. This means that ultimately morality is irrational. There’s no rhyme or reason as to what is right or wrong, it is merely based on the whims of the Almighty.
Both sides have problems. Either God seems to be something less than God, or the world seems to lose all reason. This is typically referred to as the Euthyphro dilemma. It’s a Catch-22 situation that really expresses the paradox of faith on a fundamental level.