Euthyphro Once More.

[Phillysoul11]

Hey guys,
I wrote this piece a little while back and stumbled across it again today. I know Euthyphro's Dilemma has been discussed before and has led to some heated discussions but I was hoping for some civilized feedback which (among other reasons) is why i'm at the "Happy" Atheist Forum. I will warn you now that the grammar may be (seriously) flawed, but for the sake of discussion I would appreciate it if you guys evaluated the argument based upon its strength or lack thereof. It's nowhere near where it needs to be which is why I was hoping you guys could help point out the flaws, weaknesses, and any other errors present. I will do my best to respond timely to the feedback.

I appreciate all the help I've received in the formulation of the argument in the past. Discussing meta-ethics makes me very happy.

Thanks very much.

------------------------

One objection that has been raised regarding a theistic view of morality as absolute and objective is that of Euthyphro’s Dilemma. The dilemma was posed by the philosopher Socrates to a religious scholar named Euthyphro, since then it has been reformulated for a monotheistic God. The dilemma simply poses the question: Does God will certain acts because they are moral, or are certain acts moral because they are willed by God?” In this article I will argue a solution that seems not only possible, but necessary given the theists definition of God.
The theist has been trapped into a corner with two seemingly impossible solutions. The first horn asserts that God merely recognizes morality. The obvious problem with arguing for this option is that there is some standard that is above God, a standard which God must conform to. If God is moral in the sense that he fits the mold of an external moral law morality is independent of God, which is exactly the opposite of what the theist is attempting to prove. The second horn poses a different problem, for if morality is whatever God decides, than morality is arbitrary. God might have decided that rape and murder were moral actions. As Bertrand Russell once said, “If the only basis for morality is God’s decrees, it follows that they might just as well have been the opposite of what they are” (pg. 48). If morality is whatever God decides it to be, morality loses all authority and becomes subjective which is precisely what the theist is trying to argue against.
For a solution to be viable for the theist it must meet two requirements. First the alleged solution must make morality objective. And second the alleged solution must make God the foundation for this objective morality. My proposed argument goes as follows:

P1: It is greater to be the standard of morality than to conform to it
P2: If God is the greatest conceivable being then he must be the standard of morality.
P3: If God is the standard of morality His nature is necessarily morally perfect.
C: Therefore since His nature is necessarily perfect, God can serve as a foundation for objective moral truths.

P2 must be accepted by the one posing the dilemma as discussion can only occur when the poser evaluates a certain view of God and His relation to morality. The burden of proof is on the one posing the dilemma to find a flaw in a proposed solution, as the dilemma is a positive assertion.
P1 is philosophically solid as it is a greater thing to be the paradigm of goodness than to conform to an external standard, for if one conforms to an external standard that one is subject to a thing greater than itself. Since P2 defines God as the greatest conceivable being, by the theist’s own definition this God is necessarily the standard of morality. Since he is the standard of morality there is no other standard by which he can be judged making his nature necessarily morally perfect. The moral nature of God is an essential property of Gods meaning that there is no possible world in which God according to the theist’s definition could have existed and yet lacked that property. This must not be confused with accepting the second horn of the dilemma, for if God was not necessarily morally perfect then morality is subjective. Since God is necessarily morally perfect according to the theist’s definition the theist sees no problem is claiming that this deity can serve as a foundation for objective values. God is moral neither because of the way He happens to be nor because of His fitness with reference to an external standard of morality, His moral nature is an essential quality of His which if existing according to the theistic definition must make him the moral standard.
The solution proposed is not without its objections. One common objection is that if goodness is what God must be, why call bother calling Him good? Calling God good is merely saying that God is consistent with his nature. Regardless of its truth, this argument is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, for to argue this would be to confuse moral ontology with moral semantics. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig states that “The claim that moral values and duties are rooted in God is a meta-ethical claim about moral ontology, not moral semantics […] It is fundamentally a claim about the metaphysical status of moral properties, not a claim about the meaning of moral sentences” (pg. 212). In addition most theists see no problem in accepting that goodness and morality are merely words used to describe God.
Another objection might be that the theist is begging the question when he or she assumes P2. Since God’s perfect goodness is part of his greatness, the theist is assuming that God is the standard for objective morality before the argument is made. It must be reiterated that all the theist is attempting to accomplish is show a possible state in which God can serve as a possible standard for objective moral truths. All the theist must do to solve the dilemma is to offer a view of God who is the perfect standard of absolute morality by virtue of His existence. If any being is perfect by definition, then if that being exists it has the power to be a standard by which others can be measured to. The theist can simply say that they believe God to be necessarily perfect in every regard, which would render the dilemma useless against this particular definition of God. God, described as the greatest conceivable being, if existing is the standard for objective morality by very definition. The solution is not stating that God is the objective moral standard because theists believe God to be the objective moral standard, for this would be tautology and circular reasoning. Rather, the argument is that God can be the standard for objective morality because of Gods necessary moral perfection.
While this dilemma posed a formidable problem for the polytheist who like Euthyphro believed the gods to be a group of limited individuals, the modern day monotheist can avoid this dilemma by using the modern day concept of God as a maximally great being. To answer the dilemma the theist can offer a third solution rendering it a false dilemma, and state that acts are deemed either moral or immoral based upon their conformity or lack thereof to Gods moral nature, which is essential to His being.

Craig, L William “Philosophy of Religion”
Rutgers University Press (2002)

Russell, Bertrand “Why I am not a Christian”
Taken from a lecture given on March 6, 1927 to the National Secular Society.

[SSY]

For me, the premise about god being the greatest conceivable being is a warning flag. It seems like whenever an argument contains this clause, it is used to break the rules. However, in this case, I think the problems lie elsewhere.

I think the argument could be boiled down to,

God sets the morals
God is perfect
Therefore, the morals god sets are perfect

Does this not simply force god to comply to another external standard? Namely perfection. At best you could argue he also sets what perfection is judged to be, but this seems to make the argument circular (god is morally perfect, so the morals he sets are perfect)? Surely to judge god as perfect, we need to agree what perfect is, other than being like god?

Straying outside the argument though, it becomes readily apparent that god is in fact, not a very moral chap. All the killings, the hate, insane laws that change when he feels like it, presence of lots of suffering to name but a few. When taking these into account, even the most nimble of mental gymnasts would have trouble with seeing him as moral.

[Phillysoul11]

For me, the premise about god being the greatest conceivable being is a warning flag. It seems like whenever an argument contains this clause, it is used to break the rules. However, in this case, I think the problems lie elsewhere.

Just for clarification are you saying this is a flaw in the argument? I tried to explain why I don't think it is but if that wasn't clear I would really like to know. You mentioned that the problems lie elsewhere so I'm going to skip this one for now. Let me know if you think it should be addressed in more detail.

I think the argument could be boiled down to,
God sets the morals
God is perfect
Therefore, the morals god sets are perfect

Does this not simply force god to comply to another external standard? Namely perfection. At best you could argue he also sets what perfection is judged to be, but this seems to make the argument circular (god is morally perfect, so the morals he sets are perfect)? Surely to judge god as perfect, we need to agree what perfect is, other than being like god?

I hope i'm not missing the mark when I try to answer this, but I think I understand what you are arguing. In my third premise I claimed that "If God is the standard of morality His nature is necessarily morally perfect." This almost goes without saying. It would be impossible for God to be the standard of morality and then (according to that standard) not be perfect. I think that what you are arguing is that if this is the case how then can we deem God perfect unless we have a standard that is not God. If I am correct you are claiming that all this proves is that God is God. I hate to do this but i'm going to quote a section of the article which I think addresses this.

One common objection is that if goodness is what God must be, why call bother calling Him good? Calling God good is merely saying that God is consistent with his nature. Regardless of its truth, this argument is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, for to argue this would be to confuse moral ontology with moral semantics. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig states that “The claim that moral values and duties are rooted in God is a meta-ethical claim about moral ontology, not moral semantics […] It is fundamentally a claim about the metaphysical status of moral properties, not a claim about the meaning of moral sentences” (pg. 212).  Most theists (including myself) see no problem in accepting that goodness (perfection) and morality are merely words used to describe God.

If I am correct you had the same objection. If not, please clarify.

Straying outside the argument though, it becomes readily apparent that god is in fact, not a very moral chap. All the killings, the hate, insane laws that change when he feels like it, presence of lots of suffering to name but a few. When taking these into account, even the most nimble of mental gymnasts would have trouble with seeing him as moral.

You are quite right that this has nothing to do with the argument, I am curious however as to whose standard of morality you are deeming God (if existing) immoral. Yours, Gandhi's, Hitlers? What weight does it carry?

Regardless, I appreciate your response.

[SSY]

For me, the premise about god being the greatest conceivable being is a warning flag. It seems like whenever an argument contains this clause, it is used to break the rules. However, in this case, I think the problems lie elsewhere.

Just for clarification are you saying this is a flaw in the argument? I tried to explain why I don't think it is but if that wasn't clear I would really like to know. You mentioned that the problems lie elsewhere so I'm going to skip this one for now. Let me know if you think it should be addressed in more detail.

You're right, but it is a point that often niggles me, and I thought it worthy of comment

I think the argument could be boiled down to,
God sets the morals
God is perfect
Therefore, the morals god sets are perfect

Does this not simply force god to comply to another external standard? Namely perfection. At best you could argue he also sets what perfection is judged to be, but this seems to make the argument circular (god is morally perfect, so the morals he sets are perfect)? Surely to judge god as perfect, we need to agree what perfect is, other than being like god?

I hope i'm not missing the mark when I try to answer this, but I think I understand what you are arguing. In my third premise I claimed that "If God is the standard of morality His nature is necessarily morally perfect." This almost goes without saying. It would be impossible for God to be the standard of morality and then (according to that standard) not be perfect. I think that what you are arguing is that if this is the case how then can we deem God perfect unless we have a standard that is not God. If I am correct you are claiming that all this proves is that God is God. I hate to do this but i'm going to quote a section of the article which I think addresses this.

One common objection is that if goodness is what God must be, why call bother calling Him good? Calling God good is merely saying that God is consistent with his nature. Regardless of its truth, this argument is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, for to argue this would be to confuse moral ontology with moral semantics. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig states that “The claim that moral values and duties are rooted in God is a meta-ethical claim about moral ontology, not moral semantics […] It is fundamentally a claim about the metaphysical status of moral properties, not a claim about the meaning of moral sentences” (pg. 212).  Most theists (including myself) see no problem in accepting that goodness (perfection) and morality are merely words used to describe God.

If I am correct you had the same objection. If not, please clarify.
I realise we are going along the same lines here, albeit in different directions. I find WLC's defence to be unsatisfactory. He claims you can separate the origin of morals (ontology) from their meaning (semantics), in this case, I don't think you can. He tries to neatly side step the question of whether these morals are worth a damn, but I am not willing to let it go that easily. I think the circularity of the argument renders the morals meaningless, and therefore, they cannot be said to exist in any way more meaningful than any other set of morals.

Straying outside the argument though, it becomes readily apparent that god is in fact, not a very moral chap. All the killings, the hate, insane laws that change when he feels like it, presence of lots of suffering to name but a few. When taking these into account, even the most nimble of mental gymnasts would have trouble with seeing him as moral.

You are quite right that this has nothing to do with the argument, I am curious however as to whose standard of morality you are deeming God (if existing) immoral. Yours, Gandhi's, Hitlers? What weight does it carry?His own

Regardless, I appreciate your response.

I would be interested in hearing your own response to WLC's argument argument, it is obvious you have given it some thought.

[Jolly Sapper]

I don't see that this argument is new.  The logic seems to be circular, "objective morals must come from God, God by necessity must be morally perfect, therefore objective morals come from God, etc."  This has already been mentioned before in this thread, as has the subjectivity of the words "perfect" and "greatest."

So we are left with trying looking to the only sources of information independent of God, the imperfect religious texts.  Which leads us down the spiral of doubt as the veracity of each of those texts as factual and not allegorical or political or deliberate fiction are in question.  Even if we are to assume that any one particular text was an article of fact, unbiased and accurate, as a source of what God did, does, thinks, and behaves we are left with a set of morals that most of humanity seems to be at odds with.

Example:
Old Testament God didn't have a problem with mobs killing people based on accusations, slavery, and possibly genocide.  Assuming God is a morally perfect being and the template from which we should all base our own morality we would be lead by God's example to run around in vigilante mobs, still be owning other people as property, and be gearing up to commit or defend ourselves from the genocidal acts of our neighbors.

The big problem as I see it:
While your logic probably is fine for the theist/believer this does nothing for the atheist.  The entire logical device you spelled out in your original post assumes the existence of at least one God and assumes that this God is accurately described in at least one known religious text somewhere on the planet by at least one human being.

EDIT:
A question, assuming that God exists:
If God can choose at all, [strike:3np0w6ht]then even the example set by God of what is moral is subjective.[/strike:3np0w6ht] and we are supposed to view God as the template to follow, then the definition of moral objectivity becomes subjective to the will of God.

The only way to make the claim that God sets the objective example of morality is to deny God the ability to make a decision.  God is supposed to be omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient correct?  But would not denying God the power to choose invalidate the three "omni's?"

[Phillysoul11]

I realise we are going along the same lines here, albeit in different directions. I find WLC's defence to be unsatisfactory. He claims you can separate the origin of morals (ontology) from their meaning (semantics), in this case, I don't think you can. He tries to neatly side step the question of whether these morals are worth a damn, but I am not willing to let it go that easily. I think the circularity of the argument renders the morals meaningless, and therefore, they cannot be said to exist in any way more meaningful than any other set of morals.

The question of whether or not God can be the source for objective moral values is an ontological question. This is all the ED is trying to show impossible. All my argument is trying to do is show that objective moral values can exist and that God can be the source for this morality. You claimed that in this case you cannot separate the origin of morals from their meaning. You didn't really say why so i'm curious if you could elaborate. I think the Euthyphro Dilemma is clearly an ontological question. I don't see how moral linguistics are relevant to the argument. to quote WLC again "Our concern is with moral ontology, that is to say, the foundation in reality of moral values. Our concern is not with moral semantics, that is to say, the meaning of moral terms. The theist is quite ready to say that we have a clear understanding of moral vocabulary like “good,” “evil,” right,” and so on, without reference to God."
You mentioned that he sidesteps the question; again, I would appreciate it if you elaborated.

Pointing back to my argument which abbreviated goes something like this:
P1) The theists definition of God is the greatest conceivable being
P2) It is greater to the the paradigm of morality than to conform to to an external standard.
P3) Since God is the standard of morality His nature is necessarily morally perfect.
P4) Since God's nature is necessarily morally perfect He can serve as a foundation for objective moral values.

I agree that if the acceptance of P1 was optional then the argument would be circular. Since it isn't optional I don't think the argument is. I would like to know what you think is circular. For me it seems as though anyone who holds to a definition of God as the greatest perceivable being escapes the dilemma. That's all the argument is trying to do - help us escape the dilemma.

You are quite right that this has nothing to do with the argument, I am curious however as to whose standard of morality you are deeming God (if existing) immoral. Yours, Gandhi's, Hitlers? What weight does it carry? His own

If God is the standard of morality than any action preformed by Him must be moral, regardless of whether or not you or I see it that way.  Now I guess for this to mean anything I'm going to need you to agree with me that "God (if existing) is by necessity the standard of morality". Since I don't think you do agree with that statement arguing about this seems irrelevant until the Dilemma is done away with.

I would be interested in hearing your own response to WLC's argument argument, it is obvious you have given it some thought.

The original problem I had with his argument was (I think) similar to yours. God is perfect, according to God standards ect. When we say that God is good we are merely saying that God is God. I don't think this is a problem though which is why I wrote the response in the article. The ontological question seems to have been answered. Calling God good is merely stating that God is consistent with His nature, which is what most theists believe anyways. I'm going off on tangents now -- I better stop.

On to the next.

I don't see that this argument is new. The logic seems to be circular, "objective morals must come from God, God by necessity must be morally perfect, therefore objective morals come from God, etc." This has already been mentioned before in this thread, as has the subjectivity of the words "perfect" and "greatest."

So we are left with trying looking to the only sources of information independent of God, the imperfect religious texts. Which leads us down the spiral of doubt as the veracity of each of those texts as factual and not allegorical or political or deliberate fiction are in question. Even if we are to assume that any one particular text was an article of fact, unbiased and accurate, as a source of what God did, does, thinks, and behaves we are left with a set of morals that most of humanity seems to be at odds with.

Example:
Old Testament God didn't have a problem with mobs killing people based on accusations, slavery, and possibly genocide. Assuming God is a morally perfect being and the template from which we should all base our own morality we would be lead by God's example to run around in vigilante mobs, still be owning other people as property, and be gearing up to commit or defend ourselves from the genocidal acts of our neighbors.

The big problem as I see it:
While your logic probably is fine for the theist/believer this does nothing for the atheist. The entire logical device you spelled out in your original post assumes the existence of at least one God and assumes that this God is accurately described in at least one known religious text somewhere on the planet by at least one human being.

EDIT:
A question, assuming that God exists:
If God can choose at all, then even the example set by God of what is moral is subjective. and we are supposed to view God as the template to follow, then the definition of moral objectivity becomes subjective to the will of God.

The only way to make the claim that God sets the objective example of morality is to deny God the ability to make a decision. God is supposed to be omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient correct? But would not denying God the power to choose invalidate the three "omni's?"

For starters let me address the "big problem". Euthyphro's Dilemma is merely offering a description of God which positions Him as the standard of objective moral truths. It is not an attempt to prove God's existence which is why it is not a problem to assume the existence of a God. I'm not sure where you think I assume God is accurately described in at least one known religious text. This argument would similarly apply to a God who did not reveal himself to humanity. The argument has as far as I can tell nothing to do with God's revelation.

As for your question, I think you have a skewed view of the omni God. Most theists agree that there are things that God cannot do. For instance God cannot act in contradiction to His nature. The bible even states that god cannot do certain things like deny himself or lie Hebrews 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:13 for doing this would be a contradiction to His nature. It seems to me you are throwing out the "Can god create a rock so heavy he couldn't lift it" question which seems to have been already dealt with. If you would like a further explanation just let me know or you could probably google it.

There were a lot of points you made in your post and i'm sure I didn't answer them all -- just the ones I thought were most important. Let me know if there is something else you think warrants a response.

Thanks for all of the replies. I appreciate them.
Again, please forgive spelling and grammatical errors.

[SSY]

Here is why I think the argument is circular

God is perfect, he has morals, his morals are therefore, perfect.

How do you define perfect? Perfect=being like god, now lets see what happens when we substitute.

God is "like god", he has morals, his morals are therefore, "like god". That right there is circular.If you try and define perfection in any other way, you have god complying to an external standard. It has also struck me how lucky I was to start my first post with the bit about god breaking rules, this is a classic case. Once he is defined as the greatest conceivable being, people then try and claim he can set the standard, and still have the standard be objective. If the standard is based on any person, any mind, it cannot be objective, it is a case of using the whole "Greatest conceivable" thing to break the rules.


When I say god fails his own standard of morality, I was working on the implicit assumption that saying "Do not kill", and then killing people, is an infraction of the moral code. If we simply go along with "whatever god does is moral", then yea, sure, but you then define morality as the things god does, so we end up with "Whatever god does, is what god does"

[Jolly Sapper]

For starters let me address the "big problem". Euthyphro's Dilemma is merely offering a description of God which positions Him as the standard of objective moral truths.

  Okay...

It is not an attempt to prove God's existence which is why it is not a problem to assume the existence of a God. I'm not sure where you think I assume God is accurately described in at least one known religious text. This argument would similarly apply to a God who did not reveal himself to humanity.

If nobody knows what the objective moral is, what's the point?

[Ihateusernames]

It is not an attempt to prove God's existence which is why it is not a problem to assume the existence of a God. I'm not sure where you think I assume God is accurately described in at least one known religious text. This argument would similarly apply to a God who did not reveal himself to humanity.

If nobody knows what the objective moral is, what's the point?

The point would be that if objective morality exists it enables us to not slip into the disparaging concepts of ethical nihilism.  If there is objective morality, then there is the possibility that we can someday know what it is and expect everyone to follow it.

I'd ask the opposite question, honestly.  If there is no objective morality, are you really willing to say things so horrible as murder and rape are not "bad" or "wrong" but just 'distasteful to me'?   If someone killed someone special to you but didn't leave any evidence and got of scotch free, I doubt you'd say "dang, well they didn't really do anything 'wrong'... they just did something 'different'"

[AlP]

I'd ask the opposite question, honestly.  If there is no objective morality, are you really willing to say things so horrible as murder and rape are not "bad" or "wrong" but just 'distasteful to me'?   If someone killed someone special to you but didn't leave any evidence and got of scotch free, I doubt you'd say "dang, well they didn't really do anything 'wrong'... they just did something 'different'"

I've seen "objective morality" flying around in a few posts. I figured I'd pick on you because it's something you debate a lot. By "objective morality" do you mean "moral absolutism" or "moral universalism" or something else? Wikipedia suggests it means "moral universalism". Just checking .

[Phillysoul11]

Here is why I think the argument is circular

God is perfect, he has morals, his morals are therefore, perfect.

How do you define perfect? Perfect=being like god, now lets see what happens when we substitute.

God is "like god", he has morals, his morals are therefore, "like god". That right there is circular.If you try and define perfection in any other way, you have god complying to an external standard.

I'm pretty sure that I addressed a very similar problem in the original article

 

Another objection might be that the theist is begging the question when he or she assumes P2. Since God’s perfect goodness is part of his greatness, the theist is assuming that God is the standard for objective morality before the argument is made. It must be reiterated that all the theist is attempting to accomplish is show a possible state in which God can serve as a possible standard for objective moral truths. All the theist must do to solve the dilemma is to offer a view of God who is the perfect standard of absolute morality by virtue of His existence. If any being is perfect by definition, then if that being exists it has the power to be a standard by which others can be measured to. The theist can simply say that they believe God to be necessarily perfect in every regard, which would render the dilemma useless against this particular definition of God. God, described as the greatest conceivable being, if existing is the standard for objective morality by very definition. The solution is not stating that God is the objective moral standard because theists believe God to be the objective moral standard, for this would be tautology and circular reasoning. Rather, the argument is that God can be the standard for objective morality because of Gods necessary moral perfection.

If that didn't answer your question let me elaborate further by rephrasing/taking out certain aspects of the argument --
P1. If God is the greatest possible being
C. God can serve as a standard for objective moral truths.

Now it's more of a statement than anything else -- The other steps are meant to help as an explanation but I right now i'm thinking you could boil it down to that. The reason I didn't pose the argument is because the other steps help clarify.

Saying god is perfect is about as relevant as saying god is consistent with his nature. As I mentioned before, while this may be an interesting topic it is irrelevant to the dilemma. (ontology/semantics) My argument is not trying to prove that God is perfect --rather it is trying to prove that god can serve as the standard for objective moral truths which is (in this case) what the Euthyphro Dilemma is challenging.

It has also struck me how lucky I was to start my first post with the bit about god breaking rules, this is a classic case. Once he is defined as the greatest conceivable being, people then try and claim he can set the standard, and still have the standard be objective. If the standard is based on any person, any mind, it cannot be objective, it is a case of using the whole "Greatest conceivable" thing to break the rules.

You are correct in saying that if morality is mind dependent than it is not objective. This is why the term necessity is so important. If God is who He is not because of the way He chooses to be, nor the way he happens to be but rather the way (if existing) he must be by necessity than morality can very well be objective.
William Lane Craig clarifies what it means to say God has certain essential properties

To say that some property is essential to God is to say that there is no possible world in which God could have existed and lacked that property. God didn’t just happen by accident to be loving, kind, just, and so forth. He is that way essentially. - WLC

When I say god fails his own standard of morality, I was working on the implicit assumption that saying "Do not kill", and then killing people, is an infraction of the moral code. If we simply go along with "whatever god does is moral", then yea, sure, but you then define morality as the things god does, so we end up with "Whatever god does, is what god does

I'm guessing that you are saying God (or at least the God of the Bible) is inconsistent with his own set of morals you first must understand that this has nothing to do with the dilemma. To clarify I am assuming that you are referring to the Christian God of the bible. Specifically referring to the 6th commandment if i'm not mistaken. Having taken Hebrew myself I can confidentially say that murder, not killing is the correct term. If i'm remembering correctly only the KJV which has outdated English uses the word kill. All of the other translations as I recall use the word murder. I think the bible defines murder as an unjust killing. A fine but very important difference between a just killing.

Thanks again for the thought you are putting into this.

[Ihateusernames]

I'd ask the opposite question, honestly.  If there is no objective morality, are you really willing to say things so horrible as murder and rape are not "bad" or "wrong" but just 'distasteful to me'?   If someone killed someone special to you but didn't leave any evidence and got of scotch free, I doubt you'd say "dang, well they didn't really do anything 'wrong'... they just did something 'different'"

I've seen "objective morality" flying around in a few posts. I figured I'd pick on you because it's something you debate a lot. By "objective morality" do you mean "moral absolutism" or "moral universalism" or something else? Wikipedia suggests it means "moral universalism". Just checking

[SSY]

If that didn't answer your question let me elaborate further by rephrasing/taking out certain aspects of the argument --
P1. If God is the greatest possible being
C. God can serve as a standard for objective moral truths.
.

If you are trying to prove god can be a standard for absolute morals, by saying, god is perfect, so is the standard for absolute morals, then we are not really having much of an argument here. This is effectively the Christian saying "NO! He can so be the standard for objective morals!". The steps really don't clarify as I don't see the morals of a perfect being, as being the same as objective morals.

One thing that might be helpful, is to define perfection, this may help.

[Phillysoul11]

If that didn't answer your question let me elaborate further by rephrasing/taking out certain aspects of the argument --
P1. If God is the greatest possible being
C. God can serve as a standard for objective moral truths.
.

If you are trying to prove god can be a standard for absolute morals, by saying, god is perfect, so is the standard for absolute morals, then we are not really having much of an argument here. This is effectively the Christian saying "NO! He can so be the standard for objective morals!". The steps really don't clarify as I don't see the morals of a perfect being, as being the same as objective morals.

One thing that might be helpful, is to define perfection, this may help.

I guess I would define perfection as "without flaw". When I say God is perfect I am saying God is without flaw. If He could have flaw then He couldn't be God because their would have to be a standard to which He conformed to tell Him he had flaw ect. Since God can have no flaw what He decrees is morally perfect by necessity. These commands (do not murder, steal ect.) are morally correct regardless of whether or not you or I believe them to be. They are true by virtue of God's existence. Ultimately the concept that most theists have of God makes the dilemma irrelevant for those who hold that concept.

I hope this cleared things up. I hope i'm not coming across as ignorantly stubborn, I genuinely don't see a flaw in the argument.

[SSY]

When you say "Without flaw", you are making the same mistake. A flaw is a deviation from the ideal standard. By saying god is without flaw, you simply say he conforms to this standard, which is one of the conditions of the dilemma. I really can't see anyway of describing him as perfect without comparing him to some other standard. As soon as you compare him to some other standard, the dilemma wins, as god is merely conforming to some other standard, and it is not his morals that are objective. If you define perfect as "like god", then we just end up in circles.

I genuinely can't see how anyone could be convinced by this argument, the dilemma has all the bases covered, this argument tries to snake down a gap between the two that is not there.