The Divine Command Theory and its Critiques in Plato's Euthyphro

Abstract

The present essay is an explanation of the divine command theory and its critiques in Plato's Euthyphro. The dialogue researhes the definition of piety. With the third definition, a problem rises that is named the Euthyphro dilemma in the history of philosophy: is the pious because of the pious itself, being loved by the gods or the pious because of being loved by the gods is the pious? The dilemma is a problem which discovers the spirit of the three definitions: the Divine Command theory. Socrates or really Plato between his critiques inclines to the moral realism which maintaines the pious and impious or the right and wrong in general are independent of the gods’ commands.

Some of the main critiques are these: the divine command theory implies arbitrariness of the gods' commands and raises opposition between themselves or between human beings. The divine command theory amounts to the relativity of the good and bad and the identity of the pious and impious! The definition of the pious based on the gods' loving involves opposing consepts because the god-loved is not the quiddity of the pious but is a quality. By the Divine command theory we cannot have a universal definition of the pious or an ethical theory and hence no universal moral education.