Johnny Dee has a good, smart little series of entries on his blog, Fides Quaerens Intellectum (say it three times fast) on Meta Ethics, and he concludes beautifully:
Supernatural essentialism avoids the Euthyphro dilemma entirely by suggesting that God is essentially good in his being, so he does not have to measure moral standards by something outside of his being. Thus, God wills moral properties to exist, and yet he could not have willed just any moral values. This is no real limitation on his power or goodness though, just as God's inability to lie is not such. The main objection to this position is the inquirying mind who wants to know on what basis is God considered to be good. But asking this question misses the point of essentialism. God by his very nature is good, so nothing makes him good; he simply is good. This is parallel to the divine attribute of aseity--that God's existence is not supported by anything else; he simply exists. These are, for me, "brute facts," and I am happy leaving them brutely stop with a being like God. Is this account of moral grounding a little mysterious? Yes. But it satisfies all of the major questions a meta-ethical theory should in a non-problematic way. If there is any breakdown, it is in one's understanding of God, but that is a completely different issue."Is this account of moral grounding a little mysterious? Yes. But it satisfies all of the major questions a meta-ethical theory should in a non-problematic way." I have no idea what branch of Christianity Dee follows. But the conclusion, with the emphasis on and acceptance of mystery, sounds Catholic. I'm happy to say that I solved this problem my own, after becoming aware of it, which kinda vindicates my theory that my education after leaving University was better and cheaper than it was inside the ivory tower. Where did I go after getting my BA? Well, the call it the University of Amazon.com. Oh, that and that internet thingie. Solving this problem was one of the major steps in conquering the agnostic naturalism that I fell into by default. There was an earlier problem too, which Dee alludes to, and that was the non cognitive approach that a narrow reading of Darwin (the most common one) had me stumped on for a while. I hope to explore it here sometime soon.
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