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No, it's something other than what you think morality must be.

On that we can agree.

For your edification I post a link to an entry I found today in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Metaethics, particularly sections 3,4 & 5, which delineate some of the challenges and burdens relative to our respective positions.

Cordially,

Tough going, but I note that my view is not represented.

God's perfect knowledge of right and wrong, or God's own moral perfection, explains why his commands serve legitimately as standards for us. But that answer assumes that standards of morality exist independently of God's will (either as objects of his knowledge or as standards in light of which He counts as morally perfect), in which case speaking of morality as consisting of God's commands will not explain the origin or nature of these independently existing standards.

I need someone to explain to me the logic of the allegation, that "standards of morality exist independently of God's will," such that God's will is subject to a standard that is not of His own making and thus beyond Himself. This line of thinking invokes the idea of an infinite regression, when the entire point is that God is the uncaused cause. Thus He can be the only cause of His own will and moral perfection; and as their cause, the only legitimate explicator of His moral law. His commands are eternally valid precisely because they are His commands; He is the standard, the measure.

There is nothing more ultimate than God. There can be no "prior" to God; for that implies that God is "in" space and time. And He is not; for if He were "in" space and time, then He would be subject to them, just as we mortals are, and so not could not have been their creator.

The whole suggestion that God is subject to "a higher standard" is an unwarranted and unsubstantiated claim, a smokescreen or diversion premised on the supposition that man can know that higher standard independently of God. That is, that "man is the measure," not God. Well, man can insist on this 'til he's blue in the face; but that does not change one whit the nature of things, or the facts on the ground -- which comprise the basis of human existence.

But what evidence does "Metaethics" have to show in this regard? "Metaethics" sounds more like a group session of mental patients, collectively dedicated to the proposition that moral relativism can actually be socially constructed as a public good, if we all could just negotiate away our differences regarding our moral premises, and agree that morality is a human, not a divine, project. Talk about loaded dice....

It's interesting that edsheppa claims not to associate with this view. But then, edsheppa has not really told us, so far as I know, what his view actually is. So we are left guessing, and faced with the temptation to "characterize" his position for him -- as he has recently done for me, in the process coming up with a caricture, a straw man, to beat. I have seen his conclusion (i.e., that I understand myself to be in possession of "The Truth," etc.); what I have not seen is his evidence.

Moreover he suggests that my "objectivity" or reliability as a truthful observer is deranged because I am besotted with a fantastic futility known as ontology (i.e., the science of being). The fact is, my main problem with edsheppa is epistemological, and only secondarily ontological: He is a walking self-contradiction in the epistemology department, whose materialist, atheist doctrine provides him with no basis to be discussing questions such as: "What is signified by the term, 'innate?'"

Think he'll lay out the bare bones of his argument plus his supporting evidence for us anytime soon, Diamond? I notice he has been quite coy with you lately, as well.

Thanks Diamond, as ever, for your excellent posts!