The problem is the assumption of G. You can presuppose G if you want to, but then you always have to reconcile your position with everyone who either does not presuppose any G, and those who presuppose a different G.

For folks who have grown out of any personal need to presuppose a G, exercises with a G become tedious exercises in nonsense.

No G and all these dilemmas evaporate.

The question of the good remains, and the first step is an attempt at a definition. I offer this (for criticism and correction if nothing else): the good is a something; it is always something that is good. What makes it (a) good is its location on a continuum that ranges for bad to good (i.e., very bad to very good).

However the calculus of evaluating good works, it is a human determination made by human reason (informed by human sensitivity). Does the calculus properly used yield a single assessment of good no matter who applies it, like a mathematics? A different approach: can anyone think of any situation in which two or more opposed assessments of the good can be made for one set of conditions? i suspect that human reason, uninfected by irrational thinking, probably comes pretty close to the standard of a single good.

Murder is bad, but reason discovers that not all killing is murder, and some killing is defensible, although all killing is suspect and subject to question. Stealing is bad, but reason acknowledges that sometimes the thief is driven by necessity and applies the maxim that necessity knows no law - although all stealing is suspect and subject to question.

As to a good will and good intentions, I think they're the the grounds for the possibility for realizing the good. As things in themselves they seem a good, but I'm not convinced they are things in themselves.

Do most societies need some index of good listed and stored institutionally, usually in an organized religion. So it seems, although the religions also are authors of much that has been and is bad. I believe, however, that when most organized religions go wrong, it's not so much the religion (although it is in some cases) as bad people misusing the religion.

I mean all this as a point of departure, to be improved upon.

I voted for the second option, morality is acting according to G.

And while G here is some God, since i'm an atheist I believe this is just a stand-in for the more general notion of convention. Morality is the mores or customs of a people, be it theistically based or not.

Regarding the torquemada problem, I don't really believe in metaphysical free will, and so agency will be limited. It's limited by our biology, and more importantly here, also limited by our upbringing.

So I think 'moral intuïtions' arent' really so free as would have to be supposed by the first senario (G acts according to morality, where morality is something independant) or the torquemada problem. 'Moral intuïtions' are also shaped by our upbringing and the culture we live in. There's no standing outside of this... unless maybe in the case of the philospher (achetype Socrates) who examines his (moral) assumptions over the course of his live by a proces of dialectics.

, right, yes, the Euthyphro has been used to question the existence Gs as defined.
Going by definitions only is already suspect in itself, and the Euthyphro is applicable to some such definitions.
If a definition along with the Euthyphro leads to something incoherent, then G does not exist as defined.
No problem if G isn't real. Hm maybe there should have been an explicit voting option for that, no matter, just use the 3^rd.

Going by definitions only is already suspect in itself, and the Euthyphro is applicable to some such definitions.
If a definition along with the Euthyphro leads to something incoherent, then G does not exist as defined. — jorndoe

Exactly, so you refine - change - your definition. The definition stands as hypothesis, or theory, call it what you want. The point is that you have to start with either something or nothing. Better to start with something, even if it as minimal as, "What is...?"

Dig a little deeper and find the dividing line between Aristotelian and modern science. Aristotle's being mainly applied observation covered with a bespoke theory. With this method he got the most obvious fact about gravity wrong.