Lecture Notes: Plato's Euthyphro
UC Davis Philosophy 1
G. J. Mattey
The Euthyphro
We begin our readings of classic texts in Western philosophy with Plato's dialogue Euthyphro. This is a very popular beginning reading. It is one of the very first full texts in which philosophy is done the way it has been done ever since, with an emphasis on argumentation. The text is confusing at times, but it is not so difficult that it cannot be understood by a beginning student.
Socrates
The dialogue is centered around the person of Socrates, who was facing prosecution for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. Socrates was born in 469 BC and died in 399 BC. He drank hemlock voluntarily after having been condemned to death when convicted of the charges against him. He had lived in the city-state of Athens all his life, which he devoted to discussion of philosophical issues. He was married to Xanthippi, making him one of the few of the great philosophers before the twentieth century who were married. Nietzsche once asked,
What great philosopher hitherto has been married? Heraclitus, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Schopenhauer--these were not. A married philosopher belongs in comedy . . . and that exception . . . the sarcastic Socrates, it seems, married ironically just to demonstrate this proposition. (On the Genealogy of Morals, Part III, Section 7)
Many philosophers have found Socrates, to the contrary, an exemplary model of the philosopher, an honest, unpretentious seeker of the truth. This style clashed violently with that of his contemporaries, the Sophists, who will be discussed briefly below.
The Beginnings of Philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy had been going strong for a couple of hundred years before Socrates appeared on the scene. The primary thrust of their investigations was to discover the arche or first principle of all reality. Pythagoras (570-495 BC) and his followers were fascinated with numbers and explained all of reality in terms of numerical relations. A number of early philosophers tried to "reduce" reality to one or another of the four "elements," fire, air, water, or earth. Thales (flourished 585 BC), acknowledged as the first ancient Greek philosopher, had declared that all is water. Anaximenes (flourished around 545 BC) opted for air. Heraclitus (flourished 500 BC) had proposed fire as the first principle, though other aspects of his philosophy make the first principle a universal reason. Other, abstract, principles were the One (Parmenides, about 515 to about 445 BC), the Infinite (Anaximander, about 612-545 BC), and an infinite swarm of atoms (Leucippus, flourished 450-420 BC).
The Sophists
Socrates's contemporaries included a group of traveling paid teachers known as the Sophists (Socrates did not claim to teach and did not receive fees for his discussions). They served a need in Athenian society, in that citizens in a democracy were expected to speak in public. In fact, some of them became wealthy and produced a number of successful students. We are told by Plato that for the most part, they did not teach goodness and truth, but only how to persuade others to their point of view. This is in marked contrast with Socrates, who professed no interest in persuasion. He thought of himself as an intellectual midwife, helping others to deliver truth into the world. One particularly prominent Sophist, Protagoras (about 485 to about 415 BC), had declared that "Man is the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not." This has been widely interpreted as a relativistic conception of truth. Moreover, both Protagoras and his fellow Sophist Gorgias (about 483 to about 376 BC) argued for the relativity of moral judgment.
Socrates's Contributions to Philosophy
Against the trend set by the Sophists and the relative neglect of the subject by his philosophical predecessors, Socrates sought to understand what virtue is, so that he could lead a virtuous life. Philosophy has vigorously pursued the study of good and bad, right and wrong, ever since. Socrates also brought philosophy into the public arena. Previous philosophers had labored largely in small groups of like-minded people. The Pythagorean philosophy amounted to a religious cult, and its doctrines were strictly secret. Unfortunately, since Socrates, philosophy has once again been confined mainly to the schools and has little public presence. One of the most important of Socrates's contributions was his demand for clarity in the use of concepts. He refused to debate concrete issues surrounding a concept until it was clear exactly what his interlocutor was talking about. His method was to examine proposed accounts critically, always looking for new ones when what was proposed went down in flames in the face of his objections. Most of the time, no good account could be found before the discussion ended. Perhaps for this reason, Socrates professed skepticism, claiming to know only of his own ignorance. He has been an inspiration to skeptical thinkers who have been dissatisfied with prevailing points of view.
Virtue
The Euthyphro is a discussion of piety, and for the ancient Greeks, acting piously is one way of acting virtuously. The Greeks had a strongly developed sense of virtue (arete, or excellence) manifest in its literature and culture in general. Virtue would be studied intensively by Plato and Aristotle after Socrates. His own investigations led him to the conclusion that virtue is inseparable from knowledge. Anyone who knows what is right will do the right thing, and bad actions stem from ignorance. This is a very controversial view, as most philosophers have held that desire for the bad frequently overcomes knowledge of the good.
Piety and the Pious Act
It has been noted that Socrates was accused and convicted of impiety. Specifically, he was accused of breaking with traditional religion and introducing dangerous new ideas about the gods. It is true that he frequently claimed to have heard a divine voice within (daemon). He was soon to stand trial on this charge (as well as that of corrupting the youth of Athens) when he met Euthyphro at the courthouse. Euthyphro was prosecuting his father, which on the face of it was an impious act. But he appealed to his knowledge of the divine and claimed instead that to do so was pious. His claim to know better than others what piety was met with Socrates's ironic request to be taught about it. After all, if Euthyphro was right, he would meet Socrates's demand for conceptual clarity before the discussion of specific issues. With a proper conception of piety, one could determine whether a specific act, be it that of Euthyphro or Socrates, is pious.
The Form
Socrates and Euthyphro agreed that there are many types of act that are considered to be pious. Socrates claimed that this commonality had to be accounted for by some basis for unity. There must be something "the same and alike in every [pious] action." He called this unifying factor a "form" or "appearance." The form plays the special role as that which "makes all pious acts pious." It is prettly clear from the rest of the dialogue that Socrates sought the form of piety in the justice or goodness of an action. But for now, it is sufficient to say that an account of what piety is must reveal this form. And Euthyphro never manages to do this.
The First Account of Piety
Euthyphro first held that piety is doing what he is doing. That is, it is pious to prosecute the wrongdoer, no matter who it is. Of course, this means that it is pious to prosecute one's own father, should he happen to be a wrongdoer. One can see here that the basis for piety is in some way to be found in justice. Prosecuting the wrongdoer would be bringing him to justice for the commission of an unjust act. That is, one is bound "not to favor the ungodly, whoever they are." Euthyphro defended the generality of his proposal ("no matter who it is") on the grounds that even Zeus had prosecuted his own father. Since, presumably, what Zeus does is pious because he is a god, one cannot accuse someone of impiety for prosecuting his father. The problem Socrates finds with the first account is that it is not general enough to encompass all pious acts. Euthyphro later cites as pious acts prayer and ritual sacrifice. What do these have in common with prosecution of wrongdoers?
The Second Account of Piety
Euthyphro is able to meet the requirement of generality with his second account, that the pious is what is loved by (or "dear to") the gods. All the acts mentioned in the last paragraph might be loved by the gods. Now, however, we must consider the impious, what is hated by the gods. It may be the case, and indeed Euthyphro admitted that it is the case, that the same act might be loved by some gods and hated by others. This would mean that the act is pious and impious at the same time--an unacceptable result. This means that the account is unacceptable. At this point, Socrates leads Euthyphro to explain why it is that an act is loved by the gods, and this is because it is just (or perhaps good or beautiful). This admission will get Euthyphro into trouble later on, because it suggests that it is the justice of the act, rather than its being loved by the gods, that makes it pious.
The Third Account of Piety
Disagreement among the gods is harmless to the basic account of piety as long as it is amended in a simple way. What is pious is what is loved by all the gods. Of course, if the gods do not all love any particular act, then no act is pious, but this did not seem to concern Euthyphro. Another concern, which was quickly dropped by Socrates, was that Euthyprho's own act of prosecuting his father is not one that is loved by all the gods. This does not really undermine the account, though, since the case is a questionable one. A clear counter-example would be one in which it is indisputable that a particular act is pious, yet it is not loved by all the gods. Perhaps for this reason, Socrates attacked the account in a different way.
The -ing/-ed Distinction
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that a pious act is loved by all the gods. This situation can be resolved into two components. One is the activity of loving by the gods. The second is the quality of the act that it is loved by the gods. Socrates notes that this holds of any activity, for example, carrying. There is an activity of a person, the carrying, and the quality of the object, that it is carried. The question Socrates raises is which of the two components is more fundamental, the activity or the quality? To we explain the carrying by the fact that the object is carried, or do we explain the fact that the object is carried by the carrying? To Socrates, the latter is clearly the case. He puts it in a very abstract way, stating that a thing is not "being affected because it is something affected, but it is something affected because it is being affected." Suppose you have an object, like a car, that you dearly love. The fact that the car has the quality of being a loved thing derived from your own activity of loving it. You cannot explain your loving it by saying that the car is something loved by you. We might say generally that the active is prior to the passive.
Refutation of the Third Account
Now we can apply this asymmetry to the question of piety. Suppose a particular act of a human being is loved by the gods. How do we explain this? As seen above, it would be by the activity of loving. We would not explain the activity of loving by the fact that the human act is loved by the gods. On the third account, a pious act just is one that is loved by the gods. Since what is loved by the gods must be explained in terms of their activity of loving, the piety of an act would have to be explained by the activity of loving. Furthermore, the activity of loving could not be explained by the piety of the act, because the piety just is the fact that it is god-loved. There is nothing incohrent in this position, taken by itself. What causes a problem is the admission by Euthyphro that a pious act is god-loved because it is pious. Given this concession, there is a conflict, because as we just stated, being god-loved (and hence pious, as these are the same) cannot explain the activity of loving.
Avoiding the Refutation
There are two main points in Socrates's refutation of Euthyphro's third account of piety. Central to the refutation is the asymmetry between being god-loved and the gods' activity of loving something. It seems hard to dispute that the second explains the first, while the first does not explain the second. The other element of the argument is the claim that the gods love what is pious because it is pious. There was no need for Euthyphro to embrace this view. It is not entirely obvious that it is the case, either. For example, it may be that the gods love a human act because it is just. To be just and to be god-loved are not the same thing, and so the argument of the last paragraph cannot be applied. Euthyphro could, then, simply embrace the conclusion that "the pious would be pious because it was being loved by the gods."
Form or Quality?
What could be wrong with saying that being loved by the gods makes a human act pious? We saw earlier that Socrates was seeking a "form," something that makes the pious acts pious. Could the gods' loving some act make it pious? Socrates thought that this is just a quality that pious acts have, rather than what makes them pious. He seems to have held the view that it is something about the justice of an act that really makes it pious, while the fact that it is loved by the gods is (as Aristotle would put it) a merely accidental quality. An act would remain pious regardless of the gods' attitude toward it. Euthyphro would have to respond by asserting that indeed being loved by the gods is what makes a pious act pious. Piety would be a relative quality, just as being loved is a relative quality. He could say (though as a priest he probably would not say this) that even an unjust act could be pious if the gods loved it. (More likely, he would refuse to distinguish between justice and piety, though.)
The Fourth Account of Piety
The linkage Socrates was forging between piety and justice finally comes to the fore when he suggest that piety is a part of the just. Euthyphro shapes this into a new and different account of piety: it is that part of the just concerning the care of the gods. Socrates responds by asking what "care" could mean in relation to the gods. It could not benefit them, because literally the gods cannot be made any better. Nor is care service to the gods, since it does not help them achieve their end. Euthyphro does have a response to this objection, however. He states that when one does what pleases the gods, one furthers social order, both in public and in private. In that case, piety could be seen as furthering the ends of the gods.
The Fifth Account of Piety
Euthyphro does not pursue this response, however. Instead, he looks toward the practices of begging from the gods (prayer) and giving to the gods (sacrifice). Socrates makes quick work of one of these practices. One appropriately gives something to another when that will fulfill their needs. But the gods have no needs to be satisifed. So there is no appropriate way to give to the gods. Euthyphro's response in effect is that there are other appropriate ways of giving, besides satisfying needs. One can give by honoring, for example. But what this gives is pleasure, and so what is pious would then be what is pleasing to the gods. But this is in effect the same account as was rejected before (the third account).
Moving Statues
Earlier in the dialogue, Euthyphro had stated that Socrates's statements did not stay put, like the statues of his ancestor, Daedelus. (In the dialogue Meno, Plato made another use of the Daedelus myth.) Socrates respnded ironically that he had more power than Daedelus, in that he not only could make his own statements fly away, but also those of others. And he has made Euthyphro's account move in a big circle, so he was back to the place he was earlier. But as was noted above, nothing Socrates has said has refuted Euthyphro's third account of piety, so he is not so badly off as Socrates thought.
Conclusion
The dialogue form is really a one-sided tool. It favors the side of the author. Other famous philosophical writers of dialogues (Galileo, Berkeley, and Hume being most prominent) make their protagonists vanquish their feeble opponents with ease. We have seen that Euthyphro could have mounted a defense against Socrates's assaults, but he was trapped into making concessions that would come back to haunt him. His most obvious move would have been to allow the relativity of piety, claiming that being loved by the gods is what makes an act pious, just as being loved by the gods makes an act loved by the gods. Socrates held out for a non-relative form, apparently located in the justice of an act. The larger dispute really is between Socrates and Protagoras: is the measure of all things to be found in the thing itself or in man (or the gods)?
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