An Outline of the Euthyphro |
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A Platonic dialogue centers on a "What is ____?" question, where the blank is filled in by a word or concept the meaning of which is important to understand for deliberate and prudent choice under the circumstances. A correct answer to the question will increase one's ability to recognize future instances and to discriminate between instances and non-instances. "What is love?" is an important question in certain circumstances. So is "What is justice?" and "What is courage?" These are all questions that receive treatment in a Platonic dialogue, and they all aim at the wisdom that can tell the difference between the real and the merely apparent. It is sometimes said that Socrates strives for definitions, but these definitions are not merely dictionary definitions. |
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In the Euthyphro, the question is, "What is piety?" Euthyphro, a priest of Apollo, claims to know the answer. For Socrates, the question is very practical since he is being charged in court with impiety. So he presses Euthyphro to tell him what piety is so that he might gain the recognitional ability that he apparently lacks. (This is fully in keeping with the Platonic premise that virtue is a form of knowledge.) Under Socrates' questioning, Euthyphro offers four definitions of piety in sequence.
Because Socrates is eager to grasp the meaning (the eidos) of piety so that he might be able in the future to recognize piety and distinguish it from impiety, he examines each definition offered by Euthyphro, exposing it to the question and answer method known as elenchus. Each definition is refuted and each refutation prompts Euthyphro to another definition. A sketch of the refutation of each of the definitions shown above follows in the same order. 1. Euthyphro does not at first understand that when Socrates asks "What is piety?", he is asking for a definition, and so Euthyphro gives only an example of piety. This example is not a definition because a definition is a general formulation that would show why this case is a case of piety, if it is. A definition, that is, provides insight into the meaning of piety so that someone who knows the definition can apply the word correctly to future cases and distinguish cases of piety from cases that are not cases of piety. Euthyphro's example is not a general formulation that can be applied to further cases. 2. With the second formulation, Socrates now has a general formulation of the type he is seeking, but the question remains whether it is really a definition of piety. Socrates knows that Euthyphro believes that there is disagreement and even enmities among the gods, since Euthyphro has said that many of the traditional stories about the gods are true. It doesn't appear that Socrates himself believes these stories -- his questions about what humans and gods disagree about implies that disagreement always involves an imperfection of knowledge somewhere -- but the point is that Euthyphro does believe these stories. Socrates asks whether, according to Euthyphro, some things are hated by some gods and loved by others. Euthyphro must say yes to maintain consistency with his avowal of the stories. But then it follows that if piety is what is loved by the gods, then, since some things are both hated and loved by the gods, these things are both pious and impious. But the conclusion that something may be both pious and impious is unacceptable, a form of contradiction. Certainly, it would defeat the quest for an eidos, a form knowledge of which would convey recognitional ability. Therefore, since the definition leads to this contradiction, it must be false. The following is a formalization of this argument.
3. Euthyphro amends his second definition to rule out application of the term in case of disagreement among the gods. He now says that
On this definition, the term "piety" is applicable only in case there is no disagreement among the gods. This new definition is better than the first two, so it's progress. But Socrates now notices that this third definition is ambiguous. That is, it has either of two meanings, depending on the relation between piety and the gods' love of it. Socrates asks a question to get Euthyphro to say which meaning he intends: Is something pious because it's loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is pious? That is, the choice Euthyphro must make is between: (a) Something is pious because it is loved by all the gods. This choice raises profound questions about the objectivity of morality. If Euthyphro chooses (a), then his assertion is that piety is strictly relative to the opinion of all of the gods. That is, to say that something is pious is just a short way of saying that it happens to be dear to the gods. It is not to say that there is any reason for the gods' opinion, for there could be no reason if (a) is correct. (If there were a reason why the gods loved some actions and not others, then we could define piety with reference to that reason.) Thus because what the gods hold dear is, as far as Euthyphro can tell us, arbitrary and unpredictable, (a) would not provide a definition of piety, because it would not give us a way of recognizing the difference between piety and impiety and of applying the word correctly to further cases. Piety would not be a possible object of knowledge. On the other hand, if something is dear to the gods because it is pious, then piety is not defined. Rather it is simply restated that the gods love what is pious. (As Socrates puts it, we now have a quality or feature of piety, namely that the gods love it.) This may be true and interesting, but it is no more a definition of piety than the statement that the abbots of Lombardy love what is pious, or that all the students in PL101 love what is pious. It appears that whichever choice Euthyphro makes, he does not, in the absence of further explanation, succeed in defining piety. Euthyphro's third definition is refuted. 4. Socrates now proposes that piety is a species of the genus, justice. Euthyphro agrees to this. All that remains then is to say what part of justice piety is. Euthyphro suggests that the part of justice that is piety is that which concerns care of the gods, while the part that concerns the care of men is the remaining part. So far, so good, but now Socrates needs to know what Euthyphro means by "care of the gods." Euthyphro attempts three times to clarify his meaning. He first replies to Socrates' gambit that "care of the gods" has a meaning similar to "care of horses." This line of thought begins to lead Euthyphro into issues about worship and sacrifice.
Euthyphro now suggests that piety involves caring for the gods in the sense that being a servant involves giving service to a master.
Euthyphro next says that piety, as prayer and sacrifice, is a kind of skill in trading with the gods. But this can't be right since we have nothing to trade with, nothing that the gods could want that we could give them, even though there are plenty of things they could give us that we could use.
5. Euthyphro then says that sacrificing (or worshipping generally) nevertheless pleases the gods. Socrates asks whether it pleases them even though it does not benefit them in any way. Euthyphro says yes, it is very dear to them. So, and here's the final definition, though it is identical with the first definition: Piety is what is dear to the gods. Perhaps it is obvious at this point that the question that these last arguments raise is: what is the true nature of prayer and sacrifice? What do we owe God or the gods and why? Is there anything Euthyphro could have said better at this juncture? By the end of the dialogue, Euthyphro's bringing a charge of impiety against his father is beginning to seem pathetic or comedic. I'm willing to speculate that Euthyphro, accustomed to docile acceptance of belief and unaccustomed to logical inquiry, concluded that Socrates does not believe in the gods. |