Euthyphro
- Euthypro means “Straight thinker”
- Claims to be a religious expert
- Is at the same court as that in which - - Socrates will be tried, which deals with public charges of impiety
- Euthyphro is the plaintiff, he is charging his father
Euthyphro’s hard case
- His father only indirectly killed the laborer
- The murdered was also a murderer
- The murdered was not a relative of Euthyphro (murder at the time was much more a familial issue, rather than a state issue, however, murder could be related to a religious offense)
- He is prosecuting his own father
- Only men who owned property were given the right to be a part of politics, no women
- Socrates says that Euthyphro must have knowledge of piety, and Euthyphro claims that he does
Euthyphro’s argument on what is piety
- The pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer
- What is dear to the gods is pious
- The pious is what all the gods love
- The godly and pious is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods
- Peity is a knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray
Socrates’ response:
- The pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer
Problem?
- Socrates says that there are a lot of things that are pious, this is just an example
- What Euthyphro has given was not a general condition, he has pointed to an instance of piety, but not what it is
Necessary and Sufficient conditions
- Necessary: applies to all cases (if something is an F, it must satisfy the definition of F)
- Sufficient: applies to Only cases (If something satisfies the definition of F, that is sufficient for being an F)
What does Socrates suppose Euthyphro ought to be able to provide such a thing?
Socrates: Tell me then what this form itself is, so that I may look point and using it as a model, say that any action of yours or another that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not.
- Is it fair to demand that someone be able to give a definition of anything they claim to have knowledge of
- Should knowledge require that we should be able to give a definition / necessary and sufficient conditions for that thing?
- Socrates argues that you should do better than that
One over many
- trying to figure out what is piety
- Problem of universals
- You have a bunch of ‘x’ things
- What makes them all ‘x’
- What makes it a case that this is a chair, this is a chair, what makes them all chairs
Elenchus
- Socrates’ method (also called the eclectic method)
- Cross-examination in law courts
- Uses interlocutors claims as premises (and shows that they lead to a contradiction)
- Tries to elicit some mistake/trying to trip someone up
Reductio ad absurdum
- Reducing a view to absurdity by showing that it conflicts with others that one holds
1. lowering taxes is just action
2. Just actions always benefit people
3. Kiwering taxes does not always benefit people
NB: this procedure does not tell you which claim to reject, only that they are jointly inconsistent
Some assumptions that Socrates marks:
- If someone knows X, they ought to be able to say what X is
- There is some one thing all and only X’s Share
- Definitions are needed to provide criteria for determining whether particular things/actions/people. etc, are.
Euthyphro tells Socrates a general answer, on piety, on what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious
Then he says
What is loved by the gods is pious
- Socrates says that this is not satisfactory, as it leads to a contradiction
- Euthyphro agrees that pious and impious are opposites, and they are not the same, what is pious is what god loves, and what is impious is not what god loves
- They are not the same, but quite opposite, pious and impious
- Euthyphro also agrees that different gods consider different things to be just beautiful, ugly, good, and bad
- Since they may disagree on these things, the same things may seem just by some gods and unjust by other gods
The same thing can be pious and impious, according to this argument - Something can’t be both pious and impious if imposes and pious are opposites
Socrates asks “Is the pious being loved by the gods, because it’s pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?
Euthyphro argues: Something is loved by the gods because it’s pious
Before: These should be general: A definition of X applies to All cases of X, not just give an example
But a definition should not merely have necessary conditions, but also sufficient conditions as well
Definitions should be explanatory
A definition makes clear why something is X
Euthyphro says a necessary and sufficient condition that it must be something that all the gods love, but that still doesn’t satisfy Socrates
It doesn’t tell us what makes pious pious, there is something independent of God’s love, that makes it pious
If what Socrates wants definitions for is to have a model to judge particular cases, won’t such a thing be adequate?
