Plato’s Euthyphro

Week 7: Plato’s Theory of Morality

As Plato writes the Euthyphro, Socrates has a conversation about piety and (as often happens in Platonic dialogues) demands a definition of a moral concept, in this case piety. Euthyphro tries to comply, but Socrates shoots holes in his proposals. Finally, Euthyphro gives up in apparent disgust.

For reasons we can discuss, Plato did not simply write a treatise setting forth his (or Socrates’) theory of piety or other moral concepts. He wrote a dialogue, a back-and-forth conversation. Why? One possibility is that Plato thought he knew something about moral concepts, but he was not in a position to expound his knowledge in treatise form.

Here is one possibility: Plato was made cautious by Socrates’ example. Though there is significant evidence that Socrates believed in the existence of the Greek gods in some sense, in this dialogue he casts doubt (or even scorn) on the idea that the gods behave in the frankly immoral ways depicted by Homer and Hesiod. In Socrates’ opinion, god-like beings should have the wisdom and power to act morally at all times. Socrates elsewhere expresses the view that virtue is equivalent to knowledge, that only ignorance would induce someone to behave wrongfully. One would expect the gods to be free from ignorance, so they should behave well. The upshot is that while Socrates believed in the gods, he did not believe in the gods as they were worshipped in Athens. They should not need to be bribed by human religious practices into doing the right thing (though observing the traditional ceremonies is a pretty good definition of piety). In this sense the charges against Socrates were well-founded: he did not believe in the gods as the Athenians did and through his public teachings, he created a risk that his young students would be led astray as well. Plato obviously sympathizes with Socrates’ position, so perhaps Plato feared that he might meet the same fate as Socrates. Therefore instead of writing a treatise to plainly express his views, he concealed those views in dialogue form.

Here is another possibility: Plato was unable to express his views (or Socrates’ views) in an orderly treatise. He could explain the views he did not like, but had a harder time formulating what he did like. Go back to the Euthyphro Dilemma: are pious acts whatever the gods happen to like, or are the gods themselves bound to recognize the pious (and just and courageous, etc.) when they see it? Socrates’ likely answer is: the latter. Good acts are good in themselves, not just because the gods (or anyone else) happen to approve them. What is the world like if it contains such objective values as good and bad? What is the world like if one man on the streets of Athens can discover moral values that apply (known or not) to all humans everywhere? Here is a further question: if we find out how to distinguish good from bad acts, why should humans (and gods) perform the good acts rather than the bad acts? Do good acts lead to a better life for humans (and gods)? If so, should we perform good acts in order to live better? That would seem to inject an element of self-interest into the life of virtue. Socrates is depicted as someone who acted virtuously even to the point of death, so he is an example of the pursuit of virtue for its own sake. But why would we want to do that? These are deep questions, perhaps questions that Plato could not solve, so he gives us the Euthyphro and other dialogues to show that traditional understandings of morality are not satisfactory, without being able to do more than indicate, indirectly, a better approach.

Are there other possibilities? Discuss.

If you’re reading along in Greek, cover 13c10-15a4.