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Introduction to Philosophy Ted L. Poston January 28, 2018 Contents I Five Dialogues 1 1 The Euthyphro 2 1.1 Setting . 2 1.2 Socratic Definition . 2 1.3 Euthyphro's Answer . 3 1.4 The Euthyphro Dilemma . 3 1.5 Alston `What Euthyphro should have said' . 4 1.5.1 The first horn . 4 1.5.2 The solution to the first horn . 5 1.5.3 Second horn . 6 1.5.4 three objections . 6 2 The Apology 8 2.1 Setting . 8 2.2 What is Socrates up to? . 8 2.3 Memorable lines . 9 2.4 The Impiety of Socrates . 9 3 The Crito 10 3.1 Setting . 10 3.2 The arguments . 11 3.2.1 The argument from agreement . 11 3.2.2 The argument from universalization . 12 3.2.3 The parent - polis analogy . 12 i Part I Five Dialogues 1 Chapter 1 The Euthyphro 1.1 Setting Euthyphro is a professional, well-established priest. It's clear that he is well-known and has influence. He meets Socrates near the king-archon's court. Socrates has been indicted by Meletus on the crime of corrupting the youth. Meletus charges that Socrates is undermining the foundation of Athean political society. Socrates is questioning religion and morality. Euthyphro is brining his father up on the charge of murder. His father was in charge of a slave who had murdered someone. Euthyphro's father then imprisoned the slave, and went off to see what ought to be done. In the meantime, the slave died. Euthyphro feels strongly that this is wrong and thus charges his father with murder. Socrates wonders how Euthyphro can be so confident that he is in the right. The conversation then develops into a regular Socratic dialogue. 1.2 Socratic Definition Socrates wants to know what is the nature of piety. What is it that all and only pious acts have in common in virtue of which they are pious? We can list pious acts: alms- giving, forgiveness, prayer, self-improvement, etc. And impious acts: lying, cheating, stealing, murder, etc. But Socrates wants to know what is it that makes the acts described as `pious' all form a class and the acts described as `impious' all form a class. E.g, \Is not the pious the same and alike in every action, and the impious the opposite of all that is pious and like itself, and everything that is to be impious presents us with one form or appearance insofar as it is impious?" (5d) Or, at 6e \I did not bid you tell me one or two of the many pious acts but that form itself that makes all pious actions pious." We can put the goal of Socratic definition this way. Analyze the concept (e.g., pious) in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. So, 2 CHAPTER 1. THE EUTHYPHRO 3 x is pious if and only if x is . A necessary condition for Y is a condition that is required for Y. For example, you can't graduate from college without passing a course. So, passing a course is a necessary condition for graduating. But you can surely pass a course without graduating. A sufficient condition for Y is a condition that guarantees that Y occurs. A sufficient condition for graduating for college is completing all your coursework, pay- ing your tuition, and being in good standing. If those conditions obtain then you graduate. Socrates wants to know what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for piety. Socratic definition gets at the form. Plato's theory of the forms holds that individual acts participate in a form that explains why they have the property at issue. E.g., a just act is just because it participates in the form of justice. 1.3 Euthyphro's Answer Euthyphro gives the following account of piety. x is pious if and only if x is valued by the gods. Socrates dithers a bit around the fact that the gods disagree about what is valu- able, but then fixes on a key question. Do the gods value pious acts because they are pious, or are the acts pious because they are valued by the gods? \Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a) This question is getting at the explanatory direction. Does the piety of the acts explain why the gods value those acts, or does the fact that the gods value those acts explain the piety of the acts? It's important to realize that the mere truth of a biconditional doesn't tell us anything about the explanatory direction. Suppose Harrison has this property. All and only times at which he is hungry does he eat crawfish. So this is true. Harrison is hungry if and only if Harrison eats crawfish. Here, though, we can grasp which explains which. Does the fact that Harrison eats crawfish explain why he's hungry, or does the fact that Harrison is hungry explain why he eats? Clearly, it's the later. Harrison's hunger causes him to eat. So, Socrates thinks that Euthyphro should come to see that it's not the gods valuing the acts that make the acts pious but rather it's the piety of the acts that explains why the gods value those acts. 1.4 The Euthyphro Dilemma What is of interest in this dialogue is the puzzle Socrates presents concerning the relationship between moral obligation and God. Divine Command Theory states CHAPTER 1. THE EUTHYPHRO 4 that x is obligatory if and only if x is commanded by God. We then have the following dilemma. 1. Either (i) an act is obligatory because God commands it or (ii) God commands an act because it is obligatory (required, the right thing to do). 2. If (i) then God's commands are arbitrary and God's goodness isn't morally substantive. 3. If (ii) then there is a moral structure independent of God. 4. Either God's commands are arbitrary or there is a moral structure independent of God. (2) is problematic because it seems like God's commands reflect certain basic facts about what ought to be done. But (3) is problematic because God is supreme. There is nothing outside of God to which God must measure up to. But if morality is independent of God then morality is the ultimate standard, not God. 1.5 Alston `What Euthyphro should have said' Alston's focus is on divine command ethics, i.e., \whether God commands us to love one another because that is right or whether that is right because God commands us to do it."(Alston; 2002, 283) His goal is to determine what view of God and human morality a divine command theorist should adopt is she is to be in the best position to deal with this dilemma. Divine command theory states that divine commands are constitutive of moral obligation. \Ethical wrongness is identical with the property of being contrary to the commands of a loving God." DCT should be understood as a general view of moral obligation. The Euthyphro dilemma is supposed to be fatal for theism. 1.5.1 The first horn The first horn that says an act is obligatory because God commands it. Alston iden- tifies two difficulties. First, that (i) makes divine commands arbitrary. The problem is that this horn `blocks off any moral reason for them (the divine commands)."1 Second, we are left with no way to understand God's goodness. If the standard of moral goodness is set by divine commands, then to say that God is morally good is just to say that he obeys his own commands. But this isn't what theist means when they say that God is supremely good. 1(Alston; 2002, 285) CHAPTER 1. THE EUTHYPHRO 5 1.5.2 The solution to the first horn A general solution to the first horn is to make sense of the goodness of God that is independent from moral obligation. On this view, obligatory action is constituted by divine commands, but moral goodness is broader than obligation. Alston suggests that If God is essentially good then there will be nothing arbitrary about his com- mands.(Alston; 2002, 285) Divine goodness is not constituted by divine commands. Human goodness, by contrast, is constituted by divine commands. How to make sense of divine goodness that allows for the truth of DCT? The view: If it is impossible for God to have duties or obligations, if it cannot ever be true that God ought to do something or other, then divine commands can be constitutive of these sorts of moral facts, for human beings and perhaps other creatures, while leaving other sorts of facts that are constitutive of divine moral goodness to be otherwise constituted. (Alston; 2002, 286) Reasons to think that obligation is different from goodness Kant Immanuel Kant (1724{1804): Famous for his resolution of empiricism and rationalism. The three critiques: Critique of pure reason, Critique of practical rea- son, the critique of the power of judgment \The fundamental idea of Kant's `critical philosophy' is human autonomy. He argues that the human understanding is the source of the general laws of nature that structure all our experience; and that hu- man reason gives itself the moral law, which is our basis for belief in God, freedom, and immortality. Therefore, scientific knowledge, morality, and religious belief are mutually consistent and secure because they all rest on the same foundation of hu- man autonomy, which is also the final end of nature according to the teleological worldview of reflecting judgment that Kant introduces to unify the theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system." (SEP) Oughts have force only it's possible to disobey.
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