Ethics: What Are We Talking About?
Some ethical questions: What is a good action? What is the good life? How should
we live? What is the difference, if there is one, between goodness and rightness?
Our first order of business should be to get clear about this (unexpectedly) vague,
ambiguous term goodness.
There are many senses of goodness: a good hammer is one which properly fulfills its
function; a good hamburger is one that is pleasing to the senses; your parents
know what is good for you because they know what steps to take to get you into a
stable, comfortable situation.
But in ethics we want to discuss moral goodness, specifically. What does it mean for
something to be morally good? Well, this is one of the primary (and disputed)
questions of ethics, so it is really up to you to determine what you think is the
nature of moral goodness.
For the sake of clarity and organization, however, we will provisionally state that if
something is good, then it has moral value, either intrinsic or instrumental.
Intrinsic goods are things that are good in themselves, are good for their own sake.
Instrumental goods are things that are good in view of something else, because
they are a means to something of intrinsic value.
Plato
427 B.C. – 327 B.C.
“The safest general
characterization of the
European philosophical
tradition is that it consists of a
series of footnotes to Plato.”
– Alfred North Whitehead
“Out of Plato come all things
that are still written and
debated about among men of
thought.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Two Arcs of Euthyphro
I What is the nature of goodness?
II The Euthyphro Dilemma
Setting the Scene
Meletus is prosecuting Socrates
for corrupting the youth of
Athens by inventing new gods
and discarding the ole ones.
Euthyphro meets Socrates
outside of the court and
happens to be going there to
prosecute his own father for
homicide.
At that time in Athens,
prosecuting your parents was
thought to be a reprehensible
thing to do, so Socrates asks
him…
And So It Begins
Socrates: Euthyphro, aren’t you
afraid that you are doing
something that is evil?
Euthyphro: Not at all because I
possess understanding about
morality.
Socrates: Excellent! I can learn
from you! Euthyphro, what is
good? Or should we even
assume there is a single
standard of goodness by
which to measure all things?
Euthyphro: First, yes, there is
such a lone standard of
goodness. Second…
Failure At First
Euthyphro: This is good, what
I’m doing right now, namely
prosecuting a criminal
regardless of who he is.
Neglecting this act would
be evil…but look how I’m
treated! Zeus justly
imprisoned his own father,
yet people praise and adore
him. Here I am, doing the
very same thing, and I am
reviled by people!
Act I: What is Virtue?
The dialogue begins with a moral question but its content
rapidly becomes epistemological. What’s the question
again?
Before determining anything about virtue, one surely has to
know what virtue is.
Meno first answers extensionally, that is, he provides a list of
virtues. However, Socrates is looking for an intensional
definition. He seeks a single quality or criterion that unifies
the virtues and explains why they are virtues. In general
terms, Socrates believes that, in addition to the many F’s,
there is one thing, the F itself, that the many F’s posses and
that explains why these F’s are F.
The unity of virtue assumption is an important element of
Plato’s work.
Take A Step Back, Euthy
Euthyphro commits the same error
that Meno does by extensionally
defining goodness.
Socrates desires an intensional
definition of goodness; he wants
to know what feature or property
do things have that make them
good.
Providing and explaining such a
definition will allow us to use it as
a kind of measuring stick for
judging things.
Again, we see the unity of virtue
assumption in Plato.
Answer #1
Euthyphro makes his first
attempt at giving an
intensional definition of
goodness:
What the gods love is good.
What the gods hate is evil.
In other words, the goodmaking feature of a thing
is that the gods love it.
Rebuttal
The gods have disputes all the time.
The origin of those disputes are
differing opinions on what is
just/unjust, good/bad,
beautiful/ugly, etc.
Such a dispute requires that the
disputants value, care about or
love different things. Thus, at least
some of the gods love different
things than some of the others.
This leaves us with competing,
conflicting accounts of goodness.
Not only are there different
itemized sets of what is good and
what is evil, but also the same
thing could be both good and evil.
Answer #2
There are things that all the
gods love, such as the
principle that injustice should
be punished.
What all the gods love is good.
What all the gods hate is evil.
What the gods’ views differ
about is morally neutral.
In other words, there is some
good-making feature of a
thing that the gods identify
and that causes them to love
it.
The Euthyphro Dilemma
Is a thing good because the gods love it, or do
the gods love a thing because it is good?
This is a HUGE dilemma for any system of ethics that wants to
incorporate the divine because both answers seem to have
problems.
You might be thinking that because the dilemma is couched in
Greek religious terminology that it doesn’t apply to
Christianity. Oh how wrong you are. We will return to this
point later.
Rebuttal Again
If the gods love a thing
because it is good, rather
than making a thing good
because they love it, then it
seems that something else
besides the gods is making
things good.
But, if we say that a thing is
good because the gods love
it, then the gods remain the
only source of goodness.
However, the problem pointed
out above remains.
Rerouting
Euthyphro is stumped and claims that, though he
knows the truth, he cannot explain it because
once he states it, it runs around in circles and
refuses to stay put.
Socrates decides to take a different approach to the
problem: by comparing the good to the just he
attempts to isolate a boundary of goodness. This
discovery would certainly assist the two in their
quest to discern the nature of goodness.
Answer #3…?
Socrates: Is everything that is just also good or is
goodness a division of justice?
Euthyphro: Serving the gods is both just and good
while serving human beings is not good but is
just.
Socrates: How do we serve the gods?
Euthyphro: We serve the gods by sacrifice and
prayer.
Socrates: What exactly do the gods gain from our
service?
Euthyphro: They gain gratification and esteem.
Socrates: Is such gratification or esteem of benefit
to them or do they simply value it, care for it,
love it?
Euthyphro: They love it most of all but not
because it is instrumental to something they
could not get otherwise. The gods gain no
benefit from anything that we do.
Socrates: So, goodness, serving the gods, is good
simply because the gods love it. But…didn’t
we see a problem with that?
Socrates wants to learn the truth and won’t be
an intellectual “coward.”
Euthyphro is frustrated, and gets the heck out of
there.
The dialogue ends in aporia.
Euthyphro Dilemma and Christian Ethics
Let us restate the dilemma and examine the problems that either answer entails for
Christian theology.
Is a thing good because God loves it, or does God love a thing because it is good?
If you choose the former, then the sole criterion of a thing’s goodness is God’s will.
The good is whatever God chooses it to be without restriction. Tomorrow, God
could declare that bunny stomping or candy stealing are good, and they would be.
Depending on what you believe about your conscience being in tune with the Holy
Spirit, you would feel the moral conviction to stomp bunnies or steal candy.
Morality becomes arbitrary. There is no rational basis for morality, and, therefore,
the true moral code cannot be discovered by reason alone. This view is known as
theological voluntarism.
If you choose the later, then the criterion of goodness exists apart from God. The
standard of good and evil is not located within God Himself, but it is something
that He recognizes and adheres to (since He is omni-benevolent). Such a standard
even applies to God. God’s thoughts and actions are judged to be good based on
something beyond even Him. God judges us, not based on His laws and principles
that originate with Him but according to some independent law.
The difficulties for the orthodox Christian in maintaining either of these positions
should be readily apparent.
But…Is There A Third Way?
I believe that there is. In my opinion there is an
answer that avoids the problems of both horns of
the dilemma.
You can download it and read it at your leisure (it is
only a couple of pages).
If you do not, you will not be penalized in any way;
however, those of you who do read it will
certainly benefit in your soul…and you might
even see tangible benefits in this class!