PHIL 102, Sept. 11, 2013
Announcements
1. This Friday (Sept. 13) you’ll find out your small groups and pick days for presentations.
2. Instructions for presentations are now on the website (http://blogs.ubc.ca/phil102)--look under
“Assignments”
3. First thoughts on philosophy (blog post) due tonight by midnight! See “Assignments” on course
website.
4. Notes here on the screen are always posted after class on the course website, under the “weekly
schedule” for the day they are for.
Plato, Euthyphro
Definitions of piety in Euthyphro
What sort of definition is Socrates looking for?
* a definition that gives characteristics of all pious actions
p. 5, 5d: “is the pious not the same and alike in every action...?”
* a definition that gives characteristics of only pious actions
— Socrates doesn’t want a definition that would make some actions both pious and impious: “I did
not ask you what same thing is both pious and impious” (p. 10, 8a-b)
— pious and impious are separate; definition of piety must give characteristics that only pious things
have, not impious ones too
* a definition that doesn’t just give secondary characteristics of piety, but those characteristics that are essential,
that “make all pious actions pious”
p. 7, 6d: looking for “that form itself that makes all pious actions pious”; so can use that “as a
model,” to say of any particular action whether it’s pious or not.
— “what the gods love” is not essential to piety if they love those things because they are pious.
Something else explains what makes them pious (p. 13, 11a)
1. First definition of piety:
“I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, … not to prosecute is
impious” (p. 6, 5e)
what’s wrong with this definition?
(look at the text for a couple of minutes (pp. 6-7), come up with your answer)
-- Socrates: this is an example of a pious action, not a definition of what all pious actions are like (p.
7, 6e)
2. second definition of piety:
“what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious” (p. 7, 7a)
— they also talk about this as piety being what is “loved by the gods”
what’s wrong with this definition?
(look at pp. 8-9)
Argument:
a. Euthyphro believes the gods sometimes battle with each other, disagree (p. 6-7, 6b-c)
b. Socrates: the gods would be likely to disagree about things such as justice, beauty, goodness (p. 8,
7d-e)
c. [assumption] What the gods consider just, beautiful and good is what they would also love/what
would be dear to the gods
d. So the same actions could be both loved by the gods and hated by them (loved by some and
hated by others at the same time) (p. 9, 8a)
e. Which means the same actions could be both pious and impious
f. [assumption] The pious and impious are two different things, and the same actions could not be
both pious and impious
Conclusion: Piety cannot be defined as what the gods love.
— Euthyphro’s beliefs are inconsistent: he believes all the above, but they cannot be true at the
same time
3. third definition of piety: “the pious is what all the gods love, and the opposite, what all the gods
hate, is the impious” (p. 11, 9e)
what’s wrong with this definition?
1. Saying that piety is what is loved by the gods could mean two things:
(a)
certain acts are pious
(b)
gods love certain acts
then
then
acts are loved by gods b/c pious
(acts being pious comes first)
acts are pious b/c loved by gods
(acts are loved by gods b/c gods love them)
(acts being loved by gods is first)
2. Things being seen, led, carried and loved are like (b) (pp. 11-12, 10a-d)
Someone sees x
then
x is seen b/c someone sees it
Someone carries y
then
y is carried b/c someone carries
it
Someone loves z
then
z is loved b/c someone loves it
3. But the pious is like (a), Euthyphro says (p. 12, 10d), and E has also agreed that loving things is like
(b):
-- Socrates says that a thing that is loved is “something loved because it is being loved” (p. 12, 10c), and
E agrees, so things that are loved are like (b).
-- E also agrees that the pious “is being loved [by the gods] because it is pious, but it is not pious
because it is being loved” (p. 12, 10d), so the pious is like (a).
4. This means that the pious and what is loved by the gods (“the god-beloved”) are not the same: the
first is like (a), and the second is like (b) (pp. 12-13, 10d-11a)
— “the one is such as to be loved because it is being loved [“the god-beloved,” (b)], the other is being
loved because it is such as to be loved [the pious, (a)]” (p. 13, 11a)
(a): piety
certain acts are pious
then
(b): what the gods love/god-beloved
gods love certain acts
then
acts are loved by gods b/c pious
(acts being pious comes first)
acts are loved by the gods b/c gods love them
(acts being loved by gods is first)
Saying piety is “what all the gods love” doesn’t give a definition of its essential characteristics
— Socrates: that all the gods love piety is only “an affect or quality of it, that the pious has the quality
of being loved by all the gods, but you have not yet told me what the pious is” (p. 13, 11a-b)
Larger implications of this argument
We don’t need to look to what the gods say to find out what is pious, or morally good
— we can use our own reason to determine these things
— and philosophy is what allows us to do this
Last definitions of piety: what other definitions can you find in the text? How many can you find?
What is wrong with them?
(discuss on Friday, if you wish)
Questions from your class discussion in groups
1. Socrates uses leading questions to get Euthyphro to give certain answers. Why doesn’t Socrates use
normal rhetoric to persuade rather than using leading questions to twist Euthyphro’s argument?
2. Does Socrates consider the grey areas? He seems to speak of the black-and-white and expects for the
answers to his questions to be “agree” or “disagree” (or perhaps this is his method to exposing the
basis of the argument).
— What is his stance on grey areas?
— Does Socrates have an answer as well, or is he honestly wanting to learn from Euthyphro?
3. We are not sure if Socrates is the one to blame for making the words twist. The dialogue doesn’t
seem to come to a definite end because there are always new questions and contradictions emerging.
Therefore it could be either one of them who is making the dialogue get more complicated.
4. Socrates’ dialogue was confusing at times. It seemed like he was saying the same thing over and
over.
5. p. 5: 5b , p. 10: 9, p. 15: 12d, p. 11: 10b (this one is also similar to the ones below)
-- I didn’t have time for these in class, except the last one, so I’ll give quick thoughts here.
(Christina’s answers)
a. p. 5, 5b: Here Socrates is referring to the fact that he is being charged with impiety and corruption
of the youth, and will soon have to go to trial for these. S is imagining a dialogue with the person
who is bringing the charge, Meletus, and how if Euthyphro teaches him about piety he could the
following to Meletus: if you think E has good views about piety, and I’ve learned those views,
then I shouldn’t be brought to trial on charges of impiety. But if you think E’s views on piety are
wrong, then blame him for my impiety, not me, because he taught me.
-- Socrates was being charged with corruption of the youth; he is here suggesting that E could be
charged with corruption of the older men (Socrates is older than E). So S is suggesting that here, a
youth might be corrupting older people instead of what S himself is being charged with.
-- Note that S is also suggesting that it might be people like E who are the corrupting influence in
Athens, not S.
b. p. 10, 9: Here, Socrates is asking E how he knows all the gods would consider what E is doing to
his father to be pious. Socrates is just describing the situation of the servant who killed a slave,
and how E’s father let that servant die by binding him and putting him in a ditch while he waited
to see what the religious authorities said should be done.
c. p. 15, 12d: Socrates is asking E here if E agrees that piety is one part of justice. If so, then all pious
things are also just, but not all just things are also pious.
The following are all about the same part of the dialogue:
6. The part where Socrates talks about something being carried because it is being carried, or it is
carried because someone is carrying it. <— this is confusing
7. p. 12, d: “Socrates: Then the god-loved is not the same as the pious, Euthyphro, nor the pious the
same as the god-loved.” <— What does this mean?
8. The way of explaining whether “something is because of a certain way, or its a certain way because
of this something” is the most confusing part.