Socrates(470 - 399 BC)

“The unexamined life is not worthliving”

Athens

• Athens is where this all takes place• It’s one of the most powerful city-states

in all of Greece• A democracy recently freed from

Spartan tyranny

The Socratic Method

• The Socratic Method, designed bySocrates, was simply his method ofdoing philosophy– Also called elenchus which means “cross-

examination”– It’s been one of the two major models for

education ever since• Vs. “The Banking Method”

Socratic vs. Banking Methods

• Socratic Method– Dialogue– Both parties are

active– Both parties learn– Goal is to work

together to find theTruth, not to “win”the argument

• Banking Method– Monologue– Only one part (the

teacher) is active,the other (thestudent) is passive

– Goal is to “deposit”knowledge into theempty piggy bank ofthe student’s mind

Why the Socratic Method Works

• Dialogue and activity are experientialengagement: we learn best when we’reinvested completely in what’s going onaround us– Examples:

• Learning to drive• Learning to play an instrument• Learning a foreign language

The Major Point of theSocratic Method

• The students must think for themselves.– It teaches not only the material but a method for

learning more and a desire to learn more– Hones the students cognitive skills by making

them an active participant in learning

– “Catch a fish for a man, feed him for a day. Teacha man how to fish, feed him for a lifetime”

The Problem

• Getting people to think for themselves isnot always what everyone wants– The Authority (whether it be government,

capitalism, big business, religion, etc.)doesn’t always want people to think forthemselves but, rather, to simply believewhat they tell people to believe, withoutquestion

The Question:By getting people to think for themselves,

is Socrates…• (a) Enlightening the

people of Athens,making themsmarter and thusmaking thedemocracy stronger;providing themfreedom of thought,imagination andwonder

• (b) Corrupting thepeople of Athens byencouraging them toquestion the beliefs,norms, practices,and values forcedupon them by theAuthority

Plato’s “The Euthyphro”

• All we know about Socrates we learnfrom his student Plato’s dialogues thatfeature him as the main character

• We know them to be relatively historicalaccurate

Plato’s “The Euthyphro”

• This is the first dialogue in a trilogy– “Euthyphro” (Socrates on his way to court

to defend himself against charges ofmurder)

– “Apology” (Socrates’ defense in court)– “Crito” (Socrates’ time in prison after the

trial ends)

Plato’s “The Euthyphro”

Things to look for in the text:

• Plato is on his way to court to defendhimself against charges of “impiety”which means, roughly, “immorality”

• Plato believed in universal definitions ofethical terms (Truth, Justice, Beauty,Goodness, etc., can be defined in sucha way as to fit all specific situations youencounter)

Moral Goodness (Piety)

• Do you think it’s possible that there’s asingle definition for “piety” that might fitall specific situations? How would youdefine “piety” (aka “moral goodness”?)

Moral Goodness (Piety)

• Let’s take some examples and see if auniversal definition might fit these verydifferent kinds of impiety (MoralBadness):

Alex Rodriguez(a.k.a. A-Rod)

• New York Yankees all-star thirdbasemen

A-Rod

• One of the highest paid athletes of all-time• Got caught doping (using performance

enhancing drugs [p.e.d.’s]) to give him anunfair advantage in the game

• Suspended for a year (longest disciplinaryaction ever)

• Lied about it to his fans, teammates, friends,and family for years and only admitted to itafter he got caught

Bernie Madoff

• Stock Broker

Bernie Madoff

• Set-up a fraudulent investment scam thatdefrauded thousands of investors of billions ofdollars over a 25 year period

• Contributed to the massive economiccollapse that caused the recession

• Found guilty on 11 counts of defrauding hard-working Americans and sentenced to 150years in prison (the maximum allowed)

“The Euthyphro”Summary of the Dialogue

• Socrates is on his way to court todefend himself against charges ofimpiety

• He runs into his old friend Euthyphrowho is on his way to court to prosecutehis own father for murder

• They get into a discussion about what“piety” means

Euthyphro’s Father• Euthyphro’s father returned to his homestead

to discover one his servant's murdered one ofhis slaves

• Unsure how to proceed, Euthyphro’s fathertied up the murderous servant, threw him in ahole, and told everyone to wait while he wentto find out how to proceed by visiting a localmagistrate

• While he was gone, the servant in the holedied from exposure and lack of food, makingEuthyphro’s father likewise guilty ofmurder/manslaughter

Pious or Impious?

• Euthyphro decides to bring his father tocourt on charges ofmurder/manslaughter for the death ofthe servant he threw in a hole

• (4e) Euthyphro says that people think Iam “crazy to prosecute” my own father

Pious or impious?

• (a) Impious• (4b) “Is then the

man that your fatherkilled one of yourrelatives? Or is thatobvious, for youwould not prosecuteyour father for themurder of astranger?”

• (b) Pious• (4b) “It is ridiculous,

Socrates, for you tothink that it makes anydifference whether thevictim is a stranger or arelative. One shouldonly watch whether thekiller acted justly or not”

Pious! Says, Euthyphro

(4e) “Both my father and myrelatives are angry that I’mprosecuting my father for murderon behalf of a murderer…for theysay, it is impious for a son toprosecute his father for murder.But their ideas of the divine attitudeto piety an impiety are wrong,Socrates”

Great!, thinks Socrates. I’m beingcharged with impiety and here is a man

so confident he knows what impietymeans he’s willing to prosecute his own

father!

(5d) “So tell me then, Euthyphro,what is piety and what is impiety?”

The Structure of the Dialogue

• The rest of the dialogue is aimed at trying tofind the definition of “piety”/“moral goodness”

• Socrates uses his famous Socratic method:getting Euthyphro to think for himself bygetting definitions out of him, one by one,demonstrating the flaws in his definition, andgetting him to strengthen them over and over

Definition 1: What I am doing now

• (5e) “I say that the pious is to do what Iam doing now, to prosecute thewrongdoer, be it about murder ortemple robbery or anything else,whether the wrongdoer is your father oryour mother or anyone else; not toprosecute is impious”

Problem with Definition 1

• (6e) “Bear in mind then that I did not bid youtell me one or two of the many pious actionsbut that form itself that makes all piousactions pious”

• In other words: Euthyphro didn’t giveSocrates a definition at all, merely anexample. But! We’re not even sure yet if whatEuthy is doing is an example of piety…weneed to know what piety means first beforewe can use that definition to compareEuthyphro’s actions to it.

Definition 2: What the gods love

• (7a) “What is dear to the gods is pious,what is not is impious”

• In other words: Whatever the godsenjoy, whatever they love, whateverthey find pleasurable, that is whatmakes an action pious

Improvement with Definition 2

• (7a) “Splendid, Euthyphro! You’ve nowanswered the way I wanted. Whether youranswer is true I do not yet know, but you willobviously show me that what you say is true”

• In other words: this time it’s at least adefinition, not just an example, a universalcriteria to view all individual pious actions.Whether it’s a good definition remains to beseen…

Problem with Definition 2

• (7b) “The gods are in a state of discord, theyare at odds with one another” on matters ofGoodness and Beauty, for example

• Things that can be measured or weighed orcounted are easy disagreements toovercome. But things like Goodness (piety)and Beauty are much more difficult and oftenresult in major disagreements, even amongthe gods

Problem with Definition 2 cont.

• (7e) “Then according to your argument,my good Euthyphro, different godsconsider different things to be just,beautiful, ugly, good, and bad…thus,the same things then are loved by thegods and hated by the gods, and wouldbe both god-loved and god-hated,” thatis, both pious and impious at the sametime. For example:

Let’s Poll the Gods!• If we ask the gods of ancient Athens, for

example, whether or not Justin Bieber’smusic is good they might reply:

• Zeus: “ugh, he’s awful!”• Athena: “he should be eaten by snakes!”• Hades: “actually, I love his stuff”• Hermes: “I’m a belieber!!!”• Poseidon: “…that chick with the spiky hair?

Meh, I’ll pass.”• Aphrodite: “love it! Break me off a piece of

that!”

Let’s Poll the Gods!• Thus: 4 gods love Bieber, 4 gods hate Bieber.

– If the definition of what is Good is “whatever ispleasing to the gods” then Justin Bieber’s music is:

• (a) pleasing to the gods (some of them loved him); and• (b) displeasing to the gods (some of them hated him)

– This means it’s both pious and impious at the same time!Not a very good definition!!!

Definition 3: What all the gods love

• (9e) “I would certainly say that the piousis what all the gods love, and theopposite, what all the gods hate, is theimpious”

Improvements with Definition 3

• It’s a definition, like number 2, andunlike number 1, so…yay.

• It fixes the problem in definition 2 byclarifying that something is pious only ifevery single one of the gods all agreeupon it (that they all like it/love it/find itpleasing)

Problem with Definition 3

• (10a) Socrates asks: “is the pious beingloved by the gods because it is pious, oris it pious because it is being loved bythe gods?”

• In other words: is something goodbecause the gods love it, or do the godslove something because it’s good?

Side-by-Side

• Euthyphro’s PositionGods’ love makes

something Good

I love pasta and mylove makes pastagood

• Socrates’ PositionIf something is Goodthat’s why the gods’love it

Pasta is good, that’swhy I love it

Conclusion

• Socrates’ position is right: our lovingsomething doesn’t make it good, but,instead, we love something because it’salready good.

Why That’s So Important

• Socrates’ position can be restated thisway: just because an Authority (thegods, the government, etc.) lovessomething, that doesn’t make thatsomething good. Ideally, the opposite isthe case: the Authority ought to lovewhat is Good and then make the Goodinto law.

Euthyphro’s position is called“relativism”

• Relativism is the ethical position that morallaws are relative to the time, place, andcommunity they exist in. Relativism does notbelieve in universal laws or universalprinciples of right or wrong that apply to allplaces and all times

• For Euthyphro, whatever the Authority lovesis Good. This is relativism. What is Good isrelative to whatever the gods happen to love.

Problems with Relativism• (1) Nothing stops the Authority from changing its mind: what’s

Good/moral one day could be Evil/immoral the next if it’s allabout whatever the Authority happen to find pleasurable

• (2) There’s no way to track progress: the Authority changes itsmind from time to time just like certain clothes come in and outof fashion, neither improving nor getting worse, just changingwith the times

• (3) There’s no way to say that what another culture is doing orbetter or worse than our own if all moral standards are justrelative to one’s own culture

• (4) All we’d need to do to figure out if something is Good is toconsult the laws (what the Authority likes and wants us to do)

An example: Slavery in America

• Let’s go back to 1790 America.• According to relativism (if Euthyphro is right):

– (1) The Authority might love slavery today, hate it tomorrow (freethe slaves!), then change its mind again and love slavery (back tobeing slaves!)

– (2) Fast forward to 2015 where slavery is no longer legal inAmerica. According to relativism, things are neither “better” nor“worse” only “different”

– (3) In 2015, without slavery, we see another nation out there thathas slaves. According to relativism, our nation is neither better, norworse, than that other nation, merely different, with different,relative, values

– (4) In 1790, in order to find out what’s morally Good, according torelativism, we just need to consult the Authority and sure enough,slavery they like, therefore slavery (according to relativism) ismorally Good.

The Take-Away

• Just because the Authority says something isGood doesn’t make it Good! It might beGood, but the fact that it’s a law doesn’t makeit Good.– Example: Obama could make it a law that I can’t,

specifically, eat my neighbor for no reason. Thatmight be Good. But it’s not Good only becauseObama said so.

– Socrates demands we not passively accept thebias of the Authority but to think for ourselves andlook into the Nature of the Good on our own!

Now you can explain Jay-Z toyour friends!

“I’m wonderin’ if a thug’s prayers reachIs Pious pious cause God loves pious?Socrates asks, whose bias do ya’ll seek?All for Plato, screech”

- No Church in the Wild