Thoughts on Euthyphro

         Euthyphro literally means straight thinker or a person who is very reasonable. It is the name of the next shorter ethical dialogue and the name of Socrates interlocutor in that dialogue. This ends up being pretty funny since it is quite obvious that Euthyphro is anything but a good thinker. The dialogue begins with Euthyphro finding Socrates at the law courts and correctly guessing that someone must be prosecuting him, since he couldn’t imagine gentle Socrates lodging a complaint against anyone. Socrates humility is showcased when he tells him that he is being brought to trial for corrupting the youth. He says that if he has done this then he deserves to be punished, because nothing is more important than the upbringing of the young. He believes Meletus must be a wise person for being able to know whether or not he is doing this; either that or Socrates is being very ironic. Euthyphro tells Socrates that he is pretty sure the charges are trumped up and the real reason people are after him is because of his unique and eccentric relationship with his daimonion (3b). People think it’s weird and don’t understand it, so they fear it, and this fear causes them to lash out in anger. Euthyphro sympathizes because he often gets treated the same way; people think he is a zealous religious nutcase. Socrates points out why they are out for his blood and not Euthyphro’s. People don’t care how weird you are as long as you keep it mostly to yourself. Once you start spreading your ideas and they have a real impact on people and life begins to change, they will try to kill you (3d). I think Socrates hits the nail right on the head.

              Socrates then asks why Euthyphro is there and it turns out he is there to charge his father with murder. This shocks Socrates and to see why we must have a little bit of background. In the ancient world, and even so today, people tended to put family before the law. Think about it, if someone dear to you in your family committed a crime and begged you to either keep quiet or help them get out of it, in most cases you would. Socrates especially seems to be for giving family members more of the benefit of the doubt than most people. When we learn the details of the case, we find that it is far from open and shut. One of Euthyphro’s dad’s field slaves got drunk the other night and, in a rage, killed one of the house slaves. His father tied him up and threw him into a ditch. He wasn’t sure exactly what to do with the murderous slave, so he sent someone to go to Athens to fetch a seer who would give him advice. The problem is that the slave died from a mixture of hunger, thirst, and exposure to the elements before the messenger got back. We aren’t given any details of how cold it was, how long the slave was left in the ditch, etc. All we know is that the slave was a drunken murderer, and his father did make an effort to figure out what to do with him. He just didn’t think he deserved food, drink, or any sympathy since he just murdered someone in cold blood, which is understandable though not commendable. To put the welfare of a murderous slave above his father seems very unholy to the rest of Euthyphro’s family, so they are all upset with him.

              Even though Socrates knows that what really matters is whether an action is just or unjust and not just whether the perpetrator is related to you, he still thinks Euthyphro is being a bit hasty and unwise. He thinks you should only act when you are certain, especially against your own father and I believe he has a point. When he says Euthyphro must be very wise, Euthyphro arrogantly agrees that he is the wisest theologian in Athens and knows what is holy from what is unholy. He has absolutely no doubt that what he is doing is right. Usually this means you are either someone very holy yourself or someone people should run away from and never turn back to. Euthyphro seems like he falls into the latter category. Socrates, ever the optimist, sees hope in this. If Euthyphro really is an expert on piety, then he could help Socrates at his trial. Therefore, Socrates investigates Euthyphro to see if what he says is true.

              They agree that holiness must have an essential form – the one thing that underlies all holy things and gives them their character as holy. Having agreed upon this, Euthyphro gives his first definition of holiness. He says it is when you prosecute wrongdoing, but this misses the point. Socrates is looking for the essence of holiness – the standard by which all holy and unholy things are judged, not just one example of a holy action. Euthyphro defends his decision to go against his family by referencing myths that show even the gods do so. In one story Zeus imprisons his own father Cronus and, in another story, Cronus imprisons his father Uranus. If Zeus and Cronus can go against their fathers why can’t Euthyphro? While this is a good point, Socrates reproves Euthyphro for taking the stories too literally since he doesn’t think they are myths, but believes they really happened. Socrates thinks he sees another reason why people want him killed – he interprets fantastic stories like these allegorically and it upsets people. I think it is very interesting that Socrates, and by extension, Plato were fans of allegorical exegesis, because that’s what we also see in all the early Church Fathers – who were, by and large, Platonists. I myself see the merit in this because some stories in the Bible have no redeeming value unless they are seen allegorically. We see that this divide even persists today with the more radical evangelical protestant types taking the more literal bent, while Catholic and, even more so, Orthodox Christians see things far more allegorically.

Euthyphro’s second definition is that holy things are those things that please the gods but according to the myths he just talked about this makes no sense. The gods in the ancient stories disagree, fight, and even hate each other at different times. It’s not only conceivable, but a virtual certainty that one thing could be hated by one god and loved by another and therefore both holy and unholy at the same time, according to this definition. Euthyphro retorts that all the gods agree that injustice must be punished. Socrates schools him – of course everyone thinks injustice should be punished. The problem is that both men and the gods disagree as to whether or not an injustice has occurred. That’s the problem Euthyphro is currently facing, and he doesn’t even realize it because he is so blinded by his arrogance. If his dad committed a crime, he should be punished. But the real question is, did his dad commit a crime? We find out here something of universal human importance. The reasons we hate people are usually due to differences in ethics – it is a much murkier subject than most others. In the realm of math, history, or science, etc. for the most part we can just measure, calculate, or look something up in a book or on google really quick and settle a debate. Ethical and moral questions are a lot more dubious and uncertain and we often feel a lot more strongly about them. Disagreements here cause a lot of the hostility in the world and so it is important to recognize that, and even more important to try to find objective facts in this area that everyone can agree are true, so hostility can be reduced. This is PRECISELY what Socrates is trying to do.

This leads to Euthyphro’s third definition of holiness – what ALL the gods love is holy and what they ALL hate is unholy. The so-called Euthyphro dilemma that is bandied about by village atheists the world over comes out in this section of the dialogue. “Is what is holy holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy” (10a)? I’m not sure why this is supposed to seem like such a knockdown argument against theism. Socrates shows that something can’t be holy because it is loved, it must be loved because it is first holy – cause comes before effect. This dilemma is supposed to show only two options, both of which are not good for someone who believes in God. On the one hand, if something is holy because God loves it – then it would seem he could arbitrarily love anything and then that thing would be considered holy. If God loved rape and murder, that would be holy. On the other hand, if what is holy is holy not because God deems it so, it would seem that its holiness is independent of God and so God becomes unnecessary. The problem with this is that there is a third option, which is that God is Goodness itself and so due to his nature, it is impossible for him to love things that are not good. Things don’t become good once he loves them, and they aren’t good due to some independent standard. God is the Good and all things flow from Him and therefore, must be good and holy. Anyways, this definition still doesn’t encapsulate the universal nature of holiness.

Since Euthyphro has failed, Socrates gives a definition – he says that holiness is a subset of justice (11e), just like reverence is a subset of fear, or how even numbers are a subset of real numbers. When Socrates asks what part of justice holiness corresponds to, Euthyphro says it must be the service of the gods. Socrates believes this implies that holiness would aim to make the gods better. This is impossible, so Euthyphro says Socrates should see it more like service in terms of a slave obeying his master. Socrates accepts this but asks what the practitioner of holiness produces. If it is a real thing it should make some product like how a doctor makes health, a farmer makes food, etc. Euthyphro has no idea what that would be in regard to piety, so he comes up with a new definition.

The final definition he gives of holiness is that it means the ability to know what to say and do in prayer and sacrifice (14b). The way Euthyphro describes it rubs Socrates the wrong way, it seems just like a mutual exchange of commerce, like when you swipe your card at the 7-eleven and they give you a Slim Jim and a bag of Funyuns. Seems to lack the romance and reverence of worship. In addition, Socrates asks what we could possibly give the gods that they would need or benefit from? Euthyphro agrees that we can’t give them anything useful – we just need to give them things that please them and that’s what’s holy. Now we’ve gone full circle to the second definition Euthyphro gave, that holiness is what the gods love. Socrates is sure that Euthyphro must really know what holiness is and is just holding out on him. He demands that he tell him directly and stop beating around the bush (15d). Euthyphro claims to be too busy and runs off, leaving Socrates distraught. I think that the big takeaway from this dialogue is that Plato is trying to defend the unity of virtue. The closest to a definition that we found was the fourth one that identified justice with holiness. Holiness is just justice when seen in our interactions with the divine. I think that is the real truth, but hopefully I’ll learn more as I continue my journey in reading the ancient philosophers and some of the commentaries on their works. It’s also a shame that Euthyphro was unable to see the classical Christian view of sacrifice and prayer, but I’ll reserve that discussion for another time.