Euthyphro's Dilemma

[rug]

Thursday, July 17, 2014
Posted by Neno December

Socrates has been called to court on charges of impiety by Meletus (whom Plato names as the chief accuser). Specifically, Socrates accusers cite two impious acts:
•failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges
•introducing new deities

This was going to be the most famous trial of all time (that is, until O.J. Simpson came along). Socrates encounters Euthyphro outside of king-archon’s court, which he has come to prosecute his father for having unintentionally killed a murderous hired hand. Having heard this, Socrates is not convinced that Euthyphro was committing a pious act by prosecuting his father, so he asks Euthyphro to teach him about what piety and impiety are. Euthyphro makes five attempts at piety before ending the dialogue due to frustration. The most memorable and important was his third attempt which he defined piety as:
•“the pious is what all the gods love, and the opposite, what all the gods hate, is impious.”

Socrates responds by asking Euthyphro,
•“the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious, or is something pious because it is loved by the gods?”

In other words Socrates asked,
• "does god command this particular action because it is morally right, or is it morally right because god commands it?”

http://untemperedintellect.blogspot.com/2014/07/euthyphros-dilemma.html

[Jim__]

1. By contemporary standards, what is Euthyphro's dilemma?

Euthyphro's own description of his action (from Euthyphro):

Euth. I am amused, Socrates, at your making a distinction between one who is a relation and one who is not a relation; for surely the pollution is the same in either case, if you knowingly associate with the murderer when you ought to clear yourself and him by proceeding against him. The real question is whether the murdered man has been justly slain. If justly, then your duty is to let the matter alone; but if unjustly, then even if the murderer lives under the same roof with you and eats at the same table, proceed against him. Now the man who is dead was a poor dependent of mine who worked for us as a field labourer on our farm in Naxos, and one day in a fit of drunken passion he got into a quarrel with one of our domestic servants and slew him. My father bound him hand and foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with him. Meanwhile he never attended to him and took no care about him, for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that no great harm would be done even if he did die. Now this was just what happened. For such was the effect of cold and hunger and chains upon him, that before the messenger returned from the diviner, he was dead. And my father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer and prosecuting my father. They say that he did not kill him, and that if he did, dead man was but a murderer, and I ought not to take any notice, for that a son is impious who prosecutes a father. Which shows, Socrates, how little they know what the gods think about piety and impiety.

Euthyphro's father bound a laborer, threw him into the ditch, and left him to die. Even if we believe that the servant had murdered another man, he should not be just be left to die of cold and hunger in a ditch. Sure, Euthyphro is young and arrogant in claiming to know what the gods think - Socrates is having some fun with that. I don't think we are concerned with questions of piety and impiety today. The dilemma today is whether or not we should turn in a family member that we believe committed a murder. Is there any real doubt about what we consider to be the right choice?

[rug]

2. I would be with Euthyphro except for this:

And of this our mother the state is to be the judge.

The state, in many ways, has assumed the role of virtue that was occupied by the gods of Socrates' time. While, then, the state sought to divine, and carry out, the piety of the gods, the judicial arm of the state now tries to interpret and carry out the will of the people as embodied in their statutes.

The problem is, imo, that the state to a very large extent has forfeited any moral authority to do so.

The laws for the most part do not reflect the will of the people as much as they reflect the economic interests of the wealthy and their corporations.

It is hard to read about this alleged murderer starving in a ditch without thinking of what's going on at the border, or of the millions living not only on the edge of poverty, if not in it, but on the edge of sanity, while trying to live, work, rear children and to simply be happy in the bosom of this state.

So, yes, Euthypro is right that his father should be prosecuted. His dilemma today is not whether he should turn him in, but that there is no one with the "piety" to whom he should be reported.