What Socrates wants from Euthyphro: Forms
Socrates pretends to be impressed by Euthyphro's claim of expert knowledge. We know from the Apology that his expectation is that Euthyphro will turn out to be unwise, as all of his other interlocutors have. When he says that he wants to become Euthyphro's pupil, his offer is surely ironic. What he wants, he says, is to learn the nature of piety so that he can answer the charge of Meletus and deflect Meletus’ attention to Euthyphro instead of himself, something Euthyphro says he would welcome. Socrates begins his questioning of Euthyphro where he begins the questioning of several alleged experts, with a request for a definition of the subject matter of the expert's area of expertise, in this case the nature of piety. “So tell me now, by Zeus,” he asks, “what you just now maintained you clearly knew: what kind of thing do you say that godliness and ungodliness are, both as regards murder and other things; or is not the pious the same and alike in every action, and the impious the opposite of all that is pious and like itself, and everything that is to be impious presents us with one form … in so far as it is impious?” (5c–d). When Euthyphro, as we shall see, fails to understand initially what Socrates wants, he repeats the request: “I did not bid you tell me one or two of the many pious actions but that form itself that makes all pious actions pious, for you agreed that all impious actions are impious and all pious actions pious through one form … Tell me then what this form itself is, so that I may look upon it, and using it as a model, say that any action of yours or another's that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not” (6d–e). What Socrates tells Euthyphro he wants is a Form. He uses the terms eidos, idea and paradeigma to identify what he wants. All of these are terms used to describe the separate Forms attributed to Plato by Aristotle. Why should we not see Socrates’ request in terms of that Platonic theory? Why should we not attribute that theory to Socrates, though it occurs in an elenctic dialogue?
It is sometimes said that, though Socrates uses the language of the theory of Forms, we should not see in these passages any commitment to the actual theory itself. This is unconvincing; if we did not know that these passages occurred in an elenctic dialogue we would without question say that they concerned Platonic Forms. The Forms are described by Socrates as what philosophers call universals: entities that are not, like particulars such as Socrates and his actions, restricted to a single place and time. Socrates can only exist in one place at a time: he can't be in the gymnasium and at the same time in the market-place. His actions, too, are limited in space and time: if Socrates is carrying on a conversation with Euthyphro at the porch of the king-archon he can't be carrying on that very same conversation at the same time with Meno in another location. Socrates’ conversation with Euthyphro is a single, locatable and datable event. A universal, on the other hand, can have multiple locations. Consider a prayer. In one sense this can be thought of as a single thing, but the same prayer can be spoken, or silently recited, by many different people at the same time or at different times. Or consider the color green. We may talk of a “particular” shade of green, but even this particular shade can be present in many different particular things at the same time or at different times. A universal, philosophers say, has, or can have, multiple instances. Socrates makes this point about piety when he says that it is “the same and alike in every action” (5d) and when he says that “all pious actions [are] pious through one form” (6d–e). To say that universals exist is to commit oneself to a bit of metaphysics, of ontology: it is to offer a part of an account of the kinds or categories of things that exist in the universe. It is not a particularly obscure or arcane bit of metaphysics – Euthyphro eventually gets what Socrates wants – but it is metaphysics nonetheless.6
Socrates does not merely get Euthyphro to understand that he is looking for a universal. This universal, piety, he says, is what “makes” all pious actions pious. It is a cause of the piety of those actions. It is because of piety that those actions are called pious. It should be clear from this that we are not talking simply about the word “pious” but about a thing, a characteristic, that pious things have. This thing also is, or provides, a paradigm, a standard or a model, that can be used to determine whether a given action is pious or impious. Socrates does not explain precisely how this works, but suppose we come to see that piety is a characteristic of a certain sort, perhaps because we identify this characteristic in a particular example. Consider, for example, the characteristic, “tartness.” Suppose we learn to identify what tartness is by having a particular experience, which we get, let us say, by tasting an apple. Using the experience of the taste of some particular apple to identify what tartness is, using it as a paradigm, we can extend our understanding of tartness to other cases. If Euthyphro's prosecution of his father is truly pious, and we discern that characteristic of piety in this particular example, we can use our understanding of that characteristic in applying it to other cases of piety. These characteristics of Forms, that they are universals, causes and paradigms, standards or models, are also characteristics of the separate Platonic Forms.
What is missing from the Forms in the Euthyphro is the claim that the Forms exist in separation from the things they characterize. According to Aristotle, Plato thought that knowledge of phenomenal things, the things we experience in the world around us, was impossible, because these things were always changing and knowledge required stable objects. He thought there could be knowledge of Forms – Socrates was right about that – but he thought that Forms could not be part of the world we experience through our senses. He posited therefore a separate world in which these Forms, these objects of knowledge, existed (Metaph. A.6, 987a29–b10). This world Plato refers to as the world of “being”; he refers to the phenomenal world of changing objects as “becoming.” Socrates does not refer to this doctrine of two worlds in the Euthyphro. The Form of piety is not said to exist in a separate world, but rather “in” every action (5d). Socrates thus has Forms, but not separate Forms. He is searching for a real, not a nominal definition, as I noted in Chapter 3; and the objects he is searching for are Forms. This Socratic conception of Form appears in other dialogues as well: in the Meno, at 72c, in the Protagoras, at 330c–331c, and in the Hippias Major, at 286d. This conception of Form is not prominent in the elenctic dialogues, but it is present there.
There is a practical as well as a theoretical aspect to Socrates’ search for real definitions of ethical terms. Consider the immediate cases. Socrates is about to face the charge of impiety brought against him by Meletus. If he can acquire knowledge of the true nature of piety, he might be able to explain to Meletus, or more importantly to the jurors, why his particular religious views are not impious. He could thus obtain acquittal on this charge. Euthyphro is about to prosecute his father on a charge of murder. If he actually knows that this act is pious, then well and good; but if, as the subsequent dialogue shows, he does not know this, then he may be embarking on a disastrously mistaken course of action, as his relatives think. Even if Euthyphro happens to be right about his prosecution of his father, if he only has correct opinion about what is pious and not knowledge, he will be unable to explain to the jurors why he is right. If he cannot explain the nature of piety, he may be unable to convince the jurors of the rightness of his case.
This may help us to understand why Socrates is interested in acquiring knowledge, and in particular definitional knowledge, of the terms he investigates. It is sometimes said that we know things we cannot define, and in the “garden variety” sense of knowledge this may be true. But the moral terms Socrates wants to define are controversial: what seems pious or just to one person may seem impious or unjust to another. Without a definition that can be applied to particular cases as a standard or paradigm we won't be able to resolve those controversies. We literally will not know what we are talking about when we use these controversial terms. Socrates’ assumption is that these terms refer to something definite, a Form, a characteristic of things. It is only our understan
ding of the nature of these Forms that is inadequate. If we could but grasp the nature of the Forms we would not only acquire knowledge of how to use the controversial terms of our language; we would acquire understanding of the way things work.
Euthyphro's Attempts to Define Piety. Their Refutation
Euthyphro's initial attempt to answer Socrates is based on his own case: “the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, whether the wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else; not to prosecute is impious” (5d–e). Euthyphro doesn't simply say, piety is what I am doing now, prosecuting my father for murder; his answer is general, but not general enough to cover all instances of piety. This is what Socrates reminds him of at 6d–e, quoted above. Euthyphro's second attempt to define piety is an improvement on the first. This time Euthyphro responds succinctly: “what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious” (7a). Socrates responds that this is the sort of definition he is looking for, but there is a problem. Suppose the gods disagree about what is pious. (This is something that Socrates does not believe, but Euthyphro does.) If so, then one and the same action may be loved by one god and hated by another. The same action will thus be both pious and impious. Socrates leads Euthyphro to modify his definition to state that “what all the gods hate is impious, and what they all love is pious, and that what some gods love and others hate is neither or both” (9d).
This definition states a significant view about the nature of piety. It describes piety as a universal characteristic, the state of being loved by all the gods. It gives no other criteria for an action's being pious than this. If all the gods love an action, it is pious, and that is that. There is no appeal from the love of the gods. The gods do not have or need any reason to love or hate an action; it is solely their love of it that matters. If the gods love it when everyone to eats a certain food, then eating that food is a pious act. Call this view subjectivism. Subjectivism is similar in nature to a view often discussed in ethics about what makes right actions right: this view claims that what makes right actions right is the fact that God commands those actions. This view is referred to as “the divine command theory.” The weakness of this theory lies in the fact that if God commands an action which we think of as morally wrong, such as human sacrifice, the fact that God commands the action would make it right. This seems unacceptable to most people today; the result is that the divine command theory has few contemporary proponents, at least in this simple version. (There are more complex versions of the theory that attempt to answer this objection.) Euthyphro's answer has the same problem: if all the gods hate his prosecution of his father, then it is impious, whatever Euthyphro may think and however well he may defend his action; and if they all love what he is doing, then it is pious, whatever his relatives think. The way to determine whether an action is pious or impious is simple (if impractical): take a poll among the gods and find out what they all love. These two similar positions seem altogether too subjective to many people. We like to think that we have come a long way from the moral acceptance of human sacrifice, and we like to think that we have found a basis of morality that is sounder and more objective than what may seem right to a group of gods who, at least in Greek mythology, do not generally have the best interests of human beings at heart.
Though Euthyphro's account of piety may seem to us unacceptably subjective, however, it has something about it that would have seemed obvious to a religious prophet such as Euthyphro, steeped as he was in the lore of Greek mythology. It is a fact, or it would have seemed to Euthyphro to be a fact, that whether the gods approve of an action is at least relevant to the question whether the action is pious. If there are no gods, an action could not be pious or impious. An action might be just, or admirable or good, but if there are no gods to approve of it it cannot be pious, because piety is what is loved by the gods. Piety is not a matter of human intention, of the desire to please gods that human beings believe exist; as Euthyphro defines piety, it is a matter of actually pleasing gods who actually exist. Therefore, if there are no gods, there can be no pleasing the gods, and thus no piety. (The same holds true for the divine command theory. If there is no God, there can be no divine commands, and right and wrong cannot exist, at least according to the theory.)
Euthyphro is not necessarily wrong, therefore, to think that some reference to what pleases the gods is essential to defining piety. But what role does it play? Socrates tries to lead Euthyphro to a recognition of the weakness of his subjectivist position. He tries to get Euthyphro to admit that if all the gods love an action, they must do so for a reason. Euthyphro does admit this, but he undermines his own view in doing so. What Socrates asks Euthyphro is whether what is loved by all the gods is loved by them because it is pious, and Euthyphro answers affirmatively. But now we have statements that are at odds with each other: according to the first, what causes an action to be pious is the fact that all the gods love it, but according to the second, what causes the gods to love it is the fact that it is pious. Both can't be true. Ordinarily, when A is the cause of B, B can't be the cause of A. Consider two statements: “it is raining” and “the street is wet.” I may say “the street is wet because it is raining,” but not “it is raining because the street is wet.” It may be true that actions that are pious are loved by all the gods. It may be true, in other words, that “loved by all the gods” and “pious” pick out the same objects. It may be that “being loved by the gods” is what Socrates calls at 11a “an affect or quality” of piety, that the pious has the quality of being loved by all the gods. But this does not explain the nature of piety; that will only be explained, Socrates thinks, if we give an objective reason that explains why all the gods love it. Recall that a Form, according to Socrates, is what makes an action pious; and Socrates thinks that Euthyphro has not explained this.
Euthyphro could have avoided the problem raised for him by Socrates if he had just stuck to his subjectivist position and, when Socrates asked for a reason why the gods loved pious actions, had just said, “for no reason.” He might also have avoided the problem if, when asked for a reason, he had mentioned some other characteristic, if he had said for instance that the gods love pious acts because they are just, or courageous, or wise. Of course, that would only have led to a further investigation into the meaning of those terms, and thus into the heart of the Socratic search for the definitions of ethical terms, but it would have avoided the tight little circle that Euthyphro gets himself into by defining piety as what all the gods love and then explaining what all the gods love in terms of piety.
Euthyphro's Perplexity
At this point Euthyphro admits his perplexity: “Socrates, I have no way of telling you what I have in mind, for whatever proposition we put forward goes around and refuses to stay put where we establish it” (11b). Euthyphro's remark gives rise to a Socratic comparison between Euthyphro's attempted definitions and the statues of Daedalus in Greek mythology, which were so lifelike they could move on their own. Euthyphro complains to Socrates that it is not he who makes his statements move, but Socrates: “as far as I am concerned they would remain as they were” (11d). Euthyphro does not exactly admit that the argument has shown that he is mistaken in his definitions; he may still think that he has something in mind, but that he no longer is able to express it. After that complicated argument concerning piety and what is loved by the gods, it is perhaps no wonder that Euthyphro is confused. So far in the dialogue we have seen the elenchus work in its typical manner, as an engine of refutation. Euthyphro has put forward three definitions of piety, and Socrates has refuted all three. Euthyphro has no more definitions to offer and, given Euthyphro's perplexity and Socrates’ professed ignorance, we might expect the dialogue to end at this point. If Socrates were purely the barren character described in the Theaetetus, perhaps it would.
Socrates’ Constructive Contribution
The dialogue, however, does not end at this point. Socrates
now offers a constructive suggestion: that “all that is pious is of necessity just” (11e), but not all of justice is pious. Piety is a part of justice, that part which concerns “care” of the gods (12e). This point about care is Euthyphro's contribution, and Socrates says, “you seem to me to put that very well.” There remains, however, a problem with the definition of the term “care.” We care for horses, dogs, and cattle in order to benefit and improve the objects of our care, but we do not care for the gods in an attempt to improve them. (The unstated reason for this, on which Euthyphro and Socrates must agree, is that the gods are already perfect, or at least unimprovable by us.) Euthyphro, faced with this problem, says that the kind of care involved in pious action is “the kind of care, Socrates, that slaves take of their masters” (13d). Socrates describes this kind of care as “service.” Now, however, another problem arises. Socrates asks, “to the achievement of what aim does service to the gods tend … what is the excellent aim that the gods achieve, using us as their servants?” (13e) Euthyphro's answer is that “if a man knows how to say and do what is pleasing to the gods at prayer and sacrifice, those are pious actions such as preserve both private houses and public affairs of state. The opposite of these pleasing actions are impious and overturn and destroy everything” (14b). It would seem from Euthyphro's answer that the “excellent aim,” the “altogether fine work” (13e9) at which our service to the gods aims is the preservation of private homes and “affairs of state.” Socrates does not refute this suggestion of Euthyphro, but neither does he endorse it. Rather, he focuses on the means by which Euthyphro believes that this end is achieved: prayer and sacrifice, which he describes as a “sort of trading skill between gods and men” (14e). But what benefit do the gods receive from these trades? “What they give us is obvious to all. There is for us no good that we do not receive from them, but how are they benefited by what they receive from us?” Socrates asks (14e–15a). Euthyphro replies that our gifts to the gods are “honor, reverence, and … gratitude” (15a).7 These gifts do not benefit the gods, except by pleasing them, Euthyphro admits; but to say this is just to return to the view that had been rejected earlier, that piety is what pleases the gods, or what they all love. As Socrates points out to Euthyphro, this is to move in a circle again. “Either we were wrong when we agreed before, or, if we were right then, we are wrong now” (15c).
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