The Conclusion of the Dialogue
Socrates says that
… we must investigate again from the beginning what piety is … For you know it, if any man does … If you had no clear knowledge of piety and impiety you would never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a servant. For fear of the gods you would have been afraid to take the risk lest you should not be acting rightly, and would have been ashamed before men, but I know well that you believe you have clear knowledge of piety and impiety.
(15c–e)
At this point, however, Euthyphro has had enough. He throws in the towel, beating a hasty retreat with the excuse that he is in a hurry and it is time for him to leave. Socrates protests that Euthyphro has dashed his “great hope” (16a) that he might learn what piety and impiety are and so escape Meletus’ indictment, and so the dialogue ends.
It is clear by now, as it was in all likelihood clear at the beginning of the dialogue, that Socrates’ praise of Euthyphro as one who knows what piety and impiety are is ironic. The preceding dialogue has shown that Euthyphro does not know what the nature of piety is. If Socrates ever held out hope that Euthyphro might actually teach him the nature of piety, it is surely gone at this point in the dialogue. It is unlikely that Socrates’ offer to become Euthyphro's pupil was ever seriously intended. What, then, did Socrates hope to attain by engaging in conversation with Euthyphro? Was his aim to dissuade him from prosecuting his father? Socrates never quite says that Euthyphro's prosecution of his father is wrong; he just states that only one who was “far advanced in wisdom” could be right in doing it. Euthyphro has shown that he is not far advanced in wisdom. Therefore, in Socrates’ eyes at least, he ought not to continue his prosecution. Perhaps Euthyphro realizes this; perhaps that is the reason that he departs hastily. There is an ancient statement that Socrates saved Euthyphro from prosecuting his father by his refutation of him (Diogenes Laertius 2.29).8 Perhaps, however, Euthyphro is simply ashamed of his performance in argument with Socrates and seeks the only escape from shame he can find. We cannot tell from his brief excuse at the end of the conversation what his state of mind is. Perhaps Socrates’ aim in examining Euthyphro is simply to perform what he describes in the Apology as his service to the god, and to show that Euthyphro is not wise. But is that his only aim? If so, why does he offer Euthyphro his constructive suggestion concerning the nature of piety? Does Socrates perhaps aim to teach Euthyphro something about the nature of piety?
Why do Euthyphro and Socrates Disagree?
Socrates and Euthyphro cannot agree on a definition of piety, I think, in part because they are trying to define different terms. The Greek word hosiotēs, which we translate, “piety,” is in fact ambiguous. It might mean “piety,” but it might mean “holiness.” Euthyphro thinks Socrates is asking him to define holiness. If asked what makes something holy, a Greek of Euthyphro's time might well have said, like Euthyphro, that holiness was the state of being loved by the gods. A great variety of things might be considered holy: an altar, a code of laws, or a book. “Holy” is roughly synonymous with “sacred.” A grove of trees, for instance, might be considered holy, sacred, to the goddess Athena. If asked to give an account of why this was so, Euthyphro might have a complicated story to tell about the history of the grove and its relation to the goddess, but in the end the account would come down to the fact that the goddess loved this particular grove of trees. The idea of holiness is subjective, just as Euthyphro thinks: it involves a relation to a subject, a god. Piety, on the other hand, differs from holiness, though it overlaps with it. Though a great number of different kinds of things might be considered holy, it is primarily actions of persons and the persons who perform them that are considered pious. It would not make sense to say that a grove of trees could be pious. The concept of piety involves a relation to a person as well, but in the case of holiness the relation is to the persons, the gods, who appreciate the object, whereas in the case of piety the relation is to the person who performs the action. An action is pious if it is performed by a person with a certain attitude, and a person is pious if he or she performs certain actions with this attitude. The gods are pleased when persons display this attitude in their actions. They judge, correctly, that such persons and their actions are pious. But the piety of the person or action does not consist in the fact that it pleases the gods. It consists in the fact that the person or action possesses the appropriate attitude.
Is Progress toward a Definition of Piety made in the Dialogue?
What is that attitude? The Euthyphro does not tell us. The dialogue ends inconclusively. Still, there are indications in the Euthyphro that lead toward a positive account, a definition of piety. The chief indication is the suggestion that Socrates makes, that piety is a part of justice, the part concerned with the care of the gods. It is true that Socrates and Euthyphro prove unable to define this care, but the proposal itself is not refuted. If we want to understand piety, the proposal is that we must understand what justice is. Unfortunately, there is no account of justice in the elenctic dialogues that explains what justice is, not even in the first book of the Republic, which is devoted to the topic. All we know from Socrates’ suggestion is that one part of justice is concerned with human beings, whereas the other part is concerned with divine beings. How does one behave justly toward the gods? I would suggest that it is by treating them in accordance with their natures. In order to behave justly, then, one must know the nature of the being under consideration. Socrates does not tell us much in the Euthyphro about the nature of the gods. It is clear from other works, however, beginning with the Apology, that he regards them as superior in knowledge and virtue to human beings. “Only the god is wise,” Socrates concludes from his examination of the leading candidates for wisdom among the citizens of Athens. At the end of the Apology, when Socrates is considering the possibility that he might continue to exist in the underworld, he expresses confidence that he will be judged by just judges there. In the Euthyphro, when confronted with Euthyphro's stories of how Zeus overthrew his father and how Zeus's father in turn castrated his father, Socrates says “I find it hard to accept things like that being said about the gods” (6a). Such stories are unworthy of the gods; they are not part of a just understanding of them. Socrates’ gods are wise and virtuous; they don't behave badly toward each other or toward us. Our attitude toward the gods should be one that respects their superior wisdom and virtue. A name for this attitude might be “reverence” (15a).
Euthyphro suggests that piety, reverence toward the gods, has the effect of preserving “private houses and public affairs of state” (14b). This explains how piety benefits us, but it does not answer the question how it benefits the gods. It is Euthyphro's failure to answer this question that scuttles the argument. Euthyphro cannot do more than say that our piety pleases the gods. If piety is a matter of justice, however, and if justice is treating something with the attitude appropriate to it, perhaps we can say just a bit more than that reverence is pleasing to the gods. In the first book of the Republic Polemarchus says that justice is “to give to each what is owed to him” (331e), to render to each thing its due. Polemarchus has the wrong idea of what is owed to each thing – he thinks it is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies – but the idea that justice is something we owe others may not be mistaken. When we treat someone justly, giving to that person what is owed, it is true that this may be pleasing to that person. When we treat the gods with the reverence due to them, we please them. We do more than this, however. We acknowledge, by our actions, that the gods are owed treatment of a certain sort. We recognize that it is just to treat the gods reverentially. The benefit the gods receive from this is the recognition that is due to them because of the kind of beings they are. That may be what justice toward the gods consists in. Consider, as a possible parallel case, honors paid to the dead, in particular to those who have died in battle. Unlike honors paid to those who are still alive, the dead cannot be benefitted b
y those honors, either because they no longer exist or because they exist after death in a place, Hades according to Greek mythology, where our actions cannot affect them. Nonetheless, many people believe that we have a moral obligation to honor the dead, that it is something we owe to them, that it is simply the right thing to do. Perhaps revering the gods is in this respect like revering the dead: a matter of justice.
The Euthyphro and other Elenctic Dialogues
The Euthyphro is one dialogue among several that are devoted to the project of defining virtue. One prominent claim that is entertained in three of these dialogues, the Laches, Meno, and Protagoras, is that virtue might best be understood as knowledge or, as the Meno ultimately suggests, right belief. The Euthyphro does not make this claim, but the claim that Socrates does make, that piety is part of justice, seems to be compatible with it. If piety consists in performing actions with a certain attitude in mind, and that attitude is reverence toward the gods, reverence is a response to knowledge of the nature of those gods. If virtue is practical wisdom, and if practical wisdom is knowledge of what to do in each situation that one faces, then the knowledge of what to do in our interactions with the gods will depend on our knowledge of those gods. If the gods are immoral, angry, and in general not well-disposed toward human beings, as the theological tradition of which Euthyphro is a part says they are, right action toward them will be to try to placate them, to “win them over” with gifts and sacrifices. If the gods, on the other hand, are wise, moral, and in general well-disposed toward human beings, as Socrates believes, right action will consist at least in part in expressions of gratitude toward the gods for their wise beneficence. Knowing the nature of the gods will be crucial to piety. Socrates’ view of the gods, as some interpreters have claimed, is significantly different from the view of people such as Euthyphro. Euthyphro may be eccentric, but he is a believer in the Greek theological tradition. If Socrates is right and Euthyphro is wrong about the nature of the gods, then Socrates will have, and Euthyphro will lack, genuine piety. Piety in the end will turn out to be reverence, and reverence will turn out to be, if not identical to knowledge or right belief, then at least rooted in it.
Notes
1 See e.g. Peter T. Geach, “Plato's Euthyphro: An Analysis and Commentary,” The Monist 50 (1966), 369–382. Geach refers to the priority of definition principle as the “Socratic fallacy” (371).
2 Mark McPherran, “Piety, Justice and the Unity of Virtue,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (2000), 301, n. 9.
3 Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998), 37.
4 Franco Trivigno, “The Moral and Literary Character of Hippias in Plato's Hippias Major,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 50 (2016), esp. 32–40. Trivigno applies the eirōn/alazōn distinction primarily to Hippias and Ion. I extend it to Euthyphro and, in fact, to all of Socrates’ interlocutors who claim to have expert knowledge.
5 R. E. Allen, Plato's ‘Euthyphro’ and the Earlier Theory of Forms (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1970), 20–23.
6 On this point, and on the general account of Forms in the Euthyphro, see my “Socrates Metaphysician,” in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 27 (2004), 1–14, and “Socratic Metaphysics,” in Bussanich and Smith, eds. The Bloomsbury Companion, 68–93 and 337–338.
7 “Reverence” is a rather free translation of gera, which literally means, “gifts of honor.”
8 For a discussion of this point, see Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato's Socrates (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 26.
5
Virtue
We have now identified a particular method, the elenchus, and a particular set of dialogues, those making extensive use of the elenchus, as Socratic. Several of the elenctic dialogues are devoted to a project that Aristotle identified as Socratic: the definition of ethical terms. In several of these dialogues Socrates defines virtue in terms of knowledge, specifically knowledge of good and evil. In this chapter we shall examine this view of virtue as it is put forward in three dialogues, the Laches, Protagoras, and Meno. (The Meno first proposes, then criticizes and modifies this claim. It concludes that virtue is not knowledge but right opinion.) This claim is associated with two others: that vice is ignorance and that moral weakness is impossible. These three claims together are referred to as the “Socratic paradoxes.” They are paradoxes in the sense that they are counter to (para) common or popular opinion (doxa). These claims together constitute a position known as “intellectualism.” In this chapter we shall examine these claims, to see what they mean and how Socrates argues for them. Finally, we shall look at his criticism of the claim that virtue is knowledge at the end of the Meno. If Socrates were simply the practitioner of the elenchus, if he were the barren Socrates of the Theaetetus, he would not present his own, constructive answers to the questions he raises for others.
Two of the three dialogues we shall examine, the Laches and Protagoras, have the structure of a typical elenctic dialogue; yet Socrates manages to insert into these dialogues his own suggestions concerning the nature of virtue, as he does also in the Euthyphro. In these dialogues he is not simply barren, but fertile. The third dialogue, the Meno, makes extensive use of the elenchus, but it does not have the expected negative conclusion. We shall have to consider whether this conclusion represents a change of view on Socrates’ part. It is in general very difficult, if not impossible, to determine the order in which Plato composed his elenctic dialogues. The Laches, Protagoras, and Meno, however, are related to each other in such a way that it seems possible to place them in a linear sequence. The Laches first articulates the view that virtue is knowledge, but in a general way. The Protagoras makes the view a good deal more specific: it offers an account of the kind of knowledge that virtue is. The Meno first defends, then criticizes this view, and finally offers a modification of it.
The Laches: What is Courage?
The Laches is in most respects a typical elenctic dialogue. It discusses the nature of courage; a series of definitions are proposed; each is refuted, and the dialogue ends in perplexity. What is unusual about the dialogue is the amount of space (about half the dialogue) that it devotes to introducing the main discussion. The first half of the dialogue sets the scene and introduces the characters. Two Athenians, Lysimachus and Melesias, are sons of distinguished Athenian statesmen, Aristides “the Just” and Thucydides (not the historian). They have enlisted the aid of two generals, Laches and Nicias, to assist them in determining how their children should be educated. They want the children to attain the level of excellence of their grandparents, a level that Lysimachus and Melesias have fallen short of. (The problem is a familiar one from the Socratic dialogues: why do illustrious Athenians not succeed in passing on their own excellence to their sons?) They have invited the generals to observe a demonstration of a man fighting in armor, and they want Laches and Nicias to advise them as to whether it would be worthwhile for their children to learn the art. Laches suggests that they include Socrates, who is also present, in their deliberations, as he “is always spending his time in places where the young men engage in any study or noble pursuit” (180c). When the generals disagree on the value of learning this particular skill, Lysimachus turns to Socrates to “cast the deciding vote” (184d). Socrates objects that this is not the right way to proceed: “it is by knowledge that one ought to make decisions, if one is to make them well, and not by majority rule” (184e; here we have Socrates’ critique of Athenian democracy in a nutshell). We ought to ask whether any one of those present is an expert, and if we find one we ought to listen to him. Moreover, we ought to ask, not about this particular technique: “the question is really, I suppose, that of whether your sons turn out to be worthwhile persons or the opposite” (185a). Socrates, as we would expect, denies being an expert in the education of youth: “Socrates denies having any knowledge of the ma
tter or being competent to decide which of you [Laches or Nicias] speaks the truth, because he denies having been a discoverer of such things or having been anyone's pupil in them” (186d–e). Lysimachus urges Socrates to examine Laches and Nicias to find out if they are experts, and this elicits two of the most salient comments on Socrates that we find in the dialogues. First Nicias says to Lysimachus,
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