Conceptual Comments

Outline of the Arguments of the Euthyphro.

Euthyphro offers four definitions of piety in his dialogue with Socrates.  The four definitions that Euthyphro presents in his dialogue with Socrates are as follows:

1. Piety is to prosecute the wrongdoer.
2. Piety is what is loved by the gods.
3. Piety is what is loved by all the gods.
4. Piety is part of justice.
   Which part?
   — the care of gods
   — service to the gods
   — prayer and sacrifice to the gods

Because Socrates is eager to grasp the meaning of piety, he thoroughly examines each definition offered by Euthyphro, exposing it to the question and answer method known as elenchus.  Each definition is proved inadequate in some way (refuted), and each proof prompts Euthyphro to another definition.

A sketch of the refutation of each of the definitions shown above follows in the same order.

1. Euthyphro does not at first understand that when Socrates asks “What is piety?”, he is asking for a definition, and so Euthyphro gives only an example of piety. This example is not a definition because a definition is a general formulation that would show why this case is a case of piety, if it is.  A definition, that is, provides insight into the meaning of piety, so that someone who knows the definition can apply the word correctly to future cases and distinguish cases of piety from cases that are not cases of piety.  Euthyphro’s example is not a general formulation that can be applied to further cases.

2. With the second formulation, Socrates now has a general formulation of the type he is seeking, but the question remains whether this general formulation is really a definition of piety. Socrates knows that Euthyphro believes that there is disagreement and even enmities among the gods, since Euthyphro has said that many of the traditional stories about the gods are true.  It doesn’t seem as though Socrates himself believes it (since his questioning of Euthyphro about what humans and gods disagree about implies that disagreement always involves an imperfection of knowledge somewhere), but the point is that Euthyphro does believe these stories.[1]  So Socrates asks whether, according to the expert, Euthyphro, some things are hated by some gods and loved by others.  Euthyphro has to say yes.  But then it follows that if piety is what is loved by the gods, then, since some things are both hated and loved by the gods, these things are both pious and impious.  But it’s logically impossible for something to be both pious and impious.  Therefore, since the definition leads to a contradiction, it must be false.  What follows is a formalization of this argument.

Premise 1.  Piety is what is loved by a god, and impiety is what is hated by a god.  (Asserted by E.)
Premise 2.  Something can be loved by a god and hated by another god (i.e., there is disagreement among the gods). (Assented to by E.)
Conclusion 1:  Therefore, something can be both pious and impious.
(From 1. and 2.)
Premise 3.  Something cannot be both pious and impious.  (This is based on the logical principle of  non-contradiction.)
Conclusion 2:  Therefore, something cannot be pious when loved by a god if it is hated by another god.  (From all four statements above.)
Conclusion 3:  Therefore, piety is not that which is loved by a god.
(From Conclusion 2.)

3.  Euthyphro amends his second definition to rule out application of the term in case of disagreement among the gods. He now says that

Piety is that which all the gods love and the impious that which they all hate.

On this definition, the term piety is applicable only in case there is no disagreement among the gods.

Socrates notices that this third definition is ambiguous.  That is, it has two meanings.  So he asks a question to get Euthyphro to say which meaning he intends.  The choice Euthyphro has to make is between:

(a)  Something is pious because it is dear to all the gods.
(b)  Something is dear to all the gods because it is pious.

If Euthyphro chooses (a), then his assertion is that piety is strictly relative to the opinion of all of the gods.  That is, to say that something is pious is just a short way of saying that it happens to be dear to the gods.  It is not to say that there is any reason for the gods’ opinion.  This would not provide a definition of piety, because it would not give us a way of applying the word to further cases, and this is because what the gods hold dear is, as far as Euthyphro can tell us, unpredictable.

Also, (a) could not be right for the following reason.  The general question involved in this quest for a definition of piety is that of the right relation of human action to divine will.  Thus, we may speak of morality in general instead of piety, and of God’s will instead of what is dear to God, without affecting the substance of the reasoning.  So, making the indicated substitution in terms, it would follow from (a) that:

(1)  Something is moral because it is willed by God (or the gods).

According to this, what is moral or immoral is determined by the will of God.  Thus:

(2)  If something is moral because it is willed by God (or the gods), then whatever God wills is moral, no matter what it is, and whatever God prohibits is immoral, no matter what it is.

Thus, if God prohibited kindness and commanded cruelty, then kindness would be immoral and cruelty would be moral.

(3)  But cruelty could never be morally right (even if commanded by God) and kindness could never be morally wrong (even if prohibited by God).

(4)  Therefore, it is not true that something is moral because it is willed by God (or the gods) and so (a) cannot be correct.

Another conclusion that follows is that any religion that holds that what God requires or prohibits is ipso facto morally required or prohibited is false.

If, on the other hand, Euthyphro chooses (b), then his assertion is that the gods love piety.  But this does not tell us what piety is.  It tells us more about the gods than piety, namely that they love it.  This is no more a definition of piety than had Euthyphro said that Socrates loves piety.

So no matter which one Euthyphro chooses, he still does not succeed in defining piety.  So piety cannot be that which is loved by all the gods.

4. Socrates proposes that piety is a species of the genus, justice. Euthyphro agrees to this.  All that remains then is to say what part of justice piety is.  As shown above, Euthyphro proposes three ideas, but each idea turns out to be unacceptable.

4.a.  care of the gods—

Premise one:  The care of something involves making it better.
Premise two: We cannot make the gods better.
Conclusion: Therefore, we cannot care for the gods.
Premise three:  We can be pious.
Conclusion: Therefore, piety cannot be the care of the gods.

4.b.  service to the gods—

Premise one: By serving someone, you help him to fulfill some purpose.
Premise two: We do not know a purpose we could help the gods achieve.
Conclusion: Therefore piety cannot be service to the gods.

4.c. prayer and sacrifice to the gods—

Euthyphro says that piety, as prayer and sacrifice, is a kind of skill in trading with the gods.  But this can’t be right since we have nothing to trade with, nothing that the gods could want that we could give them, even though there are plenty of things they could give us that we could use.

Premise one: By sacrificing, we give the gods something they need.
Premise two: We could not have anything the gods could need.
Conclusion:  Therefore, sacrificing is pointless.
Conclusion:  Therefore, piety is not prayer and sacrifice to the gods.

5. Euthyphro then says that sacrificing (or worshiping generally) is nevertheless something that pleases the gods. Socrates asks whether it pleases them even though it could not benefit them in any way. Euthyphro says yes, it is very dear to them.  So, and here’s the final definition, though it is identical with the first definition: Piety is what is dear to the gods.

It’s now clear that Euthyphro’s thinking about piety is pretty shallow.  The fact that it is circular shows that it does not connect with anything meaningful.  This brings the meaning of Euthyphro’s life into question.  It would anyway, but the fact that he is a professional priest dramatizes the point.  Euthyphro does not know who he is.  In coming to court, he is acting blindly and heading for a fall, either tragic or comic.  In this dialogue, Euthyphro’s foolishness makes him a comic character.  At the end of the dialogue, Socrates recognizes both the pathos and the comedy of Euthyphro’s cowardice.  Because of Euthyphro’s cowardice, both he and Socrates are losing something of value–the logos of further discussion–but it is Euthyphro who is the unwitting comedian.

[1] Socrates questions Euthyphro about the sorts of things human beings disagree about when their disagreements bring them to blows.  Euthyphro agrees that they fight not about mathematics, nor about justice or goodness, but about what particular acts or situations are just or good.  The implication is that it is because humans live in a world of flux and therefore of uncertain judgement that disagreements about what particulars are just or good can occur.  But the gods live in no such world; their knowledge is therefore perfect about both mathematics and justice.  Euthyphro has blundered about the nature of the gods, and Socrates’ argument in refutation of the second definition exploits that blunder.

Noûs is that aspect of the soul that grasps theoretical truth and theoretical connections.  (I intend a contrast between the theoretical and the practical, between theory and practice.)  Theory aspires to be fully explicit knowledge, the best model of which is perhaps plane geometry.  A proof in plane geometry, starting from self-evident axioms and moving via patently reliable rules of inference to a theorem, is ideally understood when the proof is comprehended as a whole—when, that is, the nature of the geometrical figure indicated in the proof is brought to lucid contemplation and grasped in an entire vision, as it were, as if before the eye of the mind.  Borrowing a phrase from a later philosopher, we can say that noûs aims to achieve “clear and distinct ideas.”

This idea of noûs as theoretic contemplation was made explicit in Aristotle’s conception of God.  Let me remark briefly on this conception to indicate further the nature of noetic thought, for Aristotle’s conception of God represents a pure, limiting case of noûs.

Aristotle made a distinction, now deeply embedded in our vision of the world, between actuality and potentiality.  In the processes of nature, Aristotle argued, everything tends to become actually what it is potentially.  Potentialities are blueprints, as it were, that natural processes tend to follow.  Aristotle thought that all natural things, which exist in time and are subject to change, are mixtures of actuality and potentiality.  With this distinction in mind, then, it can be said that God, according to Aristotle, is pure actuality.  As such, He stands outside or at the limit of nature and so is not subject to time or change.

What sort of actuality is God?  Aristotle figured that God must be actuality of the highest, most worthy kind.  What kind is highest?  Since, Aristotle reasoned, the human being is the highest in nature, the potential that distinguishes the human from the rest of nature must be the highest and its fulfillment the highest activity.  There is much that humanity shares with the beasts of nature, but it is a certain sort of reason that distinguishes the human animal from the others.  There are several sorts of reason.  We reason to figure out, for example, where best to wade a stream, but this instrumental, means-to-an-end sort of reason does not distinguish the highest human potential so much as the sort of reason involved in, say, grasping an elegant mathematical proof.  We may call this latter kind of reason contemplative reason.[1]  A beast may strategize about crossing a stream, but contemplative reason is unique to human beings.

Thus, Aristotle concluded, the highest activity is that of contemplative reason.  Thus, God’s exclusive activity is contemplation.  But what does God contemplate?  Since the most worthy object of contemplation is God Himself, Aristotle concluded that God’s contemplation is self-contemplation.  Further, unlike human contemplation, which struggles to bring its object to view and thus exhibits a mix of potentiality and actuality, God’s contemplation is absolutely complete, leaving nothing of its object from its vision.  Thus, God, on Aristotle’s conception, represents the goal of complete self-understanding, holding within transparent noetic contemplation a completed knowledge of Himself (and therefore, by virtue of a universal kinship, of all there is to know).  Aristotle’s God, you might say, is the end of philosophy.

[1] The activity of contemplative reason is called theoria.  Thus, another English phrase adequate to the purpose is theoretical understanding.  Theoria, on Aristotle’s vision, is what human beings share, in a limited way, with the divine, and is also what makes them distinctly human.  Thus, the essential, distinctive activity of a human being is to understand.  A horse, given the right environment, will simply live out its life, fulfilling its potential, without ever understanding what sort of being it is.  Humans, though, can inquire and theorize and so understand what sort of beings horses are.  Remarkably, they can also understand what sort of beings they themselves are.  This latter turns out to be a much more delicate enterprise, but Aristotle considered such self-understanding to be necessary for a fully human life.  In a famous passage, Aristotle stated that humans desire by nature to understand.  See Aristotle’s De Anima, “On the Soul.”

daimon — “Spirit,” “demon,” “daemon,” or “genius.” Etymologically interpreted as “he who allots.”

A daimon was considered to be a divine spirit, but not equivalent to a god. The first libation at a wine-drinking was frequently made to the Good Daimon, or the daimon of the locale.

In several Platonic dialogues, Socrates refers to his daimon, or personal spirit, which gives him a sign whenever he is about to do something that he shouldn’t do. He always follows these signs. Socrates’ daimon may be characterized as his own deepest self that believes truly though without knowledge.  (Remarkably, Socrates’ daimon never tells him what to do, only what not to do.) 

In the Symposium, love (eros) is characterized as a kind of spirit or daimon, something neither human nor divine, but in between, and which strives for possession of the divine eidos, Beauty. Lemprière [Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984)] notes that a daemon is “a kind of spirit which, as the ancients supposed, presided over the actions of mankind, gave them their private counsels, and carefully watched over their most secret intentions…. At the moment of death, the Daemon delivered up to judgment the person with whose care he had been entrusted; and according to the evidence he delivered, sentence was passed over the body.” (See also Socrates’ mention of guardian spirits at Phaedo, 107e.)  Thus, the idea of a daimon represents a concern for the effects of one’s “private counsels” and “most secret intentions” on the general character of one’s life.

The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature notes that “In general, daimon describes an aspect of divine power which cannot be identified with a particular god…. It is this power which gives a man good or bad fortune at any time, so that he may feel that he has the daimon on his side, or else that he is struggling against it; thus daimon approximates in meaning to irresistible fate. (Heracleitus declared in a famous utterance that an individual’s character is his daimon, thus asserting that a person’s destiny is under his own control.)”

The Socratic view is similar to that of Heracleitus; if you can control the formation of your character (i.e., achieve self-control), then you can control your destiny. (Nota bene, self-control is not tyrannical control.) The Heracleitian utterance is frequently translated as: “Your character is your fate.” Following this idea, the central Socratic concern is: How can you control the formation of your own character? Such formation must require practical knowledge (techné).  The practical knowledge of a cobbler who knows how to form a good shoe from leather, however, and the practical knowledge of a wise person who knows how to form good character from mere potential are profoundly different. Grasping this difference is perhaps the central challenge of the Platonic dialogues.