Plato's Euthyphro - Which comes first: God or Morality?

so Socrates says Wow Euthyphro you must really know what you're talking about when it comes to morality and Euthyphro says referring to himself in the third person the best of Euthyphro and that which distinguishes him Socrates from other men is his exact knowledge of all such matters what a douche so today we are reading a platonic dialogue called Euthyphro Plato wrote this dialogue Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher he wrote most of what he wrote about his teacher Socrates Socrates is the character in all of these dialogues Socrates almost certainly existed but there is some

question as to whether Socrates existed in the first place Plato definitely existed Aristotle who was Plato's student who we read earlier in the course Aristotle definitely existed but this dialogue is a discussion a philosophical discussion between Socrates and this guy Euthyphro and the name of the dialogue is Euthyphro so there in front of the courthouse there in front of the courthouse which I assume works like this because every building in ancient Greece looked like that there in front of the courthouse and Socrates is there because he has been accused of a crime corrupting the youth

and Euthyphro is there because Euthyphro is prosecuting a crime he has accused someone else of a crime he accused his father of murder the story is this the father had a laborer who worked on their farm at knack cos or something and the laborer got into a fight with a domestic servant so you've got these two folks laborer and domestic servant or whatever and they're drunk or one of them is drunk and they're in a fight and this one kills the other one so this one is dead and then the father takes this one the

one who killed the other one and chains him up and puts him in a ditch here's the ditch and he leaves him in the ditch for a few days while they're waiting for a diviner from Athens that's supposed to figure out what happens to the laborer who murdered the other person and then while he's in the ditch he dies and so Euthyphro claims that his father by leaving this person in the ditch has himself committed murder and so Euthyphro is prosecuting his own father for murder and socrates takes this opportunity to ask well Euthyphro if

you know so much about morality and you know so much about virtue then i have the following philosophical question for you and the question is this what is piety and what is impiety okay so in this dialogue the terms piety and impiety and also brought you and also holiness all of these terms are gonna be thrown around interchangeably we might also add a term more familiar that we've been using in this course something like moral goodness or the the moral rightness of actions that's what we're after that's what this dialogue is about it's about what

makes the good things good the right things right the virtuous things virtuous what do they all have in common you will remember this question by the way from the beginning of the course when we talked about Bentham and Kant these philosophers were answering the same kind of question what makes the virtuous things virtuous Bentham's answer you may remember is that the virtuous actions are virtuous because they produce an outcome that has the greatest total of pleasure - pain that was his answer so Socrates in this dialogue is asking Euthyphro the same question okay so at

first Euthyphro misunderstands the question Socrates asks what is piety and impiety or what is virtue and viciousness or vice and Euthyphro says piety is just what I'm doing virtue is just what I'm doing prosecuting your father even though he is your father when he's done something wrong that that's what virtue is and then actually a Euthyphro gives a whole bunch of other examples and he says that Zeus also killed his own father Cronos when Kronos ate some babies or something I don't really know what the story is but the Greek gods they were all you

know killing each other and sleeping with each other and they would have baby humans and all sorts of crazy stuff right and so he gives all of these examples of virtuous acts Euthyphro and Socrates says no that's not what I meant that's not what I was asking I wasn't asking for a list of examples I was asking for the nature of piety itself it's like if my young child asked me what's a building and I said oh the Chrysler Building the Sears Tower the Eiffel Tower the Pentagon that's not a helpful answer that's just a

list of some buildings what what the child is asking in that case is what makes all of those things buildings and all of the non buildings non buildings we want to know about the nature of building hood itself or in this case we want to know about the nature of virtue itself what makes the virtuous acts virtuous so don't just give me a list of virtuous acts give me the nature of virtue so now we've got the question so Socrates asks that question what is virtue and after they go back and forth and finally clarify

exactly what the question is Euthyphro finally gives an answer here is the answer that Euthyphro gives okay that's youth the fros answer piety then is that which is dear to the gods and impiety is that which is not dear to them so this answer is that virtue if we're translating this from piety talk into virtue talk or moral goodness talk virtue is that which the gods approve of or like or love later in the dialogue as you noticed it sort of switches from what is dear to the gods to what the gods love okay so

that's the answer that's youth the pros answer what is virtue virtue is what the gods love all right so this answer runs into a problem it's a problem that may have already occurred to you when we're talking about the ancient Greek gods there's a whole bunch of them and they're like reality TV stars or their characters on a soap opera and they're all sleeping with each other and murdering each other and lying to each other and they're getting in fights all the time and they have alliances with each other they don't agree about stuff if

the gods don't all love the same stuff then how can what the gods love be an account of virtue or of anything else that's the problem Socrates points this out and you throw kind of gets that this is the problem can't think of a solution and then Socrates just gives him a solution it's not actually that good of a solution but the solution is something like okay we're gonna settle on this the things that all of the gods love those are good those are virtuous and the things that all of the gods hate those are

bad those are vicious and the stuff that the gods disagree about that's going to be morally neutral it's gonna be they say neither or both okay there's some problems with this answer maybe like it seems like the gods are gonna disagree about a lot of stuff so this answer is gonna make most actions morally neutral they're gonna be very few virtuous acts and very few vicious acts that might be a problem don't worry about that put that aside we're gonna settle on this as the answer most of the reason by the way that it's helpful

to settle on this as the answer is that actually we're gonna run this entire set of questioning this entire line of thinking we're gonna run it with just one God we can think of this as being an argument that's relevant to monotheism just as much as it's relevant to ancient Greek polytheism anyway the answer is virtue is what the gods love then Socrates asks a question about this answer this is a big deal question here's what the question is the point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved

by the gods because it is holy or holy because it is beloved by the gods okay let's get a few things straight first of all we're talking Socrates is talking about what's pious or holy and we're sort of translating that into virtue talk or what's morally good although Socrates also talks in these terms in the dialogue as well okay so the question is a question about what explains what does the fact that these acts are good or virtuous does that fact explain why the gods love them or does the fact that the gods love them

explain why they are good or virtuous that's the question what explains what our virtuous acts virtuous because the gods love them or did the gods love them because they are virtuous this is a question about what philosophers would call explanatory priority it needs to be perfectly 100 percent clear what this question is before we go on here's an analogy say that you've got two different things one is you've got some grass here's the grass it's on the ground it looks like that okay then you've got this other thing you've got a sentence in the English

language the sentence is grass is this is a true sentence don't come back at me telling me that sometimes the grass is brown if you don't water it or whatever forget about that this is a generalization about grass grass is green this is true grasses and purple grasses and orange grass is green we're going to assume that for the purposes of this example this is a bunch of ink on a piece of glass this sentence it's a bunch of ink or when I say it it's a bunch of sound waves moving through the air or

through the water if I set it under water or something right so it's a bunch of ink or it's a bunch of air right it's a sentence of the English language this well this is a bunch of marker also because it's a drawing but the grass itself is a plant on the ground okay so we've got a sentence and a plant and we might ask the following question is the English sentence grass is green true because grass is green or is grass green because the English sentence grass is green is true right so we're talking

about two different things we're talking about the sentence and it has a certain feature or quality it has trueness and then we're talking about the grass a plant and that plant has a certain quality or feature it has greenness how do you spell greenness are there two ends probably not it doesn't matter okay the grass has the greenness well what explains what what comes first not in time exactly but what comes first in explanatory order what explains what is it that the greenness of the grass explains the trueness of the sentence or is it the

trueness of the sentence that explains the greenness of the grass what's the answer everybody knows about grass and sentences right it's definitely to the greenness of the grass explains why that sentence is true the grass doesn't as it were to speak totally metaphorically check with the sentence to see whether this sentence is true or not and then based on that it's either green or some other color that's not the way it works but there's a certain sense in which the sentence checks with the grass and then based on how the grass is that determines whether

the sentence is true or false the greenness of the grass is explanatorily prior to the trueness of the sentence this thing this fact about grass explains this thing the fact about language this question is asking the same sort of thing does the virtuousness of the axe explain why the gods love those acts or does the fact that the gods love those acts explain why they are virtuous that's the question and so we're choosing between the same sort of two options as we were choosing with as we were choosing between in the grass example right the

options are these one does the virtuousness explain the love of the gods right or does the love of the gods explain the virtuousness those are the two options those are the two ways of answering Socrates's question and now we're going to see what answer they set along Euthyphro of course just sort of bumbles through a sort of answer and then Socrates really ends up filling it in for him here I'll just read this bit Socrates says and what do you say of piety Euthyphro is not piety according to your definition loved by all the gods

and you throw says yes and Socrates says because it is pious or holy or for some other reason and Euthyphro says no that is the reason and Socrates says it is beloved because it is holy not holy because it is loved and Euthyphro says yes so they pick one of these answers they pick number one they pick that one virtuousness the virtuousness of actions explains why the gods love those actions they pick that one right so we can sort of summarize this by having Euthyphro answer Socrates this question by saying that you know the gods

love them the actions that is they love them because they are virtuous okay that's the answer except there's a problem with this answer Socrates points out this problem a little later in the dialogue here's what he says Socrates says you appear to me Euthyphro when I asked you what is the essence of holiness to offer an attribute only and not the essence tell me once more what holiness or piety really is whether dear to the gods or not and what is impiety and then Euthyphro responds and basically just says I don't know what to say

man it seems like every time we talk we just go round and round in circles and I get really confused okay but do you see what the problem is it's a problem for this answer the answer that the gods love the virtuous acts because they are virtuous the problem is this if the acts are virtuous independently of whether or not the gods love them and the gods choose to love them because they as it were recognize that virtue they they look at the acts and they see huh these are the virtuous ones because they're virtuous

I'm going to love them then mentioning the fact that the gods love the virtuous acts doesn't explain their virtuousness they were virtuous already and that's what we were interested in why were they virtuous in the first place if the virtuousness explains the gods love then there's got to be something earlier that explains the virtuousness and that's what we want to know about it's the same sort of thing with the grass is green right if the fact that the sentence the grass is green is explained by the greenness of the grass well then there's some further

thing that explains why grass is green the answer is like chlorophyll or something like that it's in the plants and it allows the plants to absorb energy from the Sun and then the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell or something I don't know the point is there's something else that explains why the grass is green and that's the thing we want to know when we ask what makes grass green there's something else then that explains why the virtuous acts are virtuous and that's what we want to to know about the whole time so Socrates

is response to Euthyphro answer that the gods love these acts because they are virtuous is something like that doesn't explain that's no explanation at all I wanted to know what makes those acts virtuous and you just told me some result of their being virtuous but I wanted to know the cause or the explanation so we see that there's a problem with this option it might be true of course it might be true that the gods exist or that one god exists and that there's a divine love for certain acts and that it is itself explained

by virtuousness that might be true but if that's true then saying all of that doesn't answer the original question what is virtue that's the problem we wanted to know what made the virtuous acts virtuous in the first place so we've got a problem with this answer but what about this answer in the dialogue Plato doesn't even consider this option that the gods love what they love and that that explains why those things are good things to do are virtuous acts what's wrong with this option and let's think about it in terms of a monotheistic God

because I suspect most of the students in this class are well they're more likely to be monotheists than they are to be ancient Greek polytheists why can't we explain the rightness or wrongness of actions based on just the fact that God loves those actions well it seems like we have two options either there's some reason that God loves those acts right so the virtuousness is explained in terms of divine love and that love is in turn by something else right if there's something else that that is the reason why God chooses to love those things

well then what is it and whatever it is it's really gonna be the explanation of the virtuousness of those acts right so why does God love those actions well is it because those actions produce the greatest total of pleasure - pain if that's why then really it's the fact that these acts produce the greatest total of pleasure - pain that makes them virtuous that's a more satisfying or fuller explanation at least to go through God fine but all the way back to the real reason why those acts are the ones that's one route but the

alternative route is to say well the virtue of actions is explained by the fact that God loves them and there is no explanation for why God picked those acts why God gathered those acts together and labeled them as the virtuous ones or chose to love those or chose to command those if there's no explanation for why God picked those well that might seem kind of bizarre and arbitrary it just might seem at odds with our notion of morality maybe not I mean maybe you just say no no that is our notion of morality our notion

of the moral rightness or wrongness of actions just is whatever actions God chooses to love and he could choose to love you might say anything he could choose to love murder he could choose to love vengeance and pettiness and selfishness and aggressiveness he could choose to love lying and breaking your promises and harming other people and harming yourself and if he did choose those things than those things would be moral they would be morally good it would be virtuous you might say that it does seem like there's something a little odd about that right I

mean consider if God woke you up in the middle of the night and you said oh whoa who's there and God said it's me God and you said really and God said yes it's me God and then you just knew without a doubt that it really was God okay so now you know you are face to face with the creator of the universe and God says okay I need you to do something I need you to go wake up your child and bring this child up on this mountain and then slit the child's throat and

kill the child the child will bleed out died on the rocks right there leave the kid on the rocks no problem go home and then you might say why and God says can't explain why you just got to do it and you say okay but that doesn't seem right to me and God says no no I'm telling you that it's what you should do so it is right and then you say okay I've got it I've got it I've got it is it that my kid is gonna grow up to be Hitler or something like

that and this is the only way to prevent some terrible tragedy and God says no no it's fine your kid is fine your kids not going to be terrible your kids a good kid doesn't deserve this will never deserve it is not gonna be Hitler is not going to do anything terrible it's just that your child is innocent and I'm telling you to go slaughter this child and leave him or her on the mountain on the rock and you say I don't know if that's the right thing to do God and God says of course

you know that it's the right thing to do this is the rightest thing you've ever been asked to do in your entire life how do you know it's the rightest thing the most morally righteous thing you could ever do will you know that I want you to do it and I'm God telling you live face to face so it obviously is the right thing to do it's more obviously the right thing to do than anything else that you've ever thought was right your whole life because I'm telling you to do it now you might then

say oh you know what wow you're right and then you go do it you kill the child great where everything works out great but you might still think know there's something bizarre about this story that God can't just arbitrarily choose what what actions are good and what actions are bad there's a sense in which that's not how morality works and he works in such a way that it's not up to God if that's the case then you can't go with option number two and if you can't go with option number two and you can't go

with option number one well then this can't be the answer virtue can't be what the gods love or what God loves oh one last thing while I'm erasing this you may have noticed that last time we talked about John Locke and there was this passage where Locke explains the existence of certain universal moral truths based on certain facts about God and there was a problem with that kind of move and the problem was that well it seems you can only use facts about God to explain the existence of objective moral truths if they're already existed

at least one objective moral truth and we get a sort of similar version of that kind of problem here except for well a little over two thousand years earlier than Locke and the problem is that moral truths resulting from divine will seem at least in some cases or some ways of making the argument seem only to work or make sense if you exhume that moral truths exist already you what is piety and what is impiety that sucked hold on