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Euthyphro’s dilemma: Morality as a human problem

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  • Euthyphro’s dilemma: Morality as a human problem

    EUTHYPHRO’S DILEMMA: MORALITY AS A HUMAN PROBLEM
    And what is piety, and what is impiety?
    —SOCRATES

    IT’S THE YEAR 399 BCE OR THEREABOUTS. WE ARE IN ATHENS, walking beside one of the greatest figures of Western civilization, the philosopher Socrates. As it happens, Socrates is on his way to the Agora, the main gathering place for citizens in ancient Athens. He is not going there for commerce, nor to engage in a discussion with one of his pupils. Rather, Socrates has been summoned on urgent business at the Royal Stoa, the office of King Archon (the legal magistrate). The reason for the summons is that a young Athenian named Meletus, whom Socrates hardly knows, has charged the philosopher with impiety (disrespect for the gods and general immorality) and of corrupting the Athenian youth. As we learn from Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates’s defense (described in another Platonic writing, the Apology) will fail, and he will be put to death by the Athenian democracy.

    But that nefarious day in the history of philosophy is still ahead of us; at the moment, Socrates has encountered an acquaintance, also on his way to the magistrate’s office. The character in question is Euthyphro, which is also the name of a dialogue in which Plato (who was Socrates’s student and Aristotle’s teacher) describes one of the most powerful arguments ever deployed to show that even if gods existed, and contrary to popular perception, they would have no role in how we decide what is moral and what is not.

    This is a crucial issue, because regardless of the arguments we have made so far about religion as a human rather than supernatural phenomenon, for most people a main reason for believing in God (or gods) is their feeling that only the supernatural could possibly guarantee the existence of a universal morality, and by implication that only the existence of that sort of moral code provides ultimate meaning to our existence. But if Socrates (or Plato, whose contributions are hard to distinguish from those of Socrates because the latter never wrote anything down) is right, then the question of the existence of gods is irrelevant to both morality and the quest for meaning in life—which implies that no shortcut based on sacred books will do and we need to do the sort of hard work in which we have been engaged so far.


    So let’s follow Socrates for a bit longer and see what happens when he encounters Euthyphro. After exchanging greetings as customary, they inquire into each other’s business at the King’s Court. Euthyphro is aghast that someone would file suit against Socrates, but it is Socrates who is more surprised when he finds out Euthyphro’s business: the guy is going to denounce his own father, who accidentally caused the death of a household employee, who had in turn been guilty of murder. Socrates wants to know how Euthyphro can be so certain, judging from his boundless self-confidence, that this is the right course of action for him to take. Euthyphro’s response is that he knows what he is about to do is right because that’s what the gods want. But how, replies Socrates, do you know what the gods want? Completely unperturbed by the obvious irony in Socrates’s question, his interlocutor candidly responds: “The best of Euthyphro, and that which distinguishes him, Socrates, from other men, is his exact knowledge of all such matters. What should I be good for without it?”
    Socrates feigns then much reverence for Euthyphro and declares himself to be the latter’s disciple, so that he too can learn about such important matters. This setup immediately leads the philosopher to ask the obvious question: “And what is piety, and what is impiety?” Remember, in modern parlance this question is about the same as asking what is moral and what is immoral. Euthyphro’s first answer is one that most people would give: “Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.” In other words, gods define what is moral or immoral. This same sort of answer is why so many people are absolutely convinced that morality cannot possibly exist without gods, and that therefore denying the supernatural is equivalent to embracing moral relativism, and from there the distance is short to the conclusion that life is meaningless.

    But not so fast, says Socrates. He points out to his companion that, according to the stories we hear, the gods often disagree vehemently on what is right or wrong in any particular instance. This, of course, is a problem not just for polytheistic religions but also for monotheistic ones once we realize that the intelligent person ought to ask herself why she should embrace the moral dictates of one particular god rather than those espoused by another god of a competing religion. But Socrates this day is in a good mood, so he lets Euthyphro off that particular hook by postulating that there probably are at least some moral dictates on which all gods would agree (for example, that killing without reason is not permissible). Still, Socrates presses the point by rephrasing the question: “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 of the gods.” Let us examine these two alternatives—the horns of what is now known as “Euthyphro’s dilemma”—very carefully. If you understand why the dilemma is so powerful, you will have liberated yourself from the misguided notion so common among humanity that morality and divinity are inextricably entwined.

    Consider first the second horn, that something is moral because it is approved by the gods. Rather counterintuitively, this essentially means that morality is arbitrary! If God decides that, say, murder, rape, or genocide are okay, then we would have to assent, regardless of how repugnant such a thought might be or how much our own sense of right and wrong would be offended or crushed by it. Indeed, it is not at all difficult to find perfectly good examples of God’s commandments in various sacred scriptures that no person in his right (moral) mind today would follow, regardless of their alleged divine origin. Let us take a few examples from the Old Testament, the sacred book shared by the Judeo-Christian-Muslim trio of Abrahamic monotheistic religions, which together account for about 55 percent of believers worldwide (followed by about 15 percent who are nonreligious or atheist and 13 percent who are Hindu):

    • In Genesis 6:11–17 and 7:11–24, God exterminates nothing less than the entire human race with the exception of a single family. He also kills every other species on earth, save for a pair of individuals to repopulate the planet later on.
    • In Genesis 34:13–29, the Israelites, with God’s approval, kill Hamor and his son, together with the entire male population of his village, while not neglecting of course to take for themselves women, children, cattle, and other possessions.
    • In Exodus 14, 9:14–16, 10:1–2, and 11:7, God brings plagues upon the Egyptians (even though there is no historical record that the Jews were ever held in captivity in Egypt). The reasons given, which do not seem particularly convincing from a moral perspective, include showing that He is the Lord and there is nobody else like him, displaying His power, and giving the Israelites something to pass on to their children.
    • In various passages in Joshua (6:21–27, 8:22–25, 10:10–27, 10:28, 10:30, 10:32–33, 10:34–35, 10:36–37, 10:38–39), said character kills far and wide, including, respectively, the people of Jericho and Ai, the Gibeonites, the people of Makkedah, the Libnahites, the people of Lachish, the Eglonites, the Hebronites, and the Debirites.

    We could go on and on, but I think that my point (and Socrates’s) has been abundantly made. Perhaps, then, we should embrace the other horn of Euthyphro’s dilemma and agree that a given action is approved by the gods because it is moral, not the other way around.
    Except that such an agreement provides only temporary relief. Think of it this way: if God approves of a given action because that action is moral, this means that there is a God-independent standard for morality by which God himself abides. But if that is the case, two astounding conclusions follow: first, we do not need gods to be moral; and second, we now need to figure out where morality comes from. We have already seen the answer to the latter question (in Chapters 3 and 4), but for the present purpose the surprising outcome of Euthyphro’s dilemma is that the religious believer has to agree that either morality is arbitrary or the divine, even if it exists, has nothing to do with it at all.

  • #2
    suite et fin ...

    Of course, few people like this conclusion the first time they hear it, least of all our good old friend Euthyphro, who tries desperately to escape the horns of the dilemma on which Socrates has managed to impale him. He does not succeed, and his attempts reveal such a poor logic that Socrates comments:
    And when you say this, can you wonder at your words not standing firm, but walking away? Will you accuse me of being the Daedalus who makes them walk away, not perceiving that there is another and far greater artist than Daedalus who makes them go round in a circle, and he is yourself; for the argument, as you will perceive, comes round to the same point. Were we not saying that the holy or pious was not the same with that which is loved of the gods? Have you forgotten?

    Socrates, the infinitely patient teacher (or, depending on how you interpret his character, the always sarcastic commentator on society), then tells Euthyphro that they now have to begin the discussion from scratch. But Euthyphro cannot take it anymore, and in one of the most unceremonious hasty retreats ever to appear in Western literature he takes leave of the philosopher by saying, “Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.”

    The Euthyphro dialogue was written twenty-four centuries ago, and its conclusion is devastating for the whole Judeo-Christian-Muslim conception of the relation between divinity and morality. Indeed, it is devastating for any religion that attempts to connect gods and ethics (which is pretty much all of them). One would expect, then, some energetic responses to Plato’s point. Indeed, several theologians have taken up the challenge, even though my sense is that the majority of philosophers pretty much concede that Plato’s position is unassailable. Since this is a crucial problem, let us take a brief look at the three standard objections to the dilemma.

    Perhaps the most obvious line of counterattack was pursued first by one of the most influential theologians of all times, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Aquinas accused Socrates (or Plato) of engaging in a logical fallacy (which is really bad for a philosopher), and specifically the fallacy of the false dilemma. This occurs when someone presents only two choices in a situation where in fact more options are available. Politicians are particularly skilled at this sort of thing (as in “you are either with us or against us”). Aquinas conceded that something is good because God says so, but—the theologian went on to argue—this is simply because it is in God’s nature to be good, which guarantees that his commands will in fact be moral. (One would have to conclude that Aquinas was not too familiar with the Old Testament passages just cited, or that he did not take them seriously enough.) However, this is not at all a satisfactory move, theologically speaking, because it amounts to a rejection of the divine command theory of morality that is so fundamental to religion. Moreover, it essentially impales one on the second horn of the dilemma: after all, if God has to act in a certain way by his own nature, then in a very real sense morality is again independent of God himself, at once demonstrating that God has limits and opening up the possibility for humans to figure out what is right and what is wrong on their own.

    A somewhat more sophisticated attempt has been made by a modern-day theologian, Richard Swinburne. It takes the form of a compromise, suggesting that moral values come in two flavors: necessary and contingent. In other words, some moral rules are universal and absolute, while others depend on circumstances. Absolute values, according to Swinburne, hold in all conceivable worlds, examples being the prohibitions against rape or murder. Contingent values, on the other hand, are not applicable everywhere and at every time—let’s say the prohibition on eating certain kinds of foods at particular times of the year. Swinburne’s stratagem, however, hardly makes things better for the religionist: if absolute values are independent of specific circumstances, then they can be arrived at by reason (which is of course the project of most ethical philosophers), and one falls yet again on the horn of the dilemma that says we don’t need gods to tell us what to do. In this scenario, God at best gets to tell us his personal preferences in terms of minor actions that, frankly, hardly seem a matter of morality at all. (I mean, who is being harmed by the fact that I decide to eat meat on Friday or work on the sabbath? Apparently, only God’s vanity—and the animal from which my steak was obtained.)

    Finally we come to arguably the most sophisticated response to date to Euthyphro’s dilemma, the one proposed by a contemporary philosopher of religion, Robert Merrihew Adams. Adams distinguishes two meanings of words like right and wrong: one refers to what we all mean by those terms, an understanding that even an atheist can share. The second meaning is specifically religious and indicates simply what God wants, regardless of human judgment of the morality of such wants. The crucial move, then, according to Adams, is that God is by nature good (how we know this, given the evidence in certain sacred texts, is rather obscure, but let us go on for the sake of argument), which is why the two meanings of right (or wrong) actually coincide. But, according again to Adams, God could decide (indeed, in my opinion, has decided over and over again) to command differently, thereby separating the two meanings of right by making, for instance, rape, murder, and pillaging “moral” in the second sense.
    I don’t know about you, but this sounds to me like an incredible exercise in mental gymnastics aimed at desperately avoiding the conclusion that Plato was right. Indeed, in a very circuitous way, we are back to one of the horns of the dilemma—the admission that morality is arbitrarily defined by God and that therefore anything he says must stand simply because he is so powerful that it would be foolish to resist him. But by that token, all sorts of atrocities committed by force during human history would also have to be considered in some sense “moral” because they were the result of a decision made by a very powerful individual. If that’s your idea of morality, I think we’ve got a problem.

    If we combine what science tells us about our beliefs in gods (Chapters 16 and 17) with the devastating force of Euthyphro’s dilemma, we have to conclude that religion is a human phenomenon, not the reflection of a supernatural reality, and that when it comes to morality (and therefore to a big chunk of what gives meaning to our life), we are on our own. The course of action suggested by this conclusion is fairly clear: to embark on a quest to figure out what morality is and what sort of scientific and philosophical insights we can appeal to in constructing it. Which just happens to be precisely what we have been doing all along in this book! It is now time, therefore, to draw some general lessons from our sci-phi-guided exploration.


    Answers for Aristotle : how science and philosophy can lead us to a more meaningful life
    Massimo Pigliucci.

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    • #3
      SOCRATES vs EUTHYPHRO

      معضلة الأخلاق



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