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.
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.
Commentaire