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The relationship between religion and morality
Relationship between religion and morality
Relationship between religion and morality
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Euthyphro initially defines piety as a simple matter of being what the gods like or what is dear to them, however Socrates points out that “different gods consider different things to be just, beautiful, ugly, good, and bad” (Grube & Cooper, 2002, pg. 9, P7, e). Some things that might be agreeable to one god may be disagreeable to another such as Euthyphro punishing his father “may be pleasing to Zeus but displeasing to Cronus and Uranus, pleasing to Hephaestus but displeasing to Hera,” (Grube & Cooper, 2002, pg. 9, P7, b). This leads to Euthyphro changing his definition of piety to be what is aggregable to all the gods rather than the gods. Euthyphro shifts from the former to the latter because Socrates calls attention to the fact that the gods fight among themselves and that those arguments don't emerge over issues and inquiries of fact and certainty, since those sorts of understandings can be reached through evaluation or examination. …show more content…
This leads to Socrates point that considering that the gods have different opinions as to what things are just and good that means they must approve of different things. Furthermore, as indicated by Euthyphro's definition of piety, those things would be viewed as both holy and unholy, since they are approved by a few of the gods and objected by different gods. Nonetheless, in Euthyphro's eyes he believes that most likely every one of the gods would concede on the fact that a man who murders somebody unjustifiably ought to have consequences. Socrates makes the point that the question doesn't emerge with respect to whether someone who has done something wrong ought to be punished, but as to whether the individual has in actuality acted
During the dialogue, Euthyphro defines, “Piety means prosecuting the unjust individual who has committed murder or sacrilege, or any other such crime, as I am doing now, whether he is your father or mother or whoever he is.” Given this Euthyphro overarching principles can be summarized as divine law requires to prosecute the offender no matter who she or he is. Also, the ideology should be what befits humans as well. Socrates is fine with how Euthyphro accounts the factual evidence of his father’s misguided acts. What Socrates takes problem is how Euthyphro uses greek mythology to highlight that taking action against your parents is the correct direction of action. Due to the fact that mythology isn’t confirmed to be true in any sense, socrates feels as though this is extremely inappropriate. Euthyphro actions should be based on divine law with results in him being impious. Socrates ultimate principles can be summarized as respect for parents should be the ultimate law combined with whatever does not befit the gods shouldn’t befit everyone else. Insert another
The dialog begins with Socrates and Euthyphro meeting at the king-archon's court; Socrates has been summoned with charges of corrupting the youth and impiety, and Euthyphro wishes to prosecute his father for leaving one of his servants, a murderer, to die. It is at this moment that Socrates first asks Euthyphro, a young priest who considers himself an expert on piety, what is pious. Socrates claims that if he can convince the court that he has learned the meaning of piety from Euthyphro, they might dismiss the charges against him. It is clear from the start that a lexical definition of piety is not what Socrates is interested in. Rather, he is looking for a practical definition of the pious. A definition of Socrates approval would allow him to look at any action and determine as to whether or not it is pious.
When discussing specific knowledge, it is often hard to pin down an exact definition of what it is you are discussing. Often a concept or word will get thrown around so often that it will begin to be taken for granted and when pressed, a person may struggle to pin down specifically what it is they mean. Realizing this, Socrates often went out and attempted to fix these kinds of problems and find out what people actually knew, compared to what they just thought they knew. In the dialogues Euthyphro and Meno, Socrates attempts to pin down definitions for piety and virtue, respectively. In doing so, we are shown that the thinkers in question struggle to define these terms, and attempt to do so in vague terms that may vary heavily under different circumstances. What Socrates is attempting to find is one definitive definition of piety and virtue, what is called his One Form Requirement. Rather than defining something by classifying different parts that make it up, Socrates maintains the belief that piety and virtue both can be simplified into one specific form that describes exactly what makes all F actions F.
He establishes that “the pious is what all the gods love”. Socrates immediately asks a clarifying question, asking whether the gods love pious acts because they are pious or if it because since the gods love these actions it makes them pious. Euthyphro choses to say that the gods love pious acts because they are pious, which was a mistake in his thought process. Euthyphro committed the begging the question fallacy. Socrates shows that although Euthyphro is deemed an expert in this field, he does know understand piety at all. He has brought the conversation to the beginning by saying that pious acts are pious because they are pious, which is not an explanation. It is redundant in thinking, which is what Socrates wanted to avoid. At the end when Socrates tries to further push Euthyphro’s thinking, Euthyphro merely gives up and avoids Socrates altogether. Plato again illustrates the importance of applying rational thought when one ventures to find the truth. Euthyphro did not ask himself insightful and challenging questions to further push his idea towards the truth. Had he use rational standards, he would developed his idea in a much clearer
In the Euthyphro, Socrates is making his way into the courthouse; however, prior to entering he had a discussion with a young priest of Athens, Euthyphro. This dialogue relates religion and justice to one another and the manner in which they correlate. Euthyphro feels as though justice necessitates religion and Socrates feels the opposite, religion necessitates justice. Euthyphro claims that religion is everything, justice, habits, traditions, customs, cultures, etc. all are derived from religion. Socrates went on to question what exactly would be the definition of pious. Euthyphro offered Socrates three definitions of pious and in all three Socrates was able to successfully find fault...
Plato’s dialogues on the trial and death of Socrates demonstrate the innocence that Plato sees of Socrates in defense against his old accusers. Plato covers this issue in Euthyphro and The Apology both of which provide insight into Socrates defense. The charge from the old accusers that Socrates defends against is, in the most general terms, that he does injustice and is meddlesome (19b-c, p. 66). Within that general charge, Socrates is specifically charged with investigating things under the Earth and heavenly things, making the weaker speech the stronger, and with teaching others these same things (19b-c, p. 66). Between the Euthyphro and The Apology, Socrates thoroughly establishes his defense and proves he is not guilty of any of those accusations.
Keeping true to Socratic/Platonic methodology, questions are raised in the Euthyphro by conversation; specifically “What is holiness?” After some useless deliberation, the discussion between Socrates and Euthyphro ends inconclusively. Euthyphro varying definitions of piety include “What I do is pious to the gods,” and, “What is pleasing to the gods is pious.” Socrates proves these definitions to be insufficient, which leads us to the Apology.
Socrates questions Thrasymachus on why he adds the detail of the stronger to his definition of justice. Socrates than asks, if it is just for everyone to follow the laws that the ruler has made, if the ruler has made unjust laws. His argument is that people, even rulers make mistakes. This meaning that if a ruler makes mistakes on the law does that still make it just. It is a very conflicting argument to think about, if the rules are not just then why should they be followed but the rules were also put in place by someone who is supposed to know the difference between just and unjust and choose correctly. This relates to what Socrates says during his trial portrayed in the Apology. Socrates claims
Socrates compared to Euthyphro is the same as comparing logic to religion. Socrates begins critiquing his way, stating that situations and belief should be comprehended through reasoning, therefore giving everything a reason to make sense and a reason to believe in it. Adversely, Euthyphro states that things can be one can believe in something because it arbitrarily makes sense to them as an individual yet he is unable to elaborate on the evidence that one has for their belief. Through Euthyphro’s dogmatic persona, he nonchalantly attempts to avoid the deep serious questions that Socrates is persistent to find the answers to. Socrates finds it impossible to understand the concept of piety since Euthyphro is unable to demonstrate a universal thought or idea to the topic. The constant question of is something only pious because the gods love it or because it is independent from that is a continuously unanswered question for Socrates. Euthyphro’s lack of knowledge regarding any of his beliefs has caused him to become a not credible source. Finally, left with no other choice, Euthyphro is forced to leave the scene because he is unable to defend himself of his beliefs with credible
Euthyphro was arguing that by doing what the gods believe is holy and pious you are making them better, in other words you are taking care of them and it is like a kind of service that you are doing towards the gods. Euthyphro said, “The kind of care, Socrates, that slaves take of their masters” which meant that you are taking care of them in the sense that you are making them better and not actually caring for them (17, 13d). In other words, you are helping improve them and this is a service that the gods appreciate and want you to do. He believed that this service is improving the gods and that they like this service. The gods believe that being holy is a service towards them, therefore there should be a reason on why the gods use us and want to reward our holiness. He believes that the gods choose what is holy for a reason and should be approved by
In The Euthyphro, Socrates uses his Socratic Method to disprove the Divine Command theory to his friend, Euthyphro. According to the textbook, the Socratic Method is a method that Socrates would use to get to the foundation of his students beliefs. He would ask continual questions about a student’s belief or assumption until a contradiction was raised. By doing so, Socrates would force his students to question their own beliefs and truly discern why they believed them. Socrates applied this method to Euthyphro when Socrates and Euthyphro had a conversation in regards to the definition of holiness. During this conversation, Euthyphro states that holiness is what is agreeable to the gods. However, Socrates disputes this idea by stating that gods quarrel just as humans quarrel in regards to issues such as right and wrong, holy and unholy, and justice and injustice. With this reasoning, Socrates argues that what one god may view as right or moral, another god may view as wrong or immoral. Thus, an action may be acceptable and moral to one god and unacceptable and immoral to another, and what is considered to
In the day by day life we live, we take things for how they are without questioning them. These “normal” things in our lives are rarely question because either they have been the way they are for so long or they aren 't worth the time and effort to evaluate. The very few that question these norms on the other hand have a philosophical attitude that is worth examining. To begin the process of deconstructing a day by day object or idea you first have to detach yourself from common and uncommon viewpoints. In Socrates encounter with Euthyphro, Socrates detaches himself from his personal viewpoint of the situation in an odd way. He tells Euthyphro that if he(Euthyphro) can give him adequate proof of this(that prosecuting Euthyphro’s own father is the right thing to do), he shall never cease to extol his wisdom (Euthyphro 10b). By socrates encouraging Euthyphro and wanting to know the actual truth behind his reasoning, he detaches himself from a viewpoint and sees the bigger picture. Although he is mocking Euthyphro in a way, the concept of detachment is still there. But to act in this philosophical way is somewhat easy when there is no
Neither Socrates nor Jesus denied their intentions, however unlike Jesus; Socrates was an older man with a family. One would think even for his sons’ sake, he would bargain for a lesser punishment than death. Socrates remains adamant that he is a gift to Athens from the gods, and asks those at the trial to punish his own sons if they grow to seek riches before virtue. There is no account that Socrates was a terrible father or husband, or any different from a man who wanted the best for his family and fellow man. In the end it comes down to two factors similar to what also occurred in Jesus’ trial. If a man advocates an alternative to the laws of the land and his teachings publicly threaten the positions of those who hold power in enforcing those laws, he is prompting a potential end to his life.
Euthyphro’s dilemma comes from the dialogue by Socrates to Euthyphro in the Plato’s Euthyphro. In fact, the dilemma is in several forms. The Euthyphro Dilemma lies on the question asked by Socrates that “Is something good because God says it is good, or God says something is good because it is good?” (Plato) These sentences provide us very different meanings. In the first part of the dilemma, God seems to be arbitrary. There may be some other conditions for a thing to be good. He is not the one to define the rules; he is the one who reads for us. In fact, God cannot do everything; he is bound by certain rules of morality which is outside of his own power. Moreover, God is not really necessary in morality because even
The interesting dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro demonstrates this Socratic method of questioning in order to gain a succinct definition of a particular idea, such as piety. Though the two men do not come to a conclusion about the topic in the conversation seen in Euthyphro, they do discover that piety is a form of justice, which is more of a definition than their previous one. Their conversation also helps the reader to decipher what makes a good definition. Whenever Euthyphro attempts to define piety, Socrates seems to have some argument against the idea. Each definition offered, therefore, becomes more succinct and comes closer to the actual concept of piety, rather than just giving an example or characteristic of it. To be able to distinguish between a good definition and a bad one is the first step to defining what Socrates so desperately wished to define: w...