No, that's not what you said. What I am saying and what you are saying are quite different.

Virtue ethics is a theory about how goodness is distributed - it is about what has it.

A metaethical theory is a theory about what goodness itself is - what the property of goodness reduces to, if anything.

This is a theory about where a cake is: there is a cake in my cupboard.

This is a theory about what a cake is made of: a cake is made of flour and eggs and sugar and shit (by which I mean, some other shit, not actual shit - unless it is a shit cake)

The latter is equivalent to a metaethical theory about goodness, the former a normative theory about where you find it.

Where are cakes? Aisle three.

What are cakes? Combinations of flour and eggs and sugar and shit.

Where is goodness found? Character traits

What is goodness? The valuing activity of God.

I've already conceded to the point that virtue ethics is normative ethics and that the Euthyphro dilemma is metaethical one but you're ignoring the obvious truth that virtue ethics has its own metaethics, its own take on what good & bad are. Can you now make the connection between the metaethics of virtue ethics and the metaethical question that is the Euthyphro dilemma?

The kind of people who uses pious rhetoric to justify killing their father.
— Olivier5

Yes, but that doesn't say anything about true piety and the truly pious. — Apollodorus

It says that piety can be used to justify any crime, even the most disgusting. And that is true.

I had thought Olivier5 was making a joke with "Socrates himself didn't do such a great job at this task." — Banno

Of course. Most people today would think the Athenians wrong to prosecute Socrates for impiety, so nobody needs to defend Socrates against the charge of impiety today. He already won in the tribunal of history. And back then, Socrates himself didn't seem particularly interested in saving his neck by placating the pious.

It says that piety can be used to justify any crime, even the most disgusting. And that is true. — Olivier5

I've already addressed that, but it seems you never pay attention.

Do you think it's important to be pious?

But let’s get back to the Platonic dialogues. As I said in my earlier post on this thread, Socrates is quizzing Euthypro about ‘the gods’ but he also asks about the ‘real form of piety’ - not what makes this or that person a pious person, but what is its essence? I have the suspicion, as yet unfounded, that lurking in back of many such passages is the dim apprehension of the forms, specifically, the Form of the Good, or in this case, the form of piety, although it is not spelled out here. — Wayfarer

Your suspicion is absolutely correct and has been discussed by Louis Mix in Ἔν τι εἶδος in the Meno and Euthyphro” (1970) and others.

This is a very important point that actually solves the puzzle. The apprehension of the forms is not "dim" at all.

Plato introduces the concept of the “idea” or “form” right from the start, by making Socrates ask what is the characteristic quality (idea) possessed by pious things (5d).

Euthyphro says that piety is “what the Gods love”.

Socrates does not dispute this. He merely asks whether (a) the pious is loved by the Gods because it is pious or (b) it is pious because it is loved by the Gods (10a).

Euthyphro says that the pious is loved by the Gods because it is pious, not pious because it is loved (by the Gods) (10d).

Socrates and Euthyphro agree that:

“The loved by the Gods is loved by the Gods (a) because it is loved by the Gods, not (b) loved (by the Gods) because it is loved by the Gods” (10e).

Socrates explains that we cannot say that the Gods love the loved by the Gods “because they love it”. Otherwise put, we cannot say that the pious is loved by the Gods “because it is pious”.

Indeed, the dictionary definition of the Greek word for “pious”, hosion, is “sanctioned or approved by the Gods”. “Loved by the Gods” is the same as “sanctioned or approved by the Gods”.

Therefore, whilst we can define pious as “loved by the Gods”, we cannot say that the pious is loved by the Gods because it is pious (or that the sanctioned/approved by the Gods is sanctioned/approved by the Gods because it is sanctioned/approved by the Gods).

The Gods must perceive some feature or features in the pious other than (or in addition to) its being pious.

What might these features be?

It may be answered that some of these features are goodness and justice.

The materialists may use this to argue that in that case goodness and justice are moral standards that are independent of the Gods, thus rendering the Gods unnecessary for moral guidance (and, therefore, redundant).

However, this argument is baseless in an Ancient Greek (Platonic) context. Justice is a manifestation of the divine principle of Justice (the Goddess Dike or Justitia) and goodness is a manifestation of the creator of the universe who according to Plato is good.

Thus Goodness and Justice are divine properties, Forms or Ideas.

Essentially then, the pious is that which is loved by the Gods because it is good, just and divine.

Humans may still be pious in the wrong, or impious, way. But this is only due to an incomplete or incorrect understanding and/or application of the concept, idea or form of piety.

PS It may also be noted that Greek culture itself had a tendency to personify abstract concepts or universals. Time was personified by Cronus, Justice by Dike, Love and Beauty by Aphrodite, Sleep by Hypnos, Death by Thanatos, etc. So, the concept of eternal, ideal Forms or Patterns was in a sense implicit in Greek thought (which is why Plato found it a convenient device for communicating his thoughts).

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11055/from-matter-to-intellect-to-the-forms-the-ascent-to-the-one-according-to-platonic-tradition

:up:

@Banno. @Fooloso4

Read Apollodorus' explanation above. This is correct.

If you read my OP you would see that except for the last part about the divine principle of justice I addressed the issues cited in this Master's thesis.

From the OP:

Socrates asks:

Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved? (10a)

Euthyphro says he does not understand. Socrates says he will “try to explain it more plainly”, but what he says seems designed to confuse rather than make it clear. Or rather, it is intended to show the incoherence of the claim. It says no more than that what is loved is loved. The question of why this is loved and that is not loved is not addressed. That this is loved and not that tells us nothing about whether what is loved is best and just. — Fooloso4

Socrates now offers to show Euthyphro how he can teach Socrates about the pious. (11e) Things have indeed gone around with the need for the student to teach the teacher. Socrates proposes that the pious is what is just. (11e) — Fooloso4

The central question of the dialogue is about men not gods. What should guide Euthyphro’s actions, and how are we to judge Socrates’? Is piety simply a matter of doing what we are told a god or gods want from us, or is it part of the larger question of the just, noble, and good? — Fooloso4

As to Forms or Ideas of Goodness and Justice, a good deal of important scholarly work (and by that I do not mean a Master's thesis written 50 years ago) has been done on the Forms. If we believe Socrates when he says that he is ignorant about divine things, possessing human rather than divine wisdom, then a "divine principle of Justice" is not something he has knowledge of. In addition, a Form is not a principle.

I have the suspicion, as yet unfounded, that lurking in back of many such passages is the dim apprehension of the forms, specifically, the Form of the Good, or in this case, the form of piety, although it is not spelled out here.
— Wayfarer

He does ask about the 'idea' and 'eidos' of piety, that is, the Form. If the Form or Kind can be identified then it can be determined whether what Euthyphro is doing is pious. But the Form is not discovered. As with the Form of the Good and the other Forms the best we can do is discuss what we think it looks like. 'Look' is another term for Form.

See my discussion of Socrates 'second sailing' in the Phaedo thread. Socrates says he is unable to see the things themselves and resorts to speech, to hypothesis, to images of things. — Fooloso4

If we believe Socrates when he says that he is ignorant about divine things, — Fooloso4

So Plato was faithfully taking dictation? No scholar believes that.

We're reading Plato (or someone who slipped his own work into the Platonic collection).

So believing Socrates isn't a relevant issue.

No, what you are saying is confused. What you say in one sentence, you take back in the next.

Anyway, this should be about the Euthyphro challenge to DCT's credibility. And the challenge is that moral content will be arbitrary if it is constitutively determined by God's attitudes.

Craig's 'solution' does not begin to work.

There is no sensible way for the DCT to deny that the content of morality can vary if DCT is true.

My way of dealing with it is best and works. God is Reason and Reason is God. Therefore it is conceptually confused to think any change in morality's content could be arbitrary.

One does not, then, deny the possibility of content change - for God is all powerful and so of course he can make sadism a virtue or lying right if he so wished - one denies that such variation could ever correctly be described as arbitrary.

This leaves another challenge, closely related to the previous one - so much so that many conflate the two. And that is that moral truths appear to be necessary, whereas they would be contingent if DCT is true.

Again, the correct strategy here is not - pace most contemporary theists- to accept the necessary status of moral truths and attempt to ground this in some necessity pertaining to God. The correct strategy is to deny the reality of any metaphysical necessity, for no necessity is compatible with God, moral or otherwise.

It says that piety can be used to justify any crime, even the most disgusting. And that is true.
— Olivier5

I've already addressed that — Apollodorus

Have you also considered the consequence of this fact, which is that we cannot rely on piety alone to justify anything. Piety is not a good enough standard to ensure that we act justly.

So Plato was faithfully taking dictation? No scholar believes that. — frank

If no scholar believes such things why bring it up? It seems you are trying to find something to dispute. When it turns out that what I have said is in agreement with the authorities you cite, you skip over that and fabricate a point of contention.

It makes no sense to say that believing Socrates isn't a relevant issue. These are Socratic dialogues. The dialogues point to Socrates' irony. To understand his irony we need to do more than just accept what he appears to be saying.

More to the point, if in the dialogue Socrates says he has no knowledge of divine things then we need to consider how he might respond to claims of "divine principles". Socrates says he is wiser that others because he at least knows that he does not know. Others, he says, do not even know that they do not know. In other words, no one has knowledge of divine principles. To accept them as things know and known by having been told the myths is to be ignorant of your ignorance.

We're reading Plato — frank

And yet Plato never speaks in the dialogues.

To point to the ancient Greek context and culture as if this provides the answers is to exhibit a complete lack of understanding of Socratic philosophy. Socrates does not accept the gods of the city. He banishes the poets, those who create the myths of the gods, from the just city. He is not defined by culture and context. He can only be understood in his opposition to them.

If no scholar believes such things why bring it up? — Fooloso4

I'm trying to explain to you that we're reading Plato's ideas. Not Socrates'.

And yet Plato never speaks in the dialogues. — Fooloso4

:meh:

@Banno You're not helping this guy get his head on straight. You could, you know.

There is no point talking to Fooloso4 because as I said from the start and as has become more than obvious since, he's got a very specific political agenda.

Anyway, εἶδος eidos which Plato uses in his Theory of Forms means “that which is seen, e.g., form, image, shape but also fashion, sort, kind
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/εἶδος

Plato in the Euthyphro introduces the concept of idea (idea) early on, followed by eidos and paradeigma, i.e., exactly what later emerges in the Theory of Forms:

1. Socrates asks “what is the idea possessed by pious things” (5d).

2. Socrates asks “what is the eidos by which all pious acts are pious” (6d).

3. Socrates asks “what is this idea that I may keep my eye fixed upon it and employ it as a paradeigma” (6e).

It is clear that this comes very close to the later and more developed concept of “idea”, “form” or “pattern”.

So, we can identify three basic stages of the concept of forms:

1. As found in deities personifying certain virtues such as Justice, Beauty, etc.

2. As found in more abstract form in the Meno and Euthyphro.

3. As found in more developed form in the Phaedo, Republic, and Phaedrus.

Yep. He's leading the reader to think in terms of essence.

I'm trying to explain to you that we're reading Plato's ideas. Not Socrates'. — frank

We are not reading Plato's ideas. Some of us, at least, are reading Plato's dialogues.

In the Second Letter Plato says he has made Socrates "young and beautiful (noble)". I will leave it to you to work out what that might mean.

In the Seventh Letter Plato says: "There is no treatise (suggramma) by me on these subjects, nor will there ever be."

There is no consensus on the legitimacy of the Letters, but I think they accurately represent Plato's dialogues.

There is no need for you to explain these things to me. I am well aware of them and have discussed them on many threads here and elsewhere.

Anyway, εἶδος eidos which Plato uses in his Theory of Forms means “that which is seen, e.g., form, image, shape but also fashion, sort, kind — Apollodorus

From an earlier post, in response to Wayfarer:

He does ask about the 'idea' and 'eidos' of piety, that is, the Form. If the Form or Kind can be identified then it can be determined whether what Euthyphro is doing is pious. But the Form is not discovered. As with the Form of the Good and the other Forms the best we can do is discuss what we think it looks like. 'Look' is another term for Form. — Fooloso4

Only I did not learn these things by copying and pasting from Wiki. I spent many years reading Plato, starting long before there were such things as Wiki and google. I did so formally in school and on my own with the use of secondary material that at the time was marginalized but is now becoming mainstream.

Only I did not learn these things by copying and pasting from Wiki. I spent many years reading Plato, starting long before there were such things as Wiki and google. — Fooloso4

And your point is what exactly?

1. The point that Euthyphro may represent an early form of the Theory of Forms has been made for many years in academic publications. That's precisely why it shouldn't be lightly dismissed.

2. Plato has been read by millions of people worldwide. But there is no point reading Plato if you keep insisting on reading him in a narrow materialist or nihilist light. Plato was neither a materialist nor a nihilist and even less a fanatic.

You sound like you are stuck in a bygone era and are intellectually too set in your ways to move on. But that's your problem, not anyone else's.

The fact is that terms like idea (“idea”), eidos (“form”), auto to (“(thing) in itself”), paradeigma (“pattern”), etc., occur time and again in Plato’s dialogues.

In the Euthyphro we can also see how the dialogue shifts from the pious (to hosion) to piety (hosiotes), i.e., in the same general direction leading eventually to the "forms" in other dialogues.

Therefore, as a number of scholars have observed, dialogues like the Euthyphro are a possible base for identifying an “earlier Theory of Forms”. So, it isn’t anything new.

Quite possibly, Plato himself and his contemporaries, or at least his followers, saw it this way. If they did, then it is legitimate for us to see it in the same way. Pretty simple, really. I don't see why anyone would object unless they've got an agenda.

And your point is what exactly? — Apollodorus

My point is that I learned to read books. Rather than being fed information, reading requires active participation, trying to think along with what is said, examining, interpreting, reexamining, and reinterpreting. Seeing how well all the parts fit and operate together in the interpretation and how the interpretation sheds light on the whole.

1. The point that Euthyphro may represent an early form of the Theory of Forms has been made for many years in academic publications. That's precisely why it shouldn't be lightly dismissed. — Apollodorus

And what do you make of this? How does it shed light on the text? In the dialogue Parmenides, a mature work,Plato presents the young Socrates' theory of Forms, which Parmenides demolishes. The Euthyphro takes place when he was 70 years old. The dramatic chronology is more revealing that any theory of the development of Plato's theory of Forms.

Plato has been read by millions of people worldwide. But there is no point reading Plato if you keep insisting on reading him in a narrow materialist or nihilist light. Plato was neither a materialist nor a nihilist and even less a fanatic. — Apollodorus

Nice speech but irrelevant. Your accusations are misguided. I attempt to read the dialogues, to the extent this is possible, on their own terms. Following the action and arguments. If this does not conform to the Plato you desire to find that is your problem.

You sound like you are stuck in a bygone era ... — Apollodorus

You really are clueless. You appeal to Neo-Platonism. Do you think 'neo' means new in the 21st century?You cite someone's Master's thesis written in 1970 but are unaware of the scholarship being done around that time up and until the present that informs my own interpretation. This scholarship has only relatively recently gained widespread acceptance, precisely because it overturns the conventional scholarship of a bygone era.

... and are intellectually too set in your ways to move on. — Apollodorus

Actually, the opposite is the case. When I first read Plato I read him in a way you would not doubt find conducive. It was only years later that I began to see how problematic the conventional view is.

The fact is that terms like idea (“idea”), eidos (“form”), auto to (“(thing) in itself”), paradeigma (“pattern”), etc., occur time and again in Plato’s dialogues. — Apollodorus

Yes, and I have frequently pointed this out. That these terms are there is obvious. How we are to understand them is not so obvious.

I think our main difference is that you see the outcome of the dialogue as a life-long quest, searching in the darkness, so to speak, for what constitutes righteousness.

Apollodorus and I are cheating because we both know quite a bit about how this will play out over the next 2400 years. If you're concerned about how that skews our viewpoints, I understand that.

If you want to take a new turn in interpretation, I think that's fine. You just need to make sure the new turn makes sense. If you're satisfied that it does, then good.

Therefore, as a number of scholars have observed, dialogues like the Euthyphro are a possible base for identifying an “earlier Theory of Forms”. So, it isn’t anything new. — Apollodorus

I see it as broader than the forms. With Plato, we're starting to partake of the divine. Gotta focus elsewhere. Cool talking to you.

I think the point I was making was very easy to understand and entirely reasonable. If Plato and his disciples were to read the Euthyphro, would they, or would they not think of the forms when coming across words like eidos, idea, paradigma, etc.? If they would, then so can we. Nothing to do with "neo-Platonism" which, by the way, is a pejorative term.

Incidentally, your constant diatribes against monotheism in a discussion of Platonic dialogues clearly shows that you've got a political agenda and have no interest in an objective discussion. This is not the first time either.

I know many people who have read Plato, many of them in the Greek original. Apart from you, I'm not aware of anyone who feels they deserve a medal for that. It doesn't matter where knowledge comes from. Everyone uses Internet sources these days. I bet you're doing it yourself though you may not be wiling to admit it.

I mentioned Louis Mix for no other reason than to illustrate the fact that seeing an early Theory of Forms in the Euthyphro and other dialogues is nothing new. There are, of course, others like Prof R Allen, etc.

You keep claiming that "it is not obvious how to understand terms like eidos, idea, etc." Yet the minute someone proposes an interpretation that goes against your agenda, you suddenly "know beyond reasonable doubt" that this is not what Plato intended to convey.

The fact remains that dialogues like the Euthyphro leave many questions open. This not only justifies but positively invites a variety of interpretations and answers. And as I said, the question is how would Plato and his immediate followers read the dialogues. In the light of this, I don't think that my suggestions are too far of the mark.

I see it as broader than the forms. With Plato, we're starting to partake of the divine. — frank

I don't dispute that.

I think our main difference is that you see the outcome of the dialogue as a life-long quest, searching in the darkness, so to speak, for what constitutes righteousness. — frank

I do not think Socrates was searching in the darkness. I don't see how anyone who knows the works of Plato and Xenophon would think such a thing.

Apollodorus and I are cheating because we both know quite a bit about how this will play out over the next 2400 years. — frank

It seems your need to congratulate yourself is being bought at the cost of underestimating me.

Essentially then, the pious is that which is loved by the Gods because it is good, just and divine. — Apollodorus

Then why end in aporia?

If Plato and his disciples were to read the Euthyphro, would they, or would they not think of the forms when coming across words like eidos, idea, paradigma, etc.? — Apollodorus

Of course they would. Eidos and idea are translated as Forms in English.

Incidentally, your constant diatribes against monotheism in a discussion of Platonic dialogues — Apollodorus

This is completely unfounded. I am going to let my posts speak for themselves.

Apart from you, I'm not aware of anyone who feels they deserve a medal for that. — Apollodorus

This is bullshit. I started a thread on Plato, you and Frank attacked it. I started another thread and you and Frank attacked it. Neither of you know enough about Plato to know how misguided and uninformed your constant attacks are. The simple fact of the matter is that I happen to know a great deal more about Plato than both of you put together. I have the degrees to back that up. I don't need a medal, I would however like you to [edit].

I am thinking about starting a thread on the Socratic way of philosophy -his "second sailing", aporia, and what to do with knowledge of ignorance. I think it is still a viable way of life today.

I hesitate though because I am tired of the incessant yapping of little dogs under foot.

I would however like you to shut the fuck up. — Fooloso4

Goat has been gotten. My work is done.

Goat has been gotten. My work is done. — frank

Is this what you think philosophy is about? I have spent a good deal of time and effort trying to address what you have said. I thought you were arguing in good faith. I now see that I was wrong. I won't make that mistake again.