The Death of Socrates. Romano Guardini
is injustice? How does one distinguish a case of injustice from one of justice? Socrates formulates the question by going back to the case that is occupying their attention:
Come then, my dear Euthyphro, please enlighten me on this point. What proof have you that all the gods think that a labourer who has been imprisoned for murder by the master of the man whom he has murdered, and who dies from his imprisonment before the master has had time to learn from the seers what he should do, dies by injustice? How do you know that it is right for a son to indict his father, and to prosecute him for the murder of such a man?
Come, see if you can make it clear to me that the gods necessarily agree in thinking that this action of yours is right. . . .
Euthyphro evades the question—understandably, from his way of thinking, for it again approaches the critical point. Socrates at once makes this clear:
. . . Suppose that Euthyphro were to prove to me as clearly as possible that all the gods think such a death unjust; how has he brought me any nearer to understanding what holiness and unholiness are?
He would have to say
. . . that whatever all the gods hate is unholy, and whatever they all love is holy: while whatever some of them love, and others hate, is either both or neither? Do you wish us now to define holiness and unholiness in this manner?
EUTH. Why not, Socrates?
SOCR. There is no reason why I should not, Euthyphro. It is for you to consider whether that definition will help you to instruct me as you promised.
EUTH. Well, I should say that holiness is what all the gods love, and that unholiness is what they all hate.
Euthyphro has maintained that the goodness of the good consists in its affirmation by the gods: that is, he has made a formal content depend on the attitude taken towards something by certain beings, even though beings of the highest order—the gods. To put it more pointedly, he has founded an absolute principle on a fact, whereas on the contrary the fact should be founded on the principle, which rests on itself and cannot be proved, but only indicated.
Socrates indeed brings this home to him by asking:
We shall know that better in a little while, my good friend. Now consider this question. Do the gods love holiness because it is holy, or is it holy because they love it?
The question here touches the decisive point, but it thereby passes beyond Euthyphro’s power of comprehension. So Socrates tries to make clear to him the difference between the two propositions. The proposition, “This is pious”, is a statement of essence; the proposition, “This is loved”, is a statement of fact. The sense only comes out correctly when one says:
Then it is loved by the gods because it is holy: it is not holy because it is loved by them?
EUTH. It seems so.
SOCR. But then what is pleasing to the gods is pleasing to them, and is in a state of being loved by them, because they love it?
EUTH. Of course.
SOCR. Then holiness is not what is pleasing to the gods, and what is pleasing to the gods is not holy, as you say, Euthyphro. They are different things.
EUTH. And why, Socrates?
SOCR. Because we are agreed that the gods love holiness because it is holy: and that it is not holy because they love it. Is not this so?
EUTH. Yes.
Euthyphro has first answered “It seems so”, next “Of course”, then “And why, Socrates?”—and now he says “Yes”. But all this only amounts to “I haven’t understood a thing”. And when Socrates then proceeds to draw out the relations of “pious” and “loved” in a rapid succession of statements, and asks:
Do not, if you please, keep from me what holiness is; begin again and tell me that. Never mind whether the gods love it, or whether it has other attributes: we shall not differ on that point. Do your best to make clear to me what is holiness and what is unholiness.
——the poor man is quite dizzy:
EUTH. But, Socrates, I really don’t know how to explain to you what is in my mind. Whatever we put forward always somehow moves round in a circle, and will not stay where we place it.
And we feel the power of the master of irony when he goes on to remark:
I think that your definitions, Euthyphro, are worthy of my ancestor Daedalus. If they had been mine and I had laid them down, I daresay that you would have made fun of me, and said that it was the consequence of my descent from Daedalus that the definitions which I construct run away, as his statues used to, and will not stay where they are placed. But, as it is, the definitions are yours, and the jest would have no point. You yourself see that they will not stay still.
EUTH. Nay, Socrates, I think that the jest is very much in point. It is not my fault that the definition moves round in a circle and will not stay still. But you are the Daedalus, I think: as far as I am concerned, my definitions would have stayed quiet enough.
SOCR. Then, my friend, I must be a more skilful artist than Daedalus: he only used to make his own works move; whereas I, you see, can make other people’s works move too. And the beauty of it is that I am wise against my will. I would rather that our definitions had remained firm and immovable than have all the wisdom of Daedalus and all the riches of Tantalus to boot.1
PIETY AND JUSTICE
Socrates starts again, spurring on poor Euthyphro, who would certainly rather be left in peace:
Well, then, is all justice holy too? Or, while all holiness is just, is a part only of justice holy, and the rest of it something else?
ETH. I do not follow you, Socrates.
SOCR. Yet you have the advantage over me in your youth no less than in your wisdom. But, as I say, the wealth of your wisdom makes you indolent. Exert yourself, my good friend: I am not asking you a difficult question.
And he then works out an example by means of a poetic quotation. The two phenomena “fear” and “shame” have a different extension. The first is more general and includes the second. It is the same with piety and justice. The latter—taken in the sense of natural justice or natural suitability—has a wider extension than piety. The pious forms a part of the just; it is natural suitability under a special aspect. Then he asks:
Then see if you can explain to me what part of justice is holiness, that I may tell Meletus that now that I have learnt perfectly from you what actions are pious and holy, and what are not, he must give up prosecuting me unjustly for impiety.
Socrates, then, has told his companion what are the elements of a correctly constructed definition: the more general major term, and the specific difference by which the thing to be defined is classed under the former. According to this scheme Euthyphro has now to say how piety is related to justice, and so to define it.
EUTH. Well then, Socrates, I should say that piety and holiness are that part of justice which has to do with the attention which is due to the gods: and that what has to do with the attention which is due to men, is the remaining part of justice.
Once more the thought has lost its elevation. Euthyphro’s answer is not on Socrates’s level, but has sunk to that of everyday practice. So Socrates tries to regain the higher level:
And I think that your answer is a good one, Euthyphro. But there is one little point, of which I still want to hear more. I do not yet understand what the attention or care which you are speaking of is. I suppose you do not mean that the care which we show to the gods is like the care which we show to other things. We say, for instance, do we not, that not everyone knows how to take care of horses, but only the trainer of horses?