Socratic About-Face, or, Soc’s god v. my dog Sox

 

“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.”

The above epigraph is Socrates’ challenge to Euthyphro, a priest. Socrates was trying to understand what piety is. We could just as well speak about morality or moral rightness or goodness. Euthyphro had suggested that piety is whatever the gods love. But Socrates recognized that this was an ambiguous assertion; that is the “point” he is talking about in the epigraph. The position that piety, or moral rightness or goodness, is simply whatever the gods happen to love (or approve, etc.) goes by the name of Divine Command Theory in modern philosophy; thus, for instance, if God wanted Abraham to kill Isaac, then that was the right thing for Abraham to do.[1]

Socrates, presumably, opted for the alternative, which is that the gods love something because it is right or good. (And presumably, therefore, God would never really want the murder of the innocent, since that is clearly wrong.) Thus it is morality itself which is the dog, and the gods’ love of it the tail. Indeed, this is why we love the gods (or God): precisely because they invariably opt for what is right and good.

Socrates offers various arguments for this conclusion, which most contemporary philosophers – including me for most of my career – have found convincing. But note that this does not mean that most contemporary philosophers believe in God. On the contrary, at least in the U.S., most (like me) are atheists. But most of them still do “believe in” morality, and have felt they are free to do so whilst still being atheists precisely because Socrates was able to drive a wedge between believing in gods and believing in morality. Morality must have some independent basis since it cannot be explained simply as whatever the gods happen to love.

Lo and behold, I have in more recent times given up my belief in morality too. However, I certainly recognize that many, maybe most (maybe even all, maybe even still including me to some degree), believe in morality. And part of my own amoralism is the claim that this belief in morality is caused by what we “love.” In other words, I am suggesting an about-face on Socrates’ point but in secular terms.

So for example, if a person fervently believed in autonomy as a moral good, that would be because, I submit, they “loved” (wanted, etc.) autonomy. What I now deny is that the reason they love autonomy is that they believe it’s morally good. My dog’s body and tail are switching places from Socrates’s dog’s.

[1] This is the outrageous conclusion that caused Kierkegaard’s “fear and trembling,” with which he grappled in the eponymous treatise.

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