Class 2 - About the Euthyphro and the Elenchus

Welcome back

Welcome back, and for those who have just joined, welcome to the class. I’m Will Buckingham, and I’m leading the course this semester. If you want to find out more about me, you can have a look at my website.

We’re going to start with a check-in in breakout groups.

Before we start

If you have just joined, make sure that you understand how everything works here at Parami. Head over to Canvas and have a look through the various parts of the site. And have a look around this website as well.

As this is just the beginning of your time at Parami, there may be lots of questions. If you want to ask anything, and don’t want to do it in the group, email me on will.buckingham@parami.edu.mm!

Writing task

For your homework, you were asked to read the first few pages of Plato’s Euthuyphro. This is a short text, but a dense one. To get us thinking, we’ll do a short free-writing exercise in response to this question:

In Plato’s text, who do you think is a more appealing character? Socrates or Euthyphro? Why?

Write for 5 minutes. If you haven’t yet had a chance to read the text (although even if you have just joined us, you should have), then you should head over to Canvas, and use this first 5 minutes to briefly read through the PDF there.

After this, we will share our thoughts. Who is on team Socrates? Who is on team Euthyphro? Why?

Context

We will then get a bit more context. We’ll watch the following video together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJUuOnsRcvc

Getting a feel for the text

Having done this, we’ll get a feel for the text by reading it as a dialogue or as a drama. You can think about Plato as writing little plays! We need one volunteer to be Socrates and one to be Euthyphro.

We’ll read from p. 6 (“I should not be surprised, but you will tell me these at leisure some other time”) to page 7, where Euthyphro says “you are right…”

The Elenchus

The technical term for Socrates’s argument is the “Elenchus”, which literally means “cross-examination.”

Let’s talk about this in groups. What I want us to think about today is not just the content of the arguments that Socrates and Euthyphro are making, but the method of arguing.

1. In this text, who asks more questions: Socrates or Euthyphro? Why?
2. What claims do the two people in the debate make about themselves?
3. What is the topic of their debate?
4. Why does it matter to both of them? What practical significance does it have?
5. What are their different approaches to the arts of argument?

We’ll feed back and discuss in the large group.

Taking Your Parents to Court

Now let’s talk about the process of taking your father or mother to court. This is an interesting moral problem. The problem can be summarised like this.

1. We have general obligations to see that justice is applied fairly and equally.
2. We have specific obligations to those who are close to us, obligations that arise out of our specific relationships.

Here are some questions:

1. What other examples can you think of that reflect this same tension?
2. Should we a) always apply our moral principles equally, or should we b) apply them differently according to who we are relating to?
3. What arguments can you find to support a) and b)
4. How would you resolve the debate between Socrates and Euthyphro?

Homework

We’re going to continue talking about this next time.

We’ve seen a case about is to think about this case from the Analects of Confucius, that parallels the passage from the Euthyphro.

The case is that of somebody who reports their father for stealing a sheep. The entire text reads like this:

葉公語孔子曰：「吾黨有直躬者，其父攘羊，而子證之。」孔子曰：「吾黨之直者異於是。父為子隱，子為父隱，直在其中矣。」 The Governor of She in conversation with Confucius said, “In our village there is someone called ‘True Person.’ When his father took a sheep on the sly, he reported him to the authorities.” Confucius replied, “Those who are true in my village conduct themselves differently. A father covers for his son, and a son covers for his father. And being true lies in this.” (Analects 13:18; trans. Ames and Rosemont Jr, 1998: 166-7)

I want you to read the following paper that explores some of the differences between Plato’s argument and Confucius’s argument.

Understanding Confucian Ethics: Reflections on Moral Development. Karyn Lai. Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 9 (2) (2007)

The paper (in PDF format) is available on Canvas. We’re going to be talking more about this next Tuesday! Have a read of the paper, and respond to the questions on Canvas.