By DONALD DeMARCO
Plato’s philosophy is both systematic and encyclopedic. He covers virtually all the issues that belong to the realm of philosophy. Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead pays tribute to him by stating that all philosophy after Plato is merely a series of footnotes to the great thinker.
Nonetheless, his philosophy is not difficult to grasp. I would like to exemplify this point by citing Euthyphro, one of his Dialogues. In this story, Socrates and Euthyphro meet at the courthouse. Socrates will be tried for corrupting the youth of Athens, while Euthyphro is filing a charge of homicide against his father. Socrates is a person who claims to know nothing, but is eager to learn. By contrast, Euthyphro, a soothsayer/theologian, is egocentric.
The charge of homicide is based on shaky grounds. Socrates questions Euthyphro’s certainty in the matter. He thinks that a person must have airtight evidence to charge his own father of homicide. Euthyphro tries to assure Socrates by claiming to be a soothsayer/theologian of exceptional ability. Socrates is not impressed and presents a series of questions to his newly formed acquaintance.
The essence of the questions boils down to this: Do the gods love what is holy because it is holy, or is something said to be holy because the gods say that it is holy?
Euthyphro does not understand the question, prompting Socrates to phrase the question in more understandable terms. He appeals to grammar. There is a difference between carrying and being carried. Euthyphro agrees. Carrying is an activity whereas being carried requires no activity on the part of the subject. The former is active, the latter is entirely passive. Being holy must be something active. If it were entirely passive, it would not qualify for being holy.
Euthyphro misses the point and continues to miss the point no matter how many examples Socrates offers. In the end, they part amicably, wishing each other well.
The question is one of the most basic questions in all of philosophy and has far-reaching implications. If something is good solely by virtue of its relationship to an external agent, it has nothing in itself that would make it good. When Dean Martin sings, “You’re nobody until somebody loves you,” he is addressing a fiction. There are no “nobodies” in the world. One loves another because he sees something good in the beloved. Love is a response to something that has the positive quality of being good. In The Sound of Music, Julie Andrews can accept being loved because “deep in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.”
This basic question has had application throughout history to the Decalogue. Did God issue the Ten Commandments because they related to the good of human beings, or did He issue them out of His own arbitrary power? William of Ockham, for example, argued that God could have issued His Commandments arbitrarily without any regard to what good they would serve. He could have commanded people to commit adultery, for example. Yet, the Bible, as well as common sense, maintains that God issued the Commandments motivated by love and not power.
Here we come to the distinction between the power of love and the love of power. Therefore, to answer the Socratic question, the gods love what is holy because it it holy. In order for something to have any claim to holiness, it must have some intrinsic merit that makes it holy.
Euthyphro never catches on to what Socrates is saying, though Plato makes the answer to the question obvious to the reader.
Concerning elections, does the mere fact that a person has been elected make him qualified? We see no end of examples where elected officials are anything but qualified. Being elected is something that is entirely external to the person who is elected. It implies nothing of his worthiness of being elected. A person should be elected because he is good, which is to say qualified for the position he is seeking. Caligula intended to raise his horse to political office.
Titles, awards, and trophies mean nothing unless they are earned. Ambition can be misleading when it covets honor but neglects moral rectitude. Let the honors come, but they must be earned. The gods love what is holy because it is holy. Plato, through Socrates, sets the order straight. First, there is goodness, then praise. Praise is meaningless unless it is directed to something good.
The Euthyphro dialogue is quite lengthy, but its essence is easy enough to grasp. An introduction to Plato can also be an invitation to explore his thought more thoroughly. The exploration can be an exciting and salutary adventure.
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