In Plato’s Apology, Socrates is given the opportunity to defend himself against charges for corrupting the youth and impiety. He chooses to cross examine Meletus, an accuser of his, in order to display the absurdity of the court’s claims against him. Unfortunately, Meletus falls victim to Socrates’ dialectical inquiry and is unable to answer in a way that is beneficial to his argument. Meletus could have done a better job responding to Socrates’ questions if he were to unveil the fallacies prevalent in Socrates’ explanation for his wrongdoings. Socrates retorts Meletus’ statement that he corrupts the youth by first discrediting Meletus.
However, the prisoner in Plato’s story after gaining this new knowledge let others in bondage know of his new found knowledge but felt that the first truth was easier to except. On the other hand Neo in The Matrix decided he wanted to learn what the real truth was. Both characters were interested in find out the truth but they accepted the truth differently. Plato thought it was necessary for the chained man in the Allegory of the Cave needed to escape from the cave to seek the truth. However, Descartes, in Meditations I raises the question how could he know with certainty that the world he lived in wasn’t an illusion forced upon him by a demon.
In Euthyphro, Socrates finds himself seeking knowledge from Euthyphro as to the definition of piety because he is being prosecuted for corrupting the youth of Athens with impiety. In search for his answer, Socrates finds himself questioning the very definitions that Euthyphro gives for piety. Instead of settling for the simplistic definition, he questions the obscurity of it and searches for a deeper understanding. In an attempt to keep face with Socrates, Euthyphro modifies his definition but it too gets picked apart by further questions. This back and forth notion in pursuit of a valid definition of piety is a single example of searching for understanding and wisdom in a well-examined life.
Torture is sometimes used when a suspect is believed to have information on a catastrophic event or might know of a terrorist organization. The suspect is then exposed to a painful series of different mental and physical methods to give up the desired information. Torture has been used in times of war and in situations where the information could save a society form danger. However, torture should never be justifiable or acceptable because it usually doesn’t provide reliable information, the person that we want to torture might truly not know the information that we would like to obtain, and it would degrade our nations integrity. “Suspects that are inflicted with torture will say just about anything to
This idea portrays the view that ethical and moral values are independent of religion, which means moral action does not necessarily require religious belief. This way of thinking would have been unbelievable at this time, and would probably even be questioned in the present day. Initially, when Socrates asks Euthyphro what piety is, he responds that piety is what he’s currently doing, which was indicting his father for killing a slave. This response does not satisfy Socrates because he is looking for a definition of what piety is, not an example of piety. So Euthyphro goes on to define piety as what the gods love.
Aristotle’s aforementioned premises are as follows: First: Humans must have a function, or else they would be idle, which is absurd. Aristotle confronts the reader with a question of whether or not humans perhaps have no overall function aside from a their chosen occupation within society, but implies that this is not indicative of nature; Terence Irwin used the word “idle” in his 1985 translation when wording this separation of Aristotle’s question. Second: Each human body part has a function, so the whole human must likewise have a function. This premise appears to jive with Aristotle’s argument that many goods serve higher goods within a hierarchy (Aristotle, Book I). Aristotle conjured the concept of a hierarchy to better consider the functions of body parts; each body part serves a function that plays a larger part within a different function, and so it seems that the largest unit, the human body itself, must have a function.
Instead of describing a pious or impious act, Euthyphro has given a clear definition of what piety is, just like Socrates asked him to. Piety is what is dear to the gods. However, Socrates refutes this definition of Euthyphro as well. Earlier, Socrates and Euthyphro had stated that Gods were in a state of discord, in odds with each other, and that they were at enmity with each other. Now Socrates asks Euthyphro, “What subject of difference would make us angry and hostile to each other if we were unable to come to a decision?” Socrates claims that subjects such as the just and the unjust, the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad are certain subjects that would cause differences between them when they were unable to come to a satisfactory conclusion and would cause Socrates and Euthyphro as well as other men to become hostile towards one another.
If the gods can have their disputes about piety and impiety, then how would we ever know what exactly is the right course of action? Despite the fact that Socrates did believe in some kind of religion, he was still seen as impious or
He argues at one point of his text, "to renounce such enlightenment completely, whether for his own person or even more so for later generations, means violating and trampling underfoot the sacred rights of mankind". The reasons for this intellectual and moral immaturity are, for Kant, laziness and cowardice. He writes, ironically: "it is all too easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature! [...] I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me.".
In Euthyphro, Socrates did not directly express what he felt was the meaning of piety but rather questioned the accounts by Euthyphro. It seemed as though Socrates, throughout the entire dialogue, dissected and broke down every definition and meaning to what pious and impious meant to Euthyphro. While Euthyphro tried to defend and prove his point it was rendered mute as he jumped from answer to answer slowly being cornered to the inevitable; that he did not in fact know the full definition or had a true understanding of what pious and impious meant. (Plato 20) In Apology, Socrates is accused of several things. Among them are studying heavens and below earth, which as a consequence leads to corrupting the youth with his teachings.