In Book II of Plato’s Republic, Socrates begins the discussion
what is justice stripped of all its consequences. He seeks not to simply
identify things that are just, but to discover a sort of algorithm that leads
one to be able to view justice as its own entity.
Generally, whenever there is a debate about morality, it frequently
includes a debate or discussion on religious authority. Even Socrates alludes
to the Gods for some sort of moral authority. When Socrates begins to touch on
poetry and stories regarding children’s education in the perfect society, the
Kallipolis, he declares that stories that portray the Gods as anything but good
should be excluded. The Kallipolis “mustn’t allow any stories about gods warring, fighting, or plotting against one
another.” He explains that these stories are blatantly false because “a god is
good” (53). And this statement is simply taken for granted along with other
ones such as “gods are just” (29). Socrates never really feels the need to
validate these two premises for his later arguments.
It becomes even more interesting in regards to Plato’s other
text Euthyphro. In the text, Euthyphro is speaking to Socrates about the nature
of justice. He proclaims that actions are just when they are approved by the
gods. To this, Socrates raises the question of whether an action is right
because it is approved by the gods, or if these actions are only approved
because they are just. Unlike in the previous case, the latter one implies that
justice is not necessarily contingent on the existence or moral authority of the
Gods. Although Socrates poses this question, he never thoroughly answers it. Even
in the Republic, Socrates admits to not have skirted around defining justice in
its pure form.
Kant furthers Socrates’s line of thinking with the notion
that one cannot necessarily rely on religious texts/religious ideals for
morality unless the sources of the texts/ideals themselves can be approved as
valid. And in order to do this, he states it is necessary to understand
morality independent of religion. This seems to be what Socrates is attempting
to discover. However, perhaps, the reason he finds trouble coming with a
concrete response to this dilemma is that he is unaware of other schools of philosophy,
and he lived in a society unaware of ideals of Nihilism, Atheism, and Agnosticism.
The question I would like to pose is how Socrates would
respond to Kant’s proposition. To what extent was Socrates able to define
morality independent of its consequences and of the Gods, and does this successfully
validate the religious authority he calls upon throughout the text?
In some cases, he seems to separate religion from morality (when
he is speaking to Euthyphro), and in other cases he seems to affirm the link
between the two (when he is speaking on education). Do you think Socrates’s
definition of morality is necessarily contingent on the existence of Gods, and
if he were to be alive today and aware of other schools of philosophy would he
think the same?
It is important to acknowledge that inherent morality is not often touched on directly by Socrates, but rather is deliberated through the lens of other virtues—namely “good,” justice, and the soul. Only through these concepts do we obtain an idea of Socrates’s version of morality, which is largely humanist and independent of religious influence. Because Socrates’s theories are so contingent on human behavior, structure, and ability, there is not much room for external factors to influence his perception of morality. In fact, those additional factors that do appear, such as myths and religion, feel extraneous and illogical, especially when voiced by Socrates. His tangent on determining which stories about the gods should be retained and which should be prohibited is foolish at best, impossible and laughable at worst. If Socrates believes that he and other philosophers have the authority to redesign their religion for society, it is evident that they do not pay the gods much credence. Even though Socrates appears to respect and acknowledge the gods, I think he must doubt their existence at some level. If Socrates were aware of later schools of thought, especially atheism and humanism, I think he would factor these into his approach on justice and the ideal community. The power and ubiquity of religion was too large for even Socrates to imagine an existence without it. That being said, I think Socrates would have developed a more thorough and sturdy philosophy without the weak link in it that is religion. It almost appears as if Socrates is ready to bypass religion entirely and move on to the next stage: implementing his own beliefs through government. This pattern is seen in his idea of creating the “magnificent myth,” in which the government fools the society with its own state-constructed myth; in his sacrilegious dissection of traditional Greek myth; and the creation of his own philosophy that is as encompassing as any religion.
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