Episode 323: Debate Me 'Phro

0:00Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. He has the grace of a swan, the wisdom of an owl, and the eye of an eagle. Ladies and gentlemen, this man is for the birds. The Great Enhoss has spoken!

0:31Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

0:40Who are you? Who are you? I'm a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Good man. They think deep thoughts, and with no more brains than you have. Pay no attention to that man.

1:01Anybody can have a brain.

1:05You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Summers. Dave, this is our last main episode of the year. Although we will have another Navigators, Odysseators, whatever we're calling it, Zinniators, Complicated Men. We will have one more of those coming, but this is our last main episode of the year. What are you going to remember about 2025?

1:36Oh, fuck. That's a good question. Yeah. Oh, man. I'm going to remember it was a three-year anniversary of Argentina winning the World Cup. That's a very charitable reading of 2025. That's a good question. It's not been a memorable year for me. I think I've been in a fog from having little kids and being sick every other week. Just gun to my head, a couple of good rap albums came out that I'll remember. There were some political things that, you know, kind of caught the attention of some.

2:11Some people. But, you know. Like white vans going around, like terrorizing and kidnapping. A lot of shootings. I'll remember Charlie Kirk, man. Like that should have been my opening. Pour one out. Yeah, pour one out for Charlie. Pour one out for Rob Reiner, too.

2:27He's some great movies. Some also wretched movies, but some really, really great ones, too. I mean, like somebody was pointing out, like he has inserted quotes and scenes into the popular culture. It's like pretty unrivaled. Like it's hard to know how many things that people quote. Yeah, like I'll have what he's, what she's having. Yeah, you killed my father. Prepare to die. Everything from Spinal Tap, pretty much. Everything from Spinal Tap, yeah. I'll have what he's having would be a terrible scene.

2:58Like a guy having an orgasm. Yeah, exactly. Like, ah, yeah, fuck yeah.

3:07Where do you want it, baby?

3:10Or like in Bad Santa. You ain't gonna shit right for a week. I was watching Bad Santa while I was grading. It's very funny. And it reminded me when I got to that thing, he's like fucking some woman from behind in a dressing room. And he yells that out. And I remembered that at that exact moment, like we were watching with a lie when she was like nine years old, we turned it off. Just like the questions that that would raise.

3:43Dude, you're gonna know why Bella is my daughter. Yesterday I go, hey Bella, what's like the best Christmas movie? Yeah. And she goes, mm, elf. And so I go, you think it's the best or is it just your favorite? And she goes, it's just the only one I could think of.

4:00And I'm like, what? Jesus Christ. I think it might have been after she took a hit from the pipe that night.

4:09Yeah, you didn't raise her right with movies. I raised her excellently. Just not in that way. Just not in that way. Like, I feel the same way about my brother, my little brother. Like, I just fucked up there. But I still think what she said is way better than saying, like, die hard. Trying to be a little hipster about it, you know? Eyes Wide Shut. Although Eyes Wide Shut is a great Christmas movie. You're so funny because you're so hipster that you circle back around to hating. You find the most hipster view and then you hate on it in, like, an extra.

4:42Right. Soon I'll have come back around to liking the MCU. And, like, Avatar, Fire, and Ash. The films of M. Night Shyamalan are underrated. Let's see. I will remember this year, aside from all the Trump stuff, the Israel stuff. Like, this is the year I feel like ChatGBT and all those generative AI things just kind of, for once and for all, ruined all out-of-class writing assignments, like, in college.

5:13Like, that's a big deal, actually. And I think a lot of professors, myself included, thought we could keep it at bay. And it turns out we really probably can't. And that's... Yeah, this was the year. That's true. It's so true. It's the solid year. Now, if you ask a sixth grader if they use ChatGBT, they'll tell you, like, well, obviously. Yeah, and not to good effect. Like, I think it's, like, setting aside, you know, like, what outsourcing your mind and your thought does to you, like, overall, it also doesn't produce, like, better work.

5:44Like, it produces more polished work. Like, if you chose to use it as, like, a tool, you know, truly, and not sacrifice any of your intellectual input, then it could polish, you know? Yeah. It could, like, be an aid. But you would have already had to have not been using that to that point in your life for you to get to that. And even that I'm a little bit skeptical of. But, you know, when this is all you've done, you can't use it well because you don't know what well is. You're right. I watched a really good video essay about something I hadn't thought of it in this way.

6:18But what he was arguing was that the difference between being able to Google something just a few years ago, you know, because sometimes people will say, well, you could just Google something and find the answer. Like, what's the difference? There really is a mental difference between Googling something and having to find within those results the answer to what you're looking for, which puts you in, like, a researchy kind of state of mind versus producing an answer like a fucking magic eight ball. Yeah. You know? Right. That's good. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. And then clicking on that link and then that link brings you to something else, you know, some other thing.

6:50And, like, that's, like, so much of research is like that. Yeah. It's like the beginning of the process. And these answers, like what Google gives you now, that's the end of it. Yeah. Absolutely. A hundred percent. So that's depressing. But on the flip side, I will say that my fall became, like, 25 percent better, like, my quality of life. Thanks to the super exciting and likable QB coach combo, Drake May, Mike Vrabel, launching the Patriots back into relevance to being highly watchable.

7:26Just brought us out of this terrible stretch of, like, six years of excruciating football. So very happy about that. Good for you. I hope that you will, in three years, be celebrating the three-year anniversary of the Patriots' comeback. Yes. I think so. All right. So what are we talking about today? I guess this is a back to basics in a way. For sure. At least for me. Yeah. Or just for the first time coming to basics. I think I've read it before, but so long ago I had, like, no memory.

7:58Yeah. Same with me, actually. What we are talking about is Plato's Euthyphro, early to mid-period dialogue, probably on the early side of Plato's, where, among other things, they investigate the nature of piety. This is where the famous Euthyphro dilemma comes up. I think that's why he named the character Euthyphro, because he was going to employ the dilemma. And so it was, like, a good symbol of that. Wait, really?

8:28No. So I was like, wait, what kind of ass backwards? And then I realized you're just using Euthyphro reasoning. Yeah. So this is where we'll talk about that in the second segment. The first segment is, yeah, what are we doing? All right. We're talking about a topic prompted by a recent New Yorker article about Oliver Sacks, the famed author, MD, neurologist, who wrote these wonderful, I thought, books on the most interesting patients that he saw, including probably most famously the man who mistook his wife for a hat.

9:05Maybe as famous, the book Awakenings before that, that was made into a movie. Perhaps Robin Williams' first stretch at, like, being the serious dramatic actor. His first Robin Williams in a beard performance that I can remember. That always means he's being serious. Yeah, right. So, yeah, influential. When I was in college, I must have been assigned the man who mistook his wife for a hat, was, like, just in love with it. I went and saw him in San Francisco at an event. You know, a lot of people, I think, were kind of inspired, you know, by his work, his just cool stories.

9:42Like, he humanized patients. It was, like, the most humanist version of neuroscience you can get. And then this article gets published by Rachel Aviv in The New Yorker that, for me at least, buries the lead a little bit because it's a very long article about his life and a lot of aspects of his life, including his struggles with his sexuality. But in the article, it comes out that Rachel Aviv was given access to his personal journals that apparently had not been read by anybody since his death. And in there, there's just him straight up confessing to having whole cloth fabricated many of the details in these books, including details from Awakenings and most egregiously the details, like, some of the coolest case studies that I remember and that I would tell people about all the time, like, about these autistic twins who spoke to each other in prime numbers only.

10:32Just made that shit up, man. Yeah. Because those twins had been studied extensively by other people with no mention of any sort of superior mathematical ability or anything like that. And I guess there had been a sort of, in the neurosciences, generally, people were very suspicious of some of his claims. Yeah. But they were kind of left to be. But you point out something that I think is extra disturbing to me about this sort of expose, which is, it is not at all clear what was fabricated and what wasn't.

11:04There are a lot of exaggerations that he says, like, just sort of in the abstract, that he felt really guilty about. And some of the patients have reported that, yeah, like, you know, when we read it, it sort of misrepresented us, but we didn't say anything. But we don't really know. But this is where I wanted to get your take on it, because, so this meant something to me. This is like, it really felt like a distressing revelation, given how much I loved Oliver Sacks and his work. But also from this article, like, there is this sort of underlying kind of implication or like a hint that, well, sometimes the work of a good nonfiction author requires embellishment.

11:46And, you know, what he was doing was he was projecting his own life. So, like, a lot of this article is about his process of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis. Yeah. And, you know, his psyche and how he projected sort of his loneliness, for instance, onto his patients or his various desires to or likes, like in this case, mathematics, prime numbers. And I kind of found that extra offensive, the thought that, like, well, you know, this was like the work of a brilliant author who was on a process of self-healing by, like, embellishing these works.

12:19And I found the whole thing to be, like, in this discussion of his life and the quotes from his own journal, I ended up thinking this guy was kind of insufferable and very self-indulgent in a way that I wouldn't have thought. Yeah, it's interesting because he, I also really loved the man who mistook his wife for a hat and would always tell people about it and tell people about the various cases in it. And the one thing I would say in his defense against what you just said is he maintained really good relationships with the patients, even the ones who were capable of identifying when he misrepresented them.

12:57And so I think, like, in terms of his interactions with them, I don't think he harmed them, it doesn't sound like, or at least in some cases, he did seem to reach them in an important clinical way, I guess. Yeah. And on that note, it's very touching, in fact, how much he meant to his patients and how much empathy he seemed to have for them. Yeah. And what I think is one of the great things about this work and the influence that it had, which was humanizing people with serious problems and influencing doctors and medical schools to emphasize this connection with patients rather than treating them as a condition.

13:37Yeah, that's right. And then, you know, the way to make that into a best-selling book is to make some of that stuff up. But I don't even think fame was an important driver for him. It sounds like, at least from the article, it seems like more, yeah, he's trying to work out his own shit through them. And that is a little creepy, you know, like, I agree. Like, there's something really creepy about taking people who are, you know, there's obviously power imbalances up the wazoo here and using them like that. But it does seem like he did it, you know, not with any kind of malevolent intentions. He didn't want to give, like, a TED Talk. Like, so it's not like that.

14:14I think he got famous unwittingly. Yeah. But, you know, like, it's interesting. Like, all those postmodernists, like the Stanley Fishes, like the Rortys, the Latours, you know, this is an old kind of feud that was happening. But they were kind of saying art and science are continuous, science and religion, science and myth are continuous. There's no clear kind of distinction with that or at least not as clear as people like to pretend.

14:44And I think, you know, the last, I don't know, 15 years has kind of vindicated at least one version of that because, like, so much. Like, you could say this about everything. And I know, like, I saw Steven Pinker tried to turn this into a quantification versus anecdotal debate. But, I mean, like, please, like, you know, the Stanford Prison Experiment, a lot of the Milgram stuff, so much stuff in social psychology has suffered this exact same thing. And those are the fun—it's almost like there's good art and science, like Oliver Sacks and maybe Stanford Prison, Milgram, and then there's bad art and science, like terror management.

15:23Let's quickly defend Milgram. Milgram has stood the test of it, and he wasn't writing soft pieces. No, that's right. Like, I think if there are methodological issues, they're not as blatant as what's come out about Zimbardo. Yeah, exactly. And, like, and then there's the stuff that isn't good. It would be, like, if Oliver Sacks wrote shitty books, and that would be, like, terror management literature. It would be, like, if he wrote shitty journal articles in, like, top field-specific journals, and you're just like, wait, why did you lie? Exactly. Yeah, and probably a lot of cognitive neurosciences like that, too.

15:55But, yeah, so I don't know. It's like—so on the one hand, you don't want to be like, look, just accept it for what it is. It still has value. But on the other hand, it does still have value as a document that inspired so many and that establishes a kind of connection. If you weren't so zealous about, you know, keeping those areas distinct, then maybe you could view it in a more nuanced way. But even me, having said that, I'm very uncomfortable about, like, this idea of just, like, you make up some things.

16:27Because that's not the book he was presenting. That's right. That's the thing, you know? And it was, like, it was meaningful to a lot of people because they were understanding it as facts being presented. Because, you know, like, I was trying to work through this myself. Because, like, I—when you have, for instance, a film, like a biopic, and there's liberties taken to, say, exaggerate emotional conflict or condense long periods of life into, like, a couple of events, and you sort of know that it's not going to be— if it were accurate, it would be boring.

16:59With this stuff, it's like, well, it sort of turns on that they actually had prime numbers in their heads. Yeah. And that feels icky. But it is true that these were not, like, journal articles. I saw somebody on Twitter saying, like, no, he was writing books. Like, this wasn't presented as—but it kind of was. And I think you can write beautiful, gorgeous essays about facts and patience without having to distort the truth of the matter. The thing that sold it, in addition to the fact that he was a good writer and, I think, a sensitive person,

17:29and, like you said, had empathy and cared for these people, but what sold it was this idea that, like, truth is stranger than fiction, you know? Yeah. Like, it's more mysterious, more interesting. You couldn't make this stuff up. And then to find out it is fiction, it's like, oh, that's— Yeah, oh, I guess it's just fiction is as strange as fiction. Yeah. You know, and there was this ultra-humanism that came from this view that, like, oh, we think of this as a pathology, but really it's, like, a mind that has unlocked this particular aspect that most people never have, you know?

18:02Like, the ability to really, you know, connect with others or the ability to do complex mathematics. And it was in the service of saying, who knows what, you know, what human potential is if some of our people who are ill are manifesting such amazing abilities. And then it's like, oh. But it's also, you know, if I'm Oliver Sacks as a ghost defending myself, it's like— My understanding of the twins is they did have certain very special abilities that he did. They did. They could, like, remember specific—you know, they were like those calendar kind of autistic guys who could remember everything down to the day.

18:38Yeah. I think they had extraordinary memory. I don't know if they were math. But there definitely are people, savants, with mathematical abilities, yeah. So, like, that's still true, and he just, you know, it just wasn't true of them in the way he described it. But everything that you said is kind of right. So, it's almost like I'm giving the truth in spirit, but not the literal truth. But even I'm uncomfortable with that kind of defense of what he—and even he was uncomfortable with it. Yeah, he was clearly guilty. Yeah, and he was like—he would try to, like, muster up that kind of defense, it sounds like, in his journals, and then just kind of like, but I don't—I don't know if I even buy this.

19:16I don't know if you're familiar with Maria Konnikova. She's a science writer, journalist. Yeah. So, she had a nice blog post where she's sort of expressing her disillusionment because she was also a lover of Oliver Sacks. So, I'll quote her. She says, what's more, he goes on to say his drive stems from good things, not from, quote, a shallow place such as a desire for fame or attention, as if that somehow excuses the end results. Because he thought his motives pure, he seemed to exonerate himself as sort of ends justifying the means. The rationalization of his not-quite-nonfiction writing is a victimless crime. You know what you do if you actually feel guilt and believe you did something wrong?

19:49You make it right. Not by talking to your shrink, but by issuing a mea culpa and telling the world what they think is nonfiction is, in fact, fable. By telling the medical community that the reason they can't replicate your cases is that you made shit up. Yeah. I mean, that's all fair, I think. Yeah. But, like, it's hard because this is a particularly good version of this fraudulence that is also, you know, probably was meant in this kind of neurotic way. It did come from at least not a totally base place, like just I want to be famous.

20:23And so, that's something, you know. Yeah. I think it's something about him as a man. And Konikova herself goes on to say he certainly, he was a phenomenal physician. He certainly played a positive role in countless lives. People are messy and he's not a villain. And I think that's true. Like, vilifying him or just discarding him as a bad guy. A pure fraud. In the likes of all of the other pure frauds is unfair. And I wouldn't want his legacy to be tarnished that much. It just does more to erode sort of like the trust in reading.

20:57Yeah. It is. It's like a much less innocent time right now. You know, we need to go back to when we had all this stuff and, you know, and as a teacher, like we could teach it without having to caveat it to death. Right. It's interesting also, some of them, like it said, like within the man who mistook his wife for a hat story, she disagreed with Sachs about how he portrayed the husband and the interpretation. But like, you know, some of that is really just interpretation stuff, you know.

21:28Yeah. Yeah. But others. Right. Right. I mean, again, that's the problem. Like, we don't know. I don't think you should throw out the baby with the bathwater. It's just we don't know what's what now. I'm surprised that they just sort of handed over these journals having not read the foundation or whatever they state. But, you know, one big aspect of his own inner conflict was that he was gay, but he was apparently sort of celibate for most of his life until he came out at age 80. And he was in a relationship with a psychoanalyst, not a sexual one, but he had a psychotherapist for 50 years.

22:03That's great. Like twice a week, you know, meeting for 50 years. It's crazy. That's like us.

22:09That's true. So and that's the part I found sort of self-indulgent where there is this like maybe I'm being totally uncharitable and unfair to people who are really working things out. But I read the quotes from his journals and and listen to what he was working on with his therapist. And I think, man, just like get out of your own head for a bit. Like, yeah, I don't know. You know, what are you a millennial? Yeah. You know, at one point his psychoanalyst says, I think we need to finally go deeper in therapy, you know, after like 30 years or something.

22:42I think we're ready. And this tosses him into this like, you know, like complete mental whatever angst that he realizes that maybe he's not been deep enough. I mean, this is 60s and 70s when like everyone was getting psychoanalyzed, I think, if you were in the intelligence. Yeah, like intellectuals. Intellectuals and but yeah, no, I agree. It is a little self-absorbed, it seems like. Yeah. But in that kind of Freudian way. But but at the same time, like I do think the fact that his primary job is as a clinician, a physician, as someone who would care for these patients.

23:20And he seems to have done that well. You know, that that goes on the ledger, whether he goes to science hell or science heaven. And he'll send him to science purgatory to work it out for a few years. More working out like that's what he needs.

23:38Just 50 more years. Yeah. This is quoting from the New Yorker piece in his journal, reflecting on his work with Tourette's patients, Sachs described his desire to help their illness, quote unquote, reach fruition so that they would become floridly symptomatic. With my help and almost my collusion, they can extract the maximum possible from their sickness. Maximum of knowledge, insight, courage. He wrote, thus, I will first help them to get ill, to experience their illness with maximum intensity. And the first is like in all caps. Yeah. And then, only then will I help them get well. On the next line he wrote, in all caps, is this monstrous?

24:13I only bring that up not because it adds to anything that we've been saying, but just because it's just this way of talking. Yeah. Like, you know how I barely have an inner voice? Like, he clearly had a very big active inner voice. Active inner voice. And also Freudian. That's the other thing. Also, just such a Freudian approach. When you're asking yourself, like when you're tormented by guilt and like asking yourself, is this monstrous? That's probably a sign you shouldn't be doing some of these things. You know, like I don't ask myself often, is this monstrous about really anything that I've done.

24:47Maybe we should be. Maybe we should be. Maybe we should be. But we haven't gotten to that point. Like, if we do, then that's a good sign. 30 more years. That's a good sign, yeah.

24:55Yeah. It feels like a case where psychotherapy might have helped the man, but it also helped the man kind of keep his guilt at bay in a way that probably was not good for the rest of the world. Right. Because you're supposed to feel guilty. Yeah, yeah. It's like going out. All right. Anyway, all right. They fall one by one, all the legends, it seems like. And like you said, this one is like, you know, this one fell a little bit differently. Yeah, it's not like Staple or whatever. No.

25:26All right. We'll be right back to talk about Plato's Euthyphro. Let's go. Okay. Well, let's go. Let's get started.

26:03Let's get started.

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30:23You can do this by going to GiveDirectly.org slash wizards. That's our unique URL, so, you know, make sure to go through there so they know that it was our listeners, not that it's a competition. But once again, it's GiveDirectly.org slash wizards. It's an easy way to make a difference in the lives of so many. Thank you for even considering it, and happy holidays, everybody. All right, let's get back to our main segment, which today is Plato's Euthyphro, a platonic dialogue that we are putting, not just because it's Plato, but because it contains the famous Euthyphro dilemma squarely within our Back 2 No. 2 Basics series.

31:09Yeah, absolutely. And we're on a sort of Greek kick. Yeah, we are. That's true. Oh, by the way, this is, just because this won't matter later on, I got a reference to the Odyssey. Like, I, like, understood a reference to the Odyssey within this. Which one? When he says, like, I'll hold you down like Proteus. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like, oh, they said the thing. So this is set in the, I think, either days before or maybe even the day before Socrates' trial for corrupting the youth and blaspheming the gods.

31:44So Euthyphro, the character, is, it seems like some kind of youngish priest of some kind from the boonies. He considers himself a holy man, but he's also complaining that other people don't necessarily share his opinion of himself, and he's not from Athens. He's from the outskirts somewhere, and he has brought a charge of murder against his father.

32:15It's interesting, we get a fairly detailed description of that case without it necessarily being what the dialogue is about. So one of the things, just to even understand what's going on with both Socrates and Euthyphro, is this is how their criminal justice system worked. A private citizen had to bring a charge against someone else, and then they brought it in front of a massive jury, like over 500 people sometimes.

32:45And it would be decided that way, then you would decide what the sentence was, the defendant would offer one, and the prosecutor would offer another, and they would take another vote, right? So what Euthyphro is doing is bringing this charge of murder against his father, and because he is doing that, and because the case is a little complicated, he is being accused of impiety by a lot of the people back home. And Socrates also seems to suspect that this might be impious, but it is a pretext for them to discuss what is piety.

33:22If you know that this isn't impious, what you're doing, then you must know what piety means. And he's like, yeah, I know what piety means. And then in classic Socratic dialogue fashion, we find out that Euthyphro has no idea what piety means. Well, he did until Socrates started asking a question. Well, maybe, right. Stupid Socrates. You would have gotten away with it for that stupid Socrates, yeah. I think it's very interesting that he set this dialogue right before the trial.

33:53Like, this is collected with the apology, which is Plato's account of the trial. Then the Crito, which is this cool dialogue that maybe we'll do one day. It's very short of whether Socrates should escape now that he's received this guilty verdict and the sentence of death by Hemlock. So should he escape? And then there's just an absolutely stunning dialogue called the Phaedo, which is this dialogue that where he actually drinks the Hemlock and dies. But those ones you have to like that.

34:25They are intimately connected to the trial. And so, like, they have to be set at those particular times. The Euthyphro doesn't. Like, Socrates could be hanging out in front of a court, an area where they decide these cases any time, like, and run into Euthyphro and have this discussion about piety. I do think it's important that he decided to set this dialogue at that time. So before we get into the details, yeah, what was your impression of this?

34:57So just the meta things, like two things, one substantive and one less substantive. One is that, like, I'm just always struck at how modern a philosopher Plato was. And by that, I just mean that what he's doing in the dialogues, this, like, pushing for the clarity of the concepts is just a version of what modern analytic philosophy is. Now, I know you're going to say, like, well, it's much more interesting. But, you know, like, it's the method of, like, questioning what the concept is by sort of, like, you know, counter examples and tapping intuitions about what the concept is.

35:33Yeah, it's not an accident, right? Like, they've been influenced. It's like huge. Yeah. I played out on that regard. But it's not, that's obviously that, and that's not surprising. What's always surprising to me is that it's this early, and then we get the, basically, the fucking dark ages and the middle ages. And it takes us so long to come back to a method like this. And so it's surprisingly modern to go back and read it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like Descartes, you know, like, then you take a little break until Descartes, and then you're coming back to doing this kind of thing again.

36:05Yeah, I mean, you get, like, Aquinas, and you get a lot of the people in what you call the dark ages, racistly. But, like, they're very influenced by Aristotle more than Plato, those people. And it's in the service of apologetics often, you know? You don't get a whole lot of non-theological discussions. That's right. So, yeah, and then you said earlier that Socrates is a little bit of a dick. That was the second thing, yeah. That, you know, it's obviously important for these dialogues always to have Socrates sort of playing the ignorant one.

36:42But he plays it so sarcastically that you got to think either Plato is just really amping it up for the sake of the dialogue or Socrates was just the most sarcastic, like, sort of. Well, like, I think, you know, one of the things I do, like, religiously with the Plato's dialogue is just, like, take all the different elements into account. And you could see how Socrates right now would not be in a good mood, right? He's being, he has a, like, I can relate.

37:13He has a trumped-up bullshit fucking charge against him right now that he has to go defend himself against. And now here comes this guy who thinks he knows what piety means, which is one of the charges against him, essentially being impious, being blasphemous. So, like, yeah, you could see maybe that, like, I mean, it's not that Socrates isn't like this in other dialogues, but he's particularly, like, sarcastic and snide and, yeah, a bit of an asshole in this.

37:44Yeah, and he's in this, you're going to hate me for this analogy, but he is almost new atheist-y in his... No, I don't hate you at all. Like, I think that's exactly what he is. He's a bit of a debate-me-bro kind of, like, in this, you know? Like, he's the guy that goes to campus and, like, tell me, is there a difference between a man and a woman, you know? That's like... So what is a woman on your definition? Yeah, and I don't think that means Plato's endorsing it. Right, as you've pointed out many times, like, what Plato believes or not is, like,

38:17sometimes it may be that he's doing this because he believes that Socrates is wrong. Totally, and he's just trying to work it out for himself. Yeah, and the fact that they don't really get anywhere with it and nobody is improved by the discussion, it seems like, is, I think, also kind of... In the same way, I don't know if you remember, but when we talked about the Gorgias way back, you know, that was another one where Socrates was just, like, kind of pissing everybody off and ends up, like, having to debate himself. But in this one, it does read to me like he's just so annoyed about his own trial

38:52and maybe a little afraid, and he should be because he's going to die because of it. And also, Euthyphro is, like, presenting himself, and I guess he was seen... I mean, I think we only know from Plato, but, like, that he was, like, a soothsayer, like a prophet who claims to be able to say what the gods' will really was, you know? And that must be extra annoying. If you're the one who's, like, getting charged with blasphemy or, like, working against the gods, and here's this guy who you know is probably full of it, saying that he knows exactly what the gods are saying,

39:23and he's not catching any flack for it, like, he's the prosecutor. Yeah, no, exactly. And, like, this Miletus guy who's bringing the charge against him, you know, he might identify him, yeah, exactly, with Euthyphro. Like, this is someone who thinks they know what any of these words mean that they're charging me with. Yeah, it's almost like he sees Euthyphro in the courtyard, is, like, mildly pissed, and he's so obviously, like, capable of doing this, that, like, Euthyphro just caught the stray

39:54from, like, bumping into Socrates on the way into the courthouse, where Socrates starts it off by being, like, hey, you know what? You could really help me with something. I'm, like, turns out I'm being accused of impiety, but obviously you know exactly what it is, so maybe I can tell them that, like, you're helping me. Right, this is also, like, Euthyphro's name means, like, straight thinker or something like that in Greece, you know, which I think is ironic, but I think also it's, like, you know, like, if Euthyphro wasn't a big, like, doofus, he would know that he's getting set up right now.

40:30Like, he would know that he's getting insulted, and he doesn't, and that's the sad, I think that's where the kind of dickishness of Socrates comes in, is he's sympathetic to Socrates' plight. He's being very nice to him at first, and there's none of that hostility that you sometimes get from interlocutors in Plato's dialogues. You know, like, he's kind of minding his own business, and Socrates kind of brings this on for himself, and yeah, it's a little, like, leave this poor guy alone.

41:00Yeah, it's like he just wanted to tear him down right before he goes into court. Right, yeah, like, the man who gets shit on by his boss goes home and shits on his family or his dog. But anyway, so let's talk about the case that Euthyphro is bringing against his father, because it's kind of an interesting ethical case, even though the ethics of it don't really get debated. But his father was rightly, I think, angered at a servant because the servant got drunk and killed one of his slaves.

41:32And so he takes the servant, ties him up, throws him in a ditch, and then tries to figure out what to do with it. As one does, Tao. As one does. You got to hold them down. They can't just escape. And so he consults a priest on, like, what to do about it. But, you know, like, the priest, it's not like you can just text them. Like, they have to come. It's like a big thing to come. And so he waits, and meanwhile, the guy in the ditch just dies. Yeah. It's like, oh, shit, I forgot to leave some food and water in the ditch with him.

42:06Yeah, so Euthyphro says, yeah, that's, like, criminal neglect. It's not an intentional homicide, but it's you did something that led to a person dying. So that's the case, and people are accusing him of being impious for doing that. But, like, I thought there's one answer that Euthyphro gives that I thought you might find interesting. He is saying that what his father did polluted the household. You know, they sit at the dinner table, and they, like, this crime is there.

42:40And he views prosecuting him as, like, cleansing the household. This is an act of purifying the house. Right. Actually, I hadn't thought about it really as purifying. But, like, I did think of it as tainting that, like, you expect me to sit with a murderer for breakfast every morning? Yeah. You know? Like, this is not something that I can abide. And it would be wrong of me to not bring justice. He says, like, the pollution is the same if you knowingly keep company with such a man and do not cleanse yourself by bringing him to justice.

43:12That's very interesting. Yeah. You know, as we are reading, and before, because I had no memory of the case itself, as we're reading and Euthyphro tells Socrates what he's doing, and he says, I'm bringing my father to trial for murder. Socrates is kind of surprised, as anybody would be, that you're prosecuting your own father. Euthyphro says, I'd expect you, Socrates, of course, to understand that whether or not he's related to me should really have no bearing on whether justice should be done.

43:43Like, so this is before I know the details of the case. And I'm honestly thinking, you know, this is a guy who's principled, you know? And then I hear the details of the case. And then I'm like, maybe he just didn't like his dad. But, like, I don't know. So do you think the case is a clear cut, just don't do anything about it? No. I mean, I don't know how it worked. Like, could anybody take the case to court? Yeah, but nobody else was gonna, it seems like. Nobody else was gonna.

44:13And, I mean, I agree, like, would I have done it to my father? No. But I don't think it's obvious that you shouldn't. No, it's not, it's not obvious. Like, I feel like the best thing to do might be, like, in an ideal world would be, like, to bring it as a defense. Just say, like, I'm turning myself, or I'm turning my dad in. These are the details. The guy was a murderer. So, like, let him go. But he needs to at least acknowledge that what he did was unjust. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's interesting. It's also funny that you would think Socrates, based on his views and other dialogues, would agree with a sentiment like that.

44:48That all that matters is whether it was a just act or not. And that's why I think Euthyphro thinks he's going into a friendly exchange. Yes, but he's caught Socrates on the wrong day. Yeah. Whereas by Zeus, Euthyphro, you think that your knowledge of the divine, of piety and impiety, is so accurate. That when those things happen, as you say, you have no fear of acting impiously in bringing your father to trial. And then he says, in my translation, I should be of no use, Socrates, and Euthyphro would not be superior to the majority of men if I did not have accurate knowledge of such things.

45:27Yeah, yeah. And I think Socrates just is using it as a starting point. It never really says whether he thinks it's right or wrong. Yeah. It kind of implies maybe that he thinks it's wrong to do it, but it's like he doesn't fully care about that case. He wants to, yeah, he was eager to be the pupil of Euthyphro so that Miletus will, you know, he'll be able to say to Miletus, look, I have the great Euthyphro teaching me about piety, so trust me.

45:59Yeah, it's a very dark dialogue. Yeah. There's a real edge to this. Yeah. My translation says, Socrates says, rare friend, I think that I cannot do better than be your disciple. And before the trial with Miletus comes on, I shall challenge him and say that I've always had a great interest in religious questions. And now as he charges me with rash imaginations and innovations in religion, I have become your disciple. You, Miletus, I shall say to him, acknowledge Euthyphro to be a great theologian and sound in his opinions. And if you approve of him, you ought to approve of me and not have me in your court.

46:30But if you disapprove, you should begin by indicting him who is my teacher and who will be the ruin, not of the young, but of the old. That is to say of myself, whom he instructs. And that's an interesting separate aspect, which is that the second charge that he is facing, Socrates, is corrupting the youth. Yeah. And Euthyphro is a young person, although I don't think that's what's being gestured at here. But I do think Socrates' behavior here might be relevant to that question, you know?

47:04And I wonder if Plato is trying to work this out. Like, is Socrates at this stage in his life actually good for the city of Athens or not, based on where Athens is, you know, in 399 B.C.? And, like, you know, I think this is a bit of a test case maybe for that question to be doing what he's doing right now. Just making somebody, you know, this cocksure guy from the boonies, like, who thinks he knows everything, like, just kind of unmasking him and reducing him to kind of a sputtering moron that he is.

47:41Is that something that's useful, especially given that they don't make much progress into trying to discover the nature of piety? So part of me thinks, is Plato, like, kind of suggesting that at least one of the charges they might have a point, you know, is Socrates at this stage being more like a Ben Shapiro or somebody just, like, getting a lot of young men to be debate me bros? But at the same time, there is some really interesting facets to the investigation into piety that come out of this.

48:15Yeah, I hadn't thought about it. Like, that vibe seems right, like where Plato is himself sort of questioning this. I did read it, though, as, like, this is a case where Socrates clearly is undermining the gods and basically attempting to bring Euthyphro from a position of faith that the gods are just and that following the gods is what justice is, to a place of doubt. And it's clearly a tearing down, even if there is the expectation that he will build them up afterwards.

48:46It's first a tearing down. Yeah, a tearing down without a building up, actually. Yeah. Nothing ever gets built up here. The first charge is entirely vindicated, like improvising about the gods, blaspheming about the gods, not going with traditional views of the gods, is, I think, you're right. Like, he's doing that in this dialogue and he does it in other ones as well. But I think he also shows that that charge is kind of ultimately meaningless, like it's empty.

49:17And, you know, like, well, this, when we get into the investigation of piety, I think one of the things you learn is that whatever piety is, it's not going to help to know anything about the gods. So, you know, being impious doesn't have anything to do with what you say about the gods. It's something else. And so, in that sense, I think he might be showing that even if he's technically guilty of impiety in the way they're thinking of it, if you dig down into what that means, it turns out to be kind of a meaningless or empty charge.

49:51So, Socrates has been saying to Euthyphro, you must know what piety is if you're taking this action. Please teach me. Let me be your disciple. And Euthyphro says, well, like, I can tell you what piety is. It's like what I'm doing right now. Like, this is pious. And Socrates says, well, why? He says, well, like, I know this because Zeus himself, you know, punished his own father when he thought his father acted unjustly. And so, like, I know Zeus would approve of this.

50:22And so, Socrates says, oh, so you're saying piety is what the gods love, what the gods approve of. And things that are impious are what the gods don't approve of and what the gods don't love. And Euthyphro says, yeah, that sounds right. And Socrates points out that the gods often disagree about whether they like something. This is why monotheism, you know, like, has a much more of an airtight case.

50:53But maybe not, as the dilemma will demonstrate. So, Socrates points out that that would lead to a contradiction. This is a classic reductio that you find in these dialogues where it can turn out, according to Euthyphro's definition, that something can be both pious and impious. And that's a contradiction. So, so it can't be that, right? Right. So then, you know, after a little back and forth about that, Euthyphro arrives, but with Socrates kind of leading him there at a different definition, which is, okay, but pious actions are what all the gods love.

51:32And impious actions are what all the gods don't like. And then anything where they disagree would be neither pious or impious. So you avoid that contradiction. This definition of piety and impiety raises two different problems. The first is kind of an obvious, like, epistemological problem. Like, you know, we can't survey the gods. We can't pull them. They're always fighting. They're always disagreeing. You can see that from the Odyssey, just what we've read so far in that, right?

52:04So, but that's a purely epistemological problem. You could just say, all right, so we don't know in a lot of cases whether something is pious or impious, because we don't know whether they all love it or they all don't love it or whether they disagree. When Euthyphro says, they would all certainly agree that murder is wrong, right? And Socrates does this nice thing where he says, yeah, but even we agree about that. Like, everybody agrees murder is wrong. Like, the question is not whether murder is wrong. Everybody believes that guilty are to be punished. Yeah, but whether someone is guilty. Whether somebody is guilty is the real question.

52:37And that is obviously harder to do. Yeah, and what's important about that, in addition, is what you said. Even we agree about that. We don't need the gods to tell us that murder is wrong, right? Like, we all already know that murder is wrong. And then, you know, cases like this are, does this count as, like, murder or not? But this also leads to the famous question of whether the gods love something because it's pious

53:07or whether something is pious because the gods love it. 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. And Euthyphro says, I don't, I don't understand your meaning, Socrates. He's a little dim, Euthyphro. So, the question is, like, do the gods love something because it is already pious? Is that the reason they love it? Or is it the other way, that the whole reason it's pious is because the gods love it?

53:38Now, the fact that you can even pose that question, Socrates' first point, shows that they're not identical. Because you wouldn't say, is a dog a dog because it's a dog, right? Like, number one. But number two, he gets Euthyphro to say, I think it's God loved because it's pious. And once you say that, once you say that the gods just love something because it's pious, that all of a sudden just sidelines the gods in terms of any explanation into what the pious is, right?

54:12So, knowing, even if you could pull all the gods and know that they all loved something, that would just tell you that it was pious, but it wouldn't say what makes it pious. It's like with a podcast episode, right? Like, is this a good podcast episode because listener, you know, let's say Jeffrey Watermill and Kate Rodriguez love it? Or do they love it? Because it's good. And so, if they both love it, maybe that's an indication that it's good, but it wouldn't tell you what makes a good podcast episode, right?

54:42So, what that does, I think, is show that investigating piety, you're not going to learn anything by referencing the gods about the nature of piety. All that could maybe help you do at best is just identify certain things that are pious, certain things that aren't pious, but it wouldn't tell you anything about the definition of piety or the essence. Now, you could object to framing this in that way, like something has to have, like, an essence, a definition.

55:13But it is a good point that, you know, all this referencing of the gods is not going to tell you what piety means or what it is. So, then there's another, like, turn. There's this other idea that piety is part of justice. So, then Socrates says, okay, if it's part of justice, then we need to know what part of it there is. And then Euthyphro says, okay, piety or holiness, Socrates, appears to me to be that part of justice which attends to the gods,

55:45as there is no other part of justice, as there is the other part of justice which attends to men. And, yeah, what does yours say? Like, the word attends threw me off a little bit. Yeah, I think it just says care for the gods. Yeah, that's the word that they use in my translation. Yeah, so Socrates, his way of leading him into this trap is to say, okay, so when we care for things, like we care for dogs, we care for, like, a house or whatever. Horses. Horses. We're trying to make them better, right?

56:17Right, right. And then are you saying you're making the gods better by caring for it? No, no, that was certainly not what I meant. So, then this one just comes back around to the first definition, which is I'm just doing what – I'm saying I'm doing what they like. I'm not making them better. I'm just doing what they like. Oh, so it's what they like that's pious. But then they disagree. Right. I love, by the way, there's this point where he says, is that what you meant? And Euthyphro says, no, no, that's not what I meant. And Socrates says, and I, Euthyphro, never supposed that you did.

56:50I asked you the question about the nature of the attention because I thought that you did not. And then Euthyphro says, you do me justice, Socrates. That is not the sort of attention which I mean. Yeah, right. And so – right. He's, like, thanking Socrates as he's getting pilloried. Exactly. But, again, I think this is just the common denominator in all these refutations is Euthyphro appeals to the gods. Socrates shows that the gods are irrelevant in whatever attempted definition that he's trying to be, which I think connects to his own case.

57:23Like, I think he is showing that that charge of blasphemy or impiety, unholiness or whatever is empty ultimately because nobody can know what those words mean. And just by saying, well, he says this about the gods or he says that about the gods, like, that's not going to work. Yeah. Here, by the way, is where we get the reference that I was proud to get where, you know, they've ended with, like, wait, are we back where we started? And Socrates says, then we must begin again and ask, what is piety?

57:54That is an inquiry which I shall never be weary of pursuing as far as in me lies. And I entreat you not to scorn me but to apply your mind to the utmost and tell me the truth. For if any man knows, you are he, and therefore I must detain you, like Proteus, until you tell. Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge. Yeah, this is where, like, Euthyphro wishes he could shapeshift into, like, fire and, like, fish. Just get out of this. Which I think is relevant. Like, if you get back to Euthyphro's case of whether it's impious for him to bring this charge against his father,

58:30like, it really seems to boil down to whether the father committed an act of injustice. It seems like what is pious and impious is either empty or it just collapses into the broader question of whether what you're doing is just, and in this case, it would be just if you needed to bring your father to court for what this is. So that's the real question. I think that's ultimately what the question boils down to of whether he's being impious or not,

59:01is the question of whether what the father did was something that should be prosecuted or not. And if you then translate that into the case of Socrates, the piety, impiety, that charges bullshit, or it collapses into the other question of whether what he's doing is corrupting the youth. And, like, just like, you know, Euthyphro might have had a point that the father being at the table was corrupting the household in some way, they might have a point about Socrates in Athens, or at least that's what the trial should be focused on.

59:36Like, is he making citizens of Athens better or is he making citizens of Athens worse? And especially, I guess, the young citizens. That's the only question. Yeah, but I mean, I do think Plato is being charitable to him here because I think one of the, at least one of the things I took from the exchange is that Socrates is really trying to get Euthyphro to realize that he is deploying his own concept independently of the gods. And to invoke the gods is sophistry, you know, cosmistry of some sort,

1:00:09where now you're just using the stories of the gods that you like to justify what you believe to be just or unjust. So, like you just said, let's just skip all that because, yeah, like, okay, so Zeus was right to kill Kronos, but was Kronos right to kill Uranus? Like, couldn't you use any of their stories to, like, you know, make your point? And so why don't we just skip to the chase and just talk about whether what you've done is just. And then, you know, what we could do after that is say, yes, independent of the gods, what I did was just.

1:00:42Therefore, the gods would agree. Right. You know? Yeah. No, exactly. And I think that is Socrates' view. But the little ironic twist is Euthyphro wasn't the one talking about gods or piety. He was just bringing this case to court against his father. It's everybody else back home that's accusing him of impiety. It's Socrates that is accusing him of impiety. So for Socrates to now say, skip the piety stuff, like, that doesn't matter. It's like, well, you're the one who brought up the piety charge in the first place.

1:01:17Right. So I think, you know, that doesn't mean it's not valuable for Euthyphro to learn this lesson that Socrates is trying to teach him. But I think that gives the darker edge to what Socrates is doing. I mean, it could be that Socrates knew that this guy was, like, super religious and was going to be on his high horse about the gods during the trial. So, like, he wanted to just point out that, like, you can't really stand on that if that's what you're going to do. Because I'm still sort of convinced that Socrates might be indifferent to, or at least at this point, not know whether what he's doing is just or not.

1:01:53But resent the fact that what he's going to do in court is appeal to Zeus in order to make it. But why is he appealing to Zeus? Like, again, he appeals to Zeus only when Socrates accuses him of being impious. Yeah, right. Sorry. What I mean to say is that it sounds like Socrates already knew this of Euthyphro. Because Euthyphro was, like, it sounds like claiming to be a prophet. That's right. You know? Yeah. He's like a young, cocksure priest, it seems like, from a little parish, you know. Or, anyway, so it's kind of interesting that, like, is this good for Athens is the question of the dialogue.

1:02:29That's what we should be asking. We shouldn't be talking about anything God-related because that's irrelevant or it just collapses. It collapses, right. So that brings me back a little bit to the sort of half joke that I was making about monotheism. Because, you know, I was joking with Nikki telling her that we were recording this. And I was like, no, I've solved it. Like, yeah, it's right because God says so. Divine commands. Yeah, exactly. So I was like, no, no, even if he said murder was right, like, yeah, we should all murder. Which, obviously, I don't believe. But it is easier to stand on that divine command if you do believe.

1:03:03Maybe. But I do think the dilemma works for a monotheistic God. Both the, like, kind of epistemological question, but then also the question of, well, if we're assuming that this stuff is moral because God likes it, is that really what we think, you know? Yeah, and I think that's the truth of it, is that nobody really goes about actually believing that. Or they can't. The concepts they're deploying are not actually relying. Well, at least for bigger questions. Like, I think, you know, like keeping kosher or something like that is, you know, like, so.

1:03:37So, but on the biggest questions of all, I think people don't. And maybe it's just because God seems to be conflicted about certain moral questions. Well, that's the thing. Yeah. You know, I've been, there's been sort of recently a bunch of religious scholars and apologists having these, like, debates with each other about the biblical view of slavery. And what you see from, you know, Christians often is, well, no, the Bible is actually condemned slavery and you're misreading these texts where God is like, okay, well, you know, be nice to your slaves.

1:04:16Like, what he's trying to say is, like, in the future you will be enlightened and know that slavery is wrong, but for the meantime, be nice to your slaves. And, like, the Bible is very clearly pro-slavery in a lot of it. And the fact that we're so motivated, we're, like, as Christians or whatever, so motivated to deny it means that you have this independent notion that's driving you to deny it because that would be fucked up if there was a God who was like, yeah. Yeah. And then that might make you question your faith if you thought God was pro-something you're so opposed to.

1:04:47So, yeah, and I think this, you know, that question comes out here, but I think in a slightly different context because people talked about particular things and questions about the God's relation to whether something is right or wrong in particular cases. But the idea of this being a general question, as far as I know, the earliest case of that that I know of is here. That totally makes sense because that's why this is so potentially damaging to society. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. It's like you're the first guy to come around and say the emperor has no clothes.

1:05:19Like, maybe we shouldn't let this guy go around. Yeah, to the young, to, like, young people. To the young. You know? It's this dynamic, I think, is the same dynamic that makes Republicans worry about, like, college professors, even though this is not what happens at all. It's like, like, at all, like, the idea that we're going to turn them into these gender culture warriors for the left is so potent, however much it doesn't map onto reality, is because people really do worry about this kind of, like, corruption coming from a place that's unsafe.

1:05:55Yeah, and it's good to, I think it should just be good in general for people to realize, like, maybe this is the humanism in me. Like, you know, the moral truth lies within you. And have some faith that you can distinguish right from wrong and that your children won't be entirely corrupted because they also have this sense of right and wrong in them. You are God, listeners. You are gods. You are all gods. You are all gods. And you determine whether this was a good podcast or not. The divine counsel of listeners must meet and determine.

1:06:28All right. Any other thoughts? I think I'm ready to wrap up. What about you? I'm ready to wrap it up. I do have ideas for what to talk about on our next Odyssey. Okay, good. Cool. All right. Well, if you would like to hear our next Odyssey episode, which will be, this will be our third episode in that series on books seven and eight, go to our Patreon page and become a member. We're having a lot of fun with that. Yeah, we're in a bit of a Greek kick. No, no. You've infected me, at least, with the love of all Greek.

1:07:00I'm eating spanakopita at fucking home, you know? Yeah.

1:07:05I'm watching my big fat Greek wedding. That's huge. You can't really understand the euthyphro if you haven't seen. I'm watching season two of The Wire. Yeah, the Greek.

1:07:18All right. Join us next time on Very Bad Wizards. The great end of us has spoken.

1:07:26Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

1:07:34Who are you? Who are you? I'm a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Good man.

1:07:45They think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. Pay no attention. Tonight, man.

1:07:55Anybody can have a brain.

1:07:59You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard.