[BLANK_AUDIO] Welcome to reason and persuasion. Thinking through three dialogues by Plato. I'm John Holbo. In the first two lessons, our reading, is Plato's Euthyphro. Sometimes people say, The Euthyphro. Euthyphro is a guys name. So if you add the,The, you make it clear you're talking about the dialogue, not the guy in the dialog who's arguing with our hero Socrates. If you're still a bit hazy on Plato and Socrates and what a dialog is Not to worry, that's the next video. Euthyphro is our reading for two lessons, two weeks. If you only read one or two bits of Plato in your college course on philosophy there's a good chance Eurthphro will be one of those bits. It's classic philosophy 101. I won't say it's easy. The true is it will get as tricky as you let it, but at least it's short and thank goodness for that. Because it means I can spend the next several video segments first talking about this class in general, learning outcomes, learning inputs, who are these guys? Plato and Socrates? What's the deal with dialog's? How do I read this stuff? But we are not done with this first video yet. In the first video, each week, each lesson, I'm going to try to set you up with some open-ended questions, something hm, not too Plato specific but related, so you can relate to it. Sometimes I'm going to use the Coursera in video quiz system. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I really like the in video quiz system. But maybe I'm just feeling defensive. Philosophy doesn't have answers, does it? Not simple ones. So what I'm I supposed to do? Well, here goes nothin'. [BLANK_AUDIO] Bad news. Someone close to you is in trouble. It really looks like he or she, did something wrong, ethically wrong. What do you do? A, family is family, and friends stick with friends. I support them in their time of trouble. B, wrong is wrong. I can't defend someone who is in the wrong. C, what are you, some kind of crazy person? I obviously need more information to answer this question. I hope you answered C. Philosophy is all about there not being final answers to questions and I'm basically okay with that, but I say, C is the clear winner in this case. We need more data. But seriously, could any sane person not answer insufficient data. Someone, did something wrong. Alright. Who is it? What did they do? What are my options for doing something about it? Inquiring minds not only want to know, we need to know. So let's get specific. [BLANK_AUDIO] Bad news. Your dad murdered a guy. Mm, sort of. On the upside, guy was a murderer. No, not dad. Well, him too, but the other guy was a murderer first. It all happened a while back. What do you do? A, nothing. B, call the police. C, gosh, I don't know. I guess I still need more information. I'll bet you still went for C, didn't you? But that's just me predicting, not judging. A case can be made, I think, that we now have enough information to defend either A or B. Maybe we should do nothing. Maybe we should call the police. Of course, we'd still like more information about the specifics of this case. Speaking of which, you won't be surprised to hear that I'm asking you this weird question. Because the dialogue, presents us with a case like this. Euthyphro, the guy, thinks his dad is in this bad situation. Euthyphro has a bad dad. Mm, sad, but before you get to know Euthyphro, there's no harm in getting to know yourself a little better. Both quiz questions asks you, what do you do? That's seriously open-ended. Then I nailed you down to A or B. Do nothing, call the cops. That's very confining. Probably you could come up with something in between A and B that might be more comfortable. But it would depend on knowing more facts of the case which I didn't give you. But rather than invent facts let's take what do you do and slice it into four. What would you do in this situation? What should you do in this situation? What would go through your mind in this situation? What should go through your mind in this situation? I take it you see why it's important to distinguish would from should. Many people can correctly predict that they'd do the wrong thing in certain situations even though they think they know what the right thing would be. Isn't that weird? Maybe? We'll talk about it later. For now, let me finish out by saying something about the, what goes through your mind business. Which is philosophy's business, big time. Let's go back to my first question. If answer C was so obviously right, why did I bother asking? I mean it's not like you're going to fall asleep already, riddle me that. There was a point to asking because even though they are kind of crazy, A and B have something attractive distractorish about them. That's test writers speak, for wrong answers that mess with your head by seeming at least a little bit right around the edges, somehow. Let me remind you what the options were. Family is family, you got to stick with family. That's option A. Wrong is wrong, is wrong to do wrong. That's B. This sounds pretty abstract. Like 1 equals 1, equals 1, equals 1. Welcome to philosophy. But really, that first one came from the gut. Family is family. If you hear that a family member is in trouble, you're instinct is to help. Defend. Take their side. Circle the wagons. We're tribal, we humans. We're a bunch of monkeys. Technically, we're primates. Apes. Great apes. And one thing that makes us so great, as many important people have written, is that we've got family values. Family is family. Compared to that, wrong is wrong seems really more abstract as moral guidance systems go. I can sort of meditate here. Wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong. It's not really a thought at all, is it? It's like Meditation or like a test pattern to see if your moral system is up and running. If you ever got the result, wrong is right, that would mean your system had crashed. Just like if your calculator says 1 plus 1 is 3. That means your calculator's busted. Of course the real reason someone might say wrong is wrong Is not because they're running a diagnostic on your brain. They would say that, if they see you being tempted to tell yourself that it's okay to break some rule. But the implied threat wrong is wrong is sort of the same. You're breaking the system. If you don't follow the rules, there's no rules dude. All is permitted. If wrong is right, there is no wrong or right. Am I right, or am I right, or am I right, or am I wrong. Oh who am I kidding. We don't side with our friends and family because we think they're right. We side with them because they are our family even if they're wrong. Which they often are and that's alright. Right? Or wrong? Confused? Good. Here's the confusing thing I've been trying to get across. How do you think through an ethical problem when it's not just complicated but when the complications are such that they crash your ability to reason about the case? Zeus help us if dad's hauled off and murdered someone. Anyway, that's Euthyphro's s bright idea.
