My Odyssey: Part 1

The roots of modern meta-ethics trace back to Socrates, 25 centuries ago. He wrote nothing of his own — he was an exceptionally wise man — yet today his analytical approach to ethics is canonical, still revered and usually taught first in the standard curriculum of moral philosophy.

Countless philosophy majors begin with Plato's tale of the death of Socrates: the trial where he stood accused of corrupting the youth of Athens (and dishonoring the gods), his defiant self-defense, the verdict, his choice between escape and death, and his self-execution by poison in 399 BC.

He called himself a gadfly, challenging Athenians to examine their moral assumptions — especially how they justified their actions. He constantly questioned people's notions of right and wrong, digging into the core of their moral thinking. His technique was to ask how some action was justified, which usually led his interlocutor (often a prominent citizen) to state a moral principle in defense. The principle was then analyzed at length — on the opponent's terms — first to define it, then to see whether it truly justified the action.

Time and again Socrates demonstrated, entirely from responses by an opponent, that either the definition of a moral term was faulty or the principle itself was deficient — thus gutting the opponent's justification.

Educated young men of the city — nominally the next generation of leaders — admired the old philosopher and many imitated his approach. Influential elders saw his public questioning of their judgments as subversive and believed the moral values of Athens were threatened. Hence the charges, trial, and execution of Socrates.

The student gets a first glimpse of the Socratic method as the philosopher defends himself. Socrates challenges even the assumptions that have brought him to the court, and does so by his customary method.

His defenses at trial and sentencing essentially were: I'm guilty only of being right to press my questions. To execute me is to kill the conscience of Athens. But if that is the judgment of the state, then I will accept it. Since I chose to live by the laws of Athens, I am willing to die by them too. Yet I must be myself: if ordered to stop philosophizing, I will disobey.

So it was, then: death to Socrates.

In an academic setting, Plato's story has many uses.

In a literature course it can be read as a classic morality play: a good man is executed for speaking the truth.

In a political theory or pre-law class, it's a handy launchpad to discuss justice systems, the nature of justice, duties of states and citizens, free speech, and even the role of religion in the state. A well led student discovers, for instance, that Socrates prototypes the Hobbesian social contract by accepting the (inconvenient) edicts of the state in exchange for its life-long protections.

In Philosophy 101, the Socratic method is explained and students are taught to spot it in the wild. Elenchus prototypes logical winnowing of weak hypotheses by falsification testing, crucial to the scientific method. The dialectic procedure itself resembles cross-examination in law. Many professors use Socratic clarification of student ideas as a teaching tool as well. Along the way, most teachers note that Plato's renditions of Socrates were somewhat fictionalized, and that philosophers ever since have tried to figure out how much. This routine is almost everything most non-PHI majors ever learn about the old gadfly. Add some yak about Socrates bringing philosophy "down from the clouds," suggesting that PHI is practical and relevant in daily life, and the 101 survey of Socrates is complete. Next!

A PHI major's moral theory units wade deeper into Socrates' actual arguments, of course. But very quickly, attention turns to theories about moral ideas: where does morality come from? What is it? Especially in anglophone schools, true to the Socratic procedure, the emphasis becomes "moral statements" and what they "mean." The student learns that Socrates showed the way. Examine assumptions. Scrutinize the meanings of terms. Identify dependencies. Evaluate statements. Probe the structure of arguments. Determine their validity.

Analyze!

There the roots of meta-ethics grow, in the footsteps of Socrates: beyond or above examination of specific judgments and moral codes, there is analysis of ethics.