The Euthyphro Problem Revisited

Abstract

It is a fairly consensual view that Plato’s Euthyphro is the “urtext” of metaethics. And yet, standard specifications of this view go astray. The Euthyphro is often thought to illustrate the concerns of Divine Command Theory. It is also thought to be the ancestor of metaethical realism, the view that value is attitude-independent. Katja Maria Vogt’s fresh analysis of Plato’s text reveals that the Euthyphro is neither concerned with Divine Command Theory nor is it a defense of realism in today’s sense. Instead, the Euthyphro argues that there is realist value, anti-realist value, and value that is both. What often leads to mistaken views of the Euthyphro is something overlooked in it: Plato’s account of value is fundamentally shaped by his analysis of value disagreement. Plato’s proposal should strike us as radically revisionist, to the extent that it is not clear whether today’s philosophical “map” can accommodate it. Therefore, the Euthyphro should not be understood to be a straightforward manifesto for value realism. On Vogt’s reading, the dialogue offers a refutation of relativism, finds a place for anti-realism, sketches the beginnings of realism about the good, and envisages a kind of value that is realist and yet constituted by attitudes.