1) METAPHYSICS & THEOLOGY: Explain the difference between Socrates and Euthyphro as to how pious/holy actions come to acquire these properties and how their views relate to the modern Euthyphro dilemma. Also given that the moderns reject polytheism, what are the three options in the “Modern Euthyphro Dilemma” and the problem with each option? Advise the Pope: what would you say to him would be the best solution for the theist (even if you are an atheist).
2) Imagine you are Socrates and your “Euthyphro” is a jihadist Islamist in ISIS (2014 – 2017). What would you ask him to make him question his view that God wants him to behead Jews and Christians and practice sexual slavery with conquered women? In your answer explain what knowledge you have that you can test people who claim to be prophets of God delivering “special revelation/information” to humans?
3) After the discussion of “fear and shame” we get to the question of the relationship of humans to God and if holy/pious actions are just a subset of all just actions, or if ALL just actions are pious/holy actions. If you were a Personal Theist (i.e. believed in a personal God) what would you say? Explain. If it helps, draw on a tradition of Personal Theism to flesh out your answer (e.g) Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and some versions of Hinduism).
Plato's Apology:
4) Socrates spends a lot of time dealing with the propaganda about him in the culture to deal with the slogans of the mob and the biases against him in order to get the jury to listen to his arguments. Explain these slanders (viz. that he was a Sophist and a Pre-Socratic atheist) and how he showed these to be false. All of us could have sat in the jury in 399 B.C., how difficult it is for us to be rationally objective and ignore our biases and, actually, listen to someone’s arguments and practice principle of charity? Give examples from your life or in the media today.
5) How did Socrates get his life’s mission? Explain how he didn’t take it on “blind faith”, but it was a “trust, but verify” skeptical view that he had. After time, he came to have more and more justification that God did give accurate information that drove him to find his life’s purpose. In your answer, explain the difference between a “blind faith” and a definition of faith that is “trust in things you have good reasons to believe are true.” Explain how Socrates did this and how we might do this (if God exists and cared/cares about us enough to give us information about how to live life).
6) Socrates is not always correct. In his discussion of death, he gives his thanatology. He says there are two options at death and both of these are not terrible. What are these options that he gives (cite with Stephanus numbers), and what are the other options he ignores from Ancient Greece (e.g. from Homer’s Odyssey in Odysseus’ discussion with Achilles in Hades) and other worldviews (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.).
Plato's Crito and Civil Disobedience:
1) What are the top two or three arguments Crito gives to Socrates as to why he should practice civil disobedience and escape from jail? What are the top two or three arguments Socrates gives as to why he should stay in jail and obey the unjust ruling of Athens?
2) If you were Socrates, what would you have done? Stay or leave? Remember you are a father with young sons, a husband, philosopher, role model, celebrity, friend, and very old (he was 35 years over the average life expectancy).
3) In Socrates’ case, he did not believe in civil disobedience. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in cases of civil disobedience except in cases of violence. Other Christian’s in history have disagreed – viz. the Christian Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought it was moral to assassinate Adolph Hitler and to bomb railroad tracks to keep Jews from getting to the Nazi Death camps in Treblinka, Auschwitz.
Historically, some on the “Left” have thought violence is the only way (French Revolution, Marxist revolutions in Russia, China, Cambodia, etc.) and in the 1960s and 1970s in America (SDS, Weather Underground, FLAN, Earth First! Environmentalist groups, and today with ANTIFA). If the Weather Underground changed their mind about the morality of abortion (and thought fetuses were persons who were getting murdered), they would shut down abortion in a week with violence and vandalism and shaming (if fetuses are persons, 60 million feticides since 1973 is a worse evil than slavery of the Nazi holocaust).