Free Republic

Socrates: We are gathered here today at this symposium to discuss the subject of ethics, specifically the divine command theory which posits this question: Is what is good, good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? Without God, of course, the divine command theory immediately collapses, but even allowing that God does exist, there are still a number of serious problems threatening the theory. Probably the gravest of these is the so-called Euthyphro dilemma, first raised by Plato some 2,400 years ago. Plato: In my dialogue Socrates engages a young man named Euthyphro in...

'The Making of a Philosopher': The Intensely Examined Life By MARY LEFKOWITZ Socrates always insisted that what he knew was worth little or nothing, even though no less an authority than the Delphic oracle said that there was no one wiser than he. Philosophers are not ''lovers of wisdom,'' in the literal meaning of the word, but lovers of the search for understanding. They cannot rest until they can determine for themselves and explain to their colleagues how they know what can be known, and why it is worth knowing. Not everyone would be happy living this kind of intensely...