I’d call that Jewish rather than proto-Christian. Christianity, at least in its canonical texts, moved away from this kind of insistence on legal accountability toward forgiveness and grace. The Hebrew Bible is much more interested in enforcing standards.
But more apropos here: What if there’s more to do here than take sides for or against Euthyphro? What if instead of deciding whether his moral feeling is correct, we’re curious about what’s going on procedurally?
Sure, I understand what you’re asking for, but that’s not a neutral question. It’s basically the heart of the whole disagreement. Either people are free to have moral feelings, even if not very explained, and act on them and try to convince others, and success in so convincing is the sole criterion; a jury of 500 Athenians can decide that they want Socrates gone, and that’s legitimate, they don’t have to have logic behind their vote. This is the democratic view. Or people have to explain and justify their morals, can be second guessed and overridden by philosophers, eventually this leads to philosopher kings. This is antidemocratic and plenty of people have pointed this out about Socrates’ lineage. I know which side I stand on.
This is typically why most specify the need for liberal democracy, which both limits the powers of the populace to arbitrarily and without argument condemn people to death, and limits the ability for one person—philosopher or no—to become king.
Socrates (/his lineage) was anti-democratic, but it should be pointed out that for the longest time both democracies and non-democracies were horrible governments to live under, so personally I forgive them. Liberal democracy has in many ways given historical democracy too good a name.
That seems like Moldbug’s opinion, that participatory republics are fundamentally incapable of standards of behavior or problem-solving and therefore wanting standards pushes you inexorably kingwards, which I’ve argued against elsewhere.
I don’t know how to reconcile that with your previous comment, which seemed to say that the expectation that people can explain and justify their public actions is antidemocratic and leads to kings.
Moldbug thinks the choice is between first-best (a king with high standards) and second-best (a democracy with low standards). I think, like in many other things, first-best here is not a real option. The real choice is between second-best (a democracy with low standards) and third-best (an unaccountable king with even lower standards—selfish, a believer in wrong theories, a fuckup and so on). This is why Churchill said that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms”.
I’d call that Jewish rather than proto-Christian. Christianity, at least in its canonical texts, moved away from this kind of insistence on legal accountability toward forgiveness and grace. The Hebrew Bible is much more interested in enforcing standards.
But more apropos here: What if there’s more to do here than take sides for or against Euthyphro? What if instead of deciding whether his moral feeling is correct, we’re curious about what’s going on procedurally?
Sure, I understand what you’re asking for, but that’s not a neutral question. It’s basically the heart of the whole disagreement. Either people are free to have moral feelings, even if not very explained, and act on them and try to convince others, and success in so convincing is the sole criterion; a jury of 500 Athenians can decide that they want Socrates gone, and that’s legitimate, they don’t have to have logic behind their vote. This is the democratic view. Or people have to explain and justify their morals, can be second guessed and overridden by philosophers, eventually this leads to philosopher kings. This is antidemocratic and plenty of people have pointed this out about Socrates’ lineage. I know which side I stand on.
This is typically why most specify the need for liberal democracy, which both limits the powers of the populace to arbitrarily and without argument condemn people to death, and limits the ability for one person—philosopher or no—to become king.
Socrates (/his lineage) was anti-democratic, but it should be pointed out that for the longest time both democracies and non-democracies were horrible governments to live under, so personally I forgive them. Liberal democracy has in many ways given historical democracy too good a name.
That seems like Moldbug’s opinion, that participatory republics are fundamentally incapable of standards of behavior or problem-solving and therefore wanting standards pushes you inexorably kingwards, which I’ve argued against elsewhere.
I think participatory leads to better standards than having a king. In general my views are opposite of Moldbug’s on everything.
I don’t know how to reconcile that with your previous comment, which seemed to say that the expectation that people can explain and justify their public actions is antidemocratic and leads to kings.
Moldbug thinks the choice is between first-best (a king with high standards) and second-best (a democracy with low standards). I think, like in many other things, first-best here is not a real option. The real choice is between second-best (a democracy with low standards) and third-best (an unaccountable king with even lower standards—selfish, a believer in wrong theories, a fuckup and so on). This is why Churchill said that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms”.
Again I don’t know how to reconcile that with what you said before. Did you change your mind, or did I misunderstand you?