After running into Euthyphro outside of king-archon's court and hearing about why Euthyphro is there, Socrates is not convinced that Euthyphro prosecuting his father for murder is the just or pious thing to do. He asks Euthyphro to teach him about what piety and impiety are, so that he can see for himself whether what Euthyphro is doing to his father is a pious act. This, then, begins the heart of the dialogue--a rigorous discussion about what piety and impiety are.
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'The Dialogue Between Euthyphro and Socrates'
Euthyphro's 1st Attempt Euthyphro first tries to explain to Socrates what piety and impiety are by giving him examples. He says, "the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, whether the wrongdoer is your father ot your mother or anyone else." (5e)
- Socrates' Objection: Socrates complains that he did not ask for a list of the pious and impious things; he wanted to know what piety and impiety are. To see why he was frustrated, consider an analogous case: imagine that you and a friend are sharing a pitcher at some bar and you are considering home brewing your own beer. The only problem is that you know hardly anything about beer. So you ask your friend, who professes to be rather knowledgeable about such matters, "what is beer?" He then answers as follows: "Well, this stuff that we're drinking is beer, and the stuff that the dude over there is drinking is beer, and the stuff we drank last night is beer, etc." Understandably, you would be pretty annoyed, because what you wanted was an explanation of what beer was--i.e., what it was composed of, what ingredients are essential to beer and make it different from, say, wine or kool-aid. By simply pointing out instances of beer is of very little help to you. Likewise, Socrates is interested in what piety is--i.e., what it is "composed" of, what things are essential to it and make it different from, say, justice or love.
Euthyphro's 2nd Attempt Euthyphro then defines piety and impiety as follows: "what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious." (7a).
- Socrates' Objection: Earlier in the dialogue (6c) Socrates has confirmed that Euthyphro believes in the greeks gods and all of the stories about them--e.g., he believes that they fight, and that there is war between them, and that they disagree about many things. Recalling this, Socrates points out that this will prove problematic for Euthyphro's definition of piety. For if what is dear to the gods is pious (and what is not dear to the gods is impious), and yet if the gods disagree and fight about what is dear to them, then it will turn out that one and the same action will be both pious and impious (since it will be dear to some gods and not dear to others).
Euthyphro's 3rd Attempt After some prompting by Socrates, Euthyphro next settles of the following definition of piety: "the pious is what all the gods love, and the opposite, what all the gods hate, is impious." (9e)
- Socrates' Objection: It is here where Socrates brings up (what we called in class) the Euthyphro Problem. He asks of Euthyphro whether "the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious, or is something pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a) The idea here is that there has to be an order of explanation. Either the gods recognize pious things and love them because they are pious, or else the gods simply love whatever things they do, and it is because gods love these things that they are pious. So it looks like we are faced with a dilemma: on the one hand, if we say that things are pious because the gods love them, then it looks like what is pious or not depends on the arbitrary whim of the gods. For what the gods may love or not love seems to be as arbitrary as whether you like or dislike mint chocolate chip ice cream. That piety and impiety could be as willy-nilly as all this seems to run counter to our initial intuitions about what piety is. However, on the other hand, if things are pious independently of the gods, and the go end up loving the pious things because they are already pious, then it looks like the role of the gods is diminished. For why would we need the gods if things are pious and impious independently of them? Moreover, defining "piety" as that which all the gods love is not getting us any closer to figuring out what piety is. For it may be fine and good that all the gods love what is pious, but Socrates wanted to know what piety was, not what a consequence of it was (e.g., that all the gods love it). This leads Socrates to complain, "you told me an affect or quality of [the pious], that the pious has the quality of being loved by all the gods, but you have not yet told me what the pious is." (11b)
Euthyphro's 4th Attempt Again prompted by Socrates, Euthyphro next tries to say how just actions and pious actions are related. He then claims that "the godly and pious is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods, while that concerned with the care of the men is the remaining part of justice." (12e)
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The idea is something like this: justice covers a lot of things--things having to do with gods and men. Piety, on the other hand, only has to do with the just things that concern only gods (and not men). So while all pious things are just, not all just things are pious.
