Socrates and Euthyphro, Essay Example

For Socrates, Euthyphro must have knowledge of piety since he will press manslaughter charges against his own father. Therefore, Euthyphro seems to have a conception of piety, of what is right, of how one should act: Socrates wants to understand this conception.

Socrates presses Euthyphro to give a definition of piety becuase Euthyphro is judging another man, his own father, for a crime. If Euthyphro cannot answer what piety is it would seem that he has no right to judge another man.

Euthyphro offers various definitions of piety throughout the course of the dialogue. First, he states that piety is embodied in his own decision to prosecute his father. Secondly, after Socrates criticizes this definition, Euthyphro says pious things are what are approved by the Gods. Euthyphro then argues that everything the gods love is pious and that everything the gods despise is impious. Euthyphro also suggests definitions such as piety means taking care of the gods and therefore ultimately sacrifice and obedience to the gods.

Socrates makes Euthyphro change his definitions by revealing contradictions in definitions. This is the dialectic: showing how statements may be incomplete from a rational perspective, or may be inconsistent.

From the Euthyphro, I would say that Socrates is perhaps a type of atheist. He does not merely accept presuppositions about the gods and what they desire, but instead critically analyzes definitions and assumptions. For example, he states that becuase gods have different opinions about what is pious then the gods cannot be a source for our definition of piety: this means that gods are not a source of our ethics, and therefore, this is a certain atheistic statement.

Socrates and Euthyphro disagree about the definition of piety meaning what all the gods love since in Greek mythology there are often conflicts among the Gods. In other words, the polytheistic system makes such a definition impossible.

Socrates rejects the definition of piety as »what all the gods love« since he believes that the gods cannot come to a consensus. The gods, if they possess different opinions, therefore have different opinions on piety. One god may consider an act as pious, another as impious. Therefore, the gods are not a reliable basis for a definition of the pious.

Having a definition of piety is important so as to define what is right and wrong: it is important to our conception of ethics and how we should conduct ourselves in our relations with each other. It is, in other words, crucial to a theory of community.