Five Dialogues - Plato
Table of contents:
Euthyphro
- Socrates runs into Euthyphro (a citizen who claims to know well what is pious and what is not) at court, where Euthyphro is prosecuting his father for murdering a murderer. Others (Euthyphro tells us) are arguing that Euthyphro is wrong for prosecuting his own father
- Euthyphro argues that what is pious is pious regardless of the offending party – even Zeus himself, most just and righteous of the gods, overthrew his own father.
- Socrates asks him to expand on what piety is, not just the piousness of a single action. How does Euthyphro know such actions are pious?
- Euthyphro argues that “what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious”
- Socrates: well, the gods don’t always disagree, and when they disagree, they
disagree on certain subjects, e.g. beautiful v. ugly, good v. bad, etc.
Therefore, by the previous argument, Euthyphro’s case “may be pleasing to Zeus
but displeasing to Cronus and Uranus”
- Even assuming all the gods could agree, what then for Euthyphro’s case? If the gods are of mixed opinion, is something neither/both pious or impious? (This subject largely gets ignored)
- Change of subject:
Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?
- Socrates: “I want to say this, namely, that if anything is being changed or is
being affected in any way, it is not being changed because it is something
changed, but rather it is something changed because it is being changed”
[T]he [god-loved] is such as to be loved because it is being loved, [piety] is being loved because it is such as to be loved
- (emphasis/bracketed content mine)
- Change of subject: “And is then all this just pious? Or is all that is pious just, but not all that is just pious, but some of it is and some is not?”
- Socrates suggests that piety is a part of justice
- Euthyphro explains it as being that part related to the “care of the gods,” whereas the remaining part of justice is the “care of men”
- The discussion falls apart on exactly what “care” here means, since all definitions lead to some definitions whereby the gods need help or are bettered by this care, which is blasphemy