Three Definitions Of Philosophy

When Socrates asks Euthyphro for the initial time what pious is and is not, Euthyphro responds with a confident definition. Euthyphro is confident in his answer and additional strengthens his argument with the instance of the god, Zeus. His answer is "black and white" and does not appear to leave space for debate, but this is only simply because he has not argued and expanded on the problem, and is only obtaining warmed up. Euthyphro's "black and white" answer is that piety is bringing a wrongdoer to justice, with no consideration for who he is, what he's carried out in the previous, how wealthy, well-known, famous he is, or what degree of social standing he is. Zeus condemned his own father for unjust behavior, just as Euthyphro did. Likewise, to not bring a wrongdoer to justice is equally impious.

When confronted once more by Socrates with the query of piety, Euthyphro is to clarify in what type the pious is usually pious and impious usually impious. This time Euthyphro tells Socrates that the judgment of piety and impiety comes straight from the gods themselves. Euthyphro states, "what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious" (7a). So right here, Euthyphro's answer goes a small deeper in saying that an unjust act is impious simply because it goes against the law and also mainly because it is not "dear to" the gods, or is "unloved by" the gods.

Following Euthyphro's second claim to what piety is, Socrates succeeds in contradicting him, displaying how, because the gods are at war with every other, they do not agree on what is just. So, in saying that piety is what is loved by the gods, Euthyphro's statement is not supported. He is then later asked this by Socrates, "Is the pious becoming loved by the gods since it is pious, or is it pious mainly because it is becoming loved by the gods?" (10a). Euthyphro's answer ends up getting a contradiction simply because he says that the pious is loved by the gods due to the fact it is pious, but that the god-loved is so due to the fact it is loved by the gods. Mainly because Euthyphro earlier stated that the pious is what is dear, or loved by, the gods, then we have an incomplete and contradicted answer.