Introduction
The work under consideration in this paper is one of the famous dialogues by the prominent Ancient Greek scholar and philosopher Plato. This dialogue takes place between the two men who won fame by their wisdom, logics of thought and strength of argument – Socrates and Euthyphro. The matter of their dispute is the conception of piety, as they both try to find out what pious is and what impious is. The discussion is carried out in the form of an interview in which Socrates asks questions and dismantles the mistaken beliefs by Euthyphro.
Main body
To start with, Euthyphro gives the definition of piety as punishing the wrongdoer for whatever he did irrespective of his social status of family ties. According to Euthyphro, the law is what should determine phenomena as pious and impious. Moreover, Euthyphro states that only the things he does at the moment are pious as they conform to the laws. However, Socrates rejects this definition saying that there are numerous other pious things to which Euthyphro agrees. Moving the discussion further, Socrates makes Euthyphro give another definition of piety, and Euthyphro states, probably at a loss, that pious are the things loved by gods, and impious are the things hated by gods.
However, this definition fails to satisfy Socrates as well because in the course of their dispute the men find out that gods are in conflict as for their likes and dislikes. Accordingly, if some gods consider a deed by a person to be pious, than other gods might consider it opposite. Socrates exemplifies his argument saying that Euthyphro’s prosecuting his father might be viewed as a pious deed by Zeus, but impious by Hera or Apollo, and therefore he rejects this definition.
To make the support of his argument stronger, Socrates classifies human quarrels into those that take place about measurement and can be easily solved by either calculation or further examination of the statement quarreled about. However, there are quarrels that are not so easy to solve and that lead to conflicts between people and between states. Gods are also subject to such quarrels, and the concept of piety is one of their main concerns. Therefore, it is impossible to clear out what is pious saying that it is what gods love as different gods love different things. This is one of the ethical concerns by Socrates, and he might have offered to solve it by letting people define what is pious and impious for every single person. In other words, different people, as different gods, have varying views of piety, and all people should be granted the freedom of deciding this.
Conclusion
Finally, the third definition of piety given by Euthyphro is challenged by Socrates who states that saying that piety is what all gods love is inadequate. Asking his question about the nature of this love, Socrates wonders whether those things are pious because gods love them, or they are loved by gods as they are pious. It is evident for Euthyphro that Socrates is right, and he has nothing to do but agree that his conception of piety is mistaken. Stating his views, Euthyphro does not take into consideration the pure absurdity of the latter, and the question asked by Socrates makes Euthyphro settle the dispute on the Socrates’ point of view.