Piety In Euthyphro's Argument

Improved Essays
I believe Socrates have given the good arguments overall and have reasons to justify all his points, but I’m not completely agree with all his opinion, especially in the case which Euthyphro is accusing his father of murder someone. Socrates is a very wise and willing to explain and defending himself even with paying the price of him own life.

What is piety?
One of the argument from Euthyphro is that what is piety and impiety to the gods. One of the definition that article provides is that piety is what dears to god and impiety is not dear to gods. In “Euthyphro” Euthyphro is accusing his father of murder the “murderers” and Socrates think that Euthyphro is being “not piety” based on one of the definition of piety- “family loyalty”. I don’t
…show more content…
In Socrates opinion, Euthyphro should not accuse his father, because first, he should be royal to his father and family. Secondly, the person which Euthyphro’s father killed is the murderer of other person, so there’s nothing wrong with kill the “bad people” unintentionally, and Socrates believes that is even worst when you’re accusing your father when he’s not being “not dear to the gods” because he thinks that god would punish the morally wrong people. In the fact that what dears to one god might not be dear to all other gods, therefore, piety can be opinionate based on different god’s perspective and eventually leads to conflicts. In this case, Socrates failed to justify which god’s opinion should Euthyphro follow and what If another god has the completely opposite standard of morally right/wrong and about this situation because gods could have different opinions on what’s just and unjust, good and evil, etc. Therefore, something that’s dear to one god could be hated by another. This is the only argument

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Euthyphro dilemma is started when two questions were presented about the divine command theorists. In the Euthyphro dialogue, Socrates asked if something is right because God commands it, or does God command it because it is right? This created a suggestion about the relationship between morality and religion to be uncertain I think. It seems as if Euthyphro accepts both theories even though as it is being augmented by Socrates to explain further depths of his reasoning. The options offered to the divine command theorist are intended to be logically exhaustive.…

    • 109 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Additionally, Euthyphro consistently proves himself to be arrogant and close minded to viewpoints that are not his own, leading the reader to conclude that he would rather be proven right than have find the truth. With Euthyphro being such an unreliable source of information throughout the essay, it can easily be inferred that his account of his father’s crime contains faulty reasoning doctored to further Euthyphro’s case. With no reliable account of what actually happened and no evidence supporting his claim, Euthyphro’s belief that his father is indeed guilty falls short, just as all his other convictions with Socrates fell…

    • 1153 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In Plato’s three works Crito, Apology, and Euthyphro, Socrates’ conception of virtue and pursuit of knowledge about virtue, leads him to question and in some cases reject the ideas of others. Examples that show this are: Socrates discussion with Crito, his questioning of Meletus in the Apology, his speech to the jury before and after his conviction, and in his discussion with Euthyphro about what is pious. The teachings of these three works seem to go hand and hand with one another, with the teaching of the Crito being a culmination of the teachings of Euthyphro and Apology. If one were to read Apology and Euthyphro without reading the Crito, one may not understand the teachings of the formers since the Crito gives practice to the teachings…

    • 1839 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Was Antigone Honorable

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Antigone and her four siblings have a lot of honor and disgrace. For example, Antigone was honorable by wanting to bury her brother even though it was a rule not to, it lead her to a lot of trouble and punishments. Meanwhile, Antigone did act disgracefully by disobeying a law that Creon had wrote, which stated no one should be able to bury Polyneices. The fact that she had broken a law made Creon furious, and angry about how she disobeyed his law and the way she acted. Her punishment was to be left alone in a cave with nothing, which made her commit suicide.…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Fourth and Fifth of Euthyphro's Definitions to Piety In the fourth definition of Euthyphro in Plato's dialogue of “Euthyphro”, he describes piety is as a “servants show to their master” (Plato 71). meaning the one should follow the god's ways, like in a way in how a priest would follow the words of the gods in what could be good or evil. Furthermore, Euthyphro could be suggesting that attending to gods is piety (good), meaning doing things that would please the gods would be seeing as goods or just. While not attending to the gods would be seen as impiety to the gods, meaning doing things that the gods would not like would seeing as an evil deed.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Euthyphro’s definition of piety is the action/way that all the gods love. This means that the gods actions are not arbitrary or relative, rather they are deeply rooted in principles which are shared. The similarity I want to draw on is in Mill’s approach to higher pleasures where he believes that competent judges’ preferences are not as relative as they are principled, hence encompassing a deeper and higher value associated with higher pleasures that outweigh the pleasure amount argument. However, it’s important to realize that this justification takes the ideology further away from hedonism as it has now involved other higher senses and principles, which defeats the purpose of hedonism. Still, it does explain the dignity and value we as mortals attach to higher pleasures that are achieved by higher capacity exercises.…

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Euthyphro Dilemma The Euthyphro dilemma is an argument that was brought about by a question asked by Socrates during Plato’s Euthyphro. The question is seen to object the Divine Command Theory. Socrates asked, “is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” or in other words, “Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?”…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Contradiction of Socrates Plato illustrates Socrates in two different aspects in The Apology and in The Crito, which makes the reader ponder which interpretation of Socrates is substantial and which is fictions. Precisely, Plato portrayed Socrates with many inconsistencies in The Apology the emphasis was on obeying the Gods in contrast in The Crito the emphasis was on obeying the laws of Athens. In Plato’s Apology initiates with Socrates’ defense to the Athenian court demonstrating his innocence of the charges brought against him. Socrates was accused of breaking various laws under the Athenian court, the most significant laws were corrupting the youth and believing and worshiping in different Gods that the rest of the citizens in…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Socrates claims to have no knowledge of these types of things, and concedes that if he has any knowledge at all it is of worthless or trivial things. He claims that his purpose for initiating interactions with these reputedly knowledgeable people is first and foremost to prove the oracle wrong, because he believes he really knows nothing. If he can successfully prove the oracle wrong by finding someone who is indeed wiser or more knowledgeable than him, then he will be presented with the opportunity to learn something worthwhile from the person he is engaging, which is his second purpose for these interactions. Unfortunately, this proves to be an unsuccessful method of learning for Socrates because he does not actually learn the fine and good things he has sought to learn; instead he has learned that the reputedly knowledgeable people are merely ignorant of their own ignorance. He determines that they are only truly capable of giving him examples of specific instances where actions seem to showcase the thing that he is seeking knowledge of—such the examples of piety that Euthyphro describes; he also discerns that they are incapable of giving him a definitive definition that is not easily shown to be a contradiction or fallacious in some other way.…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The play Antigone is intended to portray that morality is more important than the law. In order to demonstrate this, Sophocles presents a situation in which a woman is willing to go to the extremes, even facing death, in order to fight for what she believes is right. The play struggles with the idea of right versus wrong, the characters are forced to make decisions based on their conscience even if it does not coincide with the law. The purpose of laws is to set a standard of conduct for the population to follow; usually these laws are for the good of the citizens who are living in the country.…

    • 1098 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Reverence In Antigone

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Reverence for the Gods in Antigone Religion has been important to people for a long time, and people show respect for their gods in many ways. In ancient Greece, gods were considered to be very important. Gods played a major role in ancient Greek art and literature, such as Antigone, a tragedy written by Sophocles. In Antigone, Antigone buries her brother Polyneices, breaking Creon’s laws and following the laws of the gods. Creon sends Antigone to the woods to die, where she kills herself.…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Euthyphro, the common question that Socrates sets out to answer is “what is piety”, which is the advocate to understanding the charges placed upon him by Meletus. Plato introduces the topic that it is far worse for one to do wrong than to suffer wrongdoing, and Socrates isn’t fazed by Meletus. Despite Socrates' impending…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Trojan War plays a crucial role in revenge in which the feelings of hostility between the characters develops leading to acts of vengeance against each other. For example, Agamemnon came back from the war to find that his wife had married Aegisthus, a coward who stayed behind while the others fought in the war. With her approval, Aegisthus kills Agamemnon and would have taken over his kingdom if not for Agamemnon’s son, Orestes. Orestes returns from exile and kills both Aegisthus and his mother to avenge his father. His act of bravery and courage to defend his father’s honor is continually praised by his peers and his father’s peers throughout the Odyssey.…

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In Euthyphro, Socrates is being prosecuted for corrupting the youth and for impiety, while Euthyphro is being charged for murder. In conversations between the two, Socrates asks Euthyphro to teach him “what is piety” (Euthyphro, pg.47). Socrates engages Euthyphro in a discussion that will help him find the meaning of piety and by doing so, Socrates can use this to defend himself against the charges he faces. In the Platonic dialogues, Plato’s defense of Socrates illustrates that Socrates is a political philosopher in question for the truth. It is important to understand that Plato and Aristophanes both had different representations of Socrates but because of the portrayal of Aristophanes’ Clouds, his play had a profound impact on Athenian society.…

    • 1689 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This understanding creates no base for accusation on any sort of impiety/corruption; such an accusation requires Socrates to have said something that is blatantly immoral, even just from the Athenian perspective. This does not exist, however, because that does not align with the Socratic method. The ideas that are being discussed throughout the trial – atheism, piety, corruption, etc. – are the results of Socrates’ questioning, not what Socrates portrays as reference to his own…

    • 1513 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays