What is Euthyphros second definition of piety? What is Socrates response/objection to it? Defend Euthyphro against Socrates attack.

In Socrates Euthyphro, we find a son, Euthyphro, charging his father with murder based on the claim that Euthyphros father acted impiously. According to Euthyphro, his father acted impiously by neglecting a laborer and, later, by not claiming responsibility for the laborers death. The conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro takes place in the Hall of the King as Socrates awaits his indictment. In usual Socrates manner, Euthyphro winds up in a dialogue with Socrates wherein he defends his action of charging his father with impiety. For this essay, we will concentrate on Euthyphros second definition of piety, we will explore Socrates reactions to Euthyphros second definition of piety, and we will attempt to defend Euthyphro against Socrates attacks. Before analyzing Euthyphros second definition of piety, it will be important to highlight the basics of what Socrates seeks when engaging in argument with other individuals. When engaging others in dialogue or argument Socrates is looking for the essential properties of moral virtues (what Plato refers to as the essential character of a thing). One could define an essential property as a property a thing must have in order to exist (e.g. a triangle must have three sides in order to be a triangle). So, in questioning Euthyphro about piety, Socrates is attempting to find the essential properties of piety: i.e. what makes an act of piety an act of piety. Having not satisfied Socrates with his first definition of piety, Euthyphros second definition of piety centers on two main points:

1) What all Gods love is pious. 2) What all Gods hate is impious. After hearing this argument, Socrates is still not satisfied. The obvious question for Socrates is: a) Is a pious thing loved by the Gods because it is pious? Or b) Is a pious thing pious because it is loved by the Gods? For Socrates, if we accept option a and say that all the Gods love a pious action because it is pious, we still have not uncovered the essential properties of piety. More striking to Socrates, however, is that, if all the Gods love a pious action because it is pious, this implies that there is some objective truth beyond the Gods truth. That is, if piety exists above and beyond the Gods, perhaps the Gods are not Godsa contradiction, to be sure. So, it seems like we should accept option b and say that a pious thing is pious because it is loved by the Gods. Of course, this too becomes problematic. If whatever the Gods love is pious then it is hard to differentiate piety from the other moral virtues. It seems that the Gods love all the moral virtues but that does not mean that all the moral virtues are piety. Additionally, like option a, the option b definition of piety does not actually define piety. Therefore, Socrates, concludes, that Euthyphros second definition of piety cannot be correct. One argument against Socrates would be his belief that a definition must only be correct if that definition speaks in terms of essential properties. Socrates believes essential properties must underlie moral virtues, such as piety. Implicitly, however, it seems Socrates believes essential properties underlie everything, not just moral virtues.

So, if we can be skeptical about the notion that essential properties underlie everything, it might be acceptable to be skeptical about the notion that essential properties underlie moral virtues, and thus piety. We may say that an essential property is a property a thing must have to exist. Does this imply that everything that exists has an essential property? Perhaps not, but lets assume it does. Let us ask, What does it mean to exist? We could use some temporary definition for exist and say: to exist means to be real. Again, this does not help to clarify the definition, so, lets just assume we all know what to exist means. The question now becomes: does existence exist? Well, we can allow ourselves to consider the idea of existence to be real, cant we? So, if everything that exists has an essential property and existence exists then existence has an essential property. But doesnt that mean that now everything that exists has at least two essential propertiesthe essential property of existence and some other essential property? Unless of course, we consider the notion that existence is the essential propertyor that all essential properties are the same. Clearly the notion of essential properties is a bit of a quagmire and should be analyzed more thoroughly. Alas, that task far exceeds the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say that if Euthyphro isnt finding the essential properties of piety it does not necessarily imply that Euthyphro is not defining piety. In fact, it might even imply that essential properties themselves dont exist, though not necessarily. A second argument against Socrates is that just because Euthyphro is using words like love and hate and Gods does not mean his intuition is false. Perhaps Euthyphro is closer than Socrates thinks. So, if we take to defend Euthyphros second definition of piety we argue: 1) When all G do L we get Piety.

2) When all G do H we get Impiety. Here we find that Socrates option b is more appropriate for Euthyphros definition (especially if we assume that G = Gods and Gods take their usual omnipotent/omniscient properties). Above we saw that when we used words such as love and hate that a problem arises wherein not everything Gods love is piety and not everything Gods hate is impiety. First, bringing in the notion of Gods has its own problems, so we refer to Gods as this variable G. Second, if we allow Euthyphro to say that when all G do L (and thus make L variable) we get Piety and when all G do H (and thus make H variable) we get Impiety. What we uncover is not necessarily an incorrect argument but the lack of knowledge as to what L and H are what we can see, however, is that, if we accept Piety and Impiety to be opposites, perhaps L and H should be opposites as well. So, not only do we need not define what L or H is (or G for that matter) just by seeing that we get opposite outputs implies that we get different (if not necessarily opposite) inputs. Therefore, to defend Euthyphro, piety is the mixture of G and L that is not equal to the mixture of G and H, which is impiety. By subtracting the mysterious G component (a move that is not necessarily robust) we find that: 1) L --> Piety 2) H --> Impiety If Socrates was still looking for it, we could say: L is the essential property of piety and H is the essential property of impiety. In conclusion, our task has brought us to one final point. It should be clear that Socrates, in response to our aforementioned implications would want to know what L and H are

(this author hasnt a clue). However, similar to the problem of determining what to exist really means, we must remind Socrates that this may be a pointless pursuit. Therefore, we might argue with Socrates to accept that perhaps some things (such as essential properties) cannot be known about everything. Just because a square has the essential properties of four sides does not mean that everything that is not a square also has essential properties. Like our example of L and H, when we start to break everything down to its essential properties, we may just come to a point where it does not make sense to inquire further.

Thanks to Derek Boyd for the question.