Euthyphro

This article is about Platos dialogue. For the prophet for reservations about such divine accounts that emphasise
whom the dialogue is named, see Euthyphro (prophet).
the cruelty and inconsistent behaviour of the Greek gods,
such as the castration of the early sky-god Uranus, by his
Euthyphro (/jufro/; Ancient Greek: , son Cronus; a story Socrates said is dicult to accept.
(6a6c)
Euthuphrn), [ca. 399395 BCE], by Plato, is a dialogue that occurs in the weeks before the Trial of After claiming to know and be able to tell more astonishSocrates (399 BCE), for which Socrates and Euthyphro ing divine stories, Euthyphro spends little time and eort
attempt to establish a denitive meaning for the word defending the conventional, Greek view of the gods. Inpiety (holiness).[1]
stead, he is led to the true task at hand, as Socrates forces
him to confront his ignorance, by pressing Euthyphro for
a denition of piety; yet, Socrates nds aw with each
denition of piety proposed by Euthyphro.(6d .)

Background

At the dialogues conclusion, Euthyphro is compelled to

admit that each of his denitions of piety has failed,
but, rather than correct his faulty logic, he says that it
is time for him to leave, and excuses himself from their
dialogue. To that end, Socrates concludes the dialogue
with Socratic irony: Since Euthyphro was unable to dene piety, Euthyphro has failed to teach Socrates about
piety. Therefore, from his dialogue with Euthyphro,
Socrates received nothing helpful to his defense against
a formal charge of impiety. (15c .)

The Euthyphro dialogue occurs near the court of the

Archon basileus (Magistrateking), where Socrates and
Euthyphro encounter each other; each man is present at
the court for the preliminary hearings to possible trials
(2a).
Euthyphro has come to present charges of manslaughter
against his father, who had allowed one of his workers to
die of exposure to the elements without proper care and
attention. (3e4d) The dead worker, earlier had killed
a slave from the family estate on Naxos Island. As Euthyphros father awaited to hear from the exegetes (cf.
Laws 759d) about how to proceed, the bound-and-gagged
worker died in a ditch. Socrates is astonished by Euthyphros condence in being able to prosecute his own father for the serious charge of manslaughter, despite the
fact that Athenian Law allows only relatives of the dead
man to le suit for murder. (Dem. 43 57) Euthyphro
misses the astonishment of Socrates, which conrms his
overcondence in his own critical judgement of matters
religious and ethical.

2 The argument

The argument of the Euthyphro dialogue is based on definition by division. Socrates goads Euthyphro to offer denitions of piety. The purpose of establishing
a clear denition is to provide a basis for Euthyphro
to teach Socrates the answer to the question: What is
piety? Ostensibly, the purpose of the dialogue is to provide Socrates with a denitive meaning of piety, with
which he can defend against the charge of impiety in the
In an example of Socratic irony, Socrates says that Euthyphro obviously has a clear understanding of what is pending trial.
pious ( to hosion) and impious ( to Socrates seeks a denition of piety that is a universal
anosion).[2] Because he is facing a formal charge of impi- (universally true), against which all actions can be meaety, Socrates expresses the hope to learn from Euthyphro, sured to determine whether or not the actions are pious.
all the better to defend himself in the trial.
That, to be universal, the denition of piety must exEuthyphro says that what lies behind the charge of impi- press the essence of the thing dened (piety), and be deety presented against Socrates, by Meletus and the others, ned in terms of genus, species, and the dierentiae.
is Socrates claim that he is subjected to a daimon, (divine
sign) which warns him of various courses of action. (3b)
From the perspective of some Athenians, Socrates expressed scepticism of the accounts about the Greek gods,
which he and Euthyphro briey discuss, before proceeding to the main argument of their dialogue: the denition
of piety. Moreover, Socrates further expresses critical

Hence, the Euthyphro dialogue is technically important

for the dialectics of theology, ethics, epistemology, and
metaphysics. Indeed, Platos approach in this dialogue
is anachronistic, because it is unlikely that Socrates was
a master metaphysicist; nonetheless, Aristotle's expositional treatment of metaphysics is rooted in the Platonic
dialogues, especially in the Euthyphro.
1

PIETY DEFINED

just how much justication actually existed; hence, the

same action could be pious and impious; again, Euthyphros denition cannot be a denition of piety.

3.3 Third denition

To overcome Socrates objection to his second denition
of piety, Euthyphro amends his denition. (9e)
Euthyphros third denition of piety is: What all the
gods love is pious, and what they all hate is impious.
In reply, Socrates introduces the "Euthyphro dilemma",
by asking the crucial question: Is the pious loved by the
gods because it is pious? Or is it pious because it is loved
by the gods? (10a) Socrates then applies his typical technique of dialectic: An analogy that claries his question.
He persuades Euthyphro to agree that we call a carried
thing carried simply because it is being carried, not because it possesses an inherent characteristic, which could
be called carried. That is, being carried is not an essential characteristic of the thing being carried; being carried is a condition (a state). Likewise with piety: If it
is dened as What is loved by the gods., it is liked for
some reason, not just because it is liked. Therefore, the
A Roman bust of Socrates (Louvre)
fact that the gods like a pious action does not, de facto,
make the action pious. Their liking must follow from
something, which, in this case, is recognition that an ac3 Piety dened
tion is pious prior to its being liked, and not the other
way around. Piety thus comes before the liking (temIn eort to defend himself in a trial for being an impious porally and logically) yet, in Euthyphros denition, it
citizen of Athens, Socrates asks Euthypro for a clear def- is the other way around (an action is pious because the
inition of piety (holiness); he oers Socrates four deni- gods like it); therefore, Euthyphros third denition of
tions.
pietyis awed.

3.1

First denition

Euthyphros rst denition of piety is what he is doing

now, that is, prosecuting his father for manslaughter (5d).
Socrates rejects Euthyphros action, because it is not a
denition of piety, and is only an example of piety, and
does not provide the essential characteristic that makes
pious actions pious.

3.2

Second denition

Euthyphros second denition: Piety is what is pleasing to the gods. (6e-7a) Socrates applauds this denition,
because it is expressed in a general form, but criticizes
it saying that the gods disagree among themselves as to
what is pleasing. This means that a given action, disputed by the gods, would be both pious and impious at
the same time a logical impossibility. Euthyphro argues against Socrates criticism, by noting that not even
the gods would disagree, among themselves, that someone who kills without justication should be punished.
Yet Socrates argues that disputes would still arise over

At that juncture of their dialogue, Euthryphro does not

understand what makes his denition of piety a circular argument; he agrees with Socrates that the gods like
an action because it is pious. Socrates then argues that the
unanimous approval of the gods is merely an attribute of
piety, that divine approval is not a dening characteristic of piety. That divine approval does not dene the
essence of piety, does not dene what is piety, does
not give an idea of piety; therefore, divine approval is
not a universal denition of piety.
Linguistic note
Moreover, to the modern reader, this part of the denition by division argument is convoluted (10a-11a) and
has reduced translators to babble and driven commentators to despair,[3] because the Ancient Greek language
that Socrates spoke did not possess the grammatical terms
active voice and passive voice, which would have made
Socrates language more readily accessible;[4] neither can
he refer to Aristotles Categories, which detail this distinction expressions of state and expressions of secondary substances instead, Socrates explains with detailed examples of carried, loved, and seen .

3.4

Fourth denition

In the second half of the dialogue, Socrates suggests a

denition of piety, which is that piety is a species of
the genus justice (12d), [5] but he leads up to that definition with observations and questions about the dierence between species and genus, starting with the question:
. . . Are you not compelled to think that
all that is pious is just?
Yet, Socrates later says that the information provided in
his question to Euthyphro is insucient for a clear definition of piety, because piety belongs to those actions
we call just, that is, morally good; however, there are actions, other than pious actions, which we call just (12d);
for example, bravery and concern for others. Socrates
asks: What is it that makes piety dierent from other actions that we call just? We cannot say something is true,
because we believe it to be true. We must nd proof.

6 See also
Divine command theory
Euthyphro dilemma
Dialectic
Socratic dialogues

7 Notes
[1] a Greek given name meaning Right-minded, sincere";
entry in Liddell, Scott, & Jones, An EnglishGreek Lexicon .
[2] Stephanus page 5d: ,
.
[3] Cohen, S. Marc (1971). Socrates on the Denition of
Piety: Euthyphro 10A11B. Journal of the History of
Philosophy. 9: 4.
[4] John Burnet, Plato: Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito,
pp. 127-28
[5] Stephanus page 12d: .

Euthyphros response

In response, Euthyphro says that piety is concerned with

looking after the gods (12e), but Socrates objects, saying
that looking after, if used in its ordinary sense (with
which Euthyphro agrees) would imply that when one performs an act of piety one thus makes one of the gods better an example of hubris, a dangerous human emotion
frowned upon by the Greek gods. (13c) In turn, Euthyphro responds that looking after involves service to others, and Socrates asks: What is the end product of piety?
Euthyphro replies with his earlier (third) denition, that:
Piety is what is loved by all the gods. (14b)

8 References
R. E. Allen: Platos Euthyphro and the Earlier Theory of Forms. London 1970, ISBN 0-7100-6728-3.

9 External links
Full text (English and Greek) at Perseus
Translated by Woods & Pack, 2007
Bundled with Socrates Defense (aka Apology),
Crito, and the death scene from Phaedo

Final denition

Euthyphro then proposes a fth denition: Piety is an art

of sacrice and prayer. He proposes the notion of piety
as a form of knowledge, of how to do exchange: Giving gifts to the gods, and asking favours in return. (14e)
Socrates presses Euthyphro to say what benet the gods
perceive from human gifts warning him that knowledge of exchange is a species of commerce. (14e) Euthyphro objects that the gifts are not a quid pro quo, between man and deity, but are gifts of honour, esteem, and
favour, from man to deity. (15a) In other words, Euthyphro admits that piety is intimately bound to the likes of
the gods. The dialogue has come full circle, and Euthyphro leaves Socrates without a clear denition of piety
as he faces a trial for impiety (Grk asebeia).

Translated by Jowett, 1891 at the Classics Archive

A free audiobook of Jowetts translation' at LibriVox
Approaching Plato: A Guide to the Early and Middle Dialogues
Guides to the Socratic Dialogues, a beginners guide

10

10
10.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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10.3

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