Analysis Of Plato's Euthyphro

Since the beginning of time religion has always played a pivotal part in our history. Religion has brought people together and has torn nations apart. Plato’s Euthyphro brings “piety” into question, which goes hand in hand with religion because piety can be defined as the value of one’s devotion and holiness to his/her religion. In modern times, Piety can be interpreted as a way for a devotee to win the forgiveness of God or get into God’s good graces. In this paper, I will defend Euthyphro’s argument for moral realism and argue against his interpretation of the divine command theory.

To better understand The Euthyphro, one must understand who Plato is and the relationship with Socrates. Plato was Socrates’ student and is widely considered

I something right because God says it is or does God recognize a moral code even superior to him? If there are no moral standards other than God’s will the God’s commands become arbitrary. If one day God decides that stealing is pious and other day God decides isn’t pious how can one action be both pious and non-pious? At any instant any “immoral” act such as murder, debauchery etc. can become “moral” if God wills so. Hence, this diminishes God’s power. Socrates is seeking a universal answer to what piety is; what do pious things have in common that can be used to identify them. However, we never get a clear understanding of this. The philosopher doesn’t take into account that at neither point in time do both Euthyphro and Socrates agree on a definition of piety. This doesn’t allow the reader to fully grasp what piety actually is. Instead they are left fumbling in the dark and forced to come up with their own version of it. However, it is possible that Plato purposely does this as he is unsure himself of what piety truly is and hence leaves it ambiguous for the reader to decipher on his/her own. As Euthyphro is unable to come up with a successful definition of piety Socrates puts forward his own version saying piety loosely goes forward with “justice.” However, this is also not a definition of piety either as it is just another example of it. This is because any action can be just or

I think Plato would understand my position on why I side with the moral realism side and not the divine command theory side. However, I would hope that he doesn’t think of me as an atheist for not siding with the divine command theory. I believe the philosopher wouldn’t have seen all the points I made for how the divine command theory is flawed. In particular, I believe Plato wouldn’t have been able to make the distinction that by saying things are pious because God loves them leads to Gods diminished power. If he had seen this then he wouldn’t have put this argument in the dialogue, as going against God in his time was an offense punishable by death. However, I believe that instead of defining piety Plato was trying to teach his readers that knowledge comes only when we are able to justify and account for our true beliefs. I think Plato had a bigger goal in mind besides describing Socrates’ trial which is that of how a teacher must gradually help the student come to an answer and to directly state