Euthyphro's Definition Of Piety Analysis

In the story Euthyphro by Plato, Socrates and Euthyphro discuss the meaning of piety as it relates to Socrates’ controversial trial and Euthyphro’s controversial conviction. The paradoxical definition of piety remains unanswered by the end of the conversation but reveals a larger, and more valuable truth concerning the dynamic between the two characters and the significance of their roles as a defendant versus a prosecutor. In this paper, I will refute Euthyphro’s definition of piety by showing that it is arbitrary, open to multiple consensuses, leaves no reason for morality, alludes that God’s goodness is tautological and provides no reasons for God. Furthermore, I will argue that Euthyphro’s inability to firmly define piety strengthens the notion that Socrates is innocent. Euthyphro provides multiple definitions

His first definition is, “what [he is] doing now, to prosecute the wrong doer… not to prosecute is impious.” (5e) This definition is extremely arbitrary because there is nothing that follows up to determine that “prosecuting the wrong” is necessarily a pious action. Also, there is no factor that determines who is ‘good’ versus ‘bad’; therefore, in this definition, the decision to prosecute is based on Euthyphro’s personal definition of piety which may not be universally accepted. Furthermore, what Euthyphro has provided is an action, not a definition and therefore it does not answer Socrates’ question. His second definition states, “what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious.” (7a) This definition is unclear because it is up to interpretation. The first problem is that there are multiple God’s and therefore what if they don’t have a common