When discussing specific knowledge, it is often hard to pin down an exact definition of what it is you are discussing. Often a concept or word will get thrown around so often that it will begin to be taken for granted and when pressed, a person may struggle to pin down specifically what it is they mean. Realizing this, Socrates often went out and attempted to fix these kinds of problems and find out what people actually knew, compared to what they just thought they knew. In the dialogues Euthyphro and Meno, Socrates attempts to pin down definitions for piety and virtue, respectively. In doing so, we are shown that the thinkers in question struggle to define these terms, and attempt to do so in vague terms that may vary heavily under different circumstances. What Socrates is attempting to find is one definitive definition of piety and virtue, what is called his One Form Requirement. Rather than defining something by classifying different parts that make it up, Socrates maintains the belief that piety and virtue both can be simplified into one specific form that describes exactly what makes all F actions F. Socrate’s first expresses his belief that piety is able to be expressed in simple terms towards the beginning of Euthyphro. He asks the question (to which Euthyphro agrees), “is the pious not the same and alike in every action…and …show more content…
What it did succeed in was claiming that piety affects things to have “the quality of being loved by all the gods” (Euth. 11a). While this does help paint a picture of piety, describing one aspect or consequence that piety has on things, it does not accomplish the task of actually showing us how or why the thing became pious in the first place. This affect comes after the formation of piety, and for the One Form Requirement to be fulfilled it is required to find something that comes prior to
During the dialogue, Euthyphro defines, “Piety means prosecuting the unjust individual who has committed murder or sacrilege, or any other such crime, as I am doing now, whether he is your father or mother or whoever he is.” Given this Euthyphro overarching principles can be summarized as divine law requires to prosecute the offender no matter who she or he is. Also, the ideology should be what befits humans as well. Socrates is fine with how Euthyphro accounts the factual evidence of his father’s misguided acts. What Socrates takes problem is how Euthyphro uses greek mythology to highlight that taking action against your parents is the correct direction of action. Due to the fact that mythology isn’t confirmed to be true in any sense, socrates feels as though this is extremely inappropriate. Euthyphro actions should be based on divine law with results in him being impious. Socrates ultimate principles can be summarized as respect for parents should be the ultimate law combined with whatever does not befit the gods shouldn’t befit everyone else. Insert another
Euthyphro was a religious intellectual, so he should’ve been able to define piety. However, Socrates wanted to show Euthyphro that he wasn’t as knowledgeable as he thought. Socrates knew beforehand that Euthyphro wouldn’t be able to give a sound definition, or standard, for what is pious, so this dialogue is a reflection on Euthyphro’s reasoning.
Certainly, Socrates’ arguments about the limitations of godly knowledge of the “moral good” devolve the idea of divine command as a cause of piety, but more importantly, it defines the philosophical evaluation of piety as a way to educate Euthyphro to analyze his pre-assumed beliefs with greater conviction. In this dialogue, the issue of the “moral good” becomes a more complex relationship between Euthyphro’s religious and moral perception of philosophy: “I told you a short while ago, Socrates, that it is a considerable task to acquire any precise knowledge of these things” (177). This new perspective defines the effectiveness of Socrates’ argument to dispel the overly confident assumption that the gods approve of piety, since piety has its own unique qualities that need to be defined. This moral and religious relationship is ambiguous because Socrates has opened the possibility of Euthyphro coming to his own conclusions about the gods and the “moral good”, which should be presumed by religious doctrines or in the divine command of the
In the Euthyphro, Socrates is having a discussion with Euthyphro about the meaning of piety. Instead of giving a definition of the word, Euthyphro gives examples of the word and never quite gave a
Euthyphro initially defines piety as a simple matter of being what the gods like or what is dear to them, however Socrates points out that “different gods consider different things to be just, beautiful, ugly, good, and bad” (Grube & Cooper, 2002, pg. 9, P7, e). Some things that might be agreeable to one god may be disagreeable to another such as Euthyphro punishing his father “may be pleasing to Zeus but displeasing to Cronus and Uranus, pleasing to Hephaestus but displeasing to Hera,” (Grube & Cooper, 2002, pg. 9, P7, b). This leads to Euthyphro changing his definition of piety to be what is aggregable to all the gods rather than the gods. Euthyphro shifts from the former to the latter because Socrates calls attention to the fact that the gods fight among themselves and that those arguments don't emerge over issues and inquiries of fact and certainty, since those sorts of understandings can be reached through evaluation or examination.
...ristic of Socrates and how he did things; he never criticized people's thoughts just wanted to make them think. By the end of the dialogue, Socrates has achieved one conclusion through the conversation; that holiness is in fact not just simply good will whether it is toward god(s) or man. It is something more, something that cannot be grasped himself or Euthyphro, sometimes good will is simply good will it is not necessarily holy. But the fact that Socrates did conclude that holiness is not simply good will he did provide a platform for beginning to think about the full meaning of holiness. I believe that another main message of this dialogue left by Socrates is that no one, including himself, can know everything about anything, and that there will always be more to learn. People should strive to come upon their own conclusions about things and think for themselves.
The word "pious", despite its relatively common usage, has an ambiguous and debated definition. In the Euthyphro Socrates and Euthyphro argue the meaning of piety until Socrates eventually asks "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods (10a)?" These two possibilities describe very different concepts. The former implies that everything holy has some innately right quality which causes the god 's to love it. Furthermore, this quality exists separately from the gods, meaning that if there were no gods the pious would still be pious. On the contrary, the latter implies everything that is righteous is only so because the god 's love it. In other words, the gods decide what is pious and unpious. After much reasoning Euthyphro concludes the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious (10d).
Socrates argues that he didn’t want some examples but a general idea that makes all pious things to be pious. Then Euthyphro says “Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them“. Next Socrates asks him what if the gods are having quarrels among them, then there wouldn’t be any single right or wrong because of the gods different perspectives on different matters so somethings could be both dear and hateful to the gods, hence rises the question is the pious, pious as a view of the fact that it is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or it is holy because it is beloved by the gods which is in contradiction with Euthyphro’s claim that what all the gods love is pious and what they hate is impious. Socrates
Socrates is extremely particular in his standards for a proper definition and believed that a proper definition of virtue should “provide paradigms or standards for deciding whether actions or persons are virtuous” that work in all possible scenarios. The main problem with Meno’s definitions is that Socrates is not concerned with “the meaning of ‘virtue’ which would apply to the virtue or excellence of men…but, with the nature of human virtue.” One who is capable of giving a good definition of virtue would be considered a moral
In the Euthyphro, Socrates is making his way into the courthouse; however, prior to entering he had a discussion with a young priest of Athens, Euthyphro. This dialogue relates religion and justice to one another and the manner in which they correlate. Euthyphro feels as though justice necessitates religion and Socrates feels the opposite, religion necessitates justice. Euthyphro claims that religion is everything, justice, habits, traditions, customs, cultures, etc. all are derived from religion. Socrates went on to question what exactly would be the definition of pious. Euthyphro offered Socrates three definitions of pious and in all three Socrates was able to successfully find fault...
Socrates argues that piety can’t be defined because the gods love different things - this proves the concept of subjectivity, “the same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, and would both be god-loved and god-hated.” However, Socrates does not acknowledge subjectivity in his own dialogue with Euthyphro. The significance of Socrates failing to acknowledge his own subjectivity in his search for a definition of piety, that is not by example, in his dialogue with Euthyphro, is Socrates devaluing the usefulness of his argument. Socrates’s method of questioning Euthyphro’s beliefs in a series
question. The Euthyphro has Socrates and Euthyphro discussing what piety is. In an attempt to give an answer to this question, Euthyphro states that what he is doing now namely, prosecuting his own father for murder is pious (5E). Socrates rejects this as an answer saying that he wishes to know “what this form [piety] is” (6E). In essence, what Socrates is looking for here, is a formal definition. In his paper, Geach claims that this is a grave mistake on Socrates part. In his search for knowledge of piety, Socrates has made the errors that Geach enumerates
In the defense speech given by Socrates at the beginning of his trial, he hints at a definition of holiness. “..I live in great poverty because of my service to the god” (23C). Piety, according to Socrates, is defined by one who sacrifices his own necessities and luxuries in order to better service the gods; it is the willingness of one to please the god by way of a disservice to himself; a general forfeit of life-excesses as well as life requirements.
Plato rejects the contractarian reconciliation of morality with individual rationality primarily because the thinks that the contractarian conception assumes that a person's motives for being just are necessarily based her self-interest, while our concept of the just person holds that to be truly just one must value justice for its own sake. The contractarian account is also unacceptable because it has no foorce in the case of the Lydia Shepherd.(3) Finally, Plato holds that we must reject the contractarian account because a better account is available to us, viz., his own account of justice. But to show this Plato must establish each of the following: 1. There really is a difference between perceived self-interest and actual self-interest, that there can be a difference between what one believes to be in one's interest and what really is in one's interest. 2. Provide an account of what one's actual self-interest is.(4) 3.
The interesting dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro demonstrates this Socratic method of questioning in order to gain a succinct definition of a particular idea, such as piety. Though the two men do not come to a conclusion about the topic in the conversation seen in Euthyphro, they do discover that piety is a form of justice, which is more of a definition than their previous one. Their conversation also helps the reader to decipher what makes a good definition. Whenever Euthyphro attempts to define piety, Socrates seems to have some argument against the idea. Each definition offered, therefore, becomes more succinct and comes closer to the actual concept of piety, rather than just giving an example or characteristic of it. To be able to distinguish between a good definition and a bad one is the first step to defining what Socrates so desperately wished to define: w...