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What if “piety” is an action that better serves the Gods? For example, killing a man would mean less labor/gifts towards the Gods which would result in impiety AND to not punish the killer would invite other people to do the same. And what do the God’s provide for our service. Protection and maintenance of our earth and its inhabitants. Just some alternative argument for Euthyphro. 14 ff. - K. Peterson 

What is the purpose of guilt in the eyes of Plato? There is a lot of talk about justice and piety, but if one thinks something is good to do in the moment and later feels as though it was evil is this just? Or is guilt a form of creating justice by forcing the bad events to cause immense guilt? -Fensterer  

Interesting point Fenster. I think 12b ff can show you a little of what you’re asking. It doesn’t necessarily talk about guilt, but it goes into depth about shame and fear. From what I can tell, it seems like Socrates believes that shame and fear are telling of wrongdoing. Guilt, however, doesn’t necessarily mean what you did was wrong, but that you think what you did was wrong. In this excerpt, it seems like justice correlates more on piety than the feeling of guilt. -K.Peterson 

I do not believe that Euthyphro is incorrect in stating that something that is pious is loved by the gods, as a working definition since piety is extracted from religion, which is highly subjective. We could also compare piety to other concepts such as love, hate, and intelligence in the sense that they all have different definitions depending on the situation, yet they are not any less justifiable because of this fact. -Ste. Marie 

Interesting point. I think that the idea of pious and impious was a very concept of developing right and wrong but since the formation of a justice system was relatively new in this time period and seemingly still unfair, there needed to be some sort of decision as to what was right or wrong. I think Plato was exploiting how subjective and unknown a lot of things still were for this time period on how much Socrates was giving incomplete answers. -C. Johnson 

Towards the end of Euthyphro, Euthyphro claims he must go and leaving the argument somewhat unresolved. Before this point Socrates concluded about what piety is based on what Euthyphro had stated. Socrates asks whether something is pious because it is loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is pious? This comes to the thought process of whether piety is subjective. It would make sense to say that it is not subjective and that something pious is loved by the gods because it is pious. Both gods and humans, which are similar in Greek mythology, can recognize and distinguish good from bad and right from wrong making a pious thing pious because it is good and pious. - Jake Bair 

I think Socrates’ search for a clear answer from Euthyphro on what is pious rather than what actions are pious is meant to show Euthyphro that he is being impious in his prosecution of his father. The two characters go round and round with each other while Socrates questions everything Euthyphro tells him until Socrates basically asks Euthyphro to explain exactly how he is acting pious in prosecuting his own father. At this point Euthyphro decides to leave before giving a clear answer, I think this shows that Euthyphro is left questioning his decision and Socrates had achieved his goal of destabilizing Euthyphro. - Skylar Winberry 

Hi Skylar! I really appreciate this point because it also makes me question whether Socrates was similarly trying to destabilize us (us being the readers).  Many of the questions Socrates and Euthyphro discuss in the text remind me of conversations I’ve heard between peers about the nature of religion – in a different vernacular, of course. It’s easy to see how a reader who considers themselves pious would feel encouraged to question their beliefs, considering how easy it is to agree with Euthypro until Socrates points out the flaws in his logic. - Walker 

I noticed that Euthyphro ends in aporia: I suspect much of what we will read may end similarly due to the nature of what Socrates asks of his interlocuter(s). -Holden 

The claims that Socrates makes rely upon the fact that the gods want humanity to be pious. But why? Why would the gods care about the actions of humanity? What would they get from it? It seems to me that piousness might be more of a human construct than a godly one, created to uphold social order –Winters 

The answer here obviously relies on a framework that you have to decide first. That is, are we talking about the gods referred to in the work by Euthyphro (the Greek pantheon), some monotheistic God, as secularists thinking about what gods might be, etc.? From Euthyphro’s point of view, there are plenty of examples in the mythology which he posits as fact to suggest that the gods care a great deal about what happens between those on Earth. Even in works more critical of the gods, the image that comes through is something like “the gods attach their pride to champions and get a kick out of watching them. Even though they always return to the status quo, they get invested in humankind to pass the time.” -Todt 

“So, too, Meletus first gets rid of us who corrupt the young shoots, as he says, then afterwards he will take care of the older ones and become a source of great blessings for the city, as seems likely to happen for those who have started this way.”-3a. The language used in this quote has sarcasm that I think shows what Socrates thinks about Meletus’s case. I doubt Socrates believed he was “corrupting” young people with his innovations which, leads me to believe his idea of Meletus becoming a source of great blessings for the city is something he actually looks down upon immensely. -Paterson 

Euthyphro tells Socrates, “Piety is doing as I am doing”, and aims to lead by example as well as state his case and claim by example. However, I’m not so sure (and I’m sure others would agree) that one can one truly exercise ostension with regards to a subjective state of being or mental principle when intention and interpretation can—will--get lost in “action-translation”. Also, just as a closing question/thought: I was unsure what was meant when Professor Bailly said, “murder as pollution” in class the other day...I’ve been thinking about that one (maybe it’s self-explanatory). - Antinoph 

The Greeks in Plato’s milieu believed that committing a murder resulted in polluting the place where the murder was committed. I don’t know of a good ancient work that explains it, but I believe the idea was that murder had to be cleansed from the place and the person: punishment is very different from that. Robert Parker’s book Miasma explores this idea of pollution. It is mythological/religious but also intertwined with custom/law. ProfB 

Also good point about ostension: how does one point to a state of oneself? But also, can one point to an action? I would say yes, in the same way as one points to a skunk or a memory of something that is available to both the person pointing and the person to whom it is pointed out. No, ostension is not perfect: it’s an iterative process: after having a dozen skunks pointed out, I start to generalize from that. Generalization is not perfect either. But, frankly, in spite of its huge logical problems, it works. ProfB 

I also was intrigued by the comment that murder is pollution. I remember hearing in (not sure this pertains to all forms of Judaism) orthodox Judaism how if a rabbi touches blood he cannot engage in religious ceremonies (specifically in the tale of the Good Samaritan, the rabbi is sometimes portrayed as hypocritical religious figure, however, somewhere I read that the rabbi would have had to not administer to the people if he touched the bleeding Samaritan) and also that women cannot engage in marital relations until after a certain amount of time has passed after bleeding (sorry I don’t have a reference for this info...) . I was wondering if that idea of blood was related in some way to idea of pollution. ~MaryDove 

One thing I think the speakers in the dialogue skip over is the idea that Piety could be subjective depending on the god you’re trying to be pious to. They mention this when Socrates says that the gods have differences about subjects of morality (7.c.1) but they brush off the idea as impossible and move on without examining it. I think they don’t consider this point very much because Socrates is looking for a general model, but if piety is indeed subjective, he may be looking for the wrong thing. -- Luna 

When reading through the passage, I got the impression that Euthyphro is right in that all murder is wrong and requires justice, but he cannot explain why. When Socrates pushes Euthyphro’s explanation to Euthyphro defining Piety, it shows that Euthyphro’s reason for bringing justice to murder is to appease the Gods. Socrates then exposed that the Gods treat murder with and without piety. I think that this shows that the Greek society used the Gods to explain human/moral progression. -Eldh Jahn 

I am curious why Plato has Sophocles confirm Euthyphro’s superior knowledge of the divine throughout the whole dialogue. Is this to show that the most intelligent humans still cannot determine what is pious? Socrates admits he is dull-witted, but he doesn’t capitulate to Euthyphro’s apparently broken logic. Is Plato suggesting that admitting ignorance on divine matters the wisest thing one can do? -Lynch 

Ha! Interesting point, perhaps an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect ( a psych term: a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge overestimate their understanding vs. The greater the intellect the greater the understanding that they know that they don’t know everything). ~MaryDove  

Good insight, MaryDove! I’ve still read very little Plato, but I am reminded of the Cave Allegory in Republic VII. After composing a profound dialogue on education and the intelligible realm, Socrates says, “Whether it’s true or not, only the god knows” (517b). To me, this is Plato telling the reader that he does not know everything, showing his humility. He breaks his rational (secular?) character to acknowledge that his logic is still uncertain, that his ideas are not greater than the world they exist in. -Jack Lynch 

Why does Plato believe the idea that reason and truth can only be gained through his use of a dialog. Plato felt writing would inhibit the exchange of ideas and that people would become dependent on the written word, however If the written word is the truth and correct, how would that dimmish our understanding? Was this Plato's way of explaining the truth or that truth always requires communication and critical thinking. -Murphy 

I thought that Euthyphro’s examination of prayer and sacrifice was interesting, though it led me to wonder if sacrifice, which Euthyphro confirms as the equivalent of “service to the gods”in 14d, would by extension mean that sacrifice would equate to piety. Both sacrifice and piety are considered by Socrates and Euthyphro to be pleasing to the gods as I understand it, though I can’t imagine that piety often takes the form of sacrifice. Is prayer, which Euthyphro confirms in 14c to be begging the gods, a pious action? -Slade 

I really liked this reading but I wanted to hear what Socrates’ actual opinions were on what makes something holy.  I think it’s pretty clear that Socrates doesn’t believe something is moral because it is loved by the gods or a god but instead that there is some substantial truth as to what makes something moral or immoral.  I hope we get to explore this issue further because I feel like this argument between Socrates and Euthyphro was setting the parameters for the debate about what is justice and morality but not actually diving into it. -Lampert 

Reading through Euthyphro, I really appreciate the irony of certain parts of Euthyphro’s arguments. My personal favorite is when Euthyphro dubs piety as that of which the Greek g-ds approve. It is plain to anybody familiar with Greek deities that no two g-ds can ever agree on a topic as polarizing as piety, which is the point Socrates brings to the table. The reason Socrates is such a fan of the argument initially is because Euthyphro is correct (but in a way that does not support his own argument); piety cannot be objectively judged, for it is a subjective matter, in the same way that the deic judgment of piety is entirely subjective. OPPENHEIMER 

Beyond the Percy Jackson Series, I don’t know much about Greek mythology. I wonder if it is possible for a god (mainly Zeus because he famously did some pretty messed up stuff) to act impiously. If a human cheated on his wife or killed someone or sexually assaulted someone, it would probably be considered impious but when Zeus does it it’s fine? How then would there be any moral standard for what is holy or unholy. I guess the answer could be that Zeus is a god and we aren’t but if that’s the case then Zeus really needs to work on his management skills. Monkey see, monkey do sort of thing.  -Haverty  

Socrates says that Euthyphro’s statement that the gods love that which is pious is invalid in part because the gods do not uniformly agree on that which they love, however earlier in the text Euthyphro states that the people of the time view Zeus as the most just and best of the gods, so it would be possible that they could have simply shifted the argument to “that which is pious is loved by Zeus, as Zeus is the best and most correct god”, taking a sort of monotheistic approach and resolving this source of contradiction. - John Dane