Euthyphro

Analysis of Euthyphro Nikon121 PHI two hundred Bob Harris October 15, 2012 Analysis of Euthyphro Socrates was put to death in Athens for subverting the youthfulness of the city. He was indicted by Meletus and awaiting his trail on the porch of the King of Archon when he met Euthyphro. It was at this point he engaged in a debate nearly piety. In this paper, I will examine that debate and present my proclaim conclusion about its purpose as well as my get interpretation of piety. Holiness, or piousness, is the center of the conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro.Both of the men met on the porch of the King to deal with a legal matter Socrates the defendant and Euthyphro the plaintiff. Socrates was world charged with impiety, and Euthyphro was bringing charges against his father for murdering a servant. When Socrates heard of the nature of Euthyphros case, he concluded that Euthyphro must have understood the nature of impiety and piety. Since Socrates was being persecuted for a lack of piety, he began a conversation to get a line the nature of piety and impiety. In the dialogue, six different descriptions of piety were presumption and refuted by Socrates through Socratic questioning.Socratic questioning has three main goals to dispute assumptions and self-proclaimed experts, discover a deeper under bear outing, and apply rational stocks critic every(prenominal)y. Each of the six definitions failed to stand up to the Socratic questioning, and in the end we atomic number 18 left thus far more confused about what piety really is. The first definition of piety snuff itn by Euthyphro was that it was doing what he was doing, and some(prenominal) other confusable fiddles (Plato & Jowett). This was easily refuted by Socrates as he had asked for a clear standard from which to judge all actuates, and Euthyphro had given examples only.Piety is that which is beloved to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them is the next definition give n by Euthyphro (Plato & Jowett). Piety and impiety are clear opposites, so ace act cannot be both. However, by this definition, since thither were many gods, it is possible for an act to be both pious and impious. The gods oftentimes disagreed in many old stories, so if one god held an act to be dear it was possible other would hate it. This would make an act pious and impious, which is a contradiction.After his above point was refuted, Euthyphro modified his point to understand that holiness is what all the gods love and the opposite was hated by all of them (Plato & Jowett). This definition is a bit harder to refute, but it definitely falls absolutely of giving a clear standard from which to judge all acts. This definition fails to show the nature of piety. It regularises the gods love piety but it does not all the way explain wherefore. There has to be a terra firma that the gods love piety, and without that reason piety seems to become relativist ideal. I think this de finition just gives a characteristic of piety.The next definition given is that holiness is part of justice that is concentrated on by the gods (Plato & Jowett). Socrates uses examples of people attending to lesser beings for the interestingness of improving them, and shows that this is impossible with gods since they are beings above us. The word attending defeats this definition. This leads to another unclear definition that suggests that people somehow improve the gods, which we know from the concept of a god is impossible holiness is that part of justice prone to service or ministration to the gods it is learning how to please them with words or deeds (Plato & Jowett).The last definition given by Euthyphro, before he runs off leaving more questions than answers, is piety is the art or experience that gods and men use to do business with each other (Plato & Jowett). This definition falls short in that it does not clearly show the take in gained by the gods in this perceived business deal. It only seems to suggest that they describe the act pleasing, which seems to lead back to the third definition. This definition commits a coarse fallacy termed Begging the Question. It defines pious as being pious because it is pious, which is not much of an answer.Socrates goal in this conversation is to understand piety, so that he can defend himself in his hearing. However, I believe that this patch up has a deeper goal that belonged to Plato. It seemed that he wished to expose piety for the sham that it is to shame those that penalise Socrates. I believe this because before Socrates was executed he asked that a butt be sacrificed to the god of medicine. I believe this showed that he believed in an afterlife, which indicates whim in the gods. I believe that this dialogue did not actually determine and was simply written by Plato after the death of his teacher.I think this is shget through the nature of the character of Euthyphro. He was a self-proclaimed expe rt on piety, as most piety experts are, and he failed to have an intelligent response to any question posed by Socrates. After failing miserably to give a satisfactory answer, he ran off. I believe this demonstrates that Plato was using this piece to put piety itself on trial. I am not a very stout believer in holiness so I can only think of a way to modify one of Euthyphros existing definitions to explain it.I believe a clear account statement of piety would have been to say that the gods love makes acts pious. This gives an explanation of why plastered acts are pious, but it silent does not give the nature of piousness. Socrates whitethorn have questioned why the gods loved the acts, as the reason the gods loved them would be a clearer answer than the fact that the gods love made the acts pious. If that answer is miss this definition withal seems the follow the last definition of Euthyphro. It would seem to say that pious acts are pious because the gods love them, which is ba seless and arbitrary.I believe no one thinks that moral claims are baseless so this definition would also fall short of Socrates expectations. There is no definition about why acts are pious, because pious acts are determined by men and attributed to God. manpower have created God and said that he has given out sealed principles, but the real reason that these acts were determined right or ill-treat are lost in the annuals of time. At some point, some corporation labeled certain acts right and terms perhaps nature reinforced it into us, but nature is accepting of killing ones own kind so this also falls short as an explanation.The domain is that the concepts of what are right and wrong were decided by early homo and follow by society as a whole. The concept of piety furthered those beliefs of right and wrong until they became widespread. These beliefs today have become such an total part of what we are that we fail to realize that these morals may not be right. If early hu mans had decided differently, and early religion adopted those views, we would have an entirely different set of morally right and wrong concepts.We would also view those concepts as being undeniably right, and view the opposites as impossibly incorrect. However, killing ones own kind is something that happens in nature with very little impact, so our moral code is still very open for debate as is piousness and its origins. References Mosser, K. (2010). Philosophy A concise introduction. San Diego, CA Bridgepoint Education, Inc Plato, & Jowett, B. (n. d. ). Euthyphro. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved from http//www. gutenberg. org/ebooks/1642