ABSTRACT
Despite repeated requests in the dialogue, Euthyphro is not able to instruct Socrates on any subject, of course, but he does have certain ideas about the gods, piety and impiety that are rather limited and narrow compared to those of the philosopher. First and foremost, he understands piety, justice and morality to be legalistic, and a question of obeying certain rules while punishing criminals and evildoers. Indeed, he is so certain of his understanding of these questions that he is even willing to prosecute his father for murder. He then goes on to define piety as actions that are dear or beloved by the gods and impiety or evil as that which they hate. Finally, he also regards piety as a sort of business transaction by which the gods dispense rewards and favors to those who offer them prayers and sacrifices, and punish those who do not. As he does in all his dialogues, Socrates attempts to steer his listener away from the more ordinary and conventional meanings of terms like piety, justice, love and morality toward deeper and more universal spiritual meanings and insights.
Socrates has no difficulty in refuting all of Euthyphro’s legalistic and transactional arguments and definitions of piety as narrow, confused and simplistic, even though they served most of the ordinary citizens of Athens well enough. After all, he has just been indicted and is facing trial before the assembly on the charge of impiety and misleading the youth of the city, by creating new gods and failing to honor the old ones. This trial will later lead to his being sentenced to death, although Socrates does not seem to fear this possible outcome at all. He admits that he has a “benevolent habit of pouring out myself to everybody, and would even pay for a listener”, which provokes the anger or jealousy of many others in Athens (Jowett 2009). At his trial, he will state that his method is designed to raise these important questions in the hopes that people will “rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths” (Abhel-Rappe, 2009, p. 132). When he was sentenced to death he told the court that, “I will never behave differently, not even if I were going to die many times over” (Wilson, 2007, p. 50). Time and again in this discussion with Euthyphro, he also attempts to steer him into offering profound and universal definitions of piety, justice and morality which his listener is unable to provide.
Euthyphro has very clear ideas about piety, justice, morality and right and wrong and is even willing to prosecute his own father for failing to live up to these standards. He claims that it is moral and pious to prosecute his father under certain circumstances and that he also has an “exact knowledge of all such matters”. In defining piety as “prosecuting anyone who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime”, Euthyphro gives the very simplistic and shallow definition of piety being “that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them” (Jowett 2009). Socrates then turns the discussion to a deeper and more universal level about issues over which human beings frequently disagree, such as which actions and beliefs are “just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable” (Jowett 2009). All people claim to love what is just, noble and good, and to hate the opposite, but they dispute the meanings of these terms all the time. It happens every day in the courts, where prosecutors and jurors argue over the guilt or innocence of defendants and what type of punishments they should receive, while those who commit crimes and evil acts rarely admit to their guilt. None of this really helps find a clear definition about what is holy or impious, just or unjust, good or evil, bit only demonstrates that the questions are always being debated and disputed (Jowett 2009).
Socrates then begins to refer to God in the singular tense because he is really a monotheist, and leads his listener into more complex issues that he does not really understand. He maneuvers Euthyphro into conceding that holiness, justice and morality are universal terms, and that God loves what is just, right and pious but hates the opposite, but this still does not explain the exact nature of these terms (Jowett 2009). Socrates has moved far beyond mere legalistic definitions, though, into deeper and more profound questions, and understandably Euthyphro is quite lost and over his head at this point. Piety is not simply fear of the Gods, since people feat many things like poverty, disease and old-age, but they do not love or revere them. A person can also have an outward show of piety, but that does not necessarily mean than have an inward sense of morality and justice. Euthyphro then offers a weak definition of piety as somehow “attending” to the gods as “servants show to their masters”, but is unable to define what this means either (Jowett 2009). Socrates asks if it is similar to the ministrations of a physician or veterinarian with the aim of improving the health of the gods, but Euthyphro admits this cannot be the case. He does mention that attending to the gods with prayers and sacrifices will result in their dispensing of favors to humans, such as victory in war. So Euthyphro regards piety in a very different way from Socrates, as a transaction or exchange in which the gods dispense rewards, gifts, honors and punishments to the faithful or the unbelievers—basically like a commercial or a business deal (Jowett 2009).
In this dialogue, the goal of Socrates is to move his listeners away from the very narrow and limited questions about piety, justice, morality and the nature of God to a deeper and more universal understanding. He is not at all interested in ancient legends about Zeus and the other gods, or various legalistic definitions about right and wrong, justice and injustice or piety and impiety that are always being argued in the courts and the assembly. Nor does he care about some type of commercial transaction with God to obtain rewards and favors as a result of good behavior or the outward show of offering prayers and sacrifices. Rather he continually asks his listeners to consider what the true meanings of words like piety, justice and morality really are. Socrates always does this, such as with his listeners in The Symposium, when he asks them to consider the higher and more abstract meaning of words love, truth and beauty, beyond sexual desires, friendship of the obsession with physical appearances, money and status (Gil 1999). Personally, I would define piety, justice and morality in the same universal terms that Socrates and many other great philosophers and religious teachers have given, which is basically that people should follow the Golden Rule of treating others with the same love, dignity and respect with which they expect to be treated. This is the ideal or the highest standard, at least, no matter that human beings have great difficulty following it in practice. Socrates could hardly deny this since even when he was on trial for his life he said of his persecutors that “doing wrong hurts the perpetrator, by deforming his or her moral character” (Wilson, p. 49). For Socrates, there is always a higher and more universal morality that involves matters of God and the eternal soul that does not depend only on the views of ordinary mortals or their actions in the physical, material world, and the true philosopher will spend a lifetime contemplating these more profound questions.
REFERENCES
Ahbel-Rappe, S. (2009). Socrates: A Guide for the Perplexed. Continuum International Publishing Group.
Gil, C. (1999). Plato: The Symposium. Penguin Classics.
Plato (2009). Euthyphro. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Internet Classics Archive.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html
Wilson, E. R. (2007). The Death of Socrates. Profile Books Ltd.
