This page contains my summary of Plato's Euthyphro. It consists of a line by line summary of the dialogue, with additional research and interpretation. This edition of Plato's Euthyphro was translated by G.M.A. Grube, edited by John M. Cooper, and published by the Hackett Publishing Company of Indianapolis, Indiana in 1997. Euthyphro of course, was originally written by Plato.

To be honest, I don't really care about the topic of this dialogue all that much. The purpose of this page is mostly to figure out a good format for future dialogues, one's that have (in my opinion) more interesting topics. So here, I don't go very in depth into my thoughts and reflections, which will change in the future.

[0002] Euthyphro and Socrates encounter each other by the king-archon's court.

[From Wikipedia] The king-archon, or king magistrate was responsible for organizing religious rites and for presiding over trials of murder. After 487 BC, the archonships were assigned by lot.

[From Wikipedia] Euthyphro may or may not be an actual historical figure, as he is only mentioned in Plato's dialogues Euthyphro and Cratylus. At the time of his appearance in Plato's Euthyphro, he was likely in his mid-forties and his father was probably in his seventies, making his father a contemporary of Plato. His name in ancient Greek means "straight-thinker".

Socrates we should all know, but an additional point is that this discussion occurs a few weeks before Socrates' trial where he will be sentenced to death. Because this is only a few weeks before the death of Socrates, it is likely this dialogue occurred in 399 BC. Socrates is at the king-archon's court for a preliminary hearing for the charges brought up against him by Meletus, a member of the Pitthean deme. Very little is known of Meletus, except for the fact that he has "long hair, not much of a beard, and a rather aquiline nose" (2b).

[From Wikipedia] Note, a deme is suburb or subdivision of Athens. The Pitthean deme is better known as Pithus, which comes from Pittheus, the maternal grandfather of Theseus.

Meletus is charging Socrates with corrupting the youth. Socrates, oddly enough, states that Meletus is at least going about helping the youth in the right way. First, "it is right to care first that the young should be as good as possible, just a a good farmer is likely to take care of the young plants first, and of the others later" (2d).[0003] Specifically, Meletus believes that Socrates is corrupting the youth by being impious, specifically for making new gods and not believing in the old gods.

Euthyphro points out that Socrates claims to have a divine sign. This divine sign is explained by Socrates in Plato's Apology in the following line translated by G.M.A. Grube: "I have a divine or spiritual sign which Meletus has ridiculed in his deposition. this began when I was a child. It is a voice, and whenever it speaks it turns me away from something I am about to do, but it never encourages me to do anything. This is what has prevented me from taking part in public affairs, and I think it was quite right to prevent me" (Apology 31d).

Euthyphro claims, somewhat similarly to Socrates, that he can predict the future, yet he is ridiculed for it. The dialogue eventually turns to the reason that Euthyphro is at the king-archon's court. [0004]Euthyphro is at the court to prosecute his father for the charge of murder. Socrates seems shocked by this, and concludes that Euthyphro's father must have killed a family member, or someone of similar importance, otherwise why would Euthyphro prosecute his own father for killing a stranger?

Euthyphro (correctly in my opinion) points out it doesn't matter who his father killed, only if the killing was done justly or unjustly. What actually happened was that the victim was a servant of Euthyphro's family. The servant killed a household slave in a fit of drunken anger, so Euthyphro's father captured the servant, bound him hand and foot, then threw him into a ditch while the father inquired from a local priest what to do. While waiting for a response from the priest, the servant himself died in the ditch. So not only is Euthyphro prosecuting his father, the crime is the accidental death of a known murderer. They (as in the father and other relatives) claim that it is impious for Euthyphro to prosecute his father, but Euthyphro, being a prophet and very knowledgeable about the gods, says that such an action is pious.

A quick note about murder from the introduction to Euthyphro by John M. Cooper: "Murder was a religious offense, since it entailed 'pollution' which if not ritually purified was displeasing to the gods; but equally, a son's taking such action against his father might well itself be regarded as 'impious'".

[0005]This is a great situation for Socrates, as he will soon go on trial for impiety against the gods. If Socrates can learn from Euthyphro what piety is, then either both will go on trial or neither of them will. Then, we come to the question for this Socratic dialogue, namely, what is piety?

The first definition that Euthyphro gives is "the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, whether the wrong doer is your father or your mother or anyone else; not to prosecute is impious" (5d-e). [0006] As proof, Euthyphro points out that Zeus "bound his father because he unjustly swallowed his sons, and that he in turn castrated his father for similar reasons" (6a).

Socrates, holds the opinion that such things never happened to the gods, which probably contributes to the charge of impiety against him. But since he is Euthyphro's pupil, he decides to now believe in these sorts of things. Euthyphro additionally adds that he is a kind of religious literalist in that the believes (or even knows) that the stories about the gods written by humans all actually happened, in addition to many other things.

In a classic turn of Socratic dialogues, Socrates then points out that Euthyphro has given only one example of a pious action, not a general definition of piety. Here comes a bit of the Platonic theory of forms, where Socrates states that he is searching for "that form itself that makes all pious actions pious, for you agreed that all impious actions are impious and all pious actions pious through one form" (6d-e).

[0007] The second definition that Euthyphro gives is "what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious" (7a). Because Euthyphro is a religious literalist, he also must acknowledge that the Gods are often in discord with each other. For some subjects there is no such thing as discord. For example, there should be no argument that five is greater than two, or that an elephant is larger than a mouse. But certain subjects, just as the just/unjust, beautiful/ugly, good/bad are subjects we constantly argue about, and that the gods constantly argue about.[0008] So, some things are loved by some gods and hated by other gods, meaning there are some things which are both pious and impious, or neither pious nor impious. Even subjects such as punishment for murder has debate by humans, and debate by the gods.

[0009]So, under Euthyphro's second definition, for Euthyphro's action to be pious, it must be the case that all the gods believe that prosecuting your father for the negligent murder of a murderer is a good thing to do. Euthyphro actually claims to be able to do this, but before he is allowed to, Socrates forces Euthyphro to give a new definition of piety.

Euthyphro's third definition of piety is "that the pious is what all the gods love, and the opposite, what all the gods hate, is the impious" (9e). [0010]Now we get to the famous statement of the Euthyphro problem. "Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?" (10a). I actually heard this problem for the first time in the book Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

In Hyperion, it is not called the Euthyphro problem, but rather, it is a question based upon the Binding of Issac, where God commands Abraham to sacrifice his only son Issac. Here, the question is not of piety but rather of morality. When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, is the sacrifice of Issac a moral thing to do? The idea is that there are two possibilities: (1) God decides what moral actions are or (2) morality exist independent of God.

In the case of (1) God decides what moral actions are, then we are forced to acknowledge that God could change their mind at any time and we could be forced to do what would seem to be distinctly immoral actions. If God decides that ritual sacrifice of humans is moral, then we will all believe that the ritual sacrifice of humans is moral. But from our current perspective, such actions could not possibly be moral. In the case of (2) morality exists independent of God, then we have issues with the definition of God. If God is all-powerful, then how can something exist outside of God? It seems like in the Binding of Issac, we are forced to accept a contradiction in either case.

Now, the Greek Gods are not all-powerful, so the exact same issue does not apply. However, a similar critique could be applied. In the Euthyphro problem, one of two things is possible: (1) things are pious because all the gods love them or (2) things are pious independent of the gods, and the love of the gods is our barometer for determining pious actions.

Socrates, knowing this distinction, leads Euthyphro to argue for (2): "It is being loved then because it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved" (10d). [0011]This evidently means that Euthyphro has once again not given a definition of what piety is. Things are pious for some unknown reason. We can determine what actions are pious through the love of the Gods, but that doesn't tell us what pious things actually are.

Let's take an example with health. What actions are healthy? Euthyphro would argue that actions that are healthy are those actions that are recommended by all doctors, such as getting a certain amount of exercise a week or eating certain kinds of food. But the recommendation of a doctor does not explain why actions are healthy, simply that they are. To get at the why of health, we should be arguing things like (1) actions are healthy if they improve bodily function or (2) actions are healthy if they increase life expectancy. Obviously, these are bad/incomplete definitions, but they serve to illustrate the example.

Euthyphro spends some time complaining about the Socratic method, before Socrates drags him back into the conversation with some leading questions. He does this with a conversation reminiscent of Plato's Protagoras [TODO: fill in with details from Protagoras]. Socrates does this by asking if "all that is pious is of necessity just" (11e). [0012] Here, Socrates is trying to get at the pious through the concept of just. He essentially argues that piety is a subset of justice, such that all things which are pious are just, but not all things which are just are also pious. If Socrates can determine which part of justice corresponds to piety, then the dialogue would have a conclusion.

Euthyphro responds to this line of questioning by stating a fourth definition of piety, that "the godly and pious is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods, while that concerned with the care of men is the remaining part of justice" (12e).[0013] Socrates brings up a definition issue, with the word "care". When applied to men, or horses, or dogs, "care" implies that the subject of the care is enriched or improved in some way as a result of the care. But the same thing could not be said of the Gods. The Gods are so far above us that they could not be improved by the "care" of men.

So Euthyphro says that we "care" for the gods in the way that a slave takes care of their master. But once again, a master benefits from the service of a slave, so how do the gods benefit from using humans as slaves? [0014]There are, as Euthyphro points out, many examples of what they achieve through using humans as slaves, but it is not clear what these many examples lead to as the ultimate aim of the gods. Again, it just seems like we are so far below the Gods that we cannot effect them in any meaningful way.

In a somewhat confusing turn, Euthyphro now gives a fifth definition of piety, namely that "piety would be a knowledge of how to give to, and beg from, the gods" (14d). Socrates summarizes this somewhat crudely as being a kind of trading skill. But once again, it seems like Euthyphro has not answered the question from the fourth definition of piety. [0015] It is obvious how humans benefit from the gifts of the Gods, but it is not clear how the Gods benefit from the sacrifices of humans. Euthyphro finally answers this by stating that our gifts to the Gods consist of "honor, reverence, and what I mentioned just now, to please them" (15b). Or to summarize, our gifts to the gods are not actually beneficial, they are simply pleasing to the gods.

This brings us right back again to the Euthyphro problem, which previously had ended inconclusively. Euthyphro, defeated (or perhaps actually having some kind of pressing appointment) takes his leave of the conversation. [0016] The dialogue ends with Socrates lamenting that Euthyphro was not able to teach him the meaning of piety, which would have solved his legal troubles.