In Plato’s Euthyphro, the title character Euthyphro explains that he is prosecuting his own father for murdering a slave that murdered another slave in a drunken range. Euthyphro’s father bound the murderous slave and left him in a ditch whilst waiting for official advice on what to do with the slave. In the meantime, the slave died from hunger, exposure, and his bonds. Euthyphro is pressing charges because he believes his father acted impiously in virtue of causing the slave’s death. Socrates, meanwhile, is at the magistrates’ court because Meletus is charging him with impiety for corrupting youths with ideas that are irreverent towards the gods. Despite all these declarations of impiety, Plato—by way of Socrates—implies that one’s actions aren’t justified as “pious” unless they have a philosophical understanding of piety.
Socrates asks Euthyphro for a definition of piety under the tongue-in-cheek guise of needing one to defend himself in his own case against Meletus, who rests his charge against Socrates on some notion of irreverence against the gods’ wishes. Euthyphro, too, associates piety with the gods’ wishes, but he is unable to satisfy Socrates with a concrete definition that fleshes out what this exactly means. When Euthyphro tries to associate piety with whatever the gods “love” or “desire,” or what “pleases all the gods,” Socrates pushes him to say exactly what such a thing could be. But every time Euthyphro tries to offer tangible examples, he runs into problems. When Euthyphro says the gods would approve of prosecuting one’s father because some gods have done “similar things,” Socrates argues that other gods might disapprove—this means Euthyphro can't say for sure that “all the gods definitely believe this action to be right.” When Euthyphro suggests that offering sacrifices to the gods, or acting with “honor” and “reverence" to the gods services godly needs, Socrates argues that humans can’t be sure what the gods aim to do, and what, therefore they need to accomplish such aims. Euthyphro agrees that it “is a considerable task to acquire any precise knowledge of these things.” Both prosecutors associate piety with the gods’ desires or wishes, but the dialogue shows that it’s difficult to know exactly what these are—without this wisdom, it is impossible to justify what exactly defines a pious or impious action.
Socrates believes the overall problem with associating piety with something that the gods love rests in the fact that godly wishes or desires are not something humans can possibly know. Socrates raises this point with characteristic irony: "If you had no clear knowledge of piety and impiety you would never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a servant. For fear of the gods you would have been afraid to take the risk lest you should not be acting rightly, and would have been ashamed before men but now I know well that you believe you have clear knowledge of piety and impiety. So tell me, my good Euthyphro, and do not hide what you think it is.” With this, Socrates begins to flesh out the idea that one can’t act piously if they do not have the knowledge of what, exactly, piety is.
The dialogue suggests that a charge of impiety is justified if the prosecutor knows, exactly, what piety is. Based on Euthyphro’s several failed attempts at defining piety in a way that satisfies Socrates, it’s clear that he doesn’t understand piety on a more fundamental level. Euthyphro simply feels he is being pious. He may, in fact, be acting piously, but without the ability to offer an explanation of what piety is, he cannot prove it. Since none of Euthyphro's attempts to associate piety with the gods and their aims, wishes, or desires have escaped scrutiny, Plato is implying that Euthyphro’s charge against his father is not justified, and neither—by extension—is Meletus’ charge against Socrates. In other words, an action cannot be pious unless the person committing the action can articulate “clear knowledge of piety and impiety.” More broadly, Plato implies that any action (for example, acting “lovingly” or “virtuously”) cannot be justified without wisdom of the concept (such as “love” or “virtue”) that the action relies on.
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Wisdom, Action, and Justification Quotes in Euthyphro
EUTHYPHRO: […] He seems to me to start out by harming the very heart of the city by attempting to wrong you. Tell me, what does he say you do to corrupt the young?
SOCRATES: Strange things, to hear him tell it, for he says that 1 am a maker of gods, and on the ground that I create new gods while not believing in the old gods, he has indicted me for their sake, as he puts it.
EUTHYPHRO: […] The victim was a dependent of mine, and when we were farming in Naxos he was a servant of ours. He killed one of our household slaves in drunken anger, so my father bound him hand and foot and threw him in a ditch, then sent a man here to inquire from the priest what should be done. During that time he gave no thought or care to the bound man, as being a killer, and it was no matter if he died, which he did. Hunger and cold and his bonds caused his death before the messenger came back from the seer. Both my father and my other relatives are angry that I am prosecuting my father for murder on behalf of a murderer when he hadn’t even killed him, they say, and even if he had, the dead man does not deserve a thought, since he was a killer. For, they say, it is impious for a son to prosecute his father for murder. But their ideas of the divine attitude to piety and impiety are wrong, Socrates.
SOCRATES: […] So tell me now, by Zeus, what you just now maintained you clearly knew: what kind of thing do you say that godliness and ungodliness are, both as regards murder and other things; or is the pious not the same and alike in every action, and the impious the opposite of all that is pious and like itself, and everything that is to be impious presents us with one form or appearance insofar as it is impious?
EUTHYPHRO: Most certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Tell me then, what is the pious, and what the impious, do you say?
EUTHYPHRO: I say that 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 wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else; not to prosecute is impious. And observe, Socrates, that I can cite powerful evidence that the law is so. I have already said to others that such actions are right, not to favor the ungodly, whoever they are. These people themselves believe that Zeus is the best and he unjustly swallowed his sons, and that he in turn castrated his father for similar reasons.
SOCRATES: But you say that the same things are considered just by
some gods and unjust by others, and as they dispute about these things they are at odds and at war with each other. Is that not so?
EUTHYPHRO: It is.
SOCRATES: The same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, and would be both god-loved and god-hated.
EUTHYPHRO: It seems likely.
SOCRATES: And the same things would be both pious and impious, according to this argument?
EUTHYPHRO: I’m afraid so.
SOCRATES: So you did not answer my question, you surprising man.
I did not ask you what same thing is both pious and impious, and it appears that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them.
SOCRATES: […] I want to say this, namely, that if anything is being changed or is being affected in any way, it is not being changed because it is something changed, but rather it is some thing changed because it is being changed; nor is it being affected because it is something affected, but it is something affected because it is being affected.
SOCRATES: If you had no clear knowledge of piety and impiety you would never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a servant. For fear of the gods you would have been afraid to take the risk lest you should not be acting rightly, and would have been ashamed before men, but now I know well that you believe you have clear knowledge of piety and impiety. So tell me, my good Euthyphro, and do not hide what you think it is.
EUTHYPHRO: Some other time, Socrates, for I am in a hurry now, and it is time for me to go.
SOCRATES: What a thing to do, my friend!
