1. Plato’s Euthyphro Purposes: To analyze Piety.
Mark Pursley
Plato’s Euthyphro
Purposes: To analyze Piety.
To vindicate Socrates from the charge of impiety.
To critique the concept of piety found in traditional Greek theology.
To show that the Socratic practice of philosophy displays true piety.

2. What is Piety?
Def. I: Doing what I am doing; prosecuting anyone guilty of murder, sacrilege, etc. whether it’s your father, mother, or whoever.
Appeal to divine precedent.
Socrates responds: Do you really believe...? Moral blindspots in scriptural texts, a collision of faith and reason.
Def. 1, not a true definition, gives a particular example not a universal formula.

3. Definitions 2 &3
Piety is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.
Problem of divine discord, dear to Zeus, but not to Chronos.
All the gods agree with me!
Religious Epistemology Problem What proof have you that in the opinion of all the gods....?
Def. 3: What all the gods hate is impious, and what they love is pious or holy.

4. Problems for Def. 3
Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? [A problem for divine command ethics.]
Piety is not equivalent to loved by the gods. An attribute, but not the essence of piety (the essence will reveal why the gods love piety).
Aporia, puzzlement. Euthyphro’s arrogance exposed as ignorance.

5. Socrates takes the lead: Justice and Piety compared.
Relation between Justice and piety: All just acts are pious or All pious acts are just?
Def. 4: Piety or holiness is that part of justice which attends to the god’s, as there is the other part of justice that attends to men.
Service benefits, how can we benefit the gods? J P

6. Piety: helping the god’s achieve their aims.
It’s the sort of service that servant’s show their masters.... A sort of ministration (huperetike) to the gods. A craft or skill that has an aim.
What is that fair work which the gods do by the help of our ministrations?
E: Many and fair are the works they do.
S: Chief or principal thing they use us for?

7. Definition 5 reduced to def. 3
Def. 5: Piety or holiness is learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices. Such Piety is the salvation of families and states.
Why did you turn aside?
Prayer= asking the gods for things; sacrifice= giving the gods things. (What can you give a god?) Bartering skill?
Tributes of honor and what pleases them.
Pleasing but not beneficial?

8. Plato’s Critique of Greek Theology
One cannot serve the gods by offering sacrifices and requesting favors. Service is rendered only by actions that assist the gods in achieving their goals. No divine goals are furthered by animal slaughter.
How does one serve the gods?

9. Two conceptions of Piety
Ritualistic Religion (prayer and sacrifice piety). Make the gods happy with your gifts, secure their help in achieving your goals.
Ethical religion (moral fruit piety). Serve divine aims by promoting virtuous conduct: (1) exposing intellectual arrogance by questioning unexamined assumptions and, (2) exhorting others to value character over fame or material gain.
Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Mt. 9.13

10. Plato’s Apology
In 399 B.C.E., in Athens, Socrates, aged 70, was brought to trial on the following charges: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing other new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death.

11. Apology
Apologia means defense. Plato, who was present at the trial, offers his account of Socrates’ attempt to defend himself against the charges brought by Meletus.
The Athenian establishment feared Socrates’ unrelenting questioning of its cherished values and religious beliefs. When the younger generation began to admire Socratic skepticism, defenders of the status quo sought his death.

12. Refutation of the Old Accusers
Socrates is guilty of needless curiosity and meddling interference, inquiring into things beneath earth and in the sky, making the weaker argument stronger, and teaching others to do the same. (19b)
Origin of the old charges.
Charephon’s query at the Delphic Oracle: Is any one wiser than Socrates? No.
What does the god mean? I know I am not wise at all. Testing the oracle by examining politicians, poets, and craftsmen. …neither of us knows anything worthwhile; but he thinks he does and does not, and I do not and do not think I do. (21d)

13. Refutation of Meletus
Socrates is guilty of corrupting the youth, and of not acknowledging the gods the city acknowledges, but other new divinities.
In other crafts (e.g. horse training) a few experts benefit horses while the majority of horse-riders harm them. Isn’t this true of human virtue as well?
Since corrupting one’s associates brings harm to oneself, no one intentionally does so.
Socrates is not Anaxagoras. If he believes in new divinities he cannot be an atheist.

14. The Socratic Mission
Negative (therapeutic) task: To expose false claims to knowledge. The profession of ignorance. He is wisest who knows his wisdom is worth nothing.
Positive task: Exhortations to virtue. God’s gadfly. Value wisdom, truth, and character over wealth, reputation, and honor. I go about doing nothing but persuading you…to care not for body or money …so much as excellence of soul. (30 a.b)
I believe you have yet to gain a greater good than my
Service to the God.

15. Socrates on Death
Fear of death is intellectual arrogance. No man knows…whether it is not the greatest of all goods; and yet men fear it as though they well knew it to be the worst of evils. (29 a,b)
Death is great gain (either eternal sleep or a journey to a better realm). The greatest thing would be to test and question there as I did here: Who among them is wise?

16. Death is Good
Silence of the divine sign. What has fallen to me is good, and thos who think death is evil are wrong. For the sign would surely have opposed me if I were not in some way acting for good. (40 b,c)
A good person cannot be harmed. True harm is injustice in the soul. Bodily harm cannot injure a virtuous soul.
The unexamined life is not worth living. (38a)