• He defends himself by:
• Putting what he is doing
  in a positive light:
  he is on a divine mission,
  serving the god.
• Showing that Meletus,
  an accuser, does
  not know what he is
  talking about.
• In the final judgment…
• If 500 jurors, Socrates is
  convicted by 280 to 220.
• Socrates offers one mina
  as counter-penalty to death.
• Socrates is sentenced
  to death by hemlock.
• Socrates agrees to
  abide by the penalty.
  (39b)
• The Euthyphro begins with:

Socrates arriving at the Porch of the King where he is to undergo a preliminary inquiry concerning the charge of impiety. Before this occurs, he is drawn into a conversation with a man by the name of Euthypro who is engaged in prosecuting his own father for murder. The encounter provides an opportunity for Socrates to cross-examine Euthyphro on the nature of piety (or holiness).

• To begin, please note…

“Holiness” and “piety”
can be used inter-
changeably, since both
English words translate into
the same Greek word: hosia.

• In discussing the dialogue,
  I’ll try to say what I think are
  answers to these questions:
• What conception of holiness in
  the Euthyphro would most likely be Socrates’ conception of holiness?
• What seems to be Euthyphro’s conception of holiness?
• What conception of gods seems
  to be implied by Euthyphro’s conception of holiness?
• I begin by making some general remarks about
  the exchange between
  Socrates and Euthyphro...

• As I previously mentioned, Socrates cross-examines Euthyphro who…
• Is engaged in prosecuting
  his father for murder.
• Claims to have precise knowledge of holiness in response to Socrates’ astonishment that he (E.) could pursue such an unconventional
  prosecution.
• Now Euthyphro at 5d-6a…

Justifies his prosecution on
the grounds that the gods
engage in divine retribution.

• But Socrates responds at
  6a to E.’s justification…

By expressing disbelief that
gods could quarrel & disagree.

• So from Euthypro’s justification and
  Socrates’ response to the justification, it’s clear that:
• Euthyphro believes that the gods quarrel, fight amongst themselves, and disagree.
• Socrates does not believe this. (See 6a.)
• Based on this difference of opinion between Euthyphro and Socrates, we can infer that they probably also disagree about:

(a) The nature of the gods themselves.

(b) The nature of holiness as what is appropriate action toward the gods.

• We shall shortly consider the difference between Socrates and Euthyphro, concerning the nature of holiness.

But let us pause here to consider what their disagreement over violence amongst the gods implies about their respective views of the nature of the gods.

• To continue, Socrates…
• Is to be tried for impiety.
• Wants to know
  “what is holiness/piety?”
  (Euthyphro 5c-d), given E.’s inflated conception of his expertise in piety/holiness.
• Is ironic when he asks for instruction from Euthyphro.
• Socrates…
• Does not really believe he
  can learn anything about
  holiness from Euthyphro.
• Does not want to prove Euthyphro mistaken in his view of holiness.
• Wants to gets Euthyphro to recognize his (E.’s) lack of knowledge concerning
  matters of holiness.
• In the course of the dialogue, Euthyphro offers at least
  four definitions of holiness.
  These include:

1. Holiness is what is
   loved by the gods.
2. Holiness is what is
   loved by all of the gods.
3. Holiness is ministry to the gods.
4. Holiness is prayer and sacrifice.

• To see how Socrates shows Euthyphro that E. does not know what holiness is, despite his claim to expertise in holiness…

Consider Socrates’ cross-examination of Euthyphro, based on the E.’s definition of holiness as being what is loved by the gods.

• This cross-examination makes use of E.’s belief that the gods quarrel/disagree.

Although E. has only hinted
at this belief ,when he explains his justification for prosecuting his father (4e), he explicitly affirms this belief in the course of the cross-examination.
The cross-examination proceeds as follows…

• Cross-Examination of
  Euthyphro on Definition 1

Socrates: What is holiness,
Euthyphro?

E: Holiness is what is
loved by the gods.

S: Aren’t the holy and the
unholy opposites, Euthyphro?

E: They are.

S: And did you not say, E., that
the gods have disagreements?

• …Cross-Examination of
  Euthyphro on Definition 1

E: I did say this.

S: So then would not some
acts be loved by one
set of gods and hated
by another set of gods (7d).

E: I suppose that is possible, S.

S: So according to your 1^st definition of holiness, some acts could turn out to be both holy and unholy.

• At the close of this exchange, Socrates concludes that…

Euthyphro has not stated the essence of holiness, because Socrates wants to know what invariably makes an act holy,
not what could make an act both holy and unholy.

• So from this exchange,
  we can conclude that:

1. Euthyphro does not have precise knowledge of holiness.
2. Socrates thinks that holiness has a single, definable nature.

• To see just what Socrates’ view of nature of holiness seems to be, let us now skip to Socrates’ examination of Euthyphro’s 3rd proposal (12e-14b).

Holiness is ministering to or serving the gods.

• In my view, this is S.’s conception of holiness/
  piety. I say this because:
• He wants to know what kind
  of ministering E. has in mind. (13a)
• He wants to know whether the ministering in question benefits the gods. (13a)
• He says, “You were on the very point of telling me what I want to know.” (14c)
• Moreover, this conception
  of holiness as service, aid or ministering to gods…

Fits with Socrates’ characterization of his own mission in the Apology (30a).

• This is because one can
  minister to or serve a god
  by doing a benefit to some
  other 3rd person, as a
  nurse might serve a doctor
  by helping one of his/her patients.

So when Socrates says in the Apology (30a) that his mission is a service to the god, he may mean that by showing people that they do not know what they think they know, he is helping
the gods to make people better.

• But notice that:

Although Euthyphro agrees
that piety/holiness cannot
make a god better (13c),
he cannot say what it is that we help the gods to produce. He cannot identify a kind of service that would produce a good without directly benefiting the gods.

(For example, he cannot imagine something like missionary behavior, or Socrates’ cross-examination behavior, as being holy behavior.)

• Euthyphro:
• Always goes back to idea of pleasing the gods in some way or other.
• So we now need to
  consider:

1. What Euthyphro’s
   conception of holiness/
   piety seems to be.
2. What the relation is between
   E.’s conception of holiness
   and E.’s view of the gods.

• To begin, recall that in the course of the dialogue, Euthyphro offers at least 4 definitions of holiness/piety:

1. Holiness is what is loved
   by the gods.
2. Holiness is what is loved
   by all of the gods.
3. Holiness is ministry to the gods.
4. Holiness is prayer and sacrifice.

• Could all four of these definitions be encapsulated in one idea?
  
  Is there some one theme or idea that they share in common?
• Let us consider
  Euthyphro’s
  2^nd definition. This seems to be the important and interesting idea that is implied by the other three definitions.

Piety is what is loved by all of the gods.

• This proposal is
  interesting because:

1. It seems really to give
   the core of what piety/
   holiness is for Euthyphro. Can you say why?
2. Socrates’ way of refuting it is pretty clever.

• Looking again at this definition, according to which piety/holiness is what is loved by all of the gods, we see:

On this proposal, an action is holy because of, or as a result of being loved by all of the gods.

• Now Socrates is able to show that Euthyphro cannot consistently maintain the proposal by getting E. to agree that…

All the gods love an action because the action is pious/holy in its own right.

• So the following difficulty arises for Euthyphro…

On E’s proposal, an action’s
being holy is the effect of its
being loved by all of the gods, whereas E. has also agreed that an action’s being holy is the cause of its being loved by all of the gods.

• So Euthyphro actually explains the holiness/
  piety of action in two incompatible ways:

According to his proposal, being pious is bestowed on the action by the love of all of the gods.

But, according to his subsequent agreement, being pious is already in the action itself, and causes all of the gods to love the action.

• But no instance of a
  property, like being holy,
  can simultaneously be in
  an action and not yet in
  the action.

So Socrates has once again shown that Euthyphro does not really know what piety/holiness is.

• Nevertheless, we can get a glimpse of a more specific way of pleasing the gods when E. offers his fourth conception of piety/holiness.

According to which, holiness is knowledge of how to pray and sacrifice (14c).

• Euthyphro offers this
  proposal…

After Socrates finds that E.
cannot explain how people
can minister to gods without directly benefiting gods, in desperation, Euthyphro says: “I can tell you that if a man knows how to say and do things acceptable to the gods in prayer and sacrifice, those things are holy.” (14b)

• If we now put this proposal together with Euthyphro’s other proposals, namely…

1. Holiness is what is loved
   by the gods.
2. Holiness is what is loved
   by all of the gods.
3. Holiness is ministry to the gods.
4. Holiness is prayer and sacrifice.

• We can see that a
  common theme runs
  through all of them:
• This is the idea of
  pleasing the gods.
• The idea of pleasing the gods is just expressed in a very specific way in Euthyphro’s 4th proposal, that piety is knowing how to
  pray and sacrifice.
• So basically, E. thinks of piety as giving something to the gods that the gods want, in order to get something from them in return.

This is why Socrates comments
on the 4^th proposal by saying:
“So the art of holiness would be
a kind of business transaction between gods and men.” (14e)

• To sum up Socrates’ vs. Euthyphro’s idea of holiness:

Socrates appears to think that
a pious person works for the
good of other people, because
such work indirectly benefits gods.

By contrast, Euthyphro appears to think that a pious person works in ways that directly benefit or please the gods in order that these gods will in turn bestow benefits on him.

• So this leaves us
  with the question:

What must Euthyphro’s
view of the gods be like,
if he thinks that holiness is
a matter of giving to the gods things that they like, in order to get back good things from them?