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Intro
Socrates bumps into Euthyphro, a young prophet, on the steps of the magistrate’s court in Athens, Greece. Both men are at the courthouse for actions that relate to the concept of piety, which is the central subject of the dialogue. Euthyphro is prosecuting his father for acting impiously in letting a murderous slave who he had bound and thrown in a ditch die from neglect. Socrates is responding to an indictment by Meletus that he has acted impiously in spreading ideas that are irreverent toward the Athenian gods to impressionable youths. Feigning ignorance, Socrates suggests that Euthyphro teach him what he knows about the nature of piety, so that he may be better able to defend himself at court. What follows, however, is a conversation in which Euthyphro suggests five possible definitions for piety, each of which Socrates exposes as flimsy with his probing.
Nearly all of Euthyphro’s definitions collapse into claims that associate piety with the gods’ actions, desires, or wishes, but Euthyphro is unable to fully describe what exactly these might be, or why certain actions fulfil his criteria. He circles around his own arguments, which Socrates sarcastically compares to the moving statues of Daedalus. Euthyphro realizes Socrates has argued him into a corner by goading Euthyphro into agreeing that the nature of piety is static (meaning it doesn’t change, like the gods’ whims or differences of opinion) and knowable (unlike the gods’ desires). He is incapable of producing a logically sound definition for piety. Feeling irritated, Euthyphro abruptly ends the conversation and walks away, pretending to be late, leaving Socrates unsatisfied.
Through the dialogue’s conclusion, Plato implies that perhaps nobody in Athens (including Socrates’s accusers) can articulate clearly and defensibly what piety is. At the very least, notions of piety and impiety that invoke the gods—again, much like Meletus’s charge against Socrates—come up short.
