Plato's dialogue "Euthyphro" evolves around the nature of piety (in the sense of moral or divine justice) and the role of authority in matters of moral judgment.
Introduction
In Plato's dialogue "Euthyphro" the title character is challenged by Socrates to prove that he has accurate knowledge of moral justice, or piety, as he had claimed. Euthyphro's reputation and credibility are at stake: He is prosecuting his own father for murder, and he claims that he does so because this is what the gods would expect him to do even if the action finds disapproval in the eyes of his peers. He supports his stance by claiming to know better than most of his peers what it is to be pious or morally just. It is interesting to look at Euthyphro as a rebel, and to compare his rebellion – his standing up against the tradition of his time – with Socrates’s own revolutionary stance.
Euthyphro and Socrates as Rebels
By prosecuting his own father Euthyphro acts in opposition both to the received moral standards of his time and to the standpoint shared by his entire family. Fathers were considered not only the heads of their households but also the high priests of their families. They had highest authority in all religious and moral matters concerning members of the household including slaves and servants. Thus, the father’s action against Euthyphro’s servant fell entirely within his province as the moral and religious head of the family. Euthyphro’s subsequent prosecution of his father in a public court, by contrast, constitutes a serious act of impiety in the eyes of his peers, of rebellion against the religious and moral code of his time.
And this is what Euthyphro has in common with Socrates: They both are perceived as challenging established authority, and they both are accused – whether formally or informally – of being impious for this very reason.
Two Different Kinds of Rebellion
Euthyphro and Socrates differ, however, with regard to the nature of their respective rebellion against received wisdom and authority. As we saw, Euthyphro claims to have accurate and superior knowledge of the nature of piety. Thus he claims for himself the moral authority his father previously and still officially enjoys concerning matters of justice and moral decision-making, that is, he wishes to replace one authority by another.
Socrates, by contrast, does not express any such ambitions nor does he present himself as possessing any more knowledge or truth on such matters than anyone else. As we know from the Apology, the only kind of wisdom in which he officially claims to be superior to others is ‘human wisdom’ or knowing when he does not know something. Indeed, although the Euthyphro dialogue proceeds with Socrates questioning Euthyphro’s knowledge of piety and by gradually exposing the latter’s ignorance, we do not see Socrates coming up with any alternative positive theory of his own.
Another difference between Euthyphro and Socrates concerns their respective attitude toward the mythology of their time, and once again, this symbolizes a difference in their respective take on authority in matters of knowledge and truth.
Euthyphro, challenged for the first time by Socrates to produce a definition of piety, invokes the example of the god Zeus, who according to Greek mythology rebelled against and killed his father Chronos for devouring his own offspring, as well as of Chronos himself, who is said to have castrated his father Uranus for similar reasons. In Euthyphro's opinion, those who consider him impious for prosecuting his own father contradict themselves if at the same time they believe Zeus to be the best and most just of the gods. Socrates, however, is critical of those old myths in the first place, knowing that they were composed by poets.
Socrates also makes Euthyphro aware, for the first time, that questions of moral justice are not just a matter of divine authority and example but need to be answered by investigating the very nature of moral justice itself.
