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Euthyphro's Argument Analysis

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Socrates and Euthyphro meet at the Agora, and begin discussing what brings them to the king-archons court. Euthyphro begins telling Socrates, that he is bringing a case against his father who murdered a servant. Socrates is astounded that Euthyphro is bringing an indictment against his father, and asks for wisdom concerning a statement of piety so that he may fight his own accusations impiety. Euthyphro first proposes that “What is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious.” Socrates examines the argument and concludes that the gods “like what each of them considers beautiful, good, and just, and hate the opposites of these.” Furthermore what is loved by one god is hated by another, thus disproving the argument made by Euthyphro because …show more content…

To refute this, Socrates asks Euthyphro “Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods.” This brings to mind the concept of causality proposed by Immanuel Kant, so the question arises, who loves who, do the gods love the people because they are pious or do the people love the gods because they are the gods, and it is pious to love the gods. Causality tells us that event A causes event B, which is an effect, it should also be mentioned that event B cannot come before event A. Socrates further complicates the matter by stating, “nor is something carried because it is something carried, but it is something carried because it is being carried” in this case the carried thing is changed because it is carried

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