Goodness In The Euthyphro

Goodness is a central question of life. Humankind tends to be good and the whole humankind seeks to the question of what goodness is. People throughout the history have changed notions of goodness, so strongly; and as a result, it has caused difficulties in defining goodness. Also it is obvious that people often correlate goodness and badness to their current requirements and needs. People tend to categorize everything; and since the beginning of human existence people use such words as morality, generosity, ethics, kindness to describe the goodness; and immorality, coarseness, infirmity to describe badness. However, the overabundance of sources which define goodness and badness such as society, religions, newspapers and social networks have

Socrates as a wise man understands that if someone or something form humans’ personality and views on surrounding, then it means that there is no place for you as a human being; and morality would be no more than just a delusion. Hence, Socrates tries to argue with Euthyphro to find the definition of goodness and asks Euthyphro questions. Euthyphro provides several definitions of goodness such as prosecuting his own father is an act of goodness, but Socrates quickly responses to him that it is only instance but not the definition. Then, he replies to Socrates that goodness is something that is pleasant to gods. However, Socrates is not satisfied with such definition and responses to Euthyphro that many of conflicts exist among the gods and what is pleasant to one god might be unpleasant to another. Consequently, Euthyphro says that goodness is something pleasant to all gods. So at end of dialogue, Socrates have not agreed with Euthyphro and says “So I think you’ve just been playing games with me, Euthyphro. I asked you to tell me what holiness really is, and it seems you’ve sneakily refused to tell me” (Plato, 1987, p.49). Thereby, the dialogue leaves readers with unanswered question “Does goodness exist?” and if it exists what goodness is. In the other words, it means that Euthyphro tries to find answer but due to lack of knowledge and

The answer to this question lies in the nature of human beings. Human beings naturally want to be satisfied with themselves and feel the sense of self-worthy. Moreover, doing good deeds makes you feel proud of yourself. Therefore, in order to be satisfied with themselves human beings do good actions. Doing good actions makes human beings feel good about themselves. Notwithstanding, it is not fully selfish reason because not only man who does good action gets benefits from it, but others also. When someone commits a good deed for you it makes you happy. For example,