Is Euthyphro Pious In Prosecuting His Father

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Is Euthyphro pious in prosecuting his father? According to the Euthyphro, the main characters like Socrates and Euthyphro have their own notions about piety. The way the main characters understand piety is different from each other. The first, Euthyphro examines himself and brings evidence against his father. The second, Socrates asks Euthyphro, have you known what a piety is if your attitude is confident that you indict your father for a crime. (Plato (1997), p.77.). Socrates tries to look for one standard definition of piety. Let, have a look at what piety means to Euthyphro. He comes up with the several suggestions about piety: “to prosecute a wrongdoer is pious and not to prosecute is impious”; “what all the gods hate is impious, and what they all love is pious”; “where there is piety there is also justice” (Plato (1997), p.88.). In Euthyphros actions to prosecute his father he relies on this statement. Even though, he considers himself as pious man, Euthyphro is pious in prosecuting his father. Look at Euthyphros notion “to prosecute a wrongdoer is pious and not to prosecute is impious”. Let imagine this case as his father is guilty and he would hide it from authorities, from …show more content…

According to the dictionary.com, the word piety has another meaning “dutiful respect or regard for parents”. It can be seen that Euthyphro does not respect his father and does not value family. Euthyphro’s relatives say that “it is impious for a son to prosecute his father for murder” (Plato (1997), p.80.). In this regard, prosecuting his father is equal killing him. The relationship between fathers and children are broken. It means that he is not considers as a pious, who would play a role of son anymore.However, Euthyphro is pious in prosecuting his father. He gives society the hope that justice will triumph. Euthyphro plays a role of defendant who will stay with the rights of human beings and he defend the right of