Story of Euthyphro

A.) Both Euthyphro and Socrates were interested in the meaning of ‘holy’.Euthyphros was interested in the word in regards to his father’s trial and his question “what is piety?” comes from the fact that there was no separation of church and state. The well-being of Athens was believed to depend on its gods and any ungodly individual could bring down the wrath of the gods on the whole population. Euthyphro said “Well then, I say that the holy is what I am now doing, prosecuting the wrongdoer who commits a murder or a sacrilegious robbery, or sins in any point like that .... And not to prosecute would be unholy”. Socrates wanted the definition of holy not actions that are holy. Socrates then asked the question how he defines the holy and the unholy. Socrates said “Is not the holy always one and the same thing in every action ...? And as to unholiness, does it not always have its one essential form, which will be found in everything that is unholy?” so that he could figure out everything before he went to trial for indictment by Meletus.

B.) One of the major differences between Socrates and Euthyphro is that Socrates poses as the student in need of direction in his defense while Euthyphro takes the role of the learned teacher. Socrates was renown both for his penetrating self-examination and his relentless questioning of others. Euthyphro was a diviner and self-proclaimed "expert in piety. Euthyphro makes several attempts to explain to Socrates the meaning of piety and impiety and Socrates makes several objections to everything that Euthyphro says. If an Athenian citizen would have had questions about how to please the gods they would have gone to Euthyphro because he said that Euthyphro we should be looking after the gods in the way that a slaves look after their masters, his idea is to please the gods.

C.) The outcome of Euthyphro and Socrates’ conversation is Euthyphro suggests that the part of justice that is concerned with looking after the gods is...