Euthyphro: “What is dear to the gods is pious.”
Socrates: “Is something pious because it is dear to the gods, or is it dear to the gods because it is pious?”
Socrates’ question is astute because it requires Euthyphro to distinguish piety itself (the essence, the form) from incidental truths about (qualities or affects of) piety. If Euthyphro had said (which he did not) that something is pious because it is loved by the gods, then he would implicitly have denied that piety has any essence beyond the preferences of the gods, that it is anything at all beyond this but a mere word. “Pious” would then have been, in this view, shorthand for “what happens to be dear to the gods.” Such a definition of piety defines “pious” away, as it were, rendering piety an uninteresting idea with little to teach us. The reason for this is that once piety is made relative to the preferences of the gods (or of anyone else), the concept is no longer available to reason. That is, we could no longer think about its meaning since what is pious would then become, on this alternative, a mere matter of preference—the preferences of the gods’. There would then be no logic of piety that would sustain a fruitful inquiry.[1]
On the second option presented to Euthyphro, something is dear to the gods because it is pious. This way of putting it preserves the logical integrity of the concept of piety, but, of course, it does not offer any insight into that logic, for piety is now only incidentally, not essentially, dear to the gods. We might as well say (and truly, for all I know) that whatever is pious is dear to the abbots of Lombardy, but that remark yields no insight into the nature of piety.[2]
The reasoning offered to Euthyphro by Socrates clears the deck, as it were. It makes it clearer to Euthyphro (or should) that if he is to know whether he is acting piously, he must think about piety itself rather than about what’s dear to the gods or anyone else.
One way to understand Socratic piety is to see its connection with humility, the humility that is the opposite of Euthyphro’s conceit. Because he is at once afraid of thinking and in the grip of a foolish self-confidence (these two conditions are identical in Euthyphro’s case), Euthyphro is unable to take concern in that which should most concern him in his present action. The dialogue, in short, shows in the character of Euthyphro the definition of impiety and, to that extent, the unthinking, banal, even cowardly nature of injustice as a character trait; for, lacking piety, Euthyphro also lacks justice.[3]
Elenchus is not merely an intellectual practice, however appropriate a game-like approach may be; it is also a moral one. The progress of definition in the Euthyphro, for example, is finally circular, and this circle of reasoning is emblematic of Euthyphro’s character. Euthyphro’s dialogue with Socrates reveals to some extent who Euthyphro is and presents him with the opportunity to change.
[1] One criterion of a concept worthy of elenchic examination is that it sustains an open question. By that I mean that after one has described in other terms whatever it is that one thinks the term under discussion refers to, it remains a sensical question to ask whether the term actually does apply. Goodness, for example (and primarily), is such a concept. No description of anything to which “good” applies that does not contain the word “good” will render it nonsensical to ask, “Yes, but is it good?” It appears that the definitions of such concepts are theoretically endless. Under the exigency of practice, however, a theoretical reflection artfully applied will bring a perfectly effective knowledge to its limited situation. A sense of taste or tact is necessary to bring an incomplete theoretical knowledge to successful application. (All the more so since each such application is an occasion of the theory’s development.)
[2] For ‘pious and impious’ read ‘right and wrong,’ and for ‘what is dear to the gods’, read ‘what God wills’. Then you have an exactly parallel line of reasoning about the relation of morality to the will of God. I.e., this question results: “Does God will something because it is right, or is it right because God wills it?” On one alternative, morality is autonomous and independent of God’s will; on the other, morality is relative to God’s will and so lacks autonomy. (If something is right because God wills it, then if God’s will changes, then so does right (and wrong). Also, if something is right because God wills it, no-one can sensibly think about what is right and wrong independently of discovering what God’s will is. This line of thought applies to other moral terms as well, so if morality is relative to God’s will, then it makes no sense to say that God is good, since what is good and bad is relative to his will.) This, at least, is the logic that dashes any immediate or obvious connection between morality and God’s will and which must be overcome by anyone who believes that right and wrong is somehow essentially connected to God’s will. Perhaps one promising line of exploration is the parallel with the will of God and the will of a legislature. ‘Legal’ refers to what is willed by the legislature (let’s say), so something is legal because it is willed by the legislature; it is not willed by the legislature because it is legal. But it does not follow that the will of the legislature is unaccountable; the legislature, if it works as it should, expresses its will on the basis of legal principle and out of a concern for the common good. But the legislature also has a hand, in the exercise of its constitutional power, in educating both the traditions of legal principle and the public’s practical conception of the common good. Thus, the will of the legislature is neither arbitrary and unaccountable, nor entirely subsequent to some prior notion of legality or the public good. In short, I suggest that Socrates’ question, properly regarded, is not a logic-chopper, but a heuristic with which to think about the relation between preferences and the good (or: will and piety).
[3] Euthyphro agrees with Socrates that piety is a part of justice. A just person will therefore be pious, and an impious person unjust.