Spring 2009 201 Model Student Work

We'll use this page to post student work. You may take your name off your work if you wish.

Return to Human Nature

Euthyphro1

Response to Euthyphro When 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?” he is questioning the basis of things. He wonders about the relationship between two things, especially those which are in effect of one another. The question brings to mind a circle with one idea spawning another and no clear beginning or end. However, Socrates seems to believe definitively that piety is loved by the gods or that the gods create piety through their love; one is an affect of the other. If piety is pleasing to the gods, then people would be more in control for if they swayed their actions to be pious they would attain the favor of the gods. However, if the gods create piety then they would hold more power for people would respond in respect and humbleness to the gods will. Socrates would answer this question with a serious of questions regarding a similar topic, but one less complex. He would then relate the responses to these questions back to the original idea. For example, in Euthyphro, Socrates states that there is a difference between something carried and something carrying. He then goes on to ask if “the thing carried is a carried thing because it is carried, or for some other reason?” By addressing the idea from a simpler perspective, Socrates is able to achieve solid conclusions about issues that can be applied to a more complex situation. Though his dialogue, Socrates decides that something changes or is created because it is affected by something else and did not change or come about of its own accord to produce a response. He deems that “it is not being loved by those who love it because it is something loved, but it is something loved because it is being loved.” However he also comes to the conclusion that something is being loved because it is pious (which would be an act to produce a response) and that something is god-loved because it is loved by the gods (a state of being that causes an action). For Socrates, these two ideas clash and he comes to the conclusion that piety and god-loved are not synonymous.