Euthyphro, by Plato.
Cool quote from text:
“That is an enquiry which I shall never be weary of pursuing as far as in me lies; and I entreat you not to scorn me, but to apply your mind to the utmost, and tell me the truth. For, if any man knows, you are he; and therefore I must detain you, like Proteus, until you tell.”
You can read Euthyphro here: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html.
Euthyphro comes to see Socrates a bit before the events of the Apology. They aren’t expecting to see each other, especially since the setting is associated with the trial and incarceration. Socrates explains that he is being prosecuted by Meletus, one of the three prosecutors in the Apology, on the charges of corrupting the youth and not adhering to the state pantheon. Euthyphro says that he is prosecuting his own father, to which Socrates is surprised. Euthyphro’s father had accidentally killed a murderer, whom was bound and left in a ditch while the father went to seek advice from a diviner.
“And my father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer and prosecuting my father. They say that he did not kill him, and that if he did, the dead man was but a murderer, and I ought not to take any notice.”
Socrates, who is typically an unorthodox thinker, takes the conventional side, and questions the piety of prosecuting one’s own father. But Socrates is opportunistic, and understanding Euthyphro’s religious background and knowledge, he invites him to explicate his philosophy on the essence of holiness. Of course, Socrates will use the Socratic method in Euthyphro’s teaching.
“And I, my dear friend, knowing this, am desirous of becoming your disciple.”
Euthyphro commences with some lines about how piety is punishing impiety, and then he juxtaposes himself to the gods, saying how the public would venerate what Euthyphro was doing if he was a god, or if a god was doing it. Socrates doesn’t want to hear this, and asks Euthyphro what is the quality that makes something pious and holy.
“What is ‘piety’? When asked, you only replied, Doing as you do, charging your father with murder… Do you recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious, and the pious pious?”
Euthyphro says that what makes something pious is that which is loved by the gods, but then Socrates quickly bodies him by saying that different gods love different things, so an action that seems good to one god may be bad to another.
“You may very likely be doing what is acceptable to Hephaestus but disagreeable to Cronos…”
Socrates then states another point of dissatisfaction: what is it that makes the gods love or hate something. Euthyphro becomes stagnant, so Socrates offers to agree that what is pious is something that all the gods love, and what is impious is something that all the gods hate. Euthyphro is quick to accept it with a simple “Why not?”
However, Socrates brings up a new concern. Socrates questions whether a god loves something because it is pious, or is something pious because it is loved by the gods. Euthyphro accepts the former postulate, and ends up contradicting his past statements, as now holiness is useless and undefined. Gods love an action because it is pious, but what is it that makes it pious; Euthyphro is unsure.
“Socrates: I mean to say that the holy has been acknowledged by us to be loved of God because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved.
Euthyphro: Yes.”
Socrates then looks at piety as “a part of justice.” Euthyphro asserts that the part of justice that holiness composes is that which is attending to the gods. Socrates puts the assertion into the context of horse tamers attending to horses and other examples. With these examples, Socrates deduces that the attendance toward something benefits it, which Euthyphro agrees to, yet when Socrates regards this in the context of man attending to God, Euthyphro says that in no way does an action of man help or improve the gods.
“Socrates: Would you say that when you do a holy act you make any of the gods better?
Euthyphro: No, no; that was certainly not what I meant.”
Socrates is clearly more wise. Euthyphro persists in saying that the attendance toward gods is more about service, likes tributes and sacrifices. These actions simply please the gods, and don’t improve them in any way.
But, as I'm sure you can tell, the action pleases the gods, it makes them happy. This is essentially Euthyphro's first statement that piety is what is loved by the gods.
“Socrates: Piety, then, is pleasing to the gods, but not beneficial or dear to them?
Euthyphro: I should say that nothing could be dearer.”
At this point, Euthyphro says he has to go, and Socrates is left in despair, still with no answer on the essence of “just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable.”