Introduction: 2a-5c

Setting: King-Archon's Court

Characters: Socrates, Euthyphro

• (a) Socrates' Case 2b

• (b) Euthyphro's Case 3e

Question: What is piety? 5d

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Definition 1: Piety is doing what I am doing now, 5d

Objection: does not have proper form.

Socrates seeks

• (a) some one thing 6d

• (b) a model 6e

Definition 2: Piety is what is dear to (loved by) the gods. 7a

Elenchus (Refutation): The same things are both god-loved and god-hated. 8a

Definition 3: Piety is what all the gods love. 9e

Elenchus:

• (a) Is it loved because it is pious?

  or

• (b) Is it pious because it is loved? 10a

Socrates objects that Euthyphro's definition is of the form (b) not (a).

It describes an effect, or piety as having something happen accidentally to it.

Interlude: Socrates is like Daedalus, who made statues that ran away. 11c

Socrates' Hint: Piety is a part of justice. 12d

Definition 4: Piety is the part of justice concerned with care of the gods. 12e

Elenchus: How can we construe "care of" in this definition?

• (a) "care of" = tending as in tending horses or sheep; aims at benefit. 13a

  It is absurd to say that we are pious in order to benefit the gods.

• (b) "care of" = service as in a slave's service toward a master. 13d

  Service enables the thing served to achieve a fine end; but this is absurd to say about our service to the gods.

• (c) "care of" = how to sacrifice and pray (= a kind of trading with the gods) 14c

  This amounts to saying that if we are pious, we give the gods what pleases them. So we are back to Definition 2 or 3.

Conclusion: Socrates persists, Euthyphro runs off. 15d