The Euthyphro Dialogue

The Euthyphro Dialogue

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THE EUTHYPHRO DIALOGUE

In the Euthyphro dialogue, Plato considers the question “what is piety?” (Grube, 1991) By so doing, he wants to establish whether piety is doing whatever gods want or if what gods wants is pious. Plato observes that both answers are unsatisfactory thus creating a dilemma. According to Plato in this dialogue, piety can be defined as “that which is dear to the gods” or what the gods love (Grube, 1991). For the purposes of this paper, piety will be substituted for morality. This essay is a philosophical analysis of the Euthyphro problem including the two main claims made by Socrates make as they dialogue with Plato, the Divine command Theory and finally the paper will attempt to conclude which of the two claims made by Socrates Plato considers correct.

The Euthyphro problem is derived from Plato’s dialogue in which Socrates asks whether something is right simply because God commands it or if God command and recommends it because it is right. The first of the claims is that something is right because God commands it. In this claim it follows that it would also be right if god commanded otherwise. In the second claim, God commands that something is morally right because in infinite wisdom it is obviously to him right. This eliminates to arbitrariness of God’s commands. To solve which of the two claims is correct some scholars have argues their case using the divine command theory but it has created logical dilemmas which has it has not been fully able to address. In the observations by Plato, religion should borrow from morality but moral concepts can exist as separate entities from religion.

Divine command theory can be described as a morality view which states that what is right is what the gods commands and what is wrong is basically what the gods forbids. It “ties together morality and religion” so that it appears comfortable for some people since it provides a convenient solution to arguments such as moral relativism as well as objectivity of ethics (Austin, 2006).

The ethical implication of this problem based on the divine command theory is that religion and morality are not distinct as previously thought. In this problem when an interlocker accepts either of the claims that Socrates makes, they are forced to logically conflict other beliefs that they have thus creating a logical dilemma that they must solve. Take for example, if morality is based on whatever gods will, then if the will of God of whatever is morally wrong now changes, whatever is wrong become right and so if God commands people to murder babies, it follows that murdering babies will be morally right since morally right actions arise because God commands it. The second implication is that when morality is independent of God’s will, God cannot make what is wrong to be right, it will then generally be concluded that God will then have no option but to conform his will to something that is independent of him. The second implication therefore places a constraint on God since if God were supremely good and morality independent of him, then God can only will what that which is good. This would deny him the quality of being omnipotent but since God is omnipotent, morality can Restrict God but be dependent on the nature of God. He is the ultimate reality in which everything morally good needs to relate back to his nature.

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