Euthyphro: Trading with the Gods

Euthyphro's last attempt to define piety starts from the claim that piety is the part of justice "which attends to the gods" (Euth. 12e5-8), the kind of attention "servants show to their masters" (13d5-6). Pressed on what this service actually achieves, he falls back on saying that piety is "learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices," which leads to the preservation of families and states (14b2-5). Socrates restates this as a "science of praying and sacrificing" (14c5-6), and since sacrificing is giving to the gods and prayer is asking of them, piety becomes "a science of asking and giving" (14c8-d2). He then adds an assumption Euthyphro never stated, that the right way of giving is "to give to them in return what they want of us" (14e1-2), and only once that is in place does piety turn into "an art which gods and men have of doing business with one another" (14e6-7). So the language of trade is Socrates' and not Euthyphro's, and Euthyphro only half accepts it ("That is an expression which you may use, if you like," 14e8).

Socrates then questions whether this definition returns to the earlier claim of it being something that is loved by the gods. By framing Euthyphro's definition as a transactional relationship Socrates begins to reduce this definition, since a trade is judged by what each side gets out of it. He asks "what benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts" (14e10-11), when the gods already give us every good thing and we don't seem to give them anything they need (15a1-4). The intention is to show this trade is merely about pleasing the god. This receives the response that our gifts are "tributes of honour" (15a9-10) and not material benefits like in conventional trade, from which Socrates concludes that piety is "dear to the gods" (15b4-5) and that the argument "comes round to the same point" (15b10-c1). The point it comes round to is the earlier definition (that what all the gods love is pious, 9e1-3), which has already been rejected. There Euthyphro agreed that the pious is "loved of God because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved" (10e2-3), so being loved by the gods is "an attribute only, and not the essence" of piety (11a6-8). If the gods gain nothing from our gifts, then the only thing left that can make a gift a good one is that it pleases the god, which makes pious acts pious because the gods like them, and that is exactly what 10a-11b ruled out. This leads to the same problem as the original definition, collapsing under the inability to define piety by anything other than how the gods react to it.

Euthyphro could argue that piety is not defined by what pleases the gods, but instead by the intention to act according to clear and established rules for honoring each god. The difference is that on the all-gods definition whether an act is pious depends on how the gods respond to it. On the rules account it depends on whether the act was done correctly (the right offering, at the right time, in the right form), whatever the god happens to feel about it that day. The rules in question are well known through religious practices and traditions, which could also help defend Euthyphro's previous statement that knowledge of sacrifice and prayer is pious. They are public and can be learned, and Euthyphro's own father was waiting to "learn from the interpreters of the gods what he ought to do" with the servant (9a5-6). Socrates' own examples work the same way, since horsemanship and medicine (13a, 13d) have standards of correct practice and a doctor who follows them has done his job well even if the patient doesn't recover. If the person intends to honor the gods and actually follows the rules then the action would be pious, but believing that you are following the rules isn't enough. Therefore the piety of an action is rooted in the established rule of the god, together with the intention of the person to honor that god. Due to each god having their own domain, actions are thus pious when they align with the specific rules of the god that the person is attempting to honor.

I believe that this new revised account of piety, which stems from the rule-based action and intention of the person, provides a strong framework for understanding piety. I also think that this counters Socrates' final objection to Euthyphro, particularly the critique that piety is defined by what is pleasing to the gods. The reduction at 15b-c only works because the trade is judged by whether the gods are pleased. On the rules account Euthyphro doesn't have to say our gifts are "what pleases them" (15a9-10) and can say instead that they are the honor due to each god, given in the form the rules prescribe. Whether a gift was skillfully given is then settled by the rules and not by the god's reaction, so piety is no longer just what is dear to the gods. The emphasis of this argument on intention helps to strengthen it by aligning it with Socrates' view that for an action to be moral it requires knowledge. This model doesn't leave piety entirely up to subjectiveness, since it requires the individual to know and intend to adhere to the divine rules of the god they are attempting to honor. An example of this would be a general praying to Zeus pre-battle. The general is not acting out of vague intention but instead following well-established ritual practices (the right sacrifice, made the right way) for honoring Zeus, which demonstrates knowledge and intention, protecting this definition from becoming subjective or arbitrary. It is also close to what Socrates asked for at the start, "the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious" so that he would "have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions" (6d10-e6).

Socrates could respond by turning the question he asked at 10a1-3 on the rules themselves. Are the rules correct because the gods love them, or do the gods love them because they are correct? If the rules are correct because the gods love them, then they are only a record of what pleases the gods and the account falls back into 15b-c with one extra step. If the gods love the rules because they are correct, then something besides the gods' approval makes them correct, and that something (not the rules) would be what piety really is. In response to this I think Euthyphro can take the second option without losing his definition. He began by calling piety the part of justice that concerns the gods (12e5-8), so the rules could be correct because they give each god the honor owed to it, in the same way justice gives each person what they are owed. Just as justice has different forms depending on the context (legal vs family), so can piety. This means that it can be contextually determined but still be meaningful within those contexts, since what makes every rite pious is the same thing, giving the god what is due.

It is also important to discuss whether intention alone could be sufficient for an act to be pious. What if, for example, a person misinterprets the divine rules? While intention is critical, this new model also brings into consideration a knowledge of the divine rules. A person cannot be pious in their actions without this knowledge. This argument mirrors Socrates' broader view that virtue is inherently tied to knowledge. In his eyes, to act virtuously one must fully understand what virtue is. Likewise, a pious action must stem from the correct intention and an understanding of the rules of the god they are seeking to honor. One final thing to consider with this new definition of piety is that it leaves open the question of actions that are not performed with deliberate intent to please or honor a god. For example someone might act in self-defense, or be stopped on the street by people working for a charity and donate out of fear of social perception. This raises several questions: Can an action be pious if it is in accordance with divine rules but did not have a conscious dedication to a god? Are actions like self-defense or saving someone from a mugger excluded from piety? Could actions that are inherently brave, kind or virtuous be considered pious when there was no god in mind during the act? I still think that my model can accommodate this, but with some refinements. The key here would be to show that intention doesn't have to be a conscious dedication but more an alignment with what the gods are owed. Therefore, the act of preserving one's life might align with the views of a particular god and the intention to live virtuously or act according to justice would be enough to make an action pious. Justice, self-defense or charity can still be pious even when done reflexively because they give the gods what justice towards them requires.

So who has the upper hand at the end of this exchange? I think Euthyphro does, against the way the argument goes in the text, because the rules account breaks the step from saying our gifts are honor to saying piety is whatever pleases the gods. It doesn't end the inquiry though. By grounding the rules in justice Euthyphro is back at his own starting point, and Socrates' next question would be the one he was already asking at 13e10-11, about "that fair work which the gods do by the help of our ministrations" and why the honor is owed to them in the first place. I wonder whether Euthyphro could answer that one, but at least it would move the discussion forward instead of going round in the same circle the dialogue ends in.

Works cited

• Plato, Euthyphro, trans. Benjamin Jowett (Project Gutenberg #1642). Stephanus sections and line numbers follow Burnet's Oxford text.