In responding to Socrates, Euthyphro offers two "definitions" of piety. (He'll offer a third later.)
Def. 1: "I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer...not to prosecute is impious." (5e)
Def. 2: "What is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious." (7)
Explain the difference between the two types of answers that Euthyphro gives. Once you explain the difference, describe the strengths and weaknesses of each type of definition.
4 comments:
In definition 1, the actual meaning of the word pious is not explained with clearness or is not explained at all. All that is given is an example of something that is pious.
In definition 2, the word pious is defined more clearly than in Definition 1. According to Euthyphro, if something is pious, it's loved by the gods and if something isn't loved by the gods, it is impious. This definition is more defining and isn't an example unlike definition 1.
These two types of definitions both have their weaknesses and strengths.
For Definition 1, it's weakness is that the definition doesn't say much since it's only an example, and since it doesn't say much, it only applies for one situation and not all situations. However, as of its strengths, there aren't that many or possibly none at all.
For Definition 2, it's weakness is that gods can have different opinions on things. Due to the different opinions, certain things can be both pious and impious, and as a result, sometimes nothing much can be defined by this definition. This definition has a strength as well as weaknesses. The main strength of this definition is that it can apply to all situations unlike definition 1 which can only apply to one certain situation because it is an example.
Anthony, this is a wonderful example of a thoughtful blog post response!
the first defenition of peity was one example of a thing that is pious and is not that good of a defenition peity because it dosn't show a way to deduct if a thing is pious and therefore is not much of a defenition whereas the second defenition contains critria for diserning the rules for what fits the name of piety and what is not but it also states that the gods do not always agree and this means by this defenition a lot of things are both pious and impious depeding on which gods you look at for example Euthyphro trying his own father is both pious and impious because it will will go well with zeus who cut his father to bits but maybe not well with hera.
what this means is is defenition 1 is simple but you can barely use it and it is almost useles but defanition 2 is something that can be used but it's complicated.
-leopold
I completely accept the two definition given above by Anthony.
However I would like to focus on the second.
Saying that something is pious simply because the gods like it does not mean anything. All it says is that the gods like it.
This definition gives us information of the gods and absolutely nothing about piety itself.
Therefore the only thing one can conclude from this definition is that the gods like piety because it is pious.
Nothing has been gained by this definition!
-Santiljan
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