The Euthyphro

American University of Beirut

Course: Humanities

Instructor: M. Ali H. Dimerdji

Name: Chekralla Hanna

Date: 27/6/2017

Euthyphro

        The Euthyphro is a classic early dialogue of Plato's: it is brief, deals with a question in ethics, consists of a conversation between Socrates and one other person who claims to be an expert in a certain field of ethics, and ends inconclusively. It is also spiced with Socratic irony: Socrates poses as the ignorant student hoping to learn from a supposed expert, when in fact he shows Euthyphro to be the ignorant one who knows nothing about the subject (holiness and piety). There are some ideas that I liked and I do support them like when Euthyphro is prosecuting his own father, and the way of Socrates to argue others; however, the error Plato made in this question that causes this dilemma is the use of the figure of God as the strict ruler.

        Euthyphro is prosecuting his own father for murdering. The thing that everyone finds strange about this situation is that the father killed a murderer, not a good guy. The question that asks itself “is Euthyphro wrong for impeaching his own father?” I believe that he is right. This decision might be hard, but personally I think that I will be able to do it because nobody has the right to kill a man, even if he was a murderer, and all that we can do is punish him and try to make him a better person that will come regret his previous actions. I also believe that God will sentence everyone on every little thing he did in his life, and we have no right to do that ourselves.  

        Socrates, sarcastically, asks Euthyphro to make him his student, teach him, help him, and make him wiser. For a second, I thought that Socrates actually wanted to be his student because he respected him, but I realized later that he asked to be the student to test him and make Euthyphro see that he does not have all the answers as he claims. I really do like this method of questioning, criticizing people, and making them see how unaware they are, and I think that I will use it later in my life because of its clever way to handle the cases and to show this point of view politely.

        Let’s move on to the main purpose of the essay, piety. Euthyphro the pious is doing what he believes is right regardless of what the situation is or who the person is (even if a family member was involved). I liked to refer to the bible, and I found the verse James 4:17, “A man who knows the right thing to do and yet does not do it commits sin within his own heart.” So, I agree with the decision of Euthyphro, because to fail in punishing his father would be impious and bad for him (and others).