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Essay / will be both pious and impious (since it will be dear to some gods and cheap to others). Euthyphro's Third Attempt After some prompting from Socrates, Euthyphro then adopts the following definition of piety: “the pious is what all the gods love, and the opposite, what all the gods hate, is impious. (9th) Socrates' objection: This is where Socrates brings up (what we called in class) the problem of Euthyphro. He asks Euthyphro whether "the pious is loved by the gods because he is pious, or is something pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a) The idea here is that there must be an order of explanation. Either the gods recognize pious things and love them because they are pious, or the gods simply love everything they do, and it is because the gods love these things that they are pious. So it seems that we face a dilemma: on the one hand, if we say that things are pious because the gods like them, then it seems that what is pious or not depends on the arbitrary whim of the gods. Because what the gods may or may not like seems to be as arbitrary as whether or not you like mint chocolate chip ice cream. That piety and ungodliness can be so willy-nilly seems to run counter to our initial intuitions about what godliness is. However, on the other hand, if things are pious independent of the gods, and the go ends up liking pious things because they are already pious, then it seems that the role of the gods is diminished. For why should we need the gods if things are pious and impious independently of them? Furthermore, defining “piety” as what all gods love does not bring us any closer to understanding what piety is. For perhaps it is good that all the gods love what is pious, but Socrates wanted to know what piety was, and not what the consequence was (for example, that all the gods love it). This leads Socrates to complain: "You have spoken to me of an affect or quality of the [pious], that the pious has the quality of being loved by all the gods, but you have not yet told me says what the pious is. (11b) Euthyphro's Fourth Attempt Still prompted by Socrates, Euthyphro then tries to say how righteous actions and pious actions are related. He then asserts that "the pious and the pious is that part of the righteous which is concerned with the care of the gods, while that which is concerned with the care of men is the remaining part of righteousness." (12th) Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay The idea goes something like this: Justice covers many things - things having to do with gods and men. Piety, on the other hand, only concerns righteous things that concern only gods (and not men). So while all godly things are righteous, not all godly things are righteous..
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