Essay Example on Exploring the Relationship Between Euthyphro's Piety and DCT Ethics

In our presentation, we are going to discuss the relationship that exists between Euthyphro's definition of piety and the Devine Command Theory of ethics. Euthyphro's meaning for piety seemingly agrees with the arguments presented in the theory. In this work, therefore, we are going to base our discussion on the definition of piety on this theory.

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We shall explain what Divine Command Theory (DCT) means so that we can connect with the meaning of piety according to Euthyphro. The proponent of the theory proposes that an act is wrong because God prohibits it and on the other hand, an action is right because God says that we do it. For instance, it is illegal to commit adultery because in the Bible God prohibits us from committing adultery. Hence, it implies that adultery is wrong just because God forbids it. Some people argue that Devine Command Theory of ethics is questionable as justified by dilemma seen in Plato's Euthyphro when Euthyphro struggles while defining the meaning of piety.

For Athenians, it is against their culture and immoral for a child to fail respect and revere his father. Hence, he pursues a lawsuit against his father against the expectation of society. Defending a case which the people in the community of Athens would have treated as right about his father seem that he agrees with the principles of DCT. For him, if action is impious, then it doesn't matter who commits that act. Family members notwithstanding. In his answer to Socrates when the later ask him what piety means, he tells him that piety is doing what he had done, that is, prosecuting his father for committing a murder crime. According to Athenian culture, children ought to give respect to their parents, but Euthyphro chose to against this by filing a lawsuit against him. In DCT, if an action is wrong, then that is what matters and not who did it. Therefore, filing a case against his father was because the actions his father had done were wrong and it was only right for him and the society to treat it as so.

Socrates doesn't get convinced by his answer, and he continues to ask Euthyphro to substantiate what he meant in his definition of piety. In trying to explain to Socrates the meaning of an act of being pious or impious, Euthyphro tries to justify his action against his father. He argues that the act of murder is sinful and therefore blasphemous to his father to kill. Thus, Euthyphro is under obligation to decry this immoral act just like any other member of the Athenian society. The perpetrator in question must, therefore, must face the law of the land because it is wrong to kill. For him, the dead man who is an outsider must get justice as it would have been so for a family member. The pollution caused to the family by the killing of his father is equal to that felt by outsiders. Therefore, the best way to purify himself is to do the 'pious'-file a lawsuit against his father. From our interpretation, this implies that if impiety of something has no relationship with the person that commits the deed, or the type of relationship that exists between such people and us then what makes an act pious is intrinsically instigated act. It is out of the above reasons that Socrates goes on to question Euthyphro's understanding of piety. The question he asks is whether it is right for Euthyphro to carry on with the case against his father.

In his third definition, Euthyphro believes that everything dear to the gods or that the gods' love is pious. He asserts that his action is pious because it is the same as some of the acts their gods committed against their fathers. Euthyphro does not only compare what he does to his father to the actions of the gods, but he also reasons that his actions must be pious because the gods did the same. To justify this, he gives mythology in the Athenian culture. He believes in what the gods do. For example, in mythology, Zeus is a God seen as just and that he bound Kronos, his father. The god had swallowed his children without justice. Kronos also castrated Quranos, his father on such grounds. Therefore, for Euthyphro, whatever the gods love is utterly pious and hence moral. If the gods kill, then it is right or pious to kill, and people should do what the gods love. His description of Zeus implies that Zeus should be taken as a role model merely because the god is just and according to him pious. To this point, Euthyphro has not answered Socrates question of whether proceeding with the case against his father would be pious. He only believes that the gods commit any impious act.

Socrates continues to dig deep into Euthyphro's understanding of piety by asking him whether something is pious because the gods love it or the gods love it because it is pious. He answers that he doesn't know. Euthyphro cannot answer the question, and Socrates explains to him what he believes to be pious as opposed to Euthyphro belief.

Conclusion

In our conclusion, it is hard to explain the meaning of piety even if we base it on the explanations given by the proponents of the Divine Command Theory of ethics. The evidence from the answers provided by Euthyphro when Socrates ask him to give us the meaning of piety. To show that piety is a complicated thing to understand, Christians believe that it is wrong and immoral to kill according to what God wants in the Bible. But, in the book of Joshua, we read that God ordered Joshua to kill all the people in two cities of Ai and Jericho. Therefore, if it is impious to kill, why is it moral when God commands Joshua to kill? That is the complex question that people are left not knowing how to answer when dealing with the definition of piety and impiety while they believe in DCT.