Euthyphro Is God Then The Source Of What Is Wrong

Euthyphro is a story of a self-righteous man who’s taking his own father to court, and Socrates basically asks him how does he know if what he’s doing is the right thing. To which Euthyphro mindlessly replied, “I’m doing what is loved by the gods.”

During their mid-conversation, Socrates posts a critical question: Is God then the source of what is right and what is wrong?

Socrates basis for asking that question goes something like: is something is good because god commands it or does god commands something because it’s good. If something is good simply because god commands it, anything can be considered good. In fact, to say that something is good means nothing more than god commands it. However, if god commands something because it’s good,
Euthyphro didn’t seem to really care all about defining what is righteousness. He seems to only care that he himself was in the right.

Another relating point that I want to bring about is Socrates often makes an indirect claim that he doesn’t know much of anything. The things that people thinks they know aren’t actually things that they know. Problem was, Socrates would ask a very basic question to a leaders such as Euthyphro what is righteous, and they would answer then Socrates would raises more question, around and around. This would go on until the person that Socrates was talking to (such as Euthyphro) winds up in the same position, recognizing that they didn’t know all that they thought they knew, then walks out irritated.

I think, this raise an interesting humanity question for us. We claim that we value the truth more than lies, yet at the same time we would found ourselves similarly irritated by people (like Socrates) who challenge our ideas and put us in a position where suddenly the idea that we have been defending, we can suddenly see it’s not a good position that we thought it was, yet typically we don’t welcome