show how understood and are able to provide an analysis of the dilemma in the excerpt from Plato's "Euthyphro." difference between giving an example of "piety" as opposed to a definition of it. How does Euthyphro ultimately define piety and what dilemma does this lead to or what new questions or problems does it raise. What do you think is the point or overall message of this piece. examples of contemporary or recent historical cases which may be representative of this sort of dilemma.

Euthyphro is in the Portico because he wants to accuse his father. He wants to accuse him of murder.... His father had murdered a mercenary who was in the service of Euthyphro. The mercenary in a moment of drunkenness became irritated against one of the servants and slit his throat. Euthyphro's father, who did not like this action, attacked the mercenary and threw him into a well. After some time the mercenary died of starvation.

Despite having killed a citizen, the relatives of Euthyphro's father do not take the accusation seriously, since the man his father had killed, in turn killed a man. Moreover, the relatives claim that it is impious to accuse a father of murder.

Socrates seems to be very happy, since Euthyphro could help him in his trial because Euthyphro seems to know what it is to be really ungodly.

What is it to be ungodly?

Having told this, Euthyphro told Socrates that he could explain for himself the concept of ''godliness.'' Euthyphro claims that being godly is that very thing he is doing with his father.

Euthyphro says as a first definition:

''Piety demands the punishment of the guilty party, be it father, mother, or some other individual who is beside the point; not to do so is precisely the impious thing to do.''
Besides, how can Euthyphro be blamed for being impious with his father if Zeus himself put his father in chains for devouring his children? Despite all this, Zeus is considered the most just of all the gods.

However, Socrates upon hearing this is not satisfied with this and wants to investigate further. It was said earlier that the gods have conflicts and quarrels, and indeed they do. Let us look at Greek mythology and we will see that many of the Greek gods fought among themselves in violent ways.

Why do we humans fight?

According to Socrates, human beings have conflicts because of the differences we have with each other. The indecision to specify what is just, what is unjust, what is beautiful and what is ugly would lead us to have differences and therefore to have conflicts. Euthyphro adds that this is the cause of why the gods fight.

If we follow this logic, we will find that there are men who like some things and others who dislike them. For example, Euthyphro considers his father's punishment as legitimate, but his father's relatives do not. The same case would present itself to the gods, i.e., perhaps Zeus would find it good for his father to receive punishment, but it may be hateful to Cronus.

Against this, Euthyphro tells us that he believes that among the gods there must be a consensus that a homicide against whomever is an aberration to the gods and that such a homicide should receive punishment.

Now how could Euthyphro prove this? Socrates for the moment releases Euthyphro from answering this question, but now Euthyphro gives us a new definition, the second definition:

''The pious is just what all the gods approve, while, on the contrary, everything that the gods reprove is impious''.
Of course, now Socrates answers him with the following question:

''Is what is godly approved by the gods because it is godly, or is it godly because it is approved by the gods?'' 
From the beginning it could be complicated to understand this sentence, but it must be understood in the following way: a thing is approved by the gods by the fact that it is pious and NOT by the fact that it is approved by the gods.

On the other hand, if the gods approve of something, it means that they approve of it because they love it, but the gods can love many things besides piety. So we come to the conclusion that it is loved because it is pious and it is not pious because it is loved by the gods.

The pious is pious because it is righteous.

Euthyphro is totally confused and unable to define what is pious. Socrates decides to save him and ventures another definition by giving the connotation of justice to piety.

Where there is fear there is reverence

To begin with, Socrates analyzes the following sentence from Stessinus of Cyprus(1):

''You do not want to celebrate Zeus who made and begot all this; for where fear is there is also reverence.''

Socrates does not agree with this sentence at all. The explanation is basically the following: people feel fear of diseases, poverty and other things, but they do not feel respect (or reverence) for them, but only fear. However, where there is reverence there IS fear. For Socrates, where there is fear there is not necessarily reverence.

Piety and care

So to what extent is piety justice or justice is piety? Socrates tells us that first of all, piety is part of justice, since justice is not necessarily piety.

Euthyphro gives us another definition:

Well Socrates, here is the part of justice which, in my opinion, is religious and pious: it is none other than that which deals with the veneration of the gods; all the rest, that is, concerning men, constitutes the other part of justice''. 
Socrates does not agree with this definition of Euthyphro and explains why. When we speak of veneration we are supposed to mean praising someone's qualities and hoping that they will be better. In addition, veneration also entails caring for gods.

This veneration or this action is always done with a result of hoping for some utility: For example, veneration can be done to appease the wrath of the gods. From this Socrates tries to interpret Plato's definition as follows: If piety consists in veneration of the gods, that means that piety enhances one of the gods.

Piety and services

Euthyphro is confused, saying that he never intended to say anything like that, i.e., that the gods improve through piety. Euthyphro explains to him that the care he speaks of is one similar to that applied to slaves. Socrates gives him a few examples to complement what he says:

The services of the physician have to do with health.
The services of those who build ships is the building of ships.
The services of those who build houses is the building of houses.

Therefore, the servants of the gods have to do with the gods. Now, after the servants do their services to God, what are the works that the gods do because of these services? Euthyphro cannot answer this question and again mentions that whoever does what is pleasing to the gods (sacrifices and supplications) is therefore pious and whoever does the opposite is impious.

Socrates seeing that Euthyphro does not adequately answer the question and returns to his earlier idea that the pious is the one who worships the gods. Finally, Euthyphro agrees with Socrates that piety is the science of supplications and of presents to the gods.

Therefore, what services do these servants of the gods perform? It would seem to consist in giving supplications and gifts to the gods, but.... How could they give presents and gifts to someone who has no need of them precisely because they are gods? What profit do the gods derive from the entreaties and presents? Euthyphro answers these questions by saying that the presents given to the gods are tokens of gratitude and respect. Thus, it is affirmed that what is pious is pleasing to the gods.

Step-by-step explanation

The dilemma applied to Christianity
Having understood its original version, let us now see how Euthyphro's dilemma is applied today, especially as an argument against the claim that God exists. Within Christianity there is a whole monotheistic theory of morality that tries to explain that things are holy in relation to God.

The theist who believes that God is a necessary being and possesses the classical qualities of deity (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent...) attributes to him all moral reality and grounds in him all that is good. God is the source of morality.

Starting from this idea, many Christians defend that God exists because with his existence we can speak "objectively" of what is good and right and differentiate it from what is bad and wrong.

God must exist out of necessity because, for example, killing innocents is universally seen as immoral. This view of this particular act as immoral would be proof that there is a God who guides us, telling us what is right and wrong, and how we should act.

And this is where the Euthyphro dilemma wielded by non-believers comes in, whether adopted to the vision of the Christian God or to Jehovah, Allah or the monotheistic deity that pertains, although instead of speaking of "what is holy", one speaks of "what is good". Thus, readapting the dilemma the question would be "is something good because God says so or God says so because it is good?" Both options are contrary and, as with its classical version, we have to choose one of them; one cannot affirm both as valid at the same time.

In a way it resembles the chicken and egg dilemma, only here we are talking about morality and God and whether or not the former is a consequence of the latter. Does the goodness of things exist by itself or is it God who decides that this is the way things are? If God decides, then can he decide that something moral becomes immoral? is he omnibenevolent in case he changes his mind? If morality does not exist outside of God, can it really be said that everything "good" is good and everything bad is "bad"?

Euthyphro's dilemma has been widely used by non-believers as an argument to demolish the positions in favor of the existence of God, since with it, whether one chooses one or the other of the options it raises, the same conclusion is reached: it cannot be demonstrated that God exists through morality to what extent God, supposedly omnipotent, decides whether things are good or bad or to what extent he has all the capacity to rightly decide what is right, being supposedly omnibenevolent.

Let's take a more practical example to understand what we have just said. Let us imagine that the moral argument has just been used to say that God exists, that is, that morality is objective because it emanates from God himself. God must exist because thanks to him we know what is right and what is wrong. Then, to refute this someone speaks of Euthyphro's dilemma, saying that 1) either things are good because God so decides or 2) good things attract God.

If we choose the first option it implies that objective morality does not exist, since it is not something that exists in nature per se but because God so decides. Thus the whole argument used for the existence of God would be falsified, indicating that we cannot be sure of its existence because this option implies affirming that morality is arbitrary.

If it is arbitrary, if there are things that can be good one day and bad the next, then God is not omnibenevolent because what reason would he have to change his mind? Isn't it assumed that what is right is right forever?

What happens if the second option is chosen? There are still problems with the theistic moral theory. This option says that good things exist independently of God and that it is these things that dictate to God what his moral preferences should be. One could go so far as to say that these very things and their characteristics, in this second option, guide God in his existence according to that which is good.

This second option implies that God is not the source of morality, and therefore the good exists independently of him. As a consequence of this, the doctrine of the aseity of God, i.e., to be able to trust him, is tremendously affected, since he himself would not know what is right, he would have to receive it from the nature of things and we would have to trust that he would know how to see it.

God himself must submit to what is good, he does not decide what is right and what is wrong, which calls into question the concept of God as the ultimate authority in the universe. How can he be the Supreme Being if he does not decide what is right or wrong, but the properties of things? What is above him and how does he solve this problem?

The conclusions in both options imply concluding that God, whether he can decide what is moral or not, is neither omnipotent nor omnibenevolent and could not be trusted. If he can decide on moral issues he does so arbitrarily and, therefore, his judgment may not be the wisest or the most benevolent. If he does not decide, then he does not have absolute power over nature, but rather nature controls him and decides what he should and should not do.

Another option to this is that even God, even within his supposed omnipotence, cannot change absolutely everything, which in itself is a contradiction to this quality. As we have mentioned before, the idea of killing innocents is wrong and our mentality, whatever it is, does not conceive the possibility that this could ever be right in any scenario. So, even if we could change the moral and make it immoral, there would be concrete aspects like this particular one that God could not alter. Killing innocents is already immoral in a natural way, without God's intervention.