Is It Right for Euthyphro to Prosecute His Father?

Introduction

In consideration of the legal case that Euthyphro presented against his father, who had caught and tied an enslaved person who had killed one of his household slaves, it offers a moral dilemma between piety and justice. However, before submitting my case about why I believe it was right for Euthyphro to persecute his father, let’s first look at Euthyphro’s argument in his dialogue with Socrates. The murderer was drinking, and when he got drunk, he got into a fight, took a knife, and killed one of the household enslaved people after getting into a quarrel with him. Euthyphro, upon seeing that, tied the murderer and threw him into the ditch, where he was neglected and died because of hunger and exposure. Euthyphro then decided to prosecute his father for the unintentional death of the household enslaved person.

This paper presents the argument of why it is right for Euthyphro to persecute his father by evaluating the premises raised by Euthyphro in his dialogue with Socrates.

Justification of Euthyphro’s move to prosecute his father. 

There is a difference in how Socrates and Euthyphro understand piety. First, Euthyphro scrutinizes himself and presents evidence against his father, and second, Socrates asks whether Euthyphro knew what piety was since his attitude was confident to prosecute his father for a crime. However, Euthyphro argues that to indict a wrongdoer is pious, and failure to indict is impious, and all gods love pious, and what they hate is impious. Therefore, where there is piety, there is justice. Euthyphro believes that his father did wrong, and as a pious person, he has to be punished for the wrongdoing. Therefore, his action to indict his father relies on this premise. Although he perceives himself as pious, Euthyphro is pious in indicting his father (Euthyphro).

On the other hand, Euthyphro equites his justification to prosecute his father on the concept of pollution. Euthyphro has a good argument as far as pollution is considered in isolation. However, there is more than pollution at stake when we consider the essence of a person to prosecute his father, hence introducing another relevant concept of shame and honor. Euthyphro believes that the death of the murderer was wrongfully executed; thus, his father ought to be held accountable.

Moreover, the Athens law portrays that only relatives can prosecute an alleged killer for the murder of one of the other enslaved persons. However, the identity of the victim does not matter much in the murder trial. Nevertheless, Euthyphro, as a religious man, is concerned with justice and pollution because killing is unjust and causes pollution. Therefore, the killer, who happens to be his father, ought to be legally indicted regardless of who he is or whom he murders. Even though Athens’ tradition asserts that it is impious to dishonor, injure, or prosecute a parent, Euthyphro, in his conscience, perceives that this tradition cannot be applicable when achieving justice and sustaining pollution. I agree with Euthyphro’s sentiments that the victim’s identity should be irrelevant when prosecuting someone, and what should matter is the wrong at hand. Therefore, an individual can indict a case on behalf of a person outside your family, and more significantly, one should bring perpetrators to justice regardless of their personal relationship (Euthyphro, Lecture). On the other hand, Euthyphro’s relatives believe that he is acting impiously in indicting his father for killing a murderer. Perhaps the facts of the case portray that the situation is very clear that his father is guilty of homicide, unintentionally murdering a killer while trying to pursue expert religious guidance.

In his argument, Euthyphro is amused by Socrates to believe that he was wrong to prosecute his own parent and goes ahead to argue that it does not make any difference whether the victim is a relative or a stranger, and what matters is whether the murderer acted justly. That is, if he acted justly, he should be let free, but if not, the killer should be prosecuted, especially if you dine at the same table or he shares your household (Euthyphro). According to Euthyphro, pollution is the same, especially when one is aware of what is right, and you hide such a man and ignore to cleanse yourself and him from miasma by presenting him to justice. However, one can draw the following premises to come to a substantive conclusion:

Premises that can be drawn from Euthyphro’s arguments. 

– Implicit premise: murder causes miasma (pollution).

1. The identity of the person slayed does not matter.
2. If the murderer acted justly, he should be freed.
3. If the murderer acted unjustly, he must be prosecuted.
4. Pollution (miasma) is the same for all parties, especially if an individual hides someone unjustly killed.
5. If the murderer acted unjustly, he must be indicted regarding their pollution and household.

Therefore:

1. Any individual must prosecute someone even if they are from the same household, especially if he knows they have slayed unjustly to avert pollution.

With this argument laid out, one can evaluate how characteristics of primeval Greek religion influence the alleged truth values of the premises, obtaining intuition into Euthyphro’s thoughts.

The logic of pollution

In order to understand Euthyphro’s argument, we need to consider three value systems of Athenian society. First is the shame/honor system, which entails community and family relations. Second is the legal system that provides publicly known laws and a system for administering them. In addition, the Athenian legal structures also interrelate with kin-based shame/honor systems and observance of religion. Lastly is pollution, a religious value system that emphasizes maintaining a pure nation so that community members can create a unified religious society (Euthyphro, Lecture). However, in order to maintain a unified community, the process of ritual purification is needed to cleanse a polluted community. In regards to this, Socrates argues that Euthyphro’s father was adhering to this procedure by quarantining the laborer after he killed the enslaved person. Therefore, in a nation of bloodguilt, the enslaved person could not be allowed to associate with other people. And the messenger would have issued information concerning the required ritual purification. In this case, the concept of blood guilt or pollution equates to impiety in Christian traditions.

However, the move by Euthyphro to prosecute his father for the sinful act of killing lies in his notion that if pollution is left unchecked, it can overshadow legal justice and motivate personal vengeance. Therefore, in this case, innocent individuals can be affected by pollution or moral association. Besides, dining together with a polluted individual knowingly will incur pollution, but doing so unknowingly magnifies Euthyphro’s claim (Euthyphro). Therefore, I agree with Euthyphro that certain premises of his argument are true based on what pollution entails. Therefore, the act of prosecuting his father is justified in these premises, bearing in mind that his father had committed an impious act of killing the laborer.

The identity of the person murdered does not matter. 

The victim’s identity makes no difference based on incurring pollution, just as Euthyphro argues. Bloodguilt produces pollution. This zero is grounded in respect to any example of miasma in a society. Therefore, in this essence, Euthyphro does not see a non-concrete conception of justice regarding this assumption. While I might agree with Euthyphro that the identity of the person murdered is extraneous concerning manslaughter, his argument hinges on the nature of miasma, and that is why Euthyphro would emphasize this premise. Moreover, given the nature of pollution, the criminal’s identity doesn’t matter either (Euthyphro, Lecture). Thus, he justifies premise (4).

Consequently, based on the pollution-avoidance system, Euthyphro was right to prosecute whoever the wrongdoer was, although doing so violated the shame/honor system. First, his father entered into blood guilt by killing the laborer simply because he had killed the household enslaved person. Instead, he would have brought the victim to justice just like Euthyphro did to his father. Therefore, the nation that prosecuting your parent brings shame to the family lacks merit in this case because Euthyphro’s father was a wrongdoer who required punishment. Moreover, prosecuting his father justifies doing what is pious and what gods love. Since Euthyphro was a pious man, he was obligated to perform what gods love since failure to prosecute his father equates to pollution, which is what gods hate (Euthyphro). Therefore, the concept of piety plays a significant role in determining this situation’s moral act and legal justice.

Based on the above arguments and premises, we can conclude that Euthyphro was right to prosecute his father. This is because Euthyphro believes that to indict a wrongdoer is pious and failure to indict is impious, and all gods love pious, and what they hate is impious. Therefore, where there is piety, there is justice. Euthyphro believes that his father did wrong, and as a pious person, he has to be punished for the wrongdoing. Therefore, his action to indict his father relies on this premise. He also equates his justification to prosecute his father on the concept of pollution. Thus, the move by Euthyphro to prosecute his father for the sinful act of killing lies in his notion that if pollution is left unchecked, it can overshadow legal justice and motivate personal vengeance. Therefore, in this case, innocent individuals can be affected by pollution or moral association. Besides, dining together with a polluted individual knowingly will incur pollution, but doing so unknowingly magnifies Euthyphro’s claim. Based on the above premises, I agree with Euthyphro’s sentiments and thus justify prosecuting his father.

Work Cited

“Aristotle’s Logic: Three Parts of Logic.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJDVYJH2FSk&ab_channel=PhilosophyTeacher. Accessed 4 Mar. 2024.

“Plato’s Euthyphro.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmV9XSrkn2U&ab_channel=PhilosophyTeacher. Accessed 4 Mar. 2024.