have no fixed rule; and these are precisely the sort of differences which
give rise to quarrels. And therefore what may be dear to one god may not
be dear to another, and the same action may be both pious and impious; e.g.
your chastisement of your father, Euthyphro, may be dear or pleasing to
Zeus (who inflicted a similar chastisement on his own father), but not
equally pleasing to Cronos or Uranus (who suffered at the hands of their
sons).

Euthyphro answers that there is no difference of opinion, either among gods
or men, as to the propriety of punishing a murderer. Yes, rejoins
Socrates, when they know him to be a murderer; but you are assuming the
point at issue. If all the circumstances of the case are considered, are
you able to show that your father was guilty of murder, or that all the
gods are agreed in approving of our prosecution of him? And must you not
allow that what is hated by one god may be liked by another? Waiving this
last, however, Socrates proposes to amend the definition, and say that
'what all the gods love is pious, and what they all hate is impious.' To
this Euthyphro agrees.

Socrates proceeds to analyze the new form of the definition. He shows that
in other cases the act precedes the state; e.g. the act of being carried,
loved, etc. precedes the state of being carried, loved, etc., and therefore
that which is dear to the gods is dear to the gods because it is first
loved of them, not loved of them because it is dear to them. But the pious
or holy is loved by the gods because it is pious or holy, which is
equivalent to saying, that it is loved by them because it is dear to them.
Here then appears to be a contradiction,--Euthyphro has been giving an
attribute or accident of piety only, and not the essence. Euthyphro
acknowledges himself that his explanations seem to walk away or go round in
a circle, like the moving figures of Daedalus, the ancestor of Socrates,