The Euthyphro Thread

r/Athens | Posted by u/Euthyphro_of_Prospalta | 8 hours ago | Flair: [LEGAL/RELIGIOUS]

I’m prosecuting my own father for murder and I need the Athenian legal community to confirm I’m doing the right thing.

I (34M, priest, professional diviner) need a sanity check because my entire family has turned against me and I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only person in Athens who takes the gods seriously.

Here’s the situation. My family owns a farm on Naxos. One of our dependent laborers — a hired man, not a slave, if it matters — got drunk and killed one of our household slaves in a fight. My father had the laborer bound and thrown in a ditch while he sent a man to Athens to ask the religious authorities what to do. Before the messenger returned, the laborer died of exposure and neglect in the ditch.

My father says it’s not murder because the man was a killer himself, and because he was seeking proper guidance, and because the laborer was just a dependent worker and not a citizen, and because it was basically an accident of timing. My family says I’m insane for prosecuting my own father. My mother won’t speak to me. My uncle told me I’m committing impiety by dragging my father to court.

But here’s what nobody in my family seems to understand: piety is not optional. The gods demand justice. Murder — even of a non-citizen, even by neglect, even when the victim was himself a killer — pollutes the household. If I do nothing, the pollution falls on ALL of us. I am not prosecuting my father because I want to. I am prosecuting him because the gods require it. This isn’t a family matter. This is a religious obligation.

I have studied the divine. This is literally my profession. I know what piety demands. My family doesn’t understand this because they are laypeople who think religion is whatever makes them comfortable.

AITA for prosecuting my own father for the murder of a murderer? Or is my family right that I’m being impious by bringing charges against my own blood?

Edit: To be clear, I am not asking WHETHER the gods care about justice. That’s settled. I’m asking for support from people who understand that piety sometimes requires uncomfortable actions.

Edit 2: Please stop DMing me about my father’s “intent.” Intent is irrelevant. The man is dead. The pollution is real. The gods don’t grade on a curve.

Top Comments:

u/AthenianBarAssociation [MOD] | 203 points | 7 hours ago

Reminder: r/Athens is not a substitute for legal counsel. OP’s case (prosecution of a family member for homicide-by-neglect of a non-citizen laborer) involves multiple unsettled areas of Athenian law. Comments should address the ethical dimensions, not provide specific legal strategy. Flair has been updated to [LEGAL/RELIGIOUS]. Reports on both sides have been reviewed and dismissed.

u/Deme_Elder_Naxos | 891 points | 7 hours ago

I know this family. Not going to identify them but the situation is more complicated than OP is making it sound. The laborer was a violent drunk who had already killed a man. The father restrained him and sent for legal guidance. The death was not intentional. The father is an old man who made a judgment call under bad circumstances and is now being hauled to court by his own son.

OP is not doing this because the gods demand it. OP is doing this because OP has always believed he is smarter than his family about religious matters and this is his chance to prove it.

u/Euthyphro_of_Prospalta | -45 points | 7 hours ago

With respect, you do not understand the nature of religious pollution or the obligations of piety. This is exactly the kind of comfortable ignorance I was describing. My family thinks piety means going to festivals and pouring libations. Piety means doing what the gods require even when it costs you.

I know what piety is. This is what I do.

u/SocratesOfAlopece | 4,217 points | 6 hours ago | Gilded x3

This is extraordinary. I have to say — you must have a very precise understanding of piety to be willing to do something this unusual. Most people would be paralyzed by doubt. You seem to have none.

I actually have a favor to ask. I’m heading to my own trial right now — impiety charges, ironically — and I could really use a clear definition of piety from someone who obviously knows what it is. Would you mind defining it for me? Just so I can use it in my defense?

u/Euthyphro_of_Prospalta | 156 points | 6 hours ago

Happy to help. Piety is doing what I’m doing — prosecuting wrongdoing, even against family. This is what the gods themselves do. Zeus punished his own father Kronos. Kronos punished his father Ouranos before him. If the gods themselves hold their fathers accountable, how can it be impious for me to do the same?

u/SocratesOfAlopece | 3,890 points | 6 hours ago

That’s a really interesting example. But I notice you’ve given me an instance of piety — a thing that is pious — not a definition. It’s like if I asked “what is shape?” and you said “a circle.” I need the thing that makes ALL pious actions pious.

Also, quick follow-up on the Zeus example. You’re saying the gods’ behavior is the model for piety. But don’t the gods disagree with each other constantly? The Trojan War alone — Athena and Hera on one side, Aphrodite and Apollo on the other. If the gods can’t agree on which side of a war is just, how do we know they agree on whether prosecuting your father is pious?

u/Euthyphro_of_Prospalta | 89 points | 5 hours ago

OK, fair point about the disagreements. Let me refine: piety is what ALL the gods love. Impiety is what ALL the gods hate. If all the gods agree something is good, that’s piety. Simple.

u/SocratesOfAlopece | 5,102 points | 5 hours ago | Gilded x5

Now we’re getting somewhere. But I need you to help me with one more thing, because I’m genuinely confused.

Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious? Or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?

Because those are very different claims. If the gods love it because it’s pious, then piety exists independently of the gods — there’s some standard out there that even the gods recognize. Which means the gods aren’t the source of morality; they’re just very good at spotting it. Like moral bird-watchers.

But if it’s pious because the gods love it, then piety is just divine preference. It’s arbitrary. Whatever the gods happen to like on a given Tuesday is pious. That makes piety a mood, not a principle.

Which is it?

u/Euthyphro_of_Prospalta | 12 points | 5 hours ago

I… OK. I think… it’s loved because it’s pious? But also the gods are the ones who…

Look, you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be. I KNOW what piety is. I practice it every day. I can recognize it when I see it. I don’t need to be able to define it to a philosophical standard to know that prosecuting a murderer is the right thing to do.

u/SocratesOfAlopece | 2,304 points | 4 hours ago

But that’s exactly my concern. You said your entire family is wrong and you alone are right, specifically because you understand piety and they don’t. You said “I know what piety is. This is what I do.” If you can’t define the thing you claim unique expertise in, how do you know your family is wrong?

I’m not saying they’re right. I’m saying you’re claiming certainty about something you can’t articulate, and you’re using that certainty to prosecute your own father.

Could you try one more time? What IS piety?

u/Euthyphro_of_Prospalta | -201 points | 4 hours ago

Piety is… a form of service to the gods. Like how a servant serves a master. We do things for the gods — sacrifices, prayers, rituals — and in return the gods give us good things. It’s a transaction. A sacred transaction.

u/SocratesOfAlopece | 3,678 points | 3 hours ago

A transaction? You’re saying the gods NEED something from us? What could the gods possibly need? Are we improving the gods’ situation? Are they lacking something that burnt offerings supply? Because if the gods are perfect, they don’t need our service. And if they do need it, they’re not perfect, which raises some other questions.

And if piety is just giving the gods what they want — we’re back to where we started. What do the gods want? What do ALL the gods agree they want? You’re defining piety as “what pleases the gods” which is exactly the definition we already showed doesn’t work.

I think we need to go back to the beginning. We were so close earlier with the “loved by the gods” question. If we could just—

u/Euthyphro_of_Prospalta | -340 points | 3 hours ago

I actually have to go. I just remembered I have an appointment I can’t miss. Sorry — another time, Socrates. This is a really important conversation and I’d love to continue it but I literally have to leave right now.

u/SocratesOfAlopece | 6,441 points | 3 hours ago | Gilded x9

That’s a shame. I was learning so much from the man who knows what piety is. If you could have just stayed a little longer, I’m sure I would have finally understood it well enough for my trial.

Maybe next time?

[deleted]

Continued Thread — Lower Comments:

u/PlatoNotes | 1,203 points | 2 hours ago

I’m writing all of this down, just so everyone knows.

u/AristophanesLive | 567 points | 2 hours ago

Of course you are. And in twenty years you’ll have Socrates saying things he never said, and everyone will treat your fanfic as gospel.

u/PlatoNotes | 890 points | 1 hour ago

It’s not fanfic. It’s a dialogue.

u/AristophanesLive | 1,102 points | 1 hour ago

Same thing. I write dialogues too. Mine have a chorus and dick jokes. At least I’m honest about what I’m doing.

u/PhilosophyMajor_420 | 2,340 points | 2 hours ago

Can we talk about what just happened? This man came in COMPLETELY certain he knew what piety was. He said “this is literally my profession.” He said his family was ignorant. He was using his certainty to PROSECUTE HIS OWN FATHER.

And in about ninety minutes of questioning, a guy who claims to know nothing demonstrated that the expert can’t define the one thing he claims expertise in. Four attempts. Four failures. And instead of sitting with that — instead of thinking “maybe I should pause the prosecution until I figure out what piety actually is” — the expert suddenly has an appointment.

The appointment is the tell. The appointment is always the tell. When someone who was confident thirty minutes ago suddenly has somewhere to be, it means the questions landed.

u/DiogenesTheDog | 445 points | 1 hour ago

Socrates asks questions. I would have just pissed on the man’s definition.

Same result. Faster.

u/PhilosophyMajor_420 | 312 points | 1 hour ago

And people say philosophy doesn’t have schools of thought.

u/JurorXLVII | 87 points | 1 hour ago

I’m on the jury for Socrates’ trial next week. Should I be reading this thread? Is this an ethics violation? Asking for 500 friends.

u/AthenianBarAssociation [MOD] | 44 points | 45 minutes ago

We… don’t actually have a rule about this. Athenian law doesn’t address juror exposure to the defendant’s Reddit history. We’re going to need a new policy.

u/SocratesOfAlopece | 1,560 points | 30 minutes ago

You could always just define “fair trial” and work from there. Unless that turns out to be harder than it sounds.

u/JurorXLVII | 23 points | 15 minutes ago

I am going to vote to convict this man.

u/AutoModerator | 1 point | 8 hours ago

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There are two ways to read what just happened in this thread.

The first way: a gadfly harassed a man who was trying to do the right thing. Euthyphro came in with a clear conscience and a genuine moral conviction. His father let a man die. He was willing to prosecute, at enormous personal cost, because he believed piety demanded it. And a professional question-asker humiliated him in front of the entire forum until he left.

The second way: a man who claimed to know what piety is, and who was willing to put his own father on trial based on that claim, discovered — live, in public, in real time — that he could not define the word. Four attempts. Four collapses. And when the fifth attempt would have required him to either finally articulate what he meant or admit he could not, he invented an appointment.

The thread ended with [deleted]. Of course it did. Every Euthyphro deletes. The confident poster who came to be validated, who received questions instead, who discovered that the thing they were certain about dissolves under examination — that poster always deletes. The deletion is not an act of shame. It is an act of preservation. If the comment stays up, someone might quote it back later. If the account stays active, someone might ask: “Did you ever figure out what piety is?”

Nobody ever posts a follow-up thread that says “I was wrong.”

The Euthyphro dilemma — is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved by the gods? — has been open for 2,400 years. Every theology, every moral philosophy, every argument about whether morality is objective or subjective runs through the question Socrates asked in this thread. It is the most devastating comment ever posted. It was never edited. It was never retracted. It sits there, gilded nine times by posterity, and every generation reads it and thinks: surely THIS time someone will answer it.

Nobody has answered it. The thread is still open. Euthyphro is still [deleted]. And Socrates — who claimed to know nothing, who was on his way to his own trial for impiety, who had every reason to think about his own problems instead of asking a stranger questions in a forum — is still, after twenty-four centuries, getting upvotes.

He never posted original content. He only replied.