The Euthyphro Dilemma

In Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates meets a priest named Euthyphro outside the court where Socrates is about to face charges of impiety. Euthyphro is confidently prosecuting his own father, and he claims to know exactly what piety is. When he suggests that the pious is what the gods love, Socrates asks a famous question: is something pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious?

If the first, piety seems arbitrary, since the gods' love would make anything pious. If the second, piety has a nature independent of the gods' love, so Euthyphro has not yet said what it is. This 'Euthyphro dilemma' became one of philosophy's most discussed arguments about the relationship between morality and divine command. Religious and secular thinkers have offered many responses, and the dialogue itself ends in puzzlement.