What are we supposed to think of Euthyphro?

One of the reasons I like to cover the philosophical classics when I teach is that they're usually classics for a reason; even after dozens of readings, I often come to new insights about them.  One point that has recently been nagging at me is the presentation of Euthyphro in the dialogue named for him.  Most readers and interpreters seem to take a fairly dim view of him (as I've also tended to do in the past).  However, it has to be admitted that he's committed to the attractive idea that justice should be impartial, and he's willing to stand up for what he believes is right against public opinion.

Furthermore, and this is the point I hadn't really noticed before, he shows what really has to be considered a fairly impressive level of open-mindedness and commitment to the pursuit of truth.  It's made clear at the beginning of the dialogue that he knows who Socrates is, and that he apparently has a high opinion of Socrates.  Knowing who Socrates is, Euthyphro shows no reluctance to engage in a discussion with him.  Further, after he's run into considerable difficulties (and after Socrates has said some at least borderline blasphemous things), Socrates offers him a chance to back out of the discussion (at 9e), but Euthyphro does not hesitate to insist that the investigation should continue.  It is only after another long stretch where no progress is made (with Socrates being, as usual, fairly rude, and throwing in a few more borderline blasphemies), that Euthyphro gives up on the discussion and falls back on conventional answers to Socrates' question (at 14b).

Now, perhaps the conventional answer at the end deserves the abuse that Socrates gives it, but it's not only a bad answer, it also seems quite unworthy of Euthyphro, given what we'd seen of him prior to this point (at the outset he was far more concerned with what was right than with popular, conventional notions).  So what's going on here?  Has talking with Socrates made Euthyphro worse than he started?  What was Plato's intention in presenting the story this way?

Comments

[literacyupdate.wordpress.com]

I love classical philosophy, espescially Plato. (btw, I'm going to start reading your blog regularly).

[Aaron Boyden]

Good to see you! I somehow thought you'd been reading it before, and wondered why I never got any comments from you. I've now added the literacyupdate blog to my blog reader, so you'll probably be seeing comments from me there once in a while.

[Jim Farmelant]

After 2500 years, Plato's dialog, "Euthyphro" still remains the best demolition of divine commandment ethics available. That's its main importance IMO. As to whether spending one's time conversing with Socrates made one a better person or not, I guess the evidence on that point seems mixed. Arguably, people like Plato were the better for the time they spent with Socrates. But on the other hand, some of the worst people in Athenian public life such as Alcibiades had been students of Socrates too, as were some of the members of the Thirty Tyrants who ruled Athens following the city's defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Arguably, these people's time with Socrates helped to make them better demagogues. Plato later on argued that the sophists had a corrupting influence on their students but not all of Socrates's did much better either. Facts like that were cited against Socrates during his trial.

[www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnxJ4f7MH5TOcsHH4TXJwXvI_WUBM4iNr8]

Just a side note: I recommend Plato Unmasked by Keith Quincy which supplies a much-needed context for Plato's dialogues.

http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Unmasked-Dialogues-Made-New/dp/0910055904

Knowing more about who the characters are based upon makes me much more sympathetic to Socrates's interlocutors than I was before. Typically Plato prefers to make a strawman out of those with whom he disagrees, and thus valorizes his preferred anti-democratic agenda.