SOCRATES
Justice & Piety
What Do We Owe Others?
Explore the fundamental questions of ethics: What is justice? What is piety? What do we owe to each other and to the divine?
"It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. For suffering wrong harms only the body, but doing wrong corrupts the soul."
What is justice? What is piety? These questions consumed me in the agora. Euthyphro claimed to know what piety was—so I questioned him. Thrasymachus said justice was the advantage of the stronger—so I refuted him.
Justice concerns what we owe to each other. Is it merely following laws? Is it giving each person what they deserve? Is it harmony in the soul? These questions matter because how we answer them determines how we live together.
Piety concerns our relationship to what is greater than ourselves—whether you call it the gods, the Good, or the truth. Is piety doing what the gods command? But what if the gods disagree? Is piety loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved by the gods?
These questions have no easy answers. But in struggling with them, we become more just and more pious ourselves.
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Related Topics
Justice is doing what you ought
The just person is happier than the unjust
Piety involves reverence for what transcends us
Breaking the law is not always unjust
It is worse to do injustice than to suffer it
Logical Structures (Syllogisms)
First Principles (Archai)
Justice is a virtue of the soul.
It is never right to do wrong.
Reverence is due to what is truly good.
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