In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates challenges Euthyphro to establish a general definition of piety by identifying one feature that all holy actions share. Euthyphro’s best attempt to define piety is with his suggestion that what is pious is loved by all the gods. However, Socrates’ questions whether a pious action is loved by the gods because it is pious, or whether an action is pious because it is loved by the gods. Socrates indirectly suggests that pious actions are loved by the gods because they are pious. Socrates’s viewpoint is more plausible because it establishes a difference between pious and god-loved which then allows for the capability of discovering moral truths. Given this argument, I will begin by distinguishing the difference between a pious action being loved by the gods because it is pious and an action being pious because it is loved by the gods. To illustrate his point to Euthyphro, Socrates demonstrates a general principle by making a distinction between “being x” and “getting x.” Socrates states, “we speak of something carried and something carrying, of something led and something leading, of something seen and something seeing, and you understand that these things are all different…”(10a). By using the three examples that Socrates has given I can make evident the distinction between something loved by the gods because it is pious (something loved) and something being pious because it is being loved by the gods (something loving). For instance, Socrates explains,
It is not being seen because it is a thing seen but on the contrary it is a thing seen because it is being seen; nor is it because it is something led that it is being led but because it is being led that it is something led; nor is something being carried because it is something carried, but it is something carried because it is being carried…(10c).

To break this down, “being