Piety is then the action of not keeping justice in the city; one man who acts against the law should be prosecuted and justice should be applied. The part in which is made to Zeus and his father Cronos for eating his own children, where Zeus escaped (Euthyphro, 6a). In the dialogue, Euthyphro is attempting to convince Socrates that what piety means is to prosecute the wrong doer, in this case and in the case of Zeus, his father.
After a couple of false starts, Euthyphro gives another definition of piety as "what all the god's love" and impiety "what all the gods hate" (Euthyphro, 6). Socrates asks this definition Euthyphro gave him. "Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or it is pious because it is being loved by the gods?". There is a difference between acting upon something and something being acted upon because if these two things are similar, they should share all the structures of each other. The first principle is to point out the difference between affecting something and being an effect that is affected by a reason. Socrates gives an example of something being carried, led or seen in comparison of something carrying, leading or seeing (Euthyphro, 10). .
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 it is 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 carried, but it is something carried because it is being carried (Euthyphro, 10b).
With this conversation, Socrates managed to convinced Euthyphro that "being loved by the gods" since the reason why the gods love certain actions is because it is pious thing itself; that the gods love is a specific thing is the effect of the thing itself being pious. Having the second principle that the two things are identical if they share every structure of each other.
