Justice Vs Socrates Justice

In the retelling of his trial by his associate, Plato, entitled “The Apology”; Socrates claims in his defense that he only wishes to do good for the polis. I believe that Socrates was innocent of the accusations that were made against him, but he possessed contempt for the court and displayed that in his conceitedness and these actions led to his death.

Socrates was accused of corrupting the young through the ideas he taught and the manner in which he taught them, ergo his acts were inseparable from the crime of which he was accused of. Consequently, and quite frankly rather humorously, the sheer enormity of Socrates' crime could have hardly been outdone by that of any other of its time. Whereas it meant that everything Socrates had done in his life was illegal, since practically his entire life stood for the proposition that he ought to teach his philosophy to anyone who would listen. Socrates believed that "the life unexamined is one not worth living.". The depth of that belief made the accusation of corrupting the young almost equivalent to being charged with the crime of having lived.

In the Apology Socrates says that if he was indeed “corrupting the youth” it was accidental and unwillingly. He believes that when an act is done unwillingly the person deserves to be instructed not punished. “Now if I corrupt them unwillingly, the law does not require you to bring people to court for such unwilling wrong-doings, but to get hold of them privately, to instruct them and exhort them” (Apology 26). Socrates does not agree that he

Socrates was a man who spent most of his time talking to people. He would ask them hypothetical questions, and make them think for themselves about the true answer they believed in, by serving as a guide for the conversation. Many people, including the accusers, believed that while Socrates did this, he was serving as a Sophist. A Sophist is a person who talks to people, and teaches them how to argue a point, whether the point is right or wrong. A Sophist would collect money for this lesson, and go on with their teachings (Xenophon 42). This accusation is inaccurate because Socrates did not collect any money for his conversations with people. Instead, Socrates was a very poor man, who happened to have rich friends. Talking to these people was a way for Socrates to try to spread his way of life to the Athenian's. He enjoyed conversing with people about ethical issues, and moral beliefs. In his argument, Socrates refutes Meletus' charge that he corrupts the young. One crucial point deals with the idea of Socrates as a paid teacher. This would imply that Socrates was actively seeking students and teaching "corrupting" ideas. This plays a part in the argument, by Meletus, that Socrates has deliberately corrupted the youth. Socrates says that, "the young men who follow me around of their own free will, those who have most leisure, the sons

“What is justice?” This is a question that men have struggled with answering for centuries. Justice should be defined for the sake of all people, especially by rulers who attempt to make fair laws so that their society functions in an orderly fashion. In Book 1 of The Republic, Plato attempts to define exactly what justice is. To help determine this definition, he speaks through the philosopher protagonist of Socrates. Justice is first brought up in The Republic during Socrates’ trip to Piraeus. While traveling Socrates ends up gathering with his interlocutors and together, they talk about justice and how one would define it. Socrates debates with the men about the definition of justice and is presented with a definition of

Socrates implies that the true nature of this charge was, in fact, vengeance carried out on the part of the power-holders of the Athenian society; the politicians, the poets, the manual artisans.  Socrates, unwillingly made fools out of these people by exposing their speeches as mere rhetoric than actual wisdom and knowledge.  These men who were seen as the wisest and the most enlightened, but in fact, by believing that they are most knowledgeble is what keeps them from real wisdom.  Socrates is also being charged with attacking the Athenian society by corrupting its citizens, mainly the youth.  He defends himself by claiming that either Meletus beleives that Socrates does not corrupt the youth or he does corrupt them but involuntarily.  Socrates bring to light that "if I corrupt them voluntarily, the law does not call upon you to procecute me for an error which is involuntary, but to take me aside privately and reprove and educate me" (33).  Socrates goes on further to say

Socrates was a great philosopher of the Greek world. He was quite an atypical and distinctive person. Being different from all the other philosophers of the land, Socrates was teaching his students ideas totally out of the ordinary from what the society believed was right. As a result, he displeased many people so much that they decided to get rid of him. Socrates was put to trial, accused of spoiling the youth of Athens, tried and sentenced to death. His personal defense is described in works two of his students: Xenophon and Plato. Both of them wrote papers called Apology, which is the Greek word for “defense”. In this essay I used Apology by Plato as the main resource, since it contents a more full account of the trial of Socrates and

In Plato’s: The Apology Socrates was charged and put on trial for impiety, as well as accused of committing many other crimes. I will first explain the most important issues of why Socrates was sent to death. Then I will argue the position that Socrates is innocent, and should not be have been found guilty.

According to the majority of the jury members of Athens, Socrates is a corruption to the youth, doer of evil and does not agree with the gods of his people. In the Apology, written by Plato these are the assumptions and accusations Socrates is held in court for. In court, he is faced with what most men fear, being wrongly accused leading to the death sentence. Socrates argues and strives to prove that he has no fear of being hated, being accused of serious crimes, being threatened with punishment, or being put to death.

Socrates was brought into the courts under charges of impiety and corruption of minors. Socrates did not believe in the divinities of the city-state. The punishment decided upon was an execution, in the hope that Socrates would choose exile, a punishment that would have satisfied the jury.

This paper argues that Socrates makes a plausible case for justice. Socrates raised two main questions in the first two books of Plato’s Republic, what is justice? And why should we act justly? Thrasymachus and Glaucon both have different and more negative views of justice than Socrates. Throughout books one and two, Socrates, Glaucon and Thrasymachus go back and forth discussing the definition and application of justice in society. He starts his discussions with Glaucon and Thrasymachus by stating simply, “What is justice?”

In 399 BC, Socrates was executed on charges of not believing in the same Gods as Athenians, and for being a bad influence on the young. Were these charges just and fair? No, they were not. Socrates was not guilty of these charges. In fact, in the presence of his accusers, Socrates proved that he was an innocent man and was simply in the process of carrying out his mission to share truth in an attempt to improve the lives of his neighbors. Though with no avail, Socrates was still found guilty of crimes with corrupted evidence.

The first point of what Socrates answers what isn’t justice is that justice isn’t equality. It is not after death of getting revenge that makes justice equal. Socrates uses the example of how when a person is on trial for murder, and how that person sentence is death. The end result will not be justice, because in the end both the criminal and already the innocent will be dead and no equality of justice would have been done at all. Another example is when a person is put to death when they owe taxes. There is no equal justice to killing someone who owes taxes because in the end result, the tax is still not paid off. So this leaves Justice is not paying amends. It is then moved to the question of when is justice is used. Justice is used when

Reading Plato’s works, you often find the story revolving around a central question. In previous books it has been asked, “What is piety?” or “What is virtue?” and our answers are the result of a bunch of simple unknowingness. In The Republic Book l, our central question is, “What is justice?” Much like previous discussions of Socrates, they often find themselves in a whirlpool of confusion and absent answers. First, Cephalus answers that justice is to be honest, or to live up to your legal obligations. However, Socrates disputes this idea, and uses counterarguments of armed “madmen” to help. I feel as though this relates to a recent controversial issue in politics, the idea of gun laws, and whether citizens have a right to carry, and to what

Socrates was charged with two crimes; impiety and corrupting the youth. For the first crime, Socrates defends himself by asserting how his work is the work of the gods themselves. As such, in the Apology, he claims that his friend Chaerephon, when visiting the Oracle of Delphi, asked her if there was anyone wiser than Socrates, to which she replied there was none. Puzzled, Socrates embarked on a quest to interrogate the perceived wisest men in Athens and thus discovered what made Socrates the wisest man was not his knowledge, but his understanding of his lack of knowledge. Thus, his pious duty to Apollo is to