Why Is Socrates Cruelly Wrong

Socrates’ view on morality is that anyone can do wrong. It is said that injuring someone in return for injury to oneself is wrong. He follows this with the connection between morality and the city. You do badly without the cities authorization; you are doing wrong towards the city and the laws. He felt if you are behaving against peoples mind and in this

Socrates then tries to refute this by examining Polemarchus' thought processes. He asks the question of how one can tell if someone is good or bad, as well as how can a just man do harm to another. The two agree that Polemarchus' views do not truly define justice.

Furthermore, the concept of harm is significant in this inquiry as well. Socrates speaks of his accusers in that "they thought they were doing me some harm," (Plato 100). It is thus conceivable that he does not consider physical harm to be of any consequence to his well-being. Socrates seems to maintain that physical existence is much less relevant to human excellence than is the spiritual state of the soul. It follows to say that physical harm, as is caused by others, is not actual harm. The true damage thus, is that which is done to the human soul, and none other than oneself can cause injury to the soul. Since the more valuable concern lies with that of the soul, death being somewhat a matter of triviality, and others cannot hurt the soul as only the self can, the death sentence by the jury is unimportant and does not cause harm to this good man.

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

The question of morality focuses on how we ought to be; how we ought to live. In a conversation with Crito, Socrates states, “to commit injustice is in every case bad and dishonourable for the person who does it” (49b Crito). He simply views that if an act is not just, the person who commits it will always lose from it. Socrates followed by saying “…one ought not to return an injustice or an injury to any person, whatever the provocation” (49c-d Crito). The victim should not retaliate because just as Socrates believes, committing an unjust act will always end badly. In the reading, Socrates says that even if the consequence is worth it to the person committing the unjust act, the act should still not be committed. On top of that, no matter how intense the provocation, Socrates still says do not return an injustice or injury to any person at all.

Socrates questions Meletus, one of the men that accused him of corrupting the youth. During this trial, he says that Meletus only pretends to care and be serious of things he has never cared about before. Socrates asks him, “do you not regard it as most important how the youth will be the best possible?” (24 d), and Meletus does not respond at first but then says that the judges and the laws are what shapes the youth to make them better. Socrates defends himself by saying that the only reason they brought him to trial is because they did not like Socrates ignorance and find him irritating. Socrates was the only one who cared about teaching the youth because he understood that they were important and they were the future. “For it would be a great happiness for the young if one alone corrupts them, while the others benefit them. But in fact, Meletus, you have sufficiently displayed that you never yet gave any thought to the young. And you are making your own lack of care plainly apparent, since you have cared nothing about the things for which you bring me in here.” (25

The problem with Socrates concerns the problem with the role of value and reason. Nietzsche believes that the bulk of philosophers claim that life is a corrupt grievance for mankind. Nietzsche reasoned that these life deniers were decadents of Hellenism, as a symptom of some underlying melancholy. For someone to paint life in such a negative light they must have suffered a great deal through the course of their own life. Furthermore, these no-sayers agreed in various physiological ways and thus adopted the same pessimistic attitudes towards life. Socrates was ugly, alike decadent criminals and by ways of these similarities was decadent as well. Nietzsche also claims ugliness as a physiological symptom of life in its decline supported by studies in phenology.

On the first point of violence, Socrates sees no justice in its practice. In conversation with Crito, they establish that doing any person an injustice is wrong. They also establish that injustice is equated to the infliction of injury. Thus, in true Socratic logic, “one ought not to return an injustice or an injury to any person, whatever the provocation” (Crito, 88c). Socrates is

The question of why Socrates was executed and if he deserved the charges put against him has been asked by historians for centuries.

There are times in every mans life where our actions and beliefs collide—these collisions are known as contradictions. There are endless instances in which we are so determined to make a point that we resort to using absurd overstatements, demeaning language, and false accusations in our arguments. This tendency to contradict ourselves often questions our character and morals. Similarly, in The Trial of Socrates (Plato’s Apology), Meletus’ fallacies in reason and his eventual mistake of contradicting himself will clear the accusations placed on Socrates. In this paper, I will argue that Socrates is not guilty of corrupting the youth with the idea of not believing in the Gods but of teaching the youth to think for

If we believe that the one who does good for one's soul participates in a life of true happiness, then Socrates is correct. By harming others, we are truly harming ourselves, destroying our chances for happiness and the good. It is an interesting point, however, that although Socrates claims that no one knowingly does wrong, is he not crediting his accusers, such as Meletus, with the evil intention of trying to unjustly put Socrates to death?

Why Socrates was right to stay in prison Socrates’s choice to stay within the Athenian prison seems the only just thing left in a seemingly unjust world in Plato’s Socratic Dialogue, Crito. Yes, the rulers of Athens sentenced Socrates to death for the crime of “corrupting of the youth.” Crito, Socrates’s friend, visits him in prison and tries to persuade him to escape. While most people would choose freedom, Socrates is torn between staying or going.

In the Republic, Socrates takes up the question of whether a just person will be better off than an unjust person. He refutes Thrasymachus’ claim that an unjust person is wise and good and argues that no one in any rule, who, in so far as he is wise and good tries to outdo someone like himself in the same domain. Only an ignorant and bad man will always want to outperform everyone. I shall present Socrates’ argument about justice, as well as, I shall object the argument with the point that in the craft of business, companies should compete to get better overtime. After that, I will challenge the objection, in order to show that businesses are able to improve without competition.

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?”

Throughout The Republic, Plato tries to paint a picture of a just man and an unjust man. Socrates is constantly challenged at both ends of the topic. Answering to the challenges Socrates describes an unjust man as happy on paper, and a just man happy and content in their soul.