Socrates: Plato's Decision To Accepting The Death Penalty

Socrates uses reasoning and logic throughout his trial. I believe that Socrates is innocent because he defends himself truthfully with effect. He uses sound arguments and he is passionate about philosophy. Socrates did nothing to gain in life and did not want a high social standing. Socrates is fair and uses correct methods of arguments by uncovering the

As a result of this trigger, Socrates would have unquestionably taken the decision to escape prison. Yet, Crito’s method fails because Socrates’ moral value exceeds any relation or bond that he held with anyone. He doesn’t believe that a minor dilemma or wrongdoing of the public should have an influence on his decision. Socrates’ actions are honest and align with the laws of Athens. Socrates’ relationship with the laws must be stronger than those family bonds because they’re more important and an individual should even give up their life for the country if it ever comes to

Therefore, he believes that he should stay and face his execution because it is better to die than to live with a ruined soul. Socrates uses all of these points to support his main argument which is that escaping jail would be morally incorrect. Crito accepts his arguments and Socrates decides he is going to

Thus the people who do injustice like kings and tyrants are unhappy. Socrates then asks Polus which is more shameful doing injustice or suffering it, and Polus replies that doing injustice is more shameful. That is why Socrates believes that doing injustice is much worse than suffering it for it is more shameful and that person will be unhappy because of that shame. I think that anyone who is put in the place of Polus will reply the same, since nobody would want to feel the guilt and the shame of doing injustice. The act of committing injustice actions goes back to the root of

The term “apology comes from the Greek word apologia which means to defend. In this essay I would like to explain why I believe that The Apology by Plato should be classified as pity and fear, in regards to Greek tragedy. I believe that this is true because I can personally empathize with Socrates; this will be discussed later on in this essay. A tragic hero is considered to be an individual with an intellectual flaw or error, Socrates fits this description; Socrates failed to understand that he could not empathize with the jurors because they simply wanted him to acknowledge his prior offenses, while he only sought out telling the truth and not sullying his own moral code. Socrates should be considered a tragic hero because he had an intellectual error, not an ethical one.

In Plato’s “The Apology, Socrates is on the verge of execution and must convince the jurors to make a just decision. Socrates conveys the justness of his actions through examples of what is just to the jurors as individuals, to society as a whole. He must convince them that it would be unjust to society to convict him of impiety and corruption, rather than to himself. Just actions will be analyzed with examples of courage in grave danger, how just decisions can be altered due to the irrational fear of death, and whether Socrates’ basis of his actions truly is just and compelling. In order to decide what makes an unjust action harmful, it is important to understand how one decides what is just.

Despite the fact that Socrates accepted his penalty, he should have left with Crito because the trial was, overall, unfair. There was a public misunderstanding of his actions, lack of proper evidence, and people’s personal vendetta against him, which are the reasons that, ultimately, led to his undeserved sentence.

The awnser to this question lies my opinion also on how Socrates made his choice. Take for instance a murderer is punished to death and guilty of his crimes, he should be punished not only to be just and reprimand him for his actions, but also to protect the lives of other people from getting hurt. In Socrates situation, he is unjustly accused of corrupting the youth and failing to acknowledge the gods his city acknowledged. This in opinioin is not only a real crime but the crime even if he truly committed it does not match the punishment. To conclude, Socrates in some peoples eyes may seem that the right thing for him to do is to escape and save his own life, even though he would be ricking the the lives of his friends and family and inevitably be caught later on down the road the face once again the same situation.

Perceiving his obliviousness in most common undertakings, Socrates reasoned that he should be more clever than other men just in that he realizes that he knows nothing. Keeping in mind the end goal to spread this exceptional shrewdness, Socrates clarifies that he thought of it as his obligation to address assumed "insightful" men and to uncover their false intelligence as obliviousness. These exercises earned him much esteem among the adolescent of Athens, yet much contempt and outrage from the general population he humiliated. He refers to their scorn as the purpose behind his being put on trial.

Two examples are on page 24 and page 103. On page 24, Odysseus protests the chieftains to continue to fight the war and that it would be a shameful thing to leave the war. But Thersites protests Odysseus, who is the Greek war leader. So, Odysseus beats Thersites with a scepter. This shows Odysseus is honorable because even though it may seem abuse, it was the right thing to do.