Socrates Moral Matters

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Recommended: Plato's philosophy on justice

Anthony Matthew Hardy
Thomas Milnes
PHIL101
March 16, 2018
Socrates: Moral Matters and Justice
In this text we will first determine who Socrates was, his approach to philosophy, ,and further evaluate whether or not he believed one must heed popular opinion about moral matters, whether or not he accepted the laws under which he was convicted as fair, and whether or not it would have been wrong for him to escape imprisonment after his trial. I will do this using various written works by Plato, scholarly articles interpreting the work of Plato regarding Socrates, and various encyclopedic sources. We will not be able to rely on the work of Socrates himself in written form because he did not write anything, and if he did none of his works survived. …show more content…

Socrates chose at this hearing to speak in his own philosophical style and at times he appeared not to be either aware of the penalty that could be imposed on him or apathetic. To Socrates his teachings on what it meant to be virtuous, a good citizen, and someone who lived a good life at times seemed to be more important. This was also noted in the book “Plato:The Last Days of Socrates” in a preface to Plato’s work Apology, in which the author noted how “The curious thing about the Apology is given over to Socrates’ attempts to dispel the long term prejudice against him, while the tactics adopted were most likely to increase the prejudice.” It would seem that Socrates had been more interested in protecting his legacy than actually attempting to provide proof of innocence to the court. It has been speculated that Socrates at the time either did not know of the sentence that they would carry out against him or that the courts would give him another option for punishment. Once Socrates was found guilty he was in the position of having to choose a punishment as an alternative to the death penalty for the crimes he was alleged to have committed. At this time he also voiced surprise by the narrow margin of the votes cast against him.
Socrates instead “argues that he deserves to be sentenced to dining at public expense like victors at the Games. After firmly rejecting prison, he offers a fine, firstly one within his means, and secondly thirty times that after his friends offer to help(Plato:The last days of Socrates, Tredennick, Hugh, et al.

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