The Perils Of Obedience: Socrates Virtue To The Obedient

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Socrates the Obedient Many people say that Socrates was a fool to accept his death the way he did. Other say he was a just man and accepted it honorably in regards to how he died. However, despite the opinions of people, can we say Socrates’ decision to accept his fortune was correct? Nevertheless, Socrates’ obedience was what led him to his death however, was he a fool to be obedient or was he right to accept his sentence? The story of Socrates and Crito reveals several obligations and political duties on how citizens can act. However, taking in considerations on how Socrates died can we say every citizen should look up to him. Socrates was a just man his story is still told till this day, but is his legacy that of a fool or a role model? …show more content…

In this experiment, he gathered a group of people some psychiatrist, college sophomores, middle class adults, and faculty in the behavioral sciences (121). He wanted to test how far their obedience would go. His experiment consisted of a test that involved an electric shock that was given by the test group to an actor on the other side of the wall. For every question that was answered incorrectly the test subject would administer a voltage shock to the person who answered the …show more content…

Milgram predicted that most of the participants would stop after several shocks but he was terribly wrong. Out of 40 test subjects 25 obeyed the orders to the fullest voltage of 450 volts and completed all the questions (121). Their obedience would lead them to possible kill the person who was answering the question where the experiment real. This goes to show that too much obedience can have a bad outcome if followed without questioning. Personally, I believe that obedience is vital to having a functional society to live in. However, everything in moderation is also vital to having a good society to live in. Socrates’ theory of obedience and political obligation can be seen as extremist. His ideologies of being obedient no matter what the outcome, can be detrimental as we seen in the Milgram’s experiment or and Socrates’ story. Also, taking in consideration that as humans we make mistakes that includes the lawmakers that make the

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