Socrates Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Socrates (469 B.C.E.–399 B.C.E.) was a classical Greek philosopher from Athens and is considered to be the father of Western philosophy. Socrates changed the nature of philosophy by being the first philosopher to focus his attention on human nature. Prior to Socrates, philosophical discussions and debates revolved around the planets and the universe. Despite his influence on philosophy and ethics, Socrates remains a philosophical enigma because he never published or preserved any of his ideas. Everything that is known of the influential philosopher is primarily known from the writings of his students: Aristophanes, Plato, and Xenophon. This has created an issue of constant scholarly debate, known as the Socratic problem, because it is uncertain if these writers are presenting their own ideas or the works of their mentor, either accurately or inaccurately.

Based on their writings, Socrates is known to have questioned all that he encountered. In Plato’s Apology, an oracle of Delphi is noted for stating that Socrates was the smartest person in the world. Socrates set out to prove or disprove this theory by questioning the wisest members of Athenian society. After engaging in conversation with them he found that the wise men knew very little and were not wise at all. Therefore, he proclaimed himself to be the smartest man in the world because he knew that he knew nothing; but by knowing that he knew nothing, he knew more than everyone else.

Socrates had a very inquisitive nature and would spend his days teaching the youth in Athens to question all that they encountered. In doing so, Socrates developed the Socratic method for debating or discovering the truth. One engages in the Socratic method through an interchange of dialectical conversations by responding to each line of questioning with another question, repeatedly, until the truth is discovered.

“An Unexamined Life Is not Worth Living”

In this statement, Socrates reminds individuals that they must reexamine or reevaluate their daily existence. In stating that an unexamined life is not worth living, Socrates is encouraging each person to examine his or her commitments, duties, loyalties, goals, and desires, or more simply put, their existence. What appears to be at face value a very simple statement is anything but simple. Socrates is challenging individuals to challenge themselves. He is telling individuals to look deep into their own existence of their own lives. What is it that they are doing, what are they trying to do, and why would they want to do it? Are their actions worth pursuing? Are they being done with the purest or best intentions? Should individuals be engaging in activities that are pure or with the best intentions anyway? Why are individuals not doing more? Why are they doing anything at all?

Socrates acknowledges that an individual is prone to falling off his chosen path, wherever that path may have taken him. Even if an individual has committed to a life of purity and piety, an examination or re-examination of these goals is needed to either stay the path or to make appropriate adjustments. Even when the individual is staying true or committed to these goals, an examination of these goals is needed to ensure that the proper path is being followed. Individuals must be willing to examine and criticize themselves to the nth degree. Once examined, individuals must be willing to reexamine themselves again and again.

To Socrates, to live an unexamined life is to discard one’s life. Individuals not willing to question, revaluate, or assess themselves are not willing to live a life of any value. A valueless life is not worth living. It should be noted that Socrates’s statement comes through the idea of self-examination. It does not matter what others think about individuals’ lives, it only matters what individuals believe about their own lives. He encourages people to raise their own existence, their own value, their own self-worth through their own standards.

Conclusion

Socrates believed that no man was voluntarily evil or involuntarily good. He argued that individuals engaged in involuntary acts of evil through a lack of knowledge. Socrates believed that knowledge was good and ignorance was evil. If individuals were ignorant of their actions, or the results of their actions, then they could easily engage in evil behavior because they were ignorant of it.

However, he believed that individuals generally engage in acts of goodness. He believed that individuals knew what was good and would work to reach the goal of goodness. However, if they failed to reach that goal, it was not because they did not want to engage in goodness, but rather that they just did not know that they were engaging in evil acts or they did not understand the path to goodness.

Socrates was charged with corrupting the minds of the Athenian youth and with impiety (not acknowledging the gods of the state). Socrates could have fled and avoided a guilty verdict by escaping from the city, which was a common practice in Athenian society when an acquittal was in doubt. However, he chose not to flee, for he believed that it was immoral. It was his position that it was morally wrong to place oneself higher than one’s reputation and it was wrong for the state to allow a criminal to be free. He argued that if the Athenian state believed he was guilty and decided to punish him, it needed to follow through with that consequence. By a majority vote, Socrates was sentenced to death through the drinking of hemlock, a drink that he could have easily avoided drinking by fleeing the city to a neighboring state. However, he intentionally chose to make one last moral stand against the city of Athens, and he refused to compromise his moral principles. He drank the hemlock and ended his life in accordance with the will of Athens.

Bibliography:

Braswell, Michael, et al. Case Studies in Criminal Justice Ethics. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2011.
Kreeft, Peter. What Would Socrates Do? The History of Moral Thought and Ethics. New York: Barnes & Noble Press, 2004.
Souryal, Sam. Ethics in Criminal Justice: In Search of the Truth. 4th ed. Cincinnati, OH; Anderson Publishing/LexisNexis, 2007.

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