Surname 1
Name:
Subject:
Professor:
Date:
The commitment of Socrates to good life
Socrates was a Greece philosophy born in 460 BC. He died in 399 BC, having lived his entire
life in Greece. He is a well-known philosopher who believed in the principle of happiness
(Clivellato and Ribatti 330) and one who had a firm conviction that a person can choose
happiness or not, on the contrary to what other people believed that, happiness was a favor from
the gods. He led a philosophical life based on pleasure and torment, but it all depends on an
individual's perspective in analyzing his life.
Many people differ according to their understanding and explanation of a good life.
According to me, Socrates led a good an honorable life. He had knowledge which qualifies him
to have led a good life. Socrates believed in the search for knowledge, and he could do anything
to get the knowledge he required regardless of the repercussions. Even though he was ignorant,
he admitted that he had more knowledge than any other man who claimed to be wise. To him,
knowledge was all about accepting every situation that came his way and then learning from it.
Socrates is believed to be the only man who could risk anything as long as it imparted
knowledge in one way or another. That is a clear way of showing that he led a good life full of
self-decisions. Normally, having an independent mind is the best thing that one can have because
PROPERTY OF UK MASTERSPAPERS
Surname 2
he or she can do things their way, regardless of the consequences. Having an independent mind
also shows that a person is focused on doing what is right regardless of how he or she does it.
He led a life of positivity, which was enough to term his life as an honorable one. During
his trial, he presented a speech that explained more of his determination and sincerity of his
heart. He reasons philosophically regardless of the fact that he was sentenced to death (Nails 5).
He views death as a blessing because death people perceive nothing, and that death is a transfer
of a soul from one place to another. He also believed in justice and refused to have his children
in the court as a bargaining chip for his freedom. He believed that believing in oneself was the
best thing that accommodates happiness.
He had a better understanding of life, something that made him lead a good life.
Sometimes life is complicated, and not everyone can understand it. However, Socrates had a
better understanding of how life is, and he understood that happiness is all that every person
desires. He also mentioned that the happiness that people desire comes from inside. In other
words, he meant that a person can choose to be happy or not. By this, I mean that one must be
more concerned with the things inside, regardless of what the outside brings their way. Whatever
a person makes from inside is the determinant of the kind of life to live, and therefore, Socrates
chose to depend on his inside rather than the outside. He led a life that was self-driven. To him,
everything that came from inside was the best thing to do, and he did it with vigor regardless of
what people will think or say. This made him unique and special.
Socrates strongly believed that happiness is all about satisfying one’s desires in life. In
order to satisfy the desires of the heart, one must apply knowledge. Socrates is a well-known
philosopher who used his wisdom to satisfy the desires of his heart. Again, he believed that a
PROPERTY OF UK MASTERSPAPERS
Surname 3
happy life is dictated by self-control and failure to live extravagantly. He led this kind of life and
followed what his heart found worth doing. Therefore, he led an honorable life.
Socrates as a troublemaker who was guilty of some of the charges against him
However, we may also say that Socrates was a troublemaker who was guilty of some of the
accusations against him. To start with, he questioned the authority of the accepted gods,
something that could probably have angered other believers. He claimed to believe in himself so
much to an extent of questioning anything his conscious finds questionable. Other people had the
approval of the same gods that he questioned about, but he probably wanted to stand as the
unique man who stood by his principles. Therefore, he found himself in trouble and was charged
with impiety.
He is also seen as a troublemaker during his trial case. He had a chance to defend
himself, but he did not. Instead, he joked to the jury that he should be rewarded and given free
meals for the rest of his life. He went ahead and suggested a fine that was too little to compensate
for any case at his time. After his death sentence had been passed, he accepted it with honor,
even though he would have been proved not guilty (Nails 5). To him, death was just the transfer
of soul from the earth to another place. He deserved to live, only if he cooperated with the jury,
but his superiority complex led to his death.
Socrates was accused of corrupting the youths and had to face the law. The law required
such person to die through hemlock drug. He knew that he was doing something to teach the
youths against the Athens culture, but he went ahead as a way of satisfying himself. He chose to
deal with youths because he was aware youths will cooperate, and at the end of the end, he will
be a hero. Teaching the youths is the best thing, but it was wrong for Socrates to teach them what
PROPERTY OF UK MASTERSPAPERS
Surname 4
he knew did not match with the rules that governed his nation. In another word, corrupting the
youths was another way of suicide.
Socrates’ beliefs and their context
Socrates had many beliefs in mind. He said, “Make your first and chief concern not for your
bodies or for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls” (Apology 30b)(Tsui
380). By this, he was trying to show that the inside of a person is necessary than the environment
itself. One must understand him or herself well so as to be able to understand what surround
them, and understand what to do when struck by life’s challenges. He said, “I will not beg you to
acquit me by bringing them here” (Apology 34d) during his trial (Tindale 2). This is because; the
jury had decided to bring his children in the case as well, to make him surrender. However, his
decision was not taken, and he stood with what he believed was right for him. He believed in his
heart, and he wanted justice to be served the right way.
Socrates life mission
It can be deduced that he took his life’s mission as a bridge that separated justice from injustice,
as well as what people believed in from the reality. He conducted himself as a strong man filled
with internal happiness that was not driven by his surrounding, but what came from his heart. He
reacted courageously to the verdict probably he thought that he would always differ from what
other people do, and therefore, instead of being on the wrong side of the law with his truth, he
opted to die.
Why Socrates refused to escape from the prison
PROPERTY OF UK MASTERSPAPERS
Surname 5
Socrates refused to escape from the prison because of his strong stand on justice. He believed
that escaping is a form of injustice which he strongly stood against, and therefore, he wanted his
verdict to be no more than just. He believed in the law. According to him, it was lawfully that
after being accused of something, one had to face the law court to be declared guilty or not
guilty. Refusing to escape from the prison even after he was granted that permission indicated
two things. One, he wanted to face the court and all that he was accused of. He wanted to be
declared not guilty in the eyes of the law, other than escaping where everybody, including those
that believed in him would believe that he was guilty even where he was not. Two, he wanted to
defend himself in the court of law. He was aware that almost everybody was against him, but he
wanted to defend himself as a philosopher. That would mean that he was also fighting for the
place of other philosophers, and even if he died, he was sure to die after securing a better place
for philosophers.
Socrates’ criticism of leading an honorable life
Socrates said, “There is good hope that death is a blessing, for it is one of two things: either the
dead are nothing and have no perception, or it is, as we are told, a change and a relocating of the
soul from here to another place” (Apology 40c)(Mathews 186). He said that in the court of law
after being condemned death. He believed that not even jail term could shake what his mind
thought was the best thing, not only for him but also for other people. Being a philosophy, he
spoke philosophically even in the most dangerous moment, to strengthen philosophical works
that he had started. He also uttered those words to give his stand to the jury that death sentence
could not waver him from appraising what he thought was right.
Conclusion
PROPERTY OF UK MASTERSPAPERS
Surname 6
To conclude this, a matter of happiness lies in the palms of an individual. One can choose to be
happy or not. Even though Socrates was troubled and at the end of it all lost his life, he had a
happy life. There are so much that can be learned from his life; he enjoyed everything he did
regardless of what people viewed him. He was determined to see that everything right in his
eyes was accomplished, and therefore, according to me, I would term his life as honorable.
PROPERTY OF UK MASTERSPAPERS
Surname 7
Works cited
Crivellato, Enrico, and Domenico Ribatti. "Soul, mind, brain: Greek philosophy and the birth of
neuroscience." Brain research bulletin 71.4 (2007): 327-336.
Matthews, Gareth B. "Death in socrates, Plato, and Aristotle." The Oxford Handbook of
Philosophy of Death (2013): 186.
Nails, D. (2006). The trial and death of Socrates. A companion to Socrates, 5.
Tindale, Christopher W. "ISSA Proceedings 2006–Textual Allusion As Rhetorical
Argumentation: Gorgias, Plato And Isocrates."
Tsui, Anne S. "The spirit of science and socially responsible scholarship."Management and
Organization Review 9.3 (2013): 375-394.
PROPERTY OF UK MASTERSPAPERS