Socrates’ Trial Defense in Terms of His Values

Socrates’ Trial Defense in Terms of His Values

In his Apology, Plato recounted the trial that led to the execution of his friend and mentor, Socrates. The account revealed that values of Socrates’ accusers and his own fundamentally differed, and that they had been angered because he tried to prove that they had misplaced theirs. Those differences created conflict between the two parties that culminated in his trial. With the understanding that a jury condemned Socrates to death and his defense nevertheless pleased him because he gave it truthfully, it is most sensible to call it a good defense because he felt it was the best that he could do.

In reply to the first charge against him, Socrates effectively recounted the reason that he had been privately questioning Athenians and claiming that some of their personal beliefs had been ill-founded. The affidavit read, “Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.” (Plato, 2) The abstractness of that accusation made it an odd one to refute, so Socrates attempted to do so by explaining how he became unpopular with his accusers.

Socrates established very early in his defense that he knew he had no wisdom, and he based his investigations of Athenians’ wisdom on finding at least one person wiser than he was. He recalled a story of Chaerephon, an old Athenian friend, who went to the Oracle of Delphi to ask whether anybody had more wisdom than Socrates did, and she “’…answered that there was no man wiser.’” (Plato, 3) Socrates explained that since he knew he had no wisdom, he began a search to find a ...

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...ur persons and your properties, but first

and chiefly to take care about the greatest improvement of the soul.” (Plato, 11) His mission attempted to show Athenians that the way to do that is to

live in truth and justice.

Socrates’ defense maintained the integrity of the values that he lived by. He affirmed that he was not angered at being condemned to death,

saying, “I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.” (Plato, 17) He devoted himself so completely to

improving his soul and the souls of others that, while he faced enormous odds in convincing jury members who considered him evil, he undoubtedly

believed that his defense left his soul in its best condition before he died. In those terms, Socrates could not have delivered a better defense.

Sources:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html