Was Socrates Wise To Stay In Athens To Die? Examine Firstly The Context

Title	Was Socrates Wise To Stay In Athens To Die? Examine Firstly The Context
# of Words	766
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.06

     Was Socrates wise to stay in Athens to die?  Examine firstly the context

of the word wise , Socrates wasn't wise in the sense of preserving his own life

as he stayed to die.  He was encouraged and given the chance to escape

by his friend Crito, but Socrates did not want to escape .  Why?

     Socrates was a wise man.  He believed in absolutes, and pursued the

knowledge of man's source of goodness and virtue.  He believed that the

repayment of evil with evil was wrong.  In short, Socrates was a very moral person.

He stayed in Athens because he said that he had lived by the laws of the country

for all his life.  He had enjoyed the privileges of a civilized society, and that he had

been treated as any other citizen would have come to expect.  Now that the laws

didn't suit him, was it fit for him to ignore them?  Crito, in vain, tries to dissuade him.

     Socrates compares the laws of the state to a father/mentor figure:

The state says that all of the laws and statutes have protected him and raised him.

His parents were married by the law, and the same saw to it that he was educated.

Now the state says "Is it alright for you, who thinks so much of virtue, to destroy us?"

Socrates is wise to see that he would be contradicting not only himself, but he would

betray the examples he was trying to set to his followers.

     The impact of Socrate's teachings on the world were greatly increased

by his decision.  Socrates had no education, therefore none of his own teachings

were ever written.  His followers have carried on his messages and lessons

into later times.  Would Socrate's teachings really have been carried on at all

if he hadn't followed through?

     The impact of his teachings would have been greatly lessened had he

escaped.  All the lessons of "virtue" and "courage" would have been taught by a

hypocritical man.  Socrates was brave enough to face that sentence without fear

or cowardice; and he is remembered as one who died for what they believed in.

It could be safe to call Socrates a martyr: He laid down his life for what he considered

to be right, selflessly.

     Socrates was morally obligated to stay in Athens to die.  The choice was

not the selfish one, but the honorable one.  He didn't have to stay, as Crito would

h...

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