Socrates Apology: The Possibility Of Being A Good Citizen

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Socrates‘ Apology is set during the trials of the philosophe. During the text, that Plato wrote, Socrates defends himself against a man named Melethus. This man is saying that he corrupts the mind of the youth and that he is atheist. While reading the text, it became evident to me that this question “Assess Socrates claim that a ‘man who fights for justice must lead a private, not a public life if he is to survive for even a short time’? Do you agree or disagree? Why?” would be the one I would answer. Mainly because it made me think of the actual situations that are on in this country and in the United States. This point of view will be explained later. In order to answer this question, a few notions from the text were necessary. These notions are the good man and the good citizen and what consists of being a good man. The notions of public and private life will also be part of this essay. But before everything, I would like to answer the sfirst part of the question, if I agree or not. At first I did not, but while doing the research for this paper, I changed my mind…show more content…
The later would imply that the person was part of the political life in Athens. Which would erase the possibility of being a good man, because a good man would be a moral person. But reaching this way of being would not happen overnight. Certain traits of character would be needed to achieve this state of mindfulness. The first example is courage. Also, the fear of death would stop the person from being moral. It’s with Socrates constantly saying that he would rather “run the risk with the law and the just rather than side with [the assembly] because of fear of prisonor death when you were counseling unjust things.”[1] that the conclusion of what is a good man can be drawn. A man cannot be good if he fears death, simply because he would do anything to avoid it, to the point of not staying
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