Good Life In Apology By Plato

Many philosophers throughout our history have had an influential impact on the fundamentals and ideals of modern society. Socrates’ life is mainly known and taught through the writing of one of his most well-known students, Plato. During this era, Socrates’ unorthodox political and religious views would lead to the most famous documentation of his philosophy accounted for by Plato in “Apology” (Boeree, 2009). Socrates would be placed on trial, where he repeatedly acknowledged his stance that standing up for what is right and wrong would out way the consequences he could potentially face. Ultimately, he would be sentenced to death for corrupting the morals of the youth of the city by drinking a mixture of poison hemlock (Biography.com Editors,

I should be right to reply to him: You are wrong sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or bad man” (Cooper, p. 32)

Socrates goes further into the explanation of the good life in “Crito.” He describes that there is part of us - our souls - that suffers by unjust actions and benefits from just actions. We need live to protect part of us because it is valuable according to Socrates, and life would hardly be worth living if this were damaged. For this reason, Socrates states:

“We should not then think so much of what the majority will say about us, but what he will say who understands justice and injustice, the one, that is, and the truth itself…you were wrong to believe that we should care for the opinion of the many about what is just, beautiful, good and their opposites” (Cooper, p.

As a large majority of Augustine’s philosophy is an interpretation from Platonism (the philosophy of Plato or his followers) as well, there are recognizable similarities against their concept of the good. Throughout Augustine’s philosophy there is a revolving dynamic that God is the central focus of all beings. The main source of Augustine’s concept of the good is revealed in the Enchiridion, or Handbook. He states, “All of nature, therefore is good, since the Creator of all nature is supremely good. But nature is not supremely and immutably good as is the Creator of it. Thus the good in created things can be diminished and augmented” (Unknown, 2002). Furthermore, Augustine makes a profound statement about the good when entering into the conversation about evil he states, “God is good, utterly and entirely better than the things which he has made. But, since he is good, the things that he has made are also good. This is how he contain them all in himself and fills them all with his presence” (Pine-Coffin, p. 138). In relation to Platonism, their ideals held that everything existed only to the extent to which it participated in God. Additionally, although no Plato himself, Augustine relates Plato’s Form of Good as the ideas in the mind of God. This would ultimately express the notion that Augustine