Is Socrates Innocent Or Guilty

In the wake of the Peloponnesian War, the father of western philosophy was put to death by order of the city he called home. Socrates was found guilty for corrupting the minds of the youth and impiety and was sentences to death for his crimes by majority vote. In the many centuries after the death of Socrates, it has been debated whether or not he was or not guilty of the crimes he was accused of. Using the definition of justice according to Socrates in the works of Plato’s Republic, Crito, and the Apology, he was guilty. While he was guilty, the city putting him to death showed the danger of a direct democracy to act unjustly to harm a just citizen of their city. With Socrates’ death, he became a martyr for western philosophy and taught the

While defending himself, Socrates told the jury that matters of life and death come secondary to matters of justice, stating, “If you suppose that a man…should take into account the danger of living and dying...but whether his actions are just or unjust, and the deeds of a good man or a bad.” It is here that Socrates stated that if he had a duty to the gods to die and the jury acquitted him, there would be injustice on their part. Socrates wanted to act justly no matter the circumstances and wanted the jury to do the same thing, that justice ultimately would be to acquit Socrates as he harmed no youth and believed in the gods, making the charges false. Finally, after a vote, Socrates was found guilty with only a thirty-vote margin. He was then invited by Meletus to provide an alternative punishment to the death penalty, Socrates asked, “Is it not clear that it should be whatever I am worthy of?” Socrates, true to himself, desired only a just punishment, and at the end, he accepted his fate knowing that death has caught up to a seventy-year-old man and knew following the law of the polis was ultimately just. Plato showed through the trial that it is dangerous if one is politically active and opposes the regime’s actions because then they will perish at the hands of the state one way or another. That is why Socrates avoided politics for his life and preferred private conversations. Through the apology, Socrates accepted that

In book I, Socrates asked three different Athenians what they perceived as justice. Cephalus who represented the old elite of Athens stated, “ we so simply assert that it [justice] is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another.” Polemarchus who represented the young ambitious politician expanded on Cephalus’ idea by saying that justice is, “That it is just to give to each what is owed.” Finally, Thrasymachus who represented the sophists of Athens, said, “And see to it you don’t tell me that it [justice] is the needful, or the helpful, or the profitable, or the gainful, or the advantageous.” All three definitions of justice are wrong according to Socrates, but each true as a convention and not a true form of justice. Thrasymachus’ interpretation of justice according to Socrates was injustice that was presented as justice by those in power to act unjustly. Therefore, in a democracy as seen in Socrates’ trial, each citizen had a different convention of what is justice was without having the true form. Many may have saw Cephalus’ interpretation as the most correct. Others may see Polemarchus as more correct. During the trial, the majority were persuaded by Meletus and other accusers to act unjustly and in their actions showed