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Socrates Unjust Act Analysis

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There are instances that Socrates describes the actions that a just person will or would not do. This list of the do’s and don’ts of a just individual is long and at times seems to be an incoherent jumble of individual thoughts that may not fit together as good as Socrates may have thought or hoped. Socrates explains that there is no way that an unjust act will make the actor of the unjust act better off. This seems like a specifically wrong in the sense that I can commit fraud and steal millions of dollars. The act itself is unjust, but it seems that I am in a better position than before preforming the unjust act. However, there is a sense that I am not better off as a person because I allow myself to preform unjust acts. It seems reasonable to assume …show more content…

This seems like a just act in the sense that it is good to help others realize a truer level of reality. However, at the same time going back to the cave is forcing the philosopher to go to a place where there is a lower form of reality shown. This seems like a bad thing. It would be better for the philosopher to remain in his or hers higher and truer level of reality. However, we already said that it would be unjust for them to refuse to return to the cave. This seems like a case where an unjust act will put the individual preforming the act in a beater off position. However, this again depends on what is meant by better off. Earlier I described the difference between being better off in a secular way and being better off in a personal way. In a secular sense the philosopher would be better off staying out of the cave. The other view is that the individual philosopher would be worse off if he or she stayed out of the cave because he or she has become more of an unjust person. Becoming more unjust doesn’t make you better off on a personal

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“An unexamined life is a life not worth living” - Socrates. Both ‘The Matrix’ and Plato’s allegory of ‘The Cave’ develops a question of reality and how the world is perceived. This can be closely connected to one of the great Greek philosopher’s sayings where an “unexamined life is a life not worth living”. Socrates states this due to the increasing number of citizens who lived their lives without questioning the world around them. ‘The Matrix’ and Plato’s allegory explore how when the world is properly examined the outcome is a new understanding and perception of life.

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His statement brings up controversy, making the argument fail to back up its point. Socrates argues that a just soul and a just man will live well, and an unjust one badly. This argument consists of the following: 1. The function of each thing is what it alone can do or what it does better than anything else.

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Reading Socrates’ Allegory of the Cave gave me different perspectives when it comes to the relationship between intellectual pursuit and good governances, and the relationship between the physical world and our mind in the pursuit of gaining knowledge. The Allegory of the Cave is a parable that displays how, we as humans, are afraid of change and what we do not know or understand. Basically what Socrates is trying to argue is that based upon what people are brought up to believe, that is how they think and they are afraid to change that mindset. Socrates suggests that the shadows compose what life is like for the prisoners because they have never seen anything else; because they are chained up and can’t turn around, they can only see what’s

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The second form where Socrates broke down that was not justice, would be in the conversation with Cephalus and now Thrasymachus who is a sophist, discussing if Justice is to benefit ones friends and to harm ones enemies. Socrates gives an example of making a musician to make people unmusical, using a horseman use horsemanship to make someone unhorse manlike and he finishes it by comparing justice using justice to unjust people. This example proves that you can’t make people become unjust. At the end of this, Socrates proves that justice is not to benefit ones friend and harm their enemies.

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1. It is unjust to choose death over life. 2. Socrates is being unjust to abandon his kids and 3. It is unjust to give his friends a bad reputation. The 2nd argument being the strongest one.

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Socrates bases this view of justice on the worth of living a good life. “And is life worth living for us with that part of us corrupted by unjust actions” (47e) If we corrupt our soul with injustice, our life would not be worth living, therefore one must never commit an injustice. “When one has come to an agreement that is just with someone, one should fulfill it.”(49e) It is this agreement with the Laws that Socrates would be violating, if he were to

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In the dialogue, Socrates claims that after a prisoner leaves the cave and sees the sun (which symbolizes truth and knowledge), he will not participate in the cave dwellers’ ignorance. Similarly, individuals who chose to become enlightened to the true nature of reality do not partake in the ignorance of humanity; instead they encourage individuals to believe in philosophical knowledge. The cave dwellers believe that the shadows on the walls are real, just like individuals accept the reality of the world with which they are presented; however, they are both illusions, which are perceived. This is because over centuries human perception is merely a shadow of reality and individuals are like the cave dwellers who believe the perceptions created by society (Cleveland). Therefore, humans need to raise past the perceptions governed and taught by society in order to break through ignorance and travel on a path of

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Furthermore, the allegory of the cave can be linked to the concept of "epistemic closure," where people only seek information that confirms their existing beliefs, disregarding alternative viewpoints. As a result, people are only exposed to a limited range of perspectives, and many are not aware of alternative viewpoints. And yet, that is not where the problem lies. By the same token that some prisoners in the Allegory of the Cave remained ignorant of the world outside of the cave by refusing to examine their belief that the shadows on the wall are the only reality, it is in the unwillingness of the people to seek diverse perspectives, question their assumptions, and engage in critical

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I think that there is a fallacy of irrelevance. In the book, Socrates sets out to defend the idea that it is always in one’s best interest to be just and to act justly and he suggests that the just person as one who has a balanced soul will lead one to act justly or why mental health amounts to justice. I feel that justice includes actions in relation to others, it includes considerations of other people’s good, and includes strong motivations not to act unjustly. I believe that Socrates’ defense of justice does not include constraining reasons to think that a person with a balanced soul will refrain from acts that are commonly thought to be unjust like theft, murder, and adultery.

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The emergence from the cave is an enlightenment of intellectualism, when all the difficulties and confusion of life is gone and only reality exists. Plato uses the shadow of fire as a metaphor for intelligence. The people who emerged out of the brightness represent truth; the freed prisoner. The chained prisoner would “look towards the firelight; all this would hurt him, and he would be too much dazzled to see distinctly those things whose shadows he had seen before”(Plato

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