Socrates Views on Life and Death - Essay Example

Socrates Views on Life and Death Socrates’ expressed his views of what makes life significant in his speech during his trial. Plato recorded the Apology that outlines the trial of Socrates (Plato, Grube and John 21). At the start of his defense, Socrates views about what makes life important were remarkably paradoxical. He points out that it is only significant to value what is right. A good life entails giving attention only to what is correct and justified. He refers to that as giving full attention to the question. An individual should spend his life with an aim of enhancing improvement of the soul. This constitutes an examined life. An unexamined life, according to Socrates, is not worth leading. Doing what is righteous in accordance with the soul is necessary to grant an individual a good and desirable life. In Socrates’ view, morality is a vital aspect of life. Every individual intends to get the most serviceable life to fulfill his or her self-interest. Acting morally makes life significant. When an individual knows what is best to do, he or she should always act in the very manner that fulfils it. Any action that contravenes what is moral in an individual’s life is a fault. An individual, therefore, should act with knowledge to again what is of the best interest to him or her in life. Knowledge, therefore, makes life significant. Knowledge informs virtue and excellence while ignorance represents the evil (Plato, Grube and John 23). Any action informed by ignorance is harmful to the individual and, therefore, worthless. No individual would knowingly harm himself since it would be unimportant to his or her life. Knowledge and virtue are vital to attain happiness in life. Anyone is responsible for his or her own happiness. Happiness is important for the good of the soul. The soul, according to Socrates, is the most important aspect of humans that informs the ethical and rational aspects of life. Socrates provides different viewpoints about what he refers to as an examined life during his defense. Questioning an individual’s habit is imperative in life. Socrates subjects individuals to interrogation that seeks to again self-knowledge. Devotion to truth is an important aspect of everyone’s life and, therefore, is indispensable for everyone. According to Socrates, it is imperative for an individual to consider the concept of truth in life. If anyone leads an untruthful and unexamined life, it is worthless as maintained by Socrates. During his defense, Socrates cites that he would choose to die rather than give up the truth that he considers invested in philosophy. Truth begets virtue in an individual’s life. Valuable human life derives its basis from virtue. Virtue, therefore, is essential for every individual according to Socrates. A key life concept is the ability to embrace reason. Dispassionate reason informs vital life decisions and, therefore, very important for everyone to embrace. It makes life important. Socrates’ view of life informs his perception of death. After the jury sentenced Socrates to death, he gave his final opinion that reveals his perception of human fate upon death. Among the notable Socratic philosophies was that no individual should fear death. Anyone who maintains certainty and knowledge that he or she is innocent should have no reason to fear death. He maintained the concept of innocence that comes when someone does justified actions and adopts an examined life. While responding to the verdict during his trial, Socrates declined to ask for a lesser charge than death. In his opinion, an individual should rather seek the course of truth than panic at the fate of death. He failed to accept a proposal to take him to exile outside Athens. His choice of death was the most justified decision based on his beliefs. The Socratic Paradox informed his standpoint that death is justifiable when someone is innocent. According to him, someone derives no pain from death. Death, in his understanding, is a journey or course to a distant place or mere loss of consciousness. Socrates expressed satisfaction to face any of the two possibilities that come when one dies. He preferred taking a journey to another place to loss of consciousness. In his view, taking the journey would grant him time to question other great occurrences in the past. The Socratic paradox does not consider the presence of an undesirable place that most people refer to as hell. From his standpoint, the presence of hell is impracticality. He argues that virtue and knowledge is good while ignorance connotes evil. He maintained that god is virtuous and cannot subject an innocent individual to suffering. Death, therefore, was god’s order that Socrates could not violate. In a just world, good people do not face any form of harm and hell is impractical for any individual who maintains a virtuous life. Socrates admits that an individual’s body ends upon death but maintains his view of the immortality of the soul. The holocaust is an extensively documented historical event in history. It involved massive death of Jews under the repressive regime of the Nazis under Adolf Hitler. The citizens of Le Chambon, a village in France, however, defied supporting the course to have Jews killed. Instead, they rescued them from death under collaboration of French leadership and the Nazis. The story featured in a documentary by Pierre Sauvage outlining the occurrences during the World War II. The citizens would address the questions of what makes life significant in a similar as Socrates did during his trial. The citizens valued the life of Jews and helped save them from fateful death. They offered refuge to the Jews and provided them food. It was a cause to protect the lives of the Jews and value humanity. Their value for virtue matches that of Socrates. The citizens, similar to Socrates, valued the gift of the soul. However, the citizens of Le Chambon would have a dissimilar perception of death from that held by Socrates. While Socrates perceived death as a reward that he ultimately deserved, the citizens did not. Instead, the citizens never admitted to the Nazi’s operation to kill innocent Jews. Death, according to the citizens’ understanding, was not a justified penalty for the Jews. Work Cited Plato, Grube and John, Cooper. The Trial and Death of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Death Scene from Phaedo. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub, 2000. Print. Read More