The Trial of Socrates

The Defense of Socrates
Plato’s Apology also known as the part of the sequence of the Trial of Socrates scenes shows the famous philosopher pleading his defense before the committee of Athens that has decided it is his fate to die for corrupting the youth. His sentence does not bother him and he respects the decision of the state, acknowledging that it has the right to decide these matters. He objects, however, to the notion that he is being harmed by the decision, as it is his belief that the lesser cannot harm the greater. The greater, by virtue of its very essence, exists above the lesser and thus is not afflicted by the same pettiness that afflicts the lesser. Socrates, in other words, has his eyes on the transcendental ideal—the one, the good, and the true. He notes, “I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse; certainly he might kill me, or perhaps banish me or disfranchise me, which he and others think to be a great harm but I do not think so” (Plato, 1954). This paper will show that his statement is true based on his sense of the ultimate good and ultimate goal of life, which is to be united with the one, the good, and the true in the transcendent realm.
Plato argues that a worse man cannot harm a better because the better is filled with a different light altogether that cannot be drained just because the body is attacked by the worse man. The body, Plato points out, is not the mind. The mind is where one’s concern should be, according to Socrates’ words in Phaedo: “Only the body and its desires cause civil war, civil discord, and battles, for all wars are due to the desire to acquire wealth, and it is the body and care of it, to which we are enslaved” (Plato Phaedo, 66c-d). The war that Socrates’ accusers have dared to wage against him is caused by their jealousy, their fear, their worry that he might usurp their positions as leaders in Athens. They do not like the fact that he has become so popular. Socrates’ friends hate the verdict that has been given. Crito begs Socrates to abandon the verdict and escape since there is opportunity to do so. However, Socrates refuses. These words are echoed in the Apology when Socrates states that
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death, and they, too, go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my award - let them abide by theirs.
In other words, Socrates argues it is better to die in righteousness than to live in unrighteousness. For him to attempt to escape death would be like the soldier who throws down his arms and abandons that which defines him in order to preserve his life (which is never really his but must be forfeited to God or Fate, as man himself has no say in the matter). Socrates thus alludes that the only person who can harm the better person is the better person himself by abandoning his morals, his philosophical position, his sense of the one, the good and the true and seeking to hold onto something that is ultimately intangible in the end anyway.
Socrates goes further than this, however: he goes so far as to assert his own superiority by prophesying to them that because they aim to murder him, he will be avenged—for that which is better will still exist high above and it will not allow one who was faithful to the good to be dispatched by those who were unjust themselves. Thus Socrates excoriates his judges:  “I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you” (Apology). Socrates suggests that his students, his followers, who are much younger and who have wanted to attack his accusers but hitherto have been restrained by him, will rise up and bring down so many blows on the judges that they will wish they had taken Socrates’ advice to heart and focused on becoming better themselves rather than on killing the better among them. He states: “if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves” (Apology). Socrates thus urges them still to become better and to leave off their unrighteousness, which will not bring them to the good.
Socrates also tells his friends that in spite of the seeming evil that is death, he affirms that his sentence is a good thing—namely because the Oracle that lives within him made no voice of opposition to his defense or to his sentence or to any of his words whatsoever, though the Oracle is often inside Socrates opposing with him over every little trifling utterance that he makes in his day to day teachings. Socrates tells his friends that he takes this as a sign that the Oracle approves of his death sentence: “I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.” (Apology). Thus, Socrates concludes that even though he has excoriated his faux-judges (for he calls his friends his real judges) he has done so only out of the desire that they might truly take upon themselves the task of bettering themselves and becoming better men like he. He has not done so out of any desire to avoid death. He embraces the verdict, as he feels he should, since the Oracle has given him no contrary impulse or thought to consider. In this manner, too, then it can be said that he is not being harmed even by the death sentence—for he is either going from a state of consciousness to a state of nothingness or endless sleep, which would be pleasant enough, or embarking on a “change and migration of the soul from this world to another” (Apology). If the latter is the case then he says that he would be willing to die and die again because in that other world he would be able to converse with other philosophers and poets like Homer and Palamedes, and that would be a great joy. So he says there is to be no sadness in death—only something to look forward to for those who go to it as good men go to the transcendental good.
I agree with Socrates on this matter, for what he says makes sufficient sense in terms of the inferior not being able to harm that which is superior. Rather, it is the superior who is above the inferior and can harm the inferior. This is true in nature, for example, when one looks at a father and a young son. The father is the superior, grown, mature, tall and strong. The young son is the inferior, weak, little and dependent upon that which the father provides. The young son may attack the father out of anger over not getting what he wants—but he cannot hurt the father. The father, however, can hurt the son if he loses his temper and takes out his wrath on the child. This is just one example of how the lesser cannot harm the better and it supports what Socrates says. Though he is arguing in a spiritual or philosophical or moral sense, the idea is the same. That which is not good cannot harm that which is good, for that which is good exists on a higher plane and that which is bad exists below it and cannot even reach up to harm it though it might try to. Socrates alludes to his death sentence and explains that it is not a bad thing. His accusers have tried to harm Socrates by condemning him to death, but he looks on death as a gateway to something quite nice and delightful—either eternal sleep and repose or else eternal community with others who have gone before. In either case this cannot be counted as a punishment because neither is unpleasant. So he shows that even when his enemies attempt to hurt him, they fail for they simply give him something even better than what he has now.
This argument of Socrates is very well made and he supports it with this statement: “no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods” (Apology). Socrates argues that the gods watch over all things and are not ignorant of or indifferent to what happens to those who love them and those they love. Men who are devoted to the good will be rewarded for their goodness and those who are devoted to the bad will be punished. That is Socrates’ belief and it appears just and rational to me, for it highlights the idea that an external, objective, ideal of justice exists above, which Socrates had earlier described in his Allegory of the Cave as something that must be pursued in order to be fully understood.
In conclusion, Plato’s Apology shows Socrates arguing that a better person cannot be harmed by a worse one. First off, the better person is above the lesser one and if he is devoted to the good, nothing can disconnect him from the good. Second, the better person may be “judged” by the worse in this world, but it means nothing for this world is not the last stop: there is another that follows, and the better person will either be afforded a great rest after death or will be given community with those good men who have passed on before. Either way is a victory.

References
Plato. (n.d.). Apology. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html
Plato. (n.d.). Crito. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/crito.html
Plato. (1954). The Last Days of Socrates. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd.
Plato. (n.d.). Phaedo. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html