1. Do you think these charges are legitimate? Is this a fair trial?
Charges that were against Socrates are fairly legitimate. The two main charges were corrupting the youth and not believing in the city’s god’s. Another charge was creating new gods. Therefore three Socrates faced three charges. Socrates challenged the worshiping of the gods where he questioned the necessity and holy fundamentals as what was established as a just of unjust actions among the Athens’ youth.
To look at how Socrate “corrupted” the youth, we have to look at it in the Ancient Greece era and not in our modern day perspective because in our society it is more free, while his society was not.
As it may seem that Socrates had a reasonable trial because he was allowed to express and define himself and his beliefs in court where there were many judges and juries whereas it seems as if it was a fair trail whereas a fair punishment was also given. Considering of the era where Socrate was being trialed, which during the Greek laws it may seem to the people in Athens that he had a fair trail. He represented himself and such. But as for our time now and their time then “fair trail” may be measured differently. Already from the beginning of the trail there were prejudices made against him (page 23). I believe it was not a fair trial since there was a prejudice at the start of the trail, but other than that overall I thought that the process, content, and format of a “fair trail” was reasonable. There are also other forms where we are not able to realize the extraordinary happiness, such as health/medical care.
Good work. It is helpful to keep the cultural context of the text in mind. You are correct to point out the differences between our society and that of Socrates. However, with heavy concepts like 'fairness' and 'justice', it is useful to look beyond any particular society to consider the facts apart from any cultural bias. Your answer would be stronger if you weighed the evidence independently and constructed your own argument as to whether it is fair or not (rather than relying on what would have been the case at a particular moment in history).
ReplyDelete