What kind of life according to socrates is valuable

A person who lives this way—obeying the commandments and performing the proper rituals—is pious. And in most religions, such piety will be rewarded. Obviously, many people do not receive their reward in this life. But devout believers are confident that their piety will not be in vain.

Christian martyrs went singing to their deaths confident that they would soon be in heaven. Hindus expect that the law of karma will ensure that their good deeds and intentions will be rewarded, while evil actions and desires will be punished, either in this life or in future lives. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was one of the first to declare, bluntly, that what makes life worth living is that we can experience pleasure. The view that pleasure is the good, or, to put I another way, that pleasure is what makes life worth living, is known as hedonism.

But this is a misrepresentation of Epicureanism. Epicurus certainly praised all kinds of pleasures. Today, this hedonistic conception of the good life is arguably dominant in Western culture. What is key to this hedonistic conception of the good life is that it emphasizes subjective experiences. If Socrates emphasizes virtue and Epicurus emphasizes pleasure, another great Greek thinker, Aristotle , views the good life in a more comprehensive way.

According to Aristotle, we all want to be happy. We value many things because they are a means to other things. For instance, we value money because it enables us to buy things we want; we value leisure because it gives us time to pursue our interests.

But happiness is something we value not as a means to some other end but for its own sake. It has intrinsic value rather than instrumental value. So for Aristotle , the good life is a happy life. But what does that mean?

Today, many people automatically think of happiness in subjectivist terms: To them, a person is happy if they are enjoying a positive state of mind, and their life is happy if this is true for them most of the time.

There is a problem with this way of thinking about happiness in this way, though. Imagine a powerful sadist who spends much of his time gratifying cruel desires. Or imagine a pot-smoking, beer-guzzling couch potato who does nothing but sit around all day watching old TV shows and playing video games. These people may have plenty of pleasurable subjective experiences. Aristotle would certainly say no. He agrees with Socrates that to live the good life one must be a morally good person.

And he agrees with Epicurus that a happy life will involve many and varied pleasurable experiences. If at the end of your life you can check all these boxes then you could reasonably claim to have lived well, to have achieved the good life. Of course, the great majority of people today do not belong to the leisure class as Aristotle did. In his day this was a very bold statement.

The people back then was stuck in their own ways. They had their ways of thinking and that was it. Having someone come in and try to show them another way of thinking was not acceptable.

They were not ready for Socrates, therefore they took him to trail, and where he was sentenced to death for his believes. I think there are several different meanings for his statement. Was he right, was the. Crito there is an attempt by Socrates to defend himself in court and defend his choice to receive the death penalty when found guilty. Although he makes very valid and strong arguments throughout one can only wonder why such a wise person would choose death over life. The following essay will analyze three quotes from Apology and Crito, find the correlation between them, and reveal any flaws that may exsist inside these arguments made by Socrates.

Socrates had been broadcasting his ideas to those around him, which was what caused him to be put on trial. But one thing that Socrates said specifically was something of great offense. Well known Greek philosphers such as Socrates and Plato believed that our purpose in this life was to gain knowledge in preparation for the next life. Other Philosophers such as Epicurus believed that pleasure is the main goal in life. After giving these ideas lots of thought, I have come to my own conclusion that the true meaning of life is far more complex than either of these; far too complex for any human.

This response was very confusing to Socrates because he recognized that he was not wise at all, and it troubled him for some time. Socrates then tries to refute the oracle by bringing a supposedly. Undoubtedly, the Apology of Socrates is one of the most significant work among all the classics. It is an account of the speech of Socrates makes at the trial in defence for the accusations of not recognizing Gods recognised by the Greek and corrupting the adolescents of Athens.

Throughout the speech, Socrates speaks in a very plain manner to attempt to defend himself and his conduct. Socrates here makes the distinction between rhetoric and truth, and by way of analogy, the unexamined versus the examined life.

By rhetoric he means a fancy, convincing way of talking that bears a likeness to truth, but is patently false; it is irrational. By truth he means what the highest, noblest of intellectual endeavors, mostly philosophy, all aim for; it is rational. The difference between the two is striking - rhetoric is the reflection of the truth and truth is pure, unchanging form of knowledge.

To Socrates, an unexamined life is merely rhetorical in value; it is a passing fancy. This is the unexamined life. On the other hand, the examined life is preoccupied with the 'good', which is what all activities should aim for Gorgias c.

The answer is clear. The examined life is concerned with the quest for the 'good' and eventual contemplation of the 'good'. Socrates also gives us an excellent glimpse into what he considers to be the philosophical life in section - of the Gorgias. Here Socrates discusses what makes a man happy and content and what actions a man must follow through with in order to live a full, examined life. He states that anyone who wishes to be happy must first practice self-control and flee from profligacy.

Man should strive to be just; and, if we commit an aberration, we should submit to proper justice and punishment. But most importantly for our discussion, Socrates couples the examined, happy life with friendship and sharing. It might seem commonsensical, but without friendship and the trust that accompanies friendship, the truth cannot be reached through conversation. For Socrates, friendship is a vehicle to finding the truth and order of things.

What is the examined life to Socrates? It is fair to say that the examined life is a life immersed in conversation, both with others and with oneself. Moreover, it is a struggle. This is exemplified best in the Apology. Socrates, even in a moment of great despair and tribulation, follows through and maintains his philosophical demeanor. He leads his life, all the way to the end, in line with his philosophy and its principles, never wavering and always questioning.

For in this way, a person can come to decipher what is good and what is evil and make proper decisions. Without proper instruction, without self-control, man will always fall into the abyss of persuasion and pleasure, which leads one away from what is the examined life.