{"id":623,"date":"2025-03-13T18:56:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T18:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/chapter\/1-1-socrates-and-the-examined-life\/"},"modified":"2025-03-18T19:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T19:26:07","slug":"1-1-socrates-and-the-examined-life","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/chapter\/1-1-socrates-and-the-examined-life\/","title":{"raw":"1.1 Socrates and the Examined Life","rendered":"1.1 Socrates and the Examined Life"},"content":{"raw":"
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The unexamined life is not worth living.
\u2014Socrates, in Plato, Apologia<\/em>
<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"800\"]\"Oil Jacques-Louis David, \u201cThe Death of Socrates\u201d[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n

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Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. Until this point most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer hold off, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast, so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend.<\/p>\r\n

--Plato, Phaedo<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

The philosopher Socrates was executed in 399 BCE in his hometown of Athens, Greece in the customary way of being given a cup of poison hemlock extract to drink, for the crimes of \u201ccorrupting the youth\u201d and \u201cpreaching false gods.\u201d What he really did was spend his days engaging his fellow citizens in dialogue about anything and everything, but especially focused on questions concerning how we all should live our lives, as well as challenging everyone he met to account for and defend their assumptions about how to live. But his relentless questioning earned him many enemies who preferred that the young people of Athens, and everybody else, rest content in the assumption that the best way to live is to seek fame and fortune and try to live the \u201cgood life\u201d that these seem to make possible. Socrates was not convinced and advocated the life of the philosopher, turning away from worldly pursuits and instead reflecting on and critically examining our deepest assumptions and ultimately being willing to admit how little we really know.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The Apology <\/strong>of<\/strong> Socrates | Plato<\/a> (3:48)<\/strong><\/p>\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=igkvfrXAUJ0[\/embed]\r\n\r\nIf you are experiencing issues viewing the video above, please use this link: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=igkvfrXAUJ0<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\r\n

Socrates<\/em>\u00a0was famous for his saying that \u201cthe unexamined life is not worth living.\u201d He seems to have meant by this that all of us have a responsibility<\/em> to examine our own beliefs, our own values, and try to figure out if they are serving us and others. Not doing this is like sleepwalking through life. This might be pleasant, but it runs the risk of us devoting our lives to things that don\u2019t truly matter, and even worse it leads us to neglect developing our unique capacity as human beings. Unlike other animals, we can mentally take a step back from what we see in front of us and ask, \u201cShould I trust what I see or not?\u201d Likewise with everything we do: we can examine our own desires, intentions and plans and ask ourselves, \u201cShould I act on these or not?\u201d In both cases we are capable of distancing ourselves from the immediate demands of our situation and seeking orientation from another source \u2013 we seek\u00a0reasons<\/em>\u00a0to believe or doubt what we see and\u00a0reasons<\/em>\u00a0to follow or resist our urges. This reflective capacity is the source of our strength since it has enabled us to understand and manipulate the world around us like no other creature on the planet. But, as we can now see more clearly than perhaps Socrates could, it also puts us in the uniquely awkward position of having to justify ourselves to our own worst critics, ourselves.<\/p>\r\n

Another famous<\/em> (<\/em>although fictional<\/em>)<\/em> figure<\/em>\u00a0who shows the difficulties that our ability to reflect can pose is Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet. Writing at the dawn of the modern era, Shakespeare sums up the human predicament when he has Hamlet say,<\/p>\r\n

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?<\/p>\r\n

The capacity<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>to reflect<\/em> is both the source of our godlike \u201capprehension\u201d and the difficulties we inevitably encounter in figuring out what we should do with ourselves; our ability to dominate the world we live in and the difficulties we sometimes face in finding a solid sense of purpose and direction. What\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0we really do with our short time here on this planet and why? Should we live our lives according to the standard routine, and accumulate more and more stuff, seeking one \u201cpeak experience\u201d after another to file away in our memories? Or should we look for a higher purpose, whatever\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0might be? Even though, thankfully, most of us do not experience the tension between these two aspects of our ability to reflect on ourselves and our circumstances quite as dramatically as Hamlet did, all of us face this essentially human predicament \u2013 being masters of the universe and yet feeling lost at the same time. As we will be seeing in this text, philosophical ethics is another, much less bloody, way of exploring it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

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The unexamined life is not worth living.
\u2014Socrates, in Plato, Apologia<\/em>
<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Oil
Jacques-Louis David, \u201cThe Death of Socrates\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. Until this point most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer hold off, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast, so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend.<\/p>\n

–Plato, Phaedo<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The philosopher Socrates was executed in 399 BCE in his hometown of Athens, Greece in the customary way of being given a cup of poison hemlock extract to drink, for the crimes of \u201ccorrupting the youth\u201d and \u201cpreaching false gods.\u201d What he really did was spend his days engaging his fellow citizens in dialogue about anything and everything, but especially focused on questions concerning how we all should live our lives, as well as challenging everyone he met to account for and defend their assumptions about how to live. But his relentless questioning earned him many enemies who preferred that the young people of Athens, and everybody else, rest content in the assumption that the best way to live is to seek fame and fortune and try to live the \u201cgood life\u201d that these seem to make possible. Socrates was not convinced and advocated the life of the philosopher, turning away from worldly pursuits and instead reflecting on and critically examining our deepest assumptions and ultimately being willing to admit how little we really know.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Apology <\/strong>of<\/strong> Socrates | Plato<\/a> (3:48)<\/strong><\/p>\n