Nickhil Singh
Title: The Role of Death in the Apology
In Plato’s Apology, Socrates addresses the belief that death is bad in the absence of evidence of an afterlife. As humans, we possess no proof, nor can we ever acquire any evidence, that unequivocally supports the notion of death being bad, but we believe this nonetheless. Could death possibly be a good thing? The inevitably of death can be accepted in a positive way if we understand Socrates’ arguments of why it can be a good experience. Socrates believes that because what happens after death is unknown, it would be presumptuous to conclude that it is bad. According to Socrates, we must possess faith in the goodness of death as we possess faith in the inherent goodness of God. Moreover, he argues we can perceive death as one of two things, a deep sleep or a migration of the soul to another place. In Socrates’ view, man experiences a positive outcome either way. By philosophizing on death, Socrates successfully shows that only those who live a life of virtue and introspection can appreciate the gifts of the afterlife.
For Socrates argument to be plausible, he must first identify the importance of virtue in a man’s life because his account of virtue plays a pivotal role in his perception of death. In describing the folly of the citizens of Athens for sentencing him to death, Socrates says:
For if you suppose that by killing human beings you will prevent someone from reproaching you for not living correctly, you do not think nobly. For that kind of release is not at all possible or noble; rather, the kind that is both noblest and easiest is not to restrain others but to equip oneself to be the best possible. So, having divined these things for you who voted against me, I am released. (39d)
Above anything else, Socrates values virtue as the most important mark of a human being, for he believes this to be god’s wish for all humans, as well (30a). To Socrates, the life of a virtuous man lies in his making ethically good decisions and intellectually understanding the reasons for his choices. Without it, a man will not be complete for he will lack the wisdom and strength to live a godly life spent in the inquiry of the nature of his soul (29e). By living in this way and persuading others to do the same, Socrates argues man can be released from this earthy life to one everlasting and better.
When man ceases to fear death, he becomes free to act in a true and just manner. He argues this virtuous behavior on the part of the citizens of Athens will create a better society (36c). Socrates uses this reasoning to justify his questioning of Athenian citizens despite their protestations. Socrates’ deep faith in god leads him to believe that god’s laws are the only ones that need to be followed. As a consequence, he faces his death sentence fearlessly.
Socrates believes that god personifies goodness and infinite wisdom. Man, on the other hand, possesses very limited knowledge, and Socrates sets out to show this. When justifying his questioning of Athenian citizens, Socrates states:
Terrible that would be, and truly then someone might justly bring me into a law court, saying that I do not believe that there are gods, since I would be disobeying the divination, and fearing death, and supposing that I am wise when I am not. For to fear death, men, is in fact nothing other than to seem to be wise, but not to be so. For it is to seem to know what one does not know: no one knows whether death does not even happen to be the greatest of all goods for human beings; but people fear it as though they knew well that it is the greatest of evils. (29b)
Specifically, Socrates states that in the absence of knowledge that death is good, it is wrong to assume that it is therefore bad. He argues that while we can differentiate between good and bad, and just and unjust, we cannot take the same position on death, as we know nothing about it (29b). Instead of fearing death, Socrates argues we should fear wrongdoings that lead to an impious life (38c). To Socrates, denying one’s ignorance is a known vice, and suggests that others, believing they know better, do wrong. (29b). By Socrates’ logic, in death we would only be participating in an unknown experience, as opposed to being party to a known bad action, namely disavowed ignorance. We know that living a life of vice does not follow God’s wishes, so preferring it to death would be voluntarily committing a wrong. On the other hand, man cannot claim ignorance because awareness of ignorance itself is knowledge. That knowledge therefore makes a man responsible for any imprudent decisions he makes.
An argument could be made that if an ignorant man presumes death to be bad, then Socrates shows ignorance when he presumes it to be good. Still, when discussing the god who speaks to him, Socrates speaks positively of his impending death, “In my view a great proof of this has happened. For there is no way that the accustomed sign would not have opposed me unless I were about to do something good” (40c). If we believe Socrates to be correct when he argues death is good even in his own case, he is not as ignorant as the common Athenian who believes death to be bad. His god tells him what not to do, and he follows. Therefore, his actions stem from a message from his god, so his presumptions are not founded on hubris, but merely lie in his piety and faith. Now, if he believed in false gods as accused, Socrates could still be committing a sin against any and all real gods. Since, the oracle at Delphi carefully stated that no one was wiser than Socrates, her specific words imply that the god that Socrates follows is as valid, if not more, than the gods that the Athenians follow (21a). Either way, he does not show less piety to the Gods than the rest of the Athenians.
Socrates’ choice of words to support his arguments on death reveals that he is far from ignorant. After talking about the signs from god that he follows, but before describing his conception of death, he says, “Let us also think in the following way how great a hope there is that it is good” (40c). Specifically, this line serves as a disclaimer for philosophizing on the issue of the afterlife. Socrates makes sure not to state unequivocally that death is good, but that if man thinks of it in a positive way then reflecting on death could be a beneficial experience for those who do so when they are alive. More importantly, Socrates acts once more stem from hope, a hope connected to his faith in God. We know this because of the positioning of this quote. The quote refers to the previous topic of the gods who speak to Socrates and it relates the gods to the following topic of death. Socrates argues that man should put faith in a good death in the same way he puts faith in a benevolent and just God. We possess no proof of either claim, but if we believe in the latter, it seems erroneous to not believe in the former because a good God would never do anything ultimately bad.
We have seen that only an ignorant man would assume death to be either good or bad, and to live God’s way man must live a life of virtue. But for Socrates’ argument to be cogent, there must also exist a reason why man should obey God’s wishes. Socrates’ two conceptions of death give us a glimpse of why we should obey God’s command. After being sentenced to death, Socrates claims that the afterlife may take one of two possible forms and that either way man is blessed. As he states, “For either it is like being nothing and the dead man has no perception of anything, or else, in accordance with the things that are said, it happens to be a sort of change and migration of the soul from the place here to another place” (40c). Specifically, Socrates hopes that the afterlife has two good outcomes: Either it is nothingness or a transportation of the soul to another place. If man becomes nothing in the afterlife, then Socrates believes that the afterlife would be like a great long sleep. We know the great agony of the earthly life for the virtuous man from Socrates’ description of his own virtuous life (31b-c). A virtuous man would feel no pain or agony like he did in his life on earth, but only sweet serenity because he would no longer be stuck contemplating with others who do not appreciate his work. This would bring much comfort to the virtuous man who, according to Socrates, would appreciate the peace of his nonexistence, as opposed to the imprudent man, who has been asleep through his entire life (31a).
Though the first option is good, Socrates thinks the second option is even better. If man’s soul migrates to another place and passes the judgment of Hades, man can live the afterlife in the way he chooses, without fear of his lifestyle. For Socrates, this means conversing with the infamous people of the past, like Ajax and Palamedes, an unimaginable opportunity because he would happily examine their beliefs like he examined those of the Athenian people (41b). The point is that, like Socrates, all virtuous men would get to live their lives in the way they pleased. He would also benefit because he would no longer face the day-to-day troubles of earth, but instead would enjoy some sort of peace, be it cerebral or otherwise. However, for this opportunity to occur man must pass the judgment of Hades and only through living the way of God, namely by virtue, can he do this.
An argument could be made that none of what Socrates states would be true if God does not exist, therefore, an atheist would not be able to accept Socrates’ logic into practice. But, as Socrates says, “Then, however, I showed again, not in speech but in deed, that I do not even care about death in any way at all- if it is not crude to say so- but that my whole care is to commit no unjust or impious deed” (32d). If we take his word to be true, Socrates refuses to commit any act that he believes to be wrong because it either contradicts God’s wishes or violates his sense of virtue. This perception of violating morality can be converted for general use. For instance, we usually equate justice with God, but justice is important by itself. Whether or not a person believes in God, they need some sort of view of justice to determine what they believe to be right or wrong. Without it, they could not function in a civilized society with others, for no prevailing power would maintain order and stability in the society. With people acting for their own interests, anarchy would ensue.
Moreover, if not a deep sleep or a journey to another world, what else could death be? It could be argued that with death man ceases to be, and simply feels nothing; but this view of death would probably fall into Socrates first conception of death, a deep sleep, for man would possess no conception of time nor sensory feeling. And as we already stated, this would be a positive outcome for man, for he would finally be at peace. Death could possibly be perceived as reincarnation, but then there would be positive and negative arguments for death. It would now not serve as only the end of a life, but a connection to another place like Socrates second conception of death. The negative or positive aspects of reincarnation would depend on the person who died, for only he or she could judge the goodness of their next life. Most importantly, in this scenario we could not indisputably state death to be bad.
According to Socrates, the examined life holds promise for the afterlife because to enjoy either aspect that Socrates outlines in the afterlife man needs to have lived the virtuous life. Socrates claims that if death were nothing, it would be like the deep sleep a man would have on his best night, for there would be no conception of time (40e). But, as he states, a man would have to “…compare the others nights and days of his own life with that night…” (40d). In reality, for man to truly enjoy a deep sleep, he would need to experience poor sleep, which is true for all men who live on earth. In other words, a man can only value peace if he has experienced turmoil. But, a virtuous man possesses this appreciation to be able to find meaning in death, for he, unlike the imprudent man, has been awake all his life (31a). Like Socrates, the virtuous man has lived a life of turmoil. So the virtuous man can find meaning and happiness in peaceful sleep because he has been in tiresome contemplation his entire life, and does not value the earthly things, but the spiritual goods of life (29d). In contrast, the imprudent man has really not lived life at all; for he has been asleep and will lose the earthly things that he values the most.
For Socrates second conception of death, life in another world, he states, “For those there are happier than those here not only in other things, but also in that they are immortal henceforth for the rest of time, at least if the things that are said are in fact true” (41c). Socrates argues that men in this afterlife are happier in a variety of ways, including their gift of immortality. But to be happier and live the way one pleases in the afterlife, man must possess the capacity to appreciate the afterlife’s gifts. By living on earth, man grapples with his own mortality, but the virtuous man does not presume to know death as either good or bad. Accordingly, when man displays virtue on earth, he proves himself worthy in death to live the life he pleases with god. So though the unexamined life may not be worth living, in that such a person does not appreciate the spiritual goods of life, the examined life prepares man so that he may enjoy the afterlife.
As we do not know what follows death, we should not be prejudiced towards it in any way. With this idea in mind, Socrates convincingly argues that leading a virtuous life bears fruitful results. A man who fears death will live a life without virtue, living in ignorance but thinking he understands it. He will never experience true happiness, nor strive for the higher things in life, as he will act out of interest for his own survival. The man who lives the virtuous life will perceive death as neither good nor evil. He will see it as the only option to leading a godly life. By doing so, he will find in the afterlife what eludes all men who do not live the virtuous way: Eternal happiness.
Want to reach me? E-mail me at nickhil@nickhil.com
