Socrates The Apology

In this eight to ten page paper you and your group will outline and assess at least three distinct and different arguments that Socrates gives in his own defense in The Apology as he argues he is not guilty and that he does not deserve the death penalty. (Your group will decide if it will provide one argument about the conviction and three about the defense, etc.) When outlining the arguments, your group should draw on strong arguments Socrates makes and not weak ones. The first task of the exam paper will be to decide what your group thinks about the conviction and sentence. (That is, do y’all think both were wrong, both were right, or perhaps one was wrong and the other right?) Next you should select three strong arguments Socrates makes on his own behalf. As part of those arguments (and your assessment) you should somewhere, somehow draw on at least three moral theories and strategies from three different articles from our course to assess the arguments that Socrates provides. In the first part of your exam you might decide, for example, Socrates was guilty and deserved to die. You might summarize two arguments he offers to defend his innocence and one he offers to suggest punishments other than death. This is the first part of your exam. In total your group should be summarizing three arguments Socrates makes in the first part of your exam. In the second part of your exam you must defend and/or criticize what Socrates argued. That is, here in part two you need to make an argument of your own that either defends or criticizes each of the three points from the first part of your exam. For example, here in part two you might criticize Socrates’s first argument using virtue theory. You might turn to Kantian moral theory to then defend Socrates’s second argument. Finally, here in part two you might turn to Utilitarianism to defend the third argument Socrates makes. If you did this then you will have satisfied the exam requirements that you use at least three moral theories. This final exam, however, is more than just an inventory or long list of how each theory or strategy might line up on a score card for or against the conviction and sentence of Socrates. You must apply each of your three theories or strategies, in some detail, to the arguments Socrates gives in his defense against his conviction and/or sentence. In the third part of your exam you must also consider one objection to each of your views. That is, in part one you summarized three of Socrates’s points. In part two you decided to criticize or defend each of Socrates’s points. Now, here in part three you must make an objection to each of your arguments in part two. Here do not set up your own arguments for an easy fall, as straw person fallacies do. (We’ll see more of that in class.) As you argue, you must use each theory consistently and coherently. (That is, you should not argue in a way that each moral theorist or strategist himself or herself does not defend.) You must also consider obvious objections to your own view. That is, after each of your arguments about Socrates you must also give a strong objection (e.g. something your best friend might say that points out a main problem for your view). However, please do not make the objection an easy one to knock over because that is really what makes the straw person fallacy a problem. The final exam might be an essay paper or even a dialogue between you and your group members and the main ethical theorists we have read. Whichever option you choose, be certain not to simply string together quotes from each theorist or strategist as if that tells me, your reader, what each one specifically might think about the conviction and sentencing of Socrates. Instead, you will have to apply each ethical theory or strategy so that it specifically addresses the conviction and sentencing of Socrates. On the final exam, you should not appeal to relativism as a moral theory. If you appeal to Kantian moral theory, be careful about his distinction between using someone and merely using that person. If you appeal to Mill’s Utilitarian moral theory, recall that the Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP) is not meant to be applied to small groups (e.g. the jury, Athenian men) but broadly to all sentient beings. And as you cite passages from the dialogue, you must provide line numbers from the text itself to identify which passage you are citing.