Summary
After some deliberation, the jury finds
Socrates guilty by a vote of 280 to 221. The
only surprise that Socrates registers is that the
vote was so close: he expected to lose by a much
wider margin. Meletus has proposed the death
penalty, and Socrates is invited to propose an
alternative form of punishment. True to form,
Socrates does not ask himself what penalty he would
like to pay, but what penalty he deserves.
Considering he has occupied himself by dissuading
his fellow citizens from pursuing personal
ambitions and urging them instead toward mental and
moral perfection, Socrates concludes he deserves a
reward rather than a penalty. Accordingly, he
proposes that he be given free dining in the
Prytaneum, where victorious athletes are feasted
during the Olympic Games.
Socrates excuses what might have seemed like a
joke, insisting that he cannot propose an
appropriate penalty when he is convinced that he
has not intentionally wronged anybody. Since he is
incapable of intentionally wronging anyone, he can
hardly intentionally wrong himself by proposing an
unjust penalty. Even so, he rejects most of the
penalties the jury might consider to be acceptable.
Imprisonment would leave him to the whim of
whichever magistrates were in charge of the
prisons. Banishment would just send him to wander
from town to town, earning resentment and expulsion
from each, just as he has here. One last time,
Socrates also refuses to give up his
philosophizing, as it is only through this that he
can do his duty to God and pursue goodness. Only
through philosophy can he properly come to know
himself, and it is here that he makes his famous
assertion that the unexamined life is not worth
living. Finally, he suggests, if he must pay a
fee, that it be set at one hundred drachmae, a
small fee that is barely within his limited means.
At the last minute, several young admirers, Plato,
Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus offer some of
their own money, raising the fine to three thousand
drachmae.
Commentary
Similar to his refusal to beg the jury for mercy,
Socrates refuses to beg for the death penalty to be
commuted. Simply to do so for personal reasons, or
out of fear, would be petty and disgraceful. The
only reason for commuting the penalty would be if
it were an unjust penalty. Socrates does indeed
consider the penalty to be unjust, not because it
is so harsh, but because it was laid down at all.
His alternative, then, is not a lighter penalty,
but a reward. His suggestion of being feasted like
a hero of the Olympic Games is just one in a long
string of comparisons he makes between himself and
more generally recognized heroes. For instance, at
28c, he likens himself to Achilles, the hero of
The Iliad, in his determination to fulfill
his duty regardless of the danger, and at 22a, he
alludes to the Labors of Hercules in connection
with his own project of showing the ignorance of
others. In these comparisons again, we find a form
of Socratic irony. Socrates knows full well that
the jury would find it perverse that he, a
meddlesome busybody, should in any way resemble
these legendary heroes. The irony then lies in the
fact that, in many ways, he is even more beneficial
to his fellow person than an Achilles or a
Hercules.
In reference to the victorious Olympic athletes,
Socrates says, "these people give you the semblance
of success, but I give you the reality" (36d).
While heroic feats might allow us to admire and
bask in perfection, Socrates teaching allows us to
strive for perfection ourselves. (This distinction
between semblances and reality possibly foreshadows
Plato's later teaching, where the difference
between illusion and reality, between the imperfect
world of matter and the perfect, transcendent world
of forms, is central.)
Socrates' claim that the unexamined life is not
worth living makes a satisfying climax for the
deeply principled arguments that Socrates presents
on behalf of the philosophical life. The claim is
that only in striving to come to know ourselves and
to understand ourselves do our lives have any
meaning or value. Again, goodness is associated
with wisdom, making the life of the philosopher--the
lover of wisdom--the most desirable life of
all. If we refuse to question ourselves and the
world, we will act without reason, unable to
distinguish between good actions and bad actions.
Without philosophy, Socrates might argue, humans
are no better off than animals. The good life is
one in which we make both ourselves and those
around us happier and better off, and the only way
to pursue that life is to pursue wisdom and
self-knowledge. If Socrates were to give up
philosophizing, he would be abandoning the examined
life, and without wisdom or self-knowledge he would
be better off dead.
