Socrates: Creating Elaborate Arguments

Socrates: Creating Elaborate Arguments Socrates in his defense of the accusations brought onto him, argues on several different topics that disprove any accusations that Meletus brought to the trial. His approach at defending himself through arguments was a bold move, and as we know from reading the text, the jury still finds him guilty regardless of this strategy that backfired on him. One argument that stuck out was how he did not corrupt the youth, but if he did it was unknowingly, which does not deserve punishment. His first premise is that no one intentionally causes harm, and from that his second premise is he did not intentionally mean to corrupt the people if he did. Thus leading to the fact that he should not be punished for an act
For an argument to be sound there must also be 2 principles that must be met. The first principle is that the argument must be valid, which relates it back to the idea of validity. The second principle that must be met is the premises of the argument must all be true (Wireless Philosophy (Critical Thinking Fundamentals: Soundness). Going back to Socrates’ first premise that no one intentionally causes harm to people. One can argue that as being a true statement as Socrates does in this case. “That it’s all mankind that improves the horses, and just one person who corrupts them? Or is the situation quite the opposite of this, that there’s one person or a very small number of people who can improve them, namely the horse-experts, whereas most people, if they even have anything to do with horses, or use them, actually make them worse?” (Plato 25a-25b p. 41). From what Socrates is stating only a select few can improve the youth, while the majority tend to harm them. No one wants to harm the youth though it happens unintentionally which proves the first premise to be true. Socrates’ second premise states that if he corrupted the youth, he did it unintentionally. This statement would also be true
The argument that he does not deserve punishment is the most compelling case that I found. The argument Socrates uses has been proven to be not only valid, but also sound which makes it a very compelling case for Socrates not to be punished. The jury however does not appeal to his sense of defending himself and sentences him to death. Socrates was wrongly sentenced to death because the punishment that should have been issued would be counseling. The main question is still raised from Socrates argument that if no one intentionally does harm which would lead to no punishment being issued, then why is there a court system for people to be tried. This would suggest that either Socrates argument is flawed that people do intentionally cause harm to others, (which is shown to not be true) or the second option the people of Athens are flawed in the way they persecute their own people in a system that is