Socrates Virtue Analysis

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“A virtue is a proper activity, quality, function or capacity proper to the kind of things in question.” So an example will be a team, an act of working together and unity. Socrates provides his account of human virtue in the health of soul doctrine. Socrates account of virtue found in the Plato’s Republic looks, upon three distinct components of the soul and calls them appetite, reason, and passion. Appetite is the part of the soul that is animal like, longing for bodily pleasures, reason consists a part which is rational thought, and passion is the part associated with emotions. After having established the various parts of the soul, Socrates then makes the claim that virtue lies in keeping the components of the soul in the correct relations. …show more content…
Therefore, Socrates looks, obedience, respect, piety, and patriotism as virtues as well. For example, as we see in Plato’s Crito the whole attempt is to confer a kind of familial piety to the laws. One is bound to the law like a child is bound to a parent, and so to go against the law would be like retaliating a parent for disciplining one. Socrates seemed to be trying to substitute familial piety as an emotion for that of revenge as the basis of justice. For Socrates then there is an emotional basis to justice. What he requires is an explanation of why he don’t break the law even if he won’t get caught. Escaping from Athens to avoid an unjust sentence is returning a wrong for a wrong, which showed how he championed the virtue of personal integrity and consistency, which in return shows his obedience and respect of the law. In addition, in Plato’s Apology Socrates said that “I shall never fear or avoid things of which I do not know whether they may not be good rather than things that I know to be bad.” Even though the consequence is death he stayed true to himself to his principles in life and made his defense heard in the court. His determination to stick to his principle showed his patriotism and committed
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