At this point Socrates tells us something about his beliefs; not, indeed about his beliefs in the gods, but about his moral commitments. He imagines someone asking him if he is not ashamed of following pursuits that could get him condemned. “You are mistaken, sir,” he replies, “if you think any man who is worth anything at all ought to take into account the chances of living or dying rather than to consider this thing alone when he acts: whether he is doing right or wrong, undertaking the actions of a good or a bad man.”[21]
Socrates cites the behavior of Achilles as expressed in the Iliad, and then goes on to his own case: “Wherever anyone takes his post, considering it to be best, or is posted by his superior, there he must, I firmly believe, stand his ground at all costs, taking no account of death or anything else other than shame. I, men of Athens, would be derelict in my duty if, when the officers you appointed to command me at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium, assigned me my post, and I remained there with my fellows facing death; but when the god commanded me, as I believe with all my heart, to live a life of reflection examining myself and others, then for fear of death or any other misfortune, I cravenly abandoned my post. That would indeed be a disgrace, and one might then really bring me into court in a just cause, on the grounds that I don’t believe in the existence of gods because I disobeyed the oracle for fear of death, thinking myself to be wise when I was not.
“To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing but to think you are wise when you are not; it is thinking you know what you don’t know. No one in fact knows whether death may be the greatest of all goods, but men fear it as if they knew for sure that it was the greatest of all evils. And how is this not the most reprehensible ignorance, that of thinking you know what you don’t know? For my part, gentlemen, perhaps I stand out from the majority of men in this one thing, and if I should claim to be wiser than anyone it would be precisely in this, that inasmuch as I have no adequate knowledge about the afterlife, I recognize that I do not know. But to do wrong and to disobey one’s superior, whether god or man, that I do know to be evil and shameful. Consequently, in place of those evils which I know to be evils, I shall never fear or flee from events that, for all I know, might actually be goods.”[22]
We will return later to his passage (ch. 31*), which has a good deal to teach us about Socrates’ understanding of his moral theory. For now, it is important to recognize two things: first, the small advantage he admits to having over other alleged sages—his awareness of his own ignorance (ch. 24.2*)—has surprising practical consequences. And second, that awareness leads him to dismiss the threat of death, so terrifying and debilitating for most agents, altogether from his moral deliberations.
Socrates recognizes a responsibility to his superiors, both divine and human, a duty to man his post. Just as a soldier must man his post without consideration of the personal risk to his own life and limb, so Socrates must carry out the mission entrusted to him by the god. The threat of death is morally irrelevant to his responsibility as a spokesman for the god, just as it would be for the soldier in a garrison. What matters above all is one’s duty, not one’s personal welfare. Socrates is duty-bound to carry on his work in the face of all obstacles, even the threat of death.
[21].Plato Apology 28b-c.
[22].Plato Apology 28d-29c.