Corrupting the Youth: Socrates’ Defense

Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or among good ones? . . . Do not the good do their neighbors good, and the bad do them evil? / Certainly.

And is there any one who would rather be injured than benefited by those who live with him? … [D]oes any one like to be injured? / Certainly not.

And when you accuse me of corrupting and deteriorating the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them intentionally or unintentionally? / Intentionally, I say.

But you have just admitted that the good do their neighbors good, and evil do them evil. Now . . . am I … in such darkness and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him; and yet I corrupt him, and intentionally too -- so you say . . . But either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally; and on either view of the case you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offences: you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I did unintentionally--no doubt I should; but you would have nothing to say to me and refused to teach me. And now you bring me up in this court, which is a place not of instruction, but of punishment. ("Socratic Wisdom" IP3 14bf)


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Richard Lee, rlee@uark.edu, last modified: 30 August 2004