At  Apology Socrates says that a ‘good man is not harmed in life…

At  Apology Socrates says that a ‘good man is not harmed in life…

At Apology GorgiasApology

Socrates says that a ‘good man is not harmed in life or death’. Throughout the dialogue he also discusses his ‘divine sign’ which prevents him from engaging in wrong doing. In another dialogue the  Socrates says that ‘doing what’s unjust is actually the worst thing there is’ and that it is better to suffer injustice then to do it. These ideas seemed highly counter-intuitive to Socrates’ own audience and perhaps even more so to our own way of thinking. Since at least the time of Thomas Hobbes an emphasis has been placed on ‘self-preservation’ as a hallmark of rationality. Yet here in the Socrates deliberately responds to the jury in a way that imperils his life.

1)Is Socrates being irrational in the way that he acts before the jury; would it have been more rational for him to act in another way? 2) Is Socrates correct that good man can’t be harmed in life or death? in what sense is this true? if at all? even if the good man is not harmed by others, could one be unjust to one’s self by not adequately defending oneself? is Socrates guilty of this sort of injustice as Crito seems to hint?