Socrates the Moral Reformist

Socrates is in search of a specific knowledge that by achieving it, one would both realize the moral virtues and practically become virtuous. Based on morality on knowledge, Socrates unifies his philosophy with his way of life, and discovers a criterion by which he could criticize the customary morality, religion, politics, and rhetoric of the Greeks, and expose their moral defects. The common defects that are the subjects of his moral examination and rectification include: the belief that committing injustice is better than suffering it; revenge and reciprocation (the lex talionis: a gift for a gift and an evil for an evil); popular piety based on the belief in the deceit and strife among gods, and deceitfulness and callousness of the gods towards human beings, and commercial transaction between gods and humankind (i.e. gods’ receiving sacrificial gifts from human beings in exchange for providing their needs); allowing the superordinate to exploit the subordinate; and lastly, the method of persuasive and deceitful rhetoric