1. Having just written a confirmation lesson on Joseph and his 'technicolor dreamcoat', I found an interesting connection between Joseph and Socrates here. They both lack tact and it gets them into all kinds of trouble.
Joseph taunts his brothers and gets thrown in a well, and Socrates boasts about being the wisest man and after telling them that they should pay him instead of kill him... well they kill him.
2. I love two main topics of these works. First is the concept of inappropriate punishment. Socrates expresses this confusion. Why should death be considered a bad thing? Who knows what is going to come after death: Good or Bad or Nothing.
This leads into the second point and I'll quote Plato on this, "There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong--acting the part of a good man or of a bad." If death is nothing it doesn't matter, but if our actions in the world effect the next phase of existence we might be wise to take Socratic Advice on this.
3. At what point can we stop obeying the laws of the 'State'? Plato argues that he can't being that they raised him and taught him and he owes much to the State. If faced with death or injury does a man still owe allegiance to his flag? What if that flag has exploited him, or in Socrates' case what if it hadn't provided nurture in past days?
In our world it seems that a lot of the crime we punish is perpetrated by those who don't have a 'State' which nurtures them. Think Poor, Think UnderEducated, Think Orphaned. Heinlein write in Starship Troopers a bit about how Juvinile Deliquint is an oxymoron. They weren't the ones that were deliquint, but Society. Do we then hold them accountable for their actions. Plato doesn't address this issue here, but I hope to come back to it later.
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