Everyday ethics: Learn the power of the Socratic method

Life seems upside down these days. Politicians choose their voters by redistricting, universities their missions by giving in to government demands, some newspapers and media networks follow the paths of least resistance by agreeing to similar demands.

It feels like free speech itself is under attack, with truth the victim.

I watched a supposed press conference recently in which only questions from friendly reporters were taken and the answers supplied were so canned as to be laughed out of any reputable news organization. This is not the free press but p

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ropaganda. Maybe people don’t realize the hypocrisy of pretending it’s a real news conference, as our attention spans have been shortened to 10-second sound or video bites so anything longer or deeper gets forgotten.

There is a way out of our wasteland devoid of real dialogue and examined truths— it’s called the Socratic method, and it might help truth itself emerge. Of course, this method comes with a warning: you might need to change your mind.

What’s the Socratic method? It’s everyday ethics:  basically a pursuit of truth through relentless questioning. It is used to stimulate critical thinking through dialogue.

Here’s a hypothetical example of how the Socratic approach might work today in an interview with a member of Congress who supported the “One Big, Beautiful Bill”.

Interviewer: So Congressman, you support the recently passed “One, Big Beautiful Bill?”

Congressman: Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer: I assume you’ve read the whole thing?

Congressman: Well, I didn’t have a great deal of time. There were over 900 pages and I only had so much time.

Interviewer: So, then, you didn’t read the whole thing?

Congressman: Not many people did, you know. I took a few hours to look it over.

Interviewer: So how do you know what is written  or even which parts you favor, especially for your constituents?

Congressman; Well, I do hear from my constituents, you know.

Interviewer: And you think they read the whole bill?

Congressman: Well, not really. But I do have staff.

Interviewer: And they had the time to read the whole bill?

Congressman: Well, not really.

Interviewer: So, let me get this straight. You just voted to approve a bill neither you nor your staff have read?

Congressman: Well, I can’t read every bill that comes my way.

Interviewer: But this one big beautiful bill which you say will impact our country for decades you haven’t read?

Congressman: No comment.

The Socratic method asks repeated questions of any assertion to strip the initial premise down to its bare essentials in order to grasp a truth — in the hypothetical case above, the congressman didn’t really understand the bill at all because he hadn’t read all of it. Socrates might have started with trying to help the lawmaker take the time to read and study the bill in the light of his constituents’ needs and then reach his own decision.

Would the above process have been time consuming? Is there ever enough time to study carefully any big national policy decisions? Do constituents ever really have voices in decisions? (Sorry, I can hear Socrates asking me these questions.)  However, think how much better any decisions about the public might be if more carefully thought out before being implemented?

I used the Socratic methods in philosophy classes I taught and found it stimulating and enriching, if sometimes irritating to be asked questions until none remained. One goal of this approach is to start with knowing what we don’t know but pretend to, as many do today.  One of my students caught on to the process when he summed it up this way: “Mama said to me once you don’t know anything. I didn’t know a lot and really faked it. Admitting that, I began to grow up.”

Socrates died as he lived, a martyr to his truth. He was accused by the state of holding such subversive ideas as teaching people to think, even questioning the state.  He chose death over dishonor, drinking poison hemlock rather than to stop teaching.

Before his death, Socrates was asked if he feared death and whether he believed in anything beyond this life. He said he didn’t for two reasons, first if there’s nothing beyond, he wouldn’t know, and if there were something he looked forward to speaking with friends and family, asking his questions again.

In Plato’s “Apology,” Socrates reportedly utters these final words as he is led off to jail, one’s that remind us of truth and integrity:

“Still I have a favor to ask. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing —then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.”.

John C. Morgan is an author and educator. One of his books: “A Teacher, His Students, and the Great Questions of Life,”  available on Amazon.