This second Socratic Reflection Essay will require you once again to examine your own life here near the end of the semester in the way that Socrates asks the citizens of Athens to do. Recall that Socrates thought he was fulfilling a crucial function in the city: encouraging the citizens to think carefully about their own lives and choices. Indeed, he goes so far as to claim (in Plato’s Apology) that “the unexamined life is not worth living” for a human being.

Please reflect on and answer the following questions. Your responses should come to at least 1000 words total and may be framed as either a single essay or as a series of short responses. If you choose the option of a series of short responses, there should still be some substantive connection between the responses. In addition, you must (appropriately) cite one or more texts at least twice in the essay as a whole to demonstrate your dialogue with the philosophical questions of ethics, politics, and religion we have examined this semester.

1. What do you think is genuinely meaningful or significant in life, and why? (This should not just be something vague like “being happy” – everyone wants to be happy, that’s just a truism. What I want is something more specific than that – what, specifically, do you see as making you happy or [even better] helping you really flourish in your life, informed by your reflections and our discussions about ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion in this course? That’s what I mean by something “meaningful or significant.”)
2. How are you, or could you be, seeking those things in your own life?
3. How might the vocation you choose help make your life meaningful?
4. What role or contribution can your college education have for such a life?
5. What are you taking from this class that could contribute to such a life?

The essay should be double-spaced, a minimum of 1000 words and a maximum of 1400 words: use the “word count” function of your word processor and do not turn in something that fails to meet the word count threshold. The minimum word count is intended to make sure that you go into sufficient detail; the maximum to make sure that you are not rambling.

I am interested in seeing an essay that demonstrates that you have reflected thoughtfully on your own life and decision processes for this assignment. Superior essays will go significantly above and beyond an ordinary level of competence, demonstrating careful thought, excellent stylistics and grammar, and concrete examples from your life. See also my parenthetical comment on 1., above.

Finally, let me reiterate again what I said with reference to your first Socratic essay: be honest, concrete and specific here. There’s no use engaging in this kind of Socratic exercise if you are going deal only in vague generalities or lie to yourself. This is your life and your decisions that you’re dealing with, so spend some serious time thinking about them before you start writing. If there’s nothing concrete and specific in the paper, it’s not going to represent a reasonable response to the assignment. Please also remember that if you report to me a potential crime (in discussion or written assignments), or I have a serious concern about your (or someone else’s) well-being, I generally have a legal (& arguably ethical) obligation to report that to campus authorities.