Essay on Socrates' "No Evil Can Happen."

A great speech resonates throughout time and evokes emotion and espouses values in all audiences, regardless of context. This is due to their skilful and emotive use of rhetorical techniques, language and construction, allowing them to transcend their immediate circumstances. When Socrates delivered 'No evil can happen' in 399 BC during his trial as an enemy of the state, his purpose seems to be asserting his own virtue and denouncing the values of the contemporary Athenian …

…Likewise, a modern ethicist audience would endorse Socrates' value of wisdom, conveyed through the triplication of "judgement, truth and soul", as it enhances the understanding of ethics. The logical 'ladder' structure of Socrates' argument and the debate style would also have modern resonances for a rationalist audience who value truth as determined by reason and factual analysis. Mary McAleese's speech is a prime example of this rationalism, a movement, in fact, largely inspired by Socrates.