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Since Socrates believes that the psyche is more precious than the body, ruining one's psyche by doing an injustice is worse than ruining the body. So, if it comes down to whether one should ruin an attacker’s body by injuring it or ruin an attacker’s psyche by doing an injustice, the harmful option is to not defend yourself and thus injury the attacker’s psyche.

Therefore, according to Socrates' theory of harm, if the attack is unjust, then physically wounding the attacker, perhaps even killing him, is not a harmful since life is not worth living with a corrupt psyche. If one believes he is no doing anything unjust, it follows that he believes he also not doing anything harmful.

Socrates thought that his physically engaging the enemy was unjust, but because he felt a stronger obligation to do as the state commanded, he did what he believed to be the lesser injustice. From the Apology, we see that Socrates believed that the dictates of the state do not take precedence over the dictates of justice. When commanded by the thirty tyrants to arrest Leon, Socrates disobeys, fails to explain his refusal to the tyrants, and simply goes home. However, he tells the jury that he did not arrest Leon because he believed it to be an unjust act and that "it mattered all the world to me that I should do nothing unjust or unholy."   

However, there was a problem with his reasoning in that, given Thucydides account of origin the Peloponnesian War, there is some good evidence that the war was caused, in part, by Athens perpetuating aggression on her neighbors, thus breaking a peace treaty with Sparta. Therefore, it appears the war may have been unjust and that Socrates may have fought on the unjust side of the war.

As a philosopher, Socrates philosophized; which pretty much means he spent his time coming up with reasons to justify his beliefs and behaviors. When attacked, a philosopher wants to defend himself against the attack so he is not harmed, but when he also believes in non-violence, he is faced with a dilemma. To justify defending against the attack and possibly killing the attacker, the philosopher reasons that the attacker is better off dead than having to spend a lifetime feeling guilty about committing an injustice. For the rest of us, self-defense is simple—if you attack us, we will defend ourselves—and if you die in the process, too bad.

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