Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to invite educational managers and management educators to reflect critically on practice. Design/methodology/approach: Using the point of Socrates' death, the paper suggests ways of reflecting on actions using ethically-critical, socially-critical, environmentally-critical, politically-critical and globally-critical perspectives. Findings: Ways and means are found of reflecting on actions with special reference to the concept of value and the unique nature of knowledge organizations. Originality/value: The paper is of value in recommending a blend of Rawlsian egalitarian liberalism and Deweyan democratic and educative pragmatism to support ways of being critical in management education, research and in practice. (Contains 1 figure.)