Socrates View in The Apology & Crito
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One of the key elements in political philosophy is the nature of the relationship between the individual and the state. Generally, this is related by a given philosopher to his or her view of the origin of the state, which in turn determines the nature of the obligation owed by the individual to the state. Plato holds that we live in a state and enjoy the protection of its laws and that this gives us an obligation to the state to obey its laws. Socrates is the voice by which Plato speaks, and there has always been some uncertainty as to the source of much of what Socrates has to say in the dialogues, whether Plato can be viewed more as a chronicler or as a philosopher putting words into the mouth of Socrates as a character. In any case, in The Apology, Socrates accepts a death sentence rather than recant his way of life. However, he is also given the option of paying a fine, and he also refuses to do this, suggesting that there is a higher value to be upheld and that any admission of wrong would compromise the moral stance he takes. For Socrates, the preservation of harmony requires that the individual fulfill his or her moral duty by obeying all of the laws of the state, and the individual owes the state this allegiance because there is an implicit agreement involved--the individual enjoys the benefits of being part of the state and in turn has an absolute duty to live up to the laws of the state. This is made especially clear in The Apology and Crito as Socrates sh
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is fashion have become angry and have called Socrates a destroyer of youth.
Socrates states that the reason human beings come together to form a state in the first place is because human beings have certain needs which can only be fulfilled by the involvement of other people, and in the properly administered state the individual is enabled to fulfill his or her needs:
The healthy city satisfies the primary needs, the needs of the body. The proper satisfaction requires that each man exercise only one art. This means that everyone does almost all his work for others but also that the others work for him (Strauss 43).
He argues that there is a duty resting on convention, which he considers in a deep and morally weighty sense, based on an implied but nonetheless binding contract between the individual and the state:
"It is a fact, then," they would say, "that you are breaking covenants and undertakings made with us, although you mad them under no compulsion of misunderstanding, and were not compelled to decide in a limited time; you had seventy years in which you could have left the country, if you were not satisfied with us of felt that the agreements were unjust (Plato, The Last Days of Socrates 89).
In other words, Socr
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Approximate Word count = 2334
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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