Plato's Crito

In Plato's Crito, Socrates presents the argument against Crito's suggestion that Socrates flee prison and not accept the death penalty which has been meted out to him for what the authorities see as Socrates' attempt to corrupt the young and ignorant with his dialogues. Socrates confronts Crito with a variety of counter-arguments, but they all boil down to Socrates' belief that an individual has a higher duty to the truth, justice, goodness, beauty, and the city than he does to the instinct to survive, to friends and family, or to any other claim on that individual.

Essentially, Crito's arguments are emotional and not grounded in the reason upon which Socrates has based his whole life. Unless we are willing to say that a city's laws can be ignored by any individual who has the opportunity to escape the decisions of those who interpret and enforce those laws, then we must agree with Socrates.

Unless we are willing to say that an individual who has lived his life according to the principles of truth, goodness, justice, and duty to laws, has the right to scorn those principles simply because he faces death, then we must agree with Socrates' conclusion that he must stay and accept his death.

The primary argument set forth by Socrates takes up the largest part of the dialogue. This argument is that Socrates has a duty to the city to obey its laws, even if he disagrees with the law, even if he disagrees with the decision of the court in interpreting those laws, even if he is c

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Socrates deftly advances the analogy of the man in physical training who must heed the guidance of the single man who knows what he is talking about with respect to such training, and who must disregard all others, even if they comprise a vast majority. Socrates easily gets Crito to agree with this undeniably correct argument, then argues that one must even more conscientiously pursue the wise man's guidance (that is, his own) with respect to "that part of us, whatever it is, that is concerned with justice and injustice," a part which is clearly superior to the body (50). Again, Crito is helpless to disagree. Perhaps Crito has the majority on his side---in terms of Socrates' friends, family, supporters, etc.---but it is Socrates' basic argument that a man owes allegiance not to the majority, which acts without thinking and according to selfishness and fear, but to duty, truth, justice, etc. Then Socrates moves to his essential argument---that a man owes allegiance to the city which has raised him, which has given him the right to live according to his beliefs, and which he has accepted as his own up to and beyond the point at which that city has condemned him. e draws a succinct parallel between hurting a man who has hurt one, a

Category: Philosophy - P