Socrates' Argument in Crito

In Plato's Crito, Socrates argues that the authority of the city reigns supreme and citizens must obey its laws and orders. Socrates tells Crito that he should answer the following question as if it were the State asking it of him: "Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only," (Plato 1956, 103). Crito's answer is affirmative and in so being he agrees that a "little more life" is not worth transgressing the "most sacred laws" of the state that he has agreed to obey, (Plato 1956, 105).

In the Crito, a friend of Socrates' comes to ask him if he would like to escape from the sentence of death that has been handed down by his judges. Socrates remains adamant that one must follow one's own path to the end and refuses the assistance of Meletus. Having disobeyed the laws of the Thirty, Socrates is now unwilling to disobey the sentence of death that he must shortly face. Throughout his life, Socrates has been willing to suffer the consequences of his own actions, even if they are painful or in this case final. Socrates is mature, experience, and wise enough to know that when he rejected the mandates of the Thirty and continued to teach his own ideas that the consequences of his actions included the likelihood of being sentenced to death. He knew that as Athenian State law was constructed, his insistence on such a course of action placed him in jeopardy of his own death. He still followed his own conscience and his God,

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Category: Philosophy - S