Civic Engagement Guide

Plato’s Crito: A Divine Defense of Philosophy

Plato’s Crito can be broken into two halves, each with their own central argument. The first half of the piece can be found from 43a-48c, containing Crito’s proposition to Socrates to escape from prison before his execution and Socrates’ discussion of the proper regard for the opinion of the majority. The second half of the piece, 48c-54e, begins with a brief rebuttal to Crito’s points by Socrates, followed with the heart of the second half in which Socrates personifies and voices the Laws of Athens and creates an argument against his own escape from prison.

Toward the end of the second half of the Crito, Socrates makes a distinction between “being wronged not by [the Laws]… but by men,” followed by a mention of following the judiciary ruling “since this is the way the god is leading us” (Plato, 57). It will be argued that the personification of Athens’ Laws in the second half of the dialogue informs the reader of Plato’s conception of the laws as separate from the citizens of Athens, therefore supporting Socrates’ philosophic practices and disobedience to the majority while condemning Crito’s proposition for Socrates’ escape based ultimately on the opinion of the majority.

Crito makes four arguments for why Socrates should flee execution: 1) Crito and his friends’ reputations will be damaged as people will assume that they value wealth over the life of Socrates; 2) Socrates is not just in his actions as his death is in accordance with what his enemies, who unjustly sentenced him, desire; 3) that Socrates contradicts himself in caring for virtue by choosing the path of least resistance, and 4) that because Socrates avoided multiple opportunities to correct the situation surrounding his trial and execution, that it is evil for him to follow through in cowardice. There are many assumptions laid out by Crito in this line of argument including the assumption that death is evil, Socrates’ lack of substantial defense on trial was wrong, and, most importantly, that the opinion of the majority is of supreme importance, as it comes up both first and last. That public opinion comes up most often can inform the reader of two things: that Crito is fixated on it and its consequences, and that they are an important influence on his thinking; justifiably so considering his close friend is about to die in front of him due to majority opinion.

In Crito’s fixation, “Crito does not understand that Socrates’ real enemies are not the men who are trying to have him killed, but his own desires which urge him to a solution other than death,” for the majority are not who sent him to his death, as is clear from Socrates’ incessance on that verdict in the Apology: Regarding the hypothetical acquittal of Socrates as long as he is banned from practicing philosophy, Socrates states that he “will obey the god rather than you,” later implying a willingness to die for his philosophic independence (Plato, 34, 35). On these terms, it is understood that “[Socrates] will not be cooperating with his enemies if he goes to his death, but he will be if he allows himself to be rescued” (Woozley, 8). In opposition to the common interpretation of Crito’s motivation in the dialogue to be selfish– “The strength of Crito’s case all through has lain in the appeal to ‘what will be thought of us’” (Taylor, 170)– this reading of the Crito actually allows for Crito’s arguments to be seen as a voicing of the majority’s opinion. He represents this voice insofar as he “is not a philosopher or a politician, but an ordinary decent citizen caught in a difficult and revealing situation” (Rosano, 453), just as the jury of 500 men that judged Socrates was composed of similar non-philosophers and non-politicians and were open to Socrates’ acquittal.

In context with Socrates’ embodiment of the Laws, Crito can be seen as embodying Men, popularly understood as the struggle between the Rule of Law and the Rule of Man, Socrates advocating for the former in his obedience to the state, while Crito is arguing that Socrates has the discretion to disregard laws because of the man and the situation. In embodying this stance toward the law, “Crito shows that citizens regard the rule of law as just, but their capacity to commit injustice renders political obligation problematic” in his emotional, ironically selfish understanding of the legality of Socrates’ potential escape from Athens (Rosano, 451).

In response to the position that Crito postulates on leaving, Socrates first considers the idea that “neither to do wrong nor to return a wrong is ever correct, nor is doing harm in return for a harm done” (Plato, 52). This general principle is accepted by Crito in terms of its basic logic, and Socrates moves from its acceptance immediately into his thesis: “by [fleeing] you are attempting intend to destroy us, the laws, and indeed the whole city… [for is] it possible for a city not to be destroyed if the verdicts of its courts have no force but are nullified and set at naught by private individuals” (Plato, 53). His reasoning for standing behind the law so obediently comes from his respect to Athens for his rearing and especially for his Athens-provided education. He argues that the city allowed his parents to meet and marry, for them to birth him, for his parents to educate him in the subjects that he philosophizes about, and that the state not only facilitated his life but his family’s lineage of life and education that lead Socrates to lead his life. Socrates (or Plato) has, in this argument, created the basic understanding of the Social Contract Theory in philosophy by creating a direct comparison of the reverence owed to one’s parents to the reverence owed to one’s state and laws.

Socrates continues to build on this argument by mentioning his decisions to not leave Athens for another state, and to raise children in Athens once he was an adult. All of these ideas, especially the idea of his education or of raising children in Athens, hinges on the state’s treatment of education: “One of the important benefits of an education, as we know from the Republic and the Meno, is the attainment of those thinking skills which help individuals learn the nature of the good life… [as well as] the opportunity to use their thinking skills to question public policy” (DeLue, 475). The attainment of the good life is established earlier in the dialogue in Socrates’ proposition that “the most important thing is not life, but the good life” (51); this idea is also in line with Socrates’ entire stature in his defense of his lifestyle in that he believes that the discussion of how to live a good life is vital to progressing toward it in this life and is a mission directly supported by the gods. This idea of education and practicing the skills of education is also in line with the notion that is put forth by the personification of the Laws; that “you must either persuade [the state] or obey its orders” (54). Socrates, in context with the purpose of education in Athens, is obeying and forwarding this notion of persuasion in his practice of the Socratic Method to the commoners. In light of his being wronged by the men of Athens and not by its laws, then this logical distinction between the purpose of the state and its laws, and the enactment of injustice on Socrates for his obeying and influencing the state’s unjust and evil men permits the reader of the Crito to see Socrates’ perspective on his death not as a consequence for disobeying the state, as is easily concluded by simply looking at the Laws’ argument as a singluar argument for Social Contract Theory, but as a defense of his practice of philosophy as regards the importance of education and discussion in the democracy of Athens.

This reading, instead of separating Socrates from the arguments he makes in voicing the Laws, separates the jury of Athens from the state and the laws created under it. By reiterating the basic concepts of the Law, Socrates is showing his conception of the state, which he identifies with in his practice of persuasion and participation of bettering Athens. It is clear that Socrates is not arguing blind obedience, indicated in stories of Socrates’ past disobedience to orders from the Athenian government. In the Apology, Socrates tells the story of the Thirty’s summoning him and four other men to vote to execute one Leon from Salamis. He says that he simply went home and disregarded the state’s orders and should have been put to death then. Many scholars seem to have been caught in the seeming paradox of Socrates’ past disobedience and seemingly shift in the Crito, when a “problem for such an interpretation is that it makes Socrates contradict himself” (Brickhouse, 224). Once seen in light of Socrates’ conception of the state of Athens and how his actions are in accordance with that concept, then this view dissolves as Socrates is certainly disobeying the men the Thirty that wield their power unjustly, rather than the actual established laws of Athens. In the Crito’s situation, “if he had fled, he would have shown disregard even for his own concept of just law, a concept which, by his own account, obtained in Athens. Socrates fears that if he disobeys the law he may foster in others an attitude that permits them to disobey the law whenever it is in their interest to do so” (DeLue, 477). He is attempting to avoid the Rule of Man, as Crito represents well, in obeying the laws of the trial and in his past attitude regarding the execution of Leon from Salamis.

Another way of looking at Socrates’ position on devotion to the ruling is in his mention of the god in the final line. An analysis of Socrates’ and Plato’s perspectives on their culture’s religion is for another analysis, but can be contextualized here in Socrates’ stance on receiving the oracle from the gods at Delphi as a charge to practice philosophy in life (Plato, 26). His stance is thus that his practice of philosophy was a divine command. Interestingly, Taylor mentions the connection between Plato’s Theory of Forms and Socrates’ personification of the laws: “This appeal to the personified figure of the State or the Laws is, as Burnet says, in principle a Platonic ‘myth’… Artistically the function of the picture is to evoke a mood of ideal feeling adequate to the elevation of the ethical demands of Socraticism on the conscience” (Taylor, 171-172). Tying the personification of the Laws to Plato’s conception of the Forms can inform their function as Socrates’ conception of their function outside of the influence of men’s perception of them in their rulings and unjust use from Athenian authority. This, in theory, completely separates the laws from the men who wield them in court and places them entirely in the territory of the philosopher as metaphysical concepts and practical justification for Socrates’ questioning of the Athenian public’s notion of the good life. This ultimately parallels the purpose of the laws and the behavior that landed Socrates in prison, as “the laws facilitate open inquiry. What threatens inquiry is the distrust displayed by Athenians toward those who engage in it” (DeLue, 476).

Two points of contention to Socrates’ position in this dialogue could be that 1) his use of Socratic Method is not properly participating in the laws of Athens, and 2) that the separation of the citizens from the state cannot be done outside of theory. The first objection could be thought of as Socrates only addressing the people of Athens, who are the ones, in Socrates’ and Plato’s conception of the situation, to need to be persuaded in the first place. Plato may view this objection as ignorant of the larger implications of the personification of the laws as separating the citizens from the state, but this leads directly into the second objection of their separation in the first place and cannot satisfy the criticism. Plato may add onto this by saying that Socrates’ attempt to propel the citizens toward the good life could be considered as propelling them toward improving the laws, therefore maintaining that the citizens are the unjust and that Socrates is simply pushing them toward a just wielding of the state’s laws and is therefore persuading the human aspect of justice instead of the more philosophic, perfect form of the Laws that speaks in the Crito.

We can assume from the conclusions made that Socrates’ conception of his life of philosophy is supported, rather than condemned, by the laws of Athens and that his decision to remain in prison to die is in accordance with his previous perspectives on justice and philosophic virtue. As far as Crito embodies the Rule of Man, it can be said that his perspective offered in the first half of the dialogue is in direct opposition to Socratic philosophy and to the Social Contract Theory and the Rule of Law as are advocated for by Socrates. By equating his obedience to the state and to philosophy, Socrates argues for his role in the persuasion of Athens toward just laws as a push toward the good life and the ideals of the laws that had landed him in jail through the tribunal. Ultimately, Socrates wants to upholds the law as a form of upholding his practice of philosophy in searching for the good life, and succeeds in doing so by maintaining his duty to the state of Athens in the face of the opinion of the majority.

 

Works Cited

Brickhouse, Thomas C., Nicholas D. Smith. “The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies.” Oxford University Press, New York, 2002.

Delue, Steven M. “Plato’s Crito As A Defense of Critical Inquiry.” The Journal of Politics, vol. 39, no. 2, 1977, pp. 472–479.

Plato. “Five Dialogues.” 2nd ed. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002.

Rosano, Michael. “Citizenship and Socrates in Plato’s Crito” Review of Politics, vol. 62, no. 3, 2000, pp. 451–477.

Taylor, A. E. “Plato: The Man and His Works.” Meridian Books, New York, 1952.

Woozley, A. D. “Law and Obedience: The Arguments of Plato’s Crito.” The University of Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1979.