Plato's Crito

Crito tries to convince Socrates to escape

Crito’s objections to compliance

Friendship Reputation No practical necessity Collaboration in wrongdoing Child neglect Injustice of verdict

Socrates’s response

Friendship, reputation and lack of necessity are secondary to whether escape would be wrong.

The collaboration, child neglect and injustice objections are not valid reasons for escape.

Principles Socrates appeals to:

Anti-retaliation principle: Returning injury for injury is wrong (49d)

Contract principle: One should keep one’s just agreements (49e)

Enforcement principle: Court decisions should have final authority in the disposition of cases (50b)

First argument against escape

1. By escaping S would be injuring Athens and its laws

2. Therefore, by the anti-retaliation principle, S should not escape

Why would escaping injure the city?

Escaping violates the enforcement principle (EP) It therefore puts rule of law in peril, since it suggests

that it is okay to violate a procedurally correct court decision if you disagree with it.

EP may allow some violation of law But it may require one to accept injustice, contrary to

C’s injustice objection.

2nd argument against escape

1. By accepting the status of citizenship, S tacitly but freely agreed to its obligations (51d-53a).

2. These require him to obey “the Laws” unless he can convince them they are wrong.

3. Therefore, by escaping, S would be violating a just agreement.

4. Therefore, by the contract principle, S should not escape.

Collaboration objection: has it been answered?

The city is wronging S; if he complies, is he not collaborating in wrongdoing?

Socrates cannot consistently admit this. But perhaps the agreement would require

him only to “suffer” wrong (51b).

Child neglect?

The Laws say (53e-54b) that it would not be good for the children to remove them from Athens, and if S’s friends would care for them if S escaped, they can do so if he doesn’t.

A contradiction with Apology?

S implies there that he would disobey any court order to stop philosophizing (29d).

He also claims that he was right to refuse an order to bring someone in for what he viewed as a wrongful execution (32c-e).

But here he appeals to his obligation to obey the laws of his community.

A final question

What would your society have to be like in the way it treats its citizens in order for you to be willing to accept an unjust verdict and sentence as Socrates does?