Plato - Last Days of Socrates

Plato's Crito

Plato's "Crito" is a dialogue between Socrates and one of his closest friends Crito. The entire dialogue takes place in Socrates prison cell, where he awaits execution. Crito visits Socrates before dawn in order to persuade him to escape from prison and flee to another city or country. Crito has made all the necessary arrangements to smuggle Socrates out of prison to safety. To Crito's despair Socrates seems quite willing to accept his execution, and so Crito presents as many arguments as he can to persuade Socrates to escape. Socrates manages through a logical thinking process to demount all of Crito's arguments for escaping the prison.

Crito presents three arguments for why Socrates should escape. The first argument suggest that Socrates death would be a big loss for him personally considering him as someone who he "can never possibly replace"[43A]. The second argument brought up by Crito suggests that his reputation will be damaged if he will allow the execution to happen. The public opinion will think that he and his friends did not want to spend any money in the attempt of saving Socrates. People won't know that Socrates chose to remain in jail. This argument is based on the old saying "help a friend in need" and Crito is implementing it to this occasion. The last argument and probably the most powerful one is Socrates responsibility towards his children. Crito mentions that Socrates has it in his "power to finish their bringing up and education, and instead of that you are proposing to go off and dessert them"[44B]. This argument appeals to Socrates goodness and his lifelong pursuit to do righteous things. Crito argues that escaping is the right thing to do for the sake of his children's future.

In response to Crito's arguments, Socrates considers first why the public opinion is not the most important one. He suggests that the opinion of someone with knowledge in a certain domain is much more important and accurate than the opinion of the majority. He points out as an example a person in training. Such a person pays only attention to the teaching of the instructor, if he disobeys his instructors and tries to follow the opinion of the general public he will suffer from his disobedience. Socrates applies this example to the scale of a person's life. His conclusion is that "we ought to consider not so much what people in general will say about us but how we stand with the expert in right and wrong, the one authority who represents the actual truth"[47C]. He goes on and concedes that the public has the power to put people to death but he concludes that the most important "thing is not to live but to live well"[47D]. Socrates structures his entire argument according to this premise. According to Socrates "living well" means to pursuit actions that are honorably and rightly, actions that do not alter your conscience.

According to non-consequentialists escaping from prison would be wrong because the act itself does not compel with the principle of living right. He goes on and establishes a hypothesis "that it is never right to do a wrong or return a wrong or defend one's self against injury by retaliation"[48E]. Crito agrees with this premise and Socrates continues with the argument and brings up the agreement between him and the state. At this point in the conversation Crito is puzzled by the complexity of the argument. In order to make Crito understand, Socrates impersonates Athen's laws and constitution. The agreement Socrates mentions is a sort of social contract between the individual and the state. If he decides to escape from prison, Socrates is breaking the contract and commits an unjust action against the state. This statement