Hi, my name is Monte Johnson, I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and today I'm going to be talking about
Plato's classic dialogue the Crito
about civil obedience.
Now I really love this dialogue especially because it's a great general
introduction to the field of ethics and utilizes
virtually all of the general types of ethical arguments that we still see around. And
It's also got an innovative dialogue
structure.
That's the first thing to know about the Crito is that it's a Socratic dialogue by
Plato and one that
depicts
Socrates in a prison cell in Athens 399 BC
one or two days before he is to be executed
that's to happen the day after a ship from Delos returns from Athens.
The dialogue takes place after the events of Plato's Euthyphro and
Apology.
The dialogue in which
Socrates is depicted as giving his dispensed speech and
the events here are prior to the Phaedo, which is the dialogue
Depicting Socrates last conversation and then his drinking the hemlock
The characters in the Crito
technically amount to just two. Socrates and his old friend Crito.
Now Crito was mentioned as being present at Socrates trial in Plato's Apology.
He's present in a couple of other Socratic dialogues and he's mentioned in
Socratic dialogues of Xenophon. We can infer that he was probably a real
person,
around the same age as Socrates and
a good friend of his.
Another feature of the dialogue which we'll get into is the personification of the law. Socrates
gives voice to an argument, a rhetorical personification of the law in the city and the government speaking to him and him
kind of interacting. This creates a kind of virtual third character in the dialogue. But really this is a
theoretical embodiment of what we'd later call the body politic or the Leviathan and kind of
taking the state to be a person who has intention and will and
arguments and is susceptible more or less to persuasion but
definitely commands
obedience.
Now let's look at the general outline of the contents of the dialog. It begins with a greeting and a portrayal of
Socrates tranquility while he sits in prison
awaiting his execution and a
report of a prophetic dream he had about when his
execution will take place. He's already envisioned all of the events
happening and yet, he's fine and tranquil about it. Exhibiting a suitably
philosophical tranquillity with respect to the events.
Then we have Crito's entreaty to
Socrates
begging him to allow Crito to help Socrates escape prison and go into exile in some other city.
We also have Crito's arguments for why Socrates should
first regard the opinions of the majority and
what they think Socrates should do. Second is why he should escape from prison and avoid being put to death.
That presumably being the worst possible harm that could happen to someone.
Then we have Socrates responding to these two points.
Specifically
he first points out why the opinions of the majority or the masses (hoi pollie)
should not be regarded and
second he argues why his being put to death would not be the worst thing that could happen to him.
This is important because he argues that the worst thing could happen to him would be if he were to do wrong.
It's worse, in Socrates' view,
for he himself to do wrong than it is for him to have wrong done to him.
That's a point that was argued at length in the Gorgias.
The rest of the Crito and really the core of the Crito consists of Socrates'
arguments to show that his escape from
prison and escaping the penalty, the death  penalty that the Athenians have imposed on him.
Escape from that would be doing wrong.
And heres where he gives a
variety of ethical arguments of three major
kinds.
First, Deontological arguments, that is arguments about what should or ought be done.
And second social contract arguments. Arguments about what Socrates is
obligated to by virtue of
explicit or implicit
agreements or covenants between him and
the state. And third
Consequentialist arguments about the real effects and outcomes of
the
courses of action available to Socrates.
After giving Deontological social contract and Consequentialist arguments for why his escape would be wrong and
after having shown that his doing wrong would be
worse than his having the wrong done to him - of being put to death,
then Socrates draws the conclusion that he should allow the Athenians to put him to death.
Thus
responding negatively to Crito's entreaty to allow him
to help Socrates escape from prison and to escape the
penalty and so the dialogue ends with an extremely brief
capitulation on Critos part to Socrates arguments.
But let's go back to the beginning and look at the initial greeting. Crito has been
sitting in Socrates room waiting for him to wake up.
Socrates is calm enough to have a good night's sleep, even though he's on the brink of
execution. Again, the tranquility that he displays in the face of these otherwise
anxiety-ridden last days in
confinement before his execution shows that Socrates is
happy with the decisions he has made. Happy with what he's said in the Apology despite the
conviction and despite the
sentence that was imposed on him.
He also
reports a prophetic dream
to Crito
which indicates that Socrates will be executed the day after tomorrow, not tomorrow
which is the kind of segue for Crito to point out that time is getting short.
Crito
begs Socrates to allow him to help him escape from prison and that's what occasions the main
action of the dialogue.
It's important that right after
Crito asks Socrates this, he states his motive for
making the offer that's on Stefano's page 44.
My beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape. For if you die,
I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced but there's another evil.
People who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money -
that I did not care.
Can there be a worse disgrace than this? That I should be thought to value money more than the life of a friend?
For the many
will not be persuaded that I wanted you to escape but that you refused.
So first of all, this shows the view of the many (hoi polloi) the majority
that
they will assume that somebody in a situation like Socrates would escape and that that's what you should do.
They will
assume
that people like Crito must have been greedy and not willing to help their friends
bribe the guards and so forth to allow their friend to go into exile.
It's interesting because Crito's motive here he states explicitly is his own
fear of shame and disgrace and embarrassment.
He doesn't initially state that it's for Socrates benefit
although he believes it would be and he states many reasons why he thinks it would be - later.
But his initial motive is his own
Reputation and how he will be
perceived.
That's because he puts value on the
opinions of the majority of people as is made clear in the crucial dialogue exchange on page 44.
Socrates says:
why my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many?
Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things
truly as they happened - meaning the things that happened with Socrates trial.
Crito says: but you see Socrates that the opinion of the many must be regarded as is evidence in your own case
because they can do the greatest evil to anyone who is lost their good opinion.
Socrates denies this. He says: I wish that were true, but they can't actually do any
good or any harm and they basically act at random.
This exchange is crucial because
much of the rest of the dialogue is actually Socrates' response to
the two points that Crito makes here. One that the opinion of the many or the majority (hoi polloi)
should be regarded and
that they are capable of doing the greatest evil
to someone.
Socrates denies both of those claims and what follows.
But first, look at Crito's arguments that he offers Socrates for why he thinks Socrates  should escape.
One, it will be easy for his friends to bribe the relevant people in order to get
Socrates in exile somewhere like Thessaly.
Second, it's the right thing to do.
Otherwise, he'd be hurting his friends and helping his enemies. And so this violates a kind of
Archaic or original concept of justice. That justice is helping friends and hurting enemies.
Socrates would be
hurting his friends as Crito just said. Making them look bad. Making them feel embarrassment and disgrace at not helping Socrates escape and
He'd be, on the other hand, helping his enemies by seeming to
justify his
conviction if he doesn't try to escape. He'll make it like - he was - he would agree
with what's
the sentence that's been imposed on him. and
third Socrates' course of action seems to try to basically amount to something like suicide.
Further he'd be hurting his own children - like child abandonment, but he has an obligation to educate them.
Finally
Socrates will be perceived as acting from a
vice-like cowardice or laziness? It won't be perceived as a courageous thing to do to go
softly
towards that punishment. Instead it will be said that he was too cowardly
or too lazy to escape the punishment. And so Crito says all of these would be sad and
discredit all
consequences of Socrates not escaping.
And that's an interesting point to remember because
Socrates
does later respond to some of these points but not at great depth because he doesn't take this whole family of
argument seriously and that because he basically
doesn't think that the consequences of his actions are all that important and all of these are simply consequences of his actions
He thinks that
consequences of your actions are something that the majority of people would look at and it would be fixated on but that's not
the basis on which Socrates is going to make his decision.
He's going to make it on the basis of other principles as he then goes on to explain
beginning with an argument
against having any regard for the opinion of the majority.
Socrates says that he's always guided by reason and what he thinks is the best
reason. And he says
you know the opinions of some people are to be regarded as reasonable,
others are to be disregarded as being unreasonable. I think that's something most people can easily agree to and
specifically the opinions of the good people are those
that should be regarded. Those of bad. People are the ones that should be disregarded. And
further, that the opinions of the wise are the same as those of the good and further
those of the unwise are the same as those of the bad.
You ought in other words to regard the opinions of the wise not the opinions of the majority.
If you think about those who are wise in a given domain ,for example
Gymnastics or Medicine - those are few people. Not many.
Gymnastic training is a very specialized activity. Medicine is a very specialized activity. Only a few people are trained in them
If a pupil that
was trying to learn gymnastics
or a patient who is trying to be healed from some disease were to follow the advice of the majority of people and
not the few,
gymnastic trainers or doctors,
then the pupil or the patient would end up being worse off with respect to their bodies.
So by analogy Socrates argues
if one
were to follow the advice of the majority and not the few,
who know and have wisdom about justice,
then one would become worse off with
respect to ones soul or at least with respect the part of oneself
that is more valuable than the body.
Since this part is more valuable than the body one must not follow the majority
but rather follow the few
with respect to it. Just as one should not follow
the majority with respect to their views about health or
Gymnastic training but should follow the few.
Therefore he concludes we must not regard what the majority
say of us, but what the one who has
understanding of just and unjust will say and
what the truth will say which he here takes to be
identical.
Now having refuted the point that we ought to regard what the majority says, he moves on to the next point
of
Crito's overall argument. He argues that
being put to death would not be the worst thing for him.
So notice the conclusion that we've just reached contradicts the
first part of Crito's claim but not the second part that they can put you to death and
that's the worst thing that can happen to you.
Socrates refutes that by arguing essentially that: one, we ought to value the good life and living well
more than
mere survival and
living on,
and second, that
to live well and
to
enjoy the good life is to live a good and honorable life.
We ought to value living a good and honorable life
above
mere continual
survival or continuing to live. For this reason,
the only consideration is not
"can they
kill me or not." Am I going to be put to death or not? But
"am I a good person and have I done the honorable thing?"
So Socrates says the other considerations, which you mentioned, the other things that Crito called consequences of
money, loss of reputation, duty of educating one's children. Those, I fear, are only the doctrines of the majority.
The only question that remains
to be considered is whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in suffering others to
aid in our escape. If he decides that it is right, then he will do it if he decides it is wrong
he will not do it regardless of the consequences.
Actually, let's look at the reasons that he gives for why
escape would be doing wrong since
that's all that matters is whether he would be doing right or doing wrong in doing the activity.
The rest of the dialogue consists of
specifying why he would be doing wrong.
He gives three
kinds of arguments for why we would be doing wrong. And this is, as I said, gives us an overview of
different kinds of ethical
argumentation. First of all, he offers Deontological
arguments that is arguments about what
should or ought to be done.
He gives arguments for why one should or ought
not
do wrong in return for his having been done wrong by the city.
One should not
retaliate. One should not repay
wrong for wrong.
Second, he makes Social Contract arguments - that is - arguments about agreement that we implicitly make in order to live in society
He talks about arguments
that follow from compacts and agreements
that he's made with the City of Athens and that he's either
explicitly agreed to or made it clear that he believes and agrees to
because he's lived under and benefited from these laws all along. Finally, he offers
Consequentialist Arguments - arguments about the consequences and actual effects of
the course of action.
About the effects on his friends his reputation as children, etc. - the kind of considerations that Crito brought up.
Looking at these Deontological
Arguments, he argues one should never do wrong.
Doing wrong is always evil and dishonourable and he assumes that it is always possible
to avoid doing wrong. One is not forced to
do wrong or if one is forced to do something that is apparently wrong
then one does not have responsibility because one was forced.
He says in spite of the opinion of the many and in spite of consequences whether better or worse,
shall we insist on the truth of what was then said -  that injustice is always an evil and
dishonor to him who acts unjustly. And Crito agrees to that point.
One should never do wrong regardless of the consequences. The means
are not justified by the ends.
The means and the morality of the means have to be analyzed independently of their consequences and
Crito in agreeing
agrees to the claim that doing evil in return for evil (which is the morality of the many) is
unjust. The majority of people would define
justice as being something like
returning evil for evil and
that is exactly what Socrates denies and secures Critos'
agreement
to the point that that's wrong.
Socrates reiterates that
this opinion has never been held and never will be held by any considerable number of persons.
He knows it's a very counterintuitive, almost paradoxical view
but he nevertheless secures Critos' agreement to it and
restate my first principle that neither injury nor
retaliation or warding off evil by evil is ever, right.
He says this principle will govern his actions.
This exhibit, Deontological Reasoning. Deontology is the study of what should or ought to be done.
Coming from the Greek word Aeon meaning one should or one ought.
It's relevant here because Socrates and Critos were discussing whether he should or should not escape.
That still lies in the future to determine whether it will happen or not.
And it is still worth debating whether he should do it or not.
In order to resolve whether he should do it or not, we have to look at what exactly is meant by should.
Socrates has just argued that the only sense of should that he's interested in is
whether it would imply doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing.
He argues in what follows that somebody could accuse him of doing wrong to the city and the laws
even of overthrowing and trampling upon the laws of the state if he were to escape the sentence that's imposed on him. And
this is where
he
introduces another kind of character into the dialogue which he gives voice to and that is
the laws. Here we get the
social contract style arguments. Socrates imagines a skilled orator or rhetorician
giving some speeches on behalf of the government of the law and
arguing against Socrates' escape.
The first line of reasoning that they give is about the agreement that we have with you.
They are speaking to Socrates, but you can imagine them speaking directly to you and
you should imagine how far these arguments apply to you.
They ask what complaint of yours could possibly justify you in acting to
destroy the laws and the state? After all, the state is responsible for your very existence,
the lawful marriage of your parents depended on the state's approval.
Your
nurturing
through the child welfare laws that are set up and that
guarantee that you will be raised in accordance with a certain set of principles.
And further, your education. Because all of you are getting a public education now and
you are all benefiting from the fact that the state set up this institution and
so
the state is responsible for
your existence -
what you grew up as and what you're becoming now.
You are like a child or eise as a slave even to the state and so you have to submit to its
paternalistic or as it were despotic authority.
In fact, the state is to be valued even more than your parents or any ancestor -
all of your ancestors and your parents depended for their existence on the state, so they're all
posterior to the state.
Thus you must either persuade or obey the state.
But you can't just disobey the state any more then you can just disobey
your mother and father and do battle with them and destroy them or murder them.
You could have also
left the state at any point after the state brought you into existence and nurtured you and educated you.
You were free to leave at any point in time, live under any other set of laws that you think is better.
But they say
he who has
experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the state and still remains, has entered into an implied
contract that he will do as we command him. And so there's an implied
contract, either implicit or explicit,
contracts that you have with your parents,
your educators like me your teacher and
the state itself.
These oblige you to either persuade or obey and not to rebel against them or
escape their judgment or their
lawfully imposed punishment. And
Socrates admits that all of this applies to him
above all other men have acknowledged the
agreement.
He refers not only to agreements but also compacts, covenants, contracts and so forth.
So this is an obligation that Socrates has and he takes this obligation seriously.
And it's a kind of adjunct to these Daontological
Arguments. It helps affirm what he should do and what he should not do and he should not
rebel or be disobedient to the state which has made his existence possible.
Even if the state has treated him wrong,
it has earlier been showed that he should not retaliate against them or do wrong in return as
escaping certainly would be.
The dialogue concludes with him also
considering some Consequentialist Arguments and these reply almost point by point to
the arguments made by Crito.
So the personified laws also mention these consequences that he will be hurting his friends by getting them involved in crime.
He will be helping his enemies by proving his accusers right.
That he was a criminal and a Corrupter of the youth. He won't be proving them wrong, he'll be proving them right.
He'll be hurting his friends and helping his enemies and so even according to that archaic concept of justice, he will be acting wrongly
Furthermore he'll produce more enemies by turning the rest of the state and law-abiding citizens against him
And he'll have no peace or tranquility.
He won't have these nice
dreamy sleeps that he's been having and that's whether he goes to a well governed or to a poorly governed place. If
he goes to a well governed place he will be held in dishonor because he's a common criminal an escapee. If
he goes to a dishonorable place,
he may be honored by dishonorable people, but they're very fickle about who they honor and dishonor and
will basically change
their allegiance at random.
Further, he will
harm his children and their education. They would do much better under the guidance of his
friends. Not under the shadow of a criminal, fugitive father.
For all of these reasons, the Daontological reasons, the Social Contract reasons and the Consequentialist reasons,
Socrates shows that he would be doing wrong
by
accepting Critos offer to allow him to escape and
doing wrong is worse than the wrong being done to him by allowing the state to put him to death.
Therefore, his response to Crito is: no, I
Will not
allow you to help me escape.
Now to conclude on just some questions about
The Dialog that occurred to me this time reading through it.
Why at the end of the dialogue Socrates mention these bad consequences of his escape?
Recall that earlier he'd said that
he's gonna proceed to argue the question whether I ought or ought not to try to escape without the consent of the
Athenians, And if I'm clearly right in escaping that I will make the attempt, but if not,
I will abstain. The other considerations which you Crito mention of
money and loss of character and the duty of educating one's children,
are I fear only the doctrines of the multitude. The only question which remains to be considered is whether we shall do
rightly either in
escaping or not escaping.
Now why does
Socrates
personify the laws in order to state the Social Contract and the Consequentialist Arguments?
Why doesn't he just continue to state them directly as he does with the arguments against
retaliation and what I've been calling the Daontological Arguments? I
think that
those two questions can actually be answered together. That to some extent the
arguments by the personified laws indicate the
Rhetorical and conventional approach to the topic that Socrates is arguing and by making them he shows that he can mount
just as rhetorically of
effective
arguments as
the ones that could be made in favor of his leaving.
But he ultimately distances himself from those arguments and doesn't take them as
seriously as the main argument that prevents him from
accepting Critos offer. And that's because it would be doing wrong
and so what he's really interested in is not the
consequences - which as he says he does not put much store in because he doesn't put much store in the things valued by the
majority, the multitude, the many the masses (hoi poloi).
He only values the opinions of the wise
though he does not regard the bad consequences
to be
relevant.
All that matters,
supposedly, is
the
analysis of what he should or shouldn't do.
To some extent, the
social contract arguments are between these. They
implicate what he should or shouldn't do but they are to some extent based on
consequences that those actions would have for the state - that they would injure the state. They would trample the state's authority and so on
Now the last question I'll ask, but without even
venturing at the beginning of an answer is: what is the significance of Socrates prophetic dream at the very beginning about
which he says there can be no doubt about its meaning. I
wonder if Socrates appealed to his dream can cast any doubt on his claim that
"I am and have always been one of those nature's who must be guided by reason"
In general we can ask if Socrates actions are reasonable,
including his taking seriously a prophetic dream message. Are they reasonable
by his own standards or
by other standards of reason ability that we might consider more reasonable?
I'd like to hear what you think of that.
