Crito Question 2

Crito Question 2

Primary Text:

Crito

Question:

Should we obey the State even unto death according to Socrates?

Answer:

I think so unless we change the State’s view of the nature of justice.

According to Socrates in Crito, one should obey the State even unto death unless one can persuade it that its understanding of justice is wrong. Socrates argues that citizens enter into an implicit agreement with the laws by choosing to live under them. Since he remained in Athens his entire life, he consented to its legal system. To escape prison would be to break that agreement and commit injustice. Socrates maintains that it is never right to return wrong for wrong, and that harming the laws would ultimately harm the moral fabric of the city and his own soul. Therefore, even though he believes he was unjustly condemned, he refuses to escape because doing so would violate justice itself. For Socrates, obedience to justly established law, or persuasion through rational argument, is required, even if obedience leads to death.

“You must either persuade it or obey its orders, and endure in silence whatever it instructs you to endure, whether blows or bonds, and if it leads you into war to be wounded or killed, you must obey. To do so is right, and one must not give way or retreat or leave one’s post, but both in war and in courts and everywhere else, one must obey the commands of one’s city and country, or persuade it as to the nature of justice. It is impious to bring violence to bear against your mother or father; it is much more so to use it against your country” (Crito 51b-c).

Reference:

Plato (1997). Plato: Complete Works. Hackett Publishing. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781603846707