Socrates And Crito Essays - Socratic Dialogues, Dialogues Of Plato

Socrates And Crito The dialogue Crito, by Plato, recounts the last days of Socrates, immediately before his execution was going to take place in Athens. In the dialogue, Socrates' friend, Crito, proposes that Socrates escape from prison. Socrates considers this proposal, trying to decide if escaping would be "just" and"morally justified." Eventually, Socrates concludes that the act is considered "unjust" and "morally unjustified." Socrates decides to accept his death penalty and execution. Socrates was a man who would pursuit truth in all matters (Kemerling 1999). In his refusal to accept exile from Athens or a commitment to silence as a penalty, he takes the penalty of death and is thrown into prison. While Socrates is awaiting his execution, many of his friends, including Crito, arrive with a foolproof plan for his escape from Athens to live in exile voluntarily. Socrates calmly debates with each friend over the moral value and justification of such an act. "...people who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not care." -Crito (Plato 569) Crito believed that by helping Socrates to escape, he could go on to fulfill his personal obligations. Also, if Socrates does not follow the plan, many people would assume that his friends did not care about him enough to help him escape or that his friends are not willing to give their time or money in order to help him. Therefore, Crito goes on to argue that Socrates ought to escape from the prison. After listening to Crito's arguments, Socrates dismisses them as irrelevant to a decision about what action is truly right. "Now you, Crito, are not going to die to-morrow-...-and therefore you are disinterested and not liable to be deceived by the circumstances in which you are placed." -Socrates (Plato 571) In the arguments that Socrates makes, what other people think does not matter. The only opinions that should matter are the ones of the individuals that truly know. "The truth alone deserves to be the basis for decisions about human action, so the only proper approach is to engage in the sort of careful moral reasoning by means of which one may hope to reveal it" (Kemerling 1999). According to Socrates, the only opinion that he is willing to consider would be that of the state. "...if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury,...we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know you have done your best to destroy us." -Socrates (Plato 577) Socrates' argument moves from one of a general moral decision to the morality of his specific case. He basically says: -One ought never to do wrong, -But it is always wrong to disobey the state, -Therefore, one ought never to disobey the state (Kemerling 1999) Since avoiding the sentence handed down by the jury would be disobeying the state, Socrates decides not to escape. Socrates chose to honor his commitment to truth and morality, even though it cost him his life. One of the main arguments made by Socrates, "Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first...For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids." -Socrates (Plato 577), is one of the most important and crucial in the Crito dialogue. Socrates provides a very convincing argument of why he should not escape from the Athenian prison. He states that if he does as Crito suggests and escapes, it will not be justifiable nor true. Although his family and friends will be much happier if he escapes, he will not follow the justice or moral code of the state in which he was born and raised. Socrates also gives the idea that if he were to escape, his family and friends would be happy for him, but their fellow citizens and their state in which they reside would not. The government and citizens of the state may take their frustration of this injustice out on the friends and family of Socrates. In this argument, Socrates believes that the state would say, "think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards"(Plato 566). He says this as a counter-argument to statement made by Crito saying that he should think of the children that he