Socrates has justified his decision to obey the majority’s opinions and serve the sentence deemed appropriate for his crimes by his own city. At the beginning of this piece, Socrates presented a period of questions and answers through dialogue with Crito.
Throughout the dialogue, Socrates explains his reasoning for not running from the government. Crito does not understand the madness of Socrates. Crito will do whatever it takes to help his friend flee instead of being exiled by the government. I do not think that what you are doing is right. To give up your life when you can save it and to hasten your fate as your enemies would hasten it, and indeed have hastened it in their wish to destroy. (Crito p. 58c)
Throughout the beginning of the dialogue, Crito expresses his feelings of why he believes Socrates should flee from the city. Crito makes many valid points on why he disagrees with Socrates’ decision to bear this misfortune.
Crito offers to not flee, expressing to Socrates that a man as courageous as him, who has lived his life through virtue, should choose the path a good and courageous man would choose. Particularly when one claims throughout one’s life to care for justice. (Crito p. 59d) Through the dialogue, the questions and answers between Socrates and Crito establish two major themes that hold true throughout the work. The first is that a person must decide whether the society in which they live has just reasoning behind its own standards of right and wrong. The second is that a person must have pride in the life they lead.
In establishing the basic questions of these two concepts, Socrates has precluded his own circumstance and attempted to prove to his companion Crito that the choice he has made is just. I am the kind of man who listens only to the argument that, on reflection, seems best to me. I cannot, now that this fate has come upon me, discard the arguments I used; they seem to me much the…” (Crito p. 59b). The introduction of this work has also provided the concept that our society or majority has dictated what is considered virtuous action.
According to Socrates, we have been given every opportunity to reject our society and renounce what it has stood for and against. None of our laws raise any obstacles or forbid us. If we are not satisfied with our city, we can go and live in a colony or anywhere else and keep our email address (Crito p. 63d). Socrates states that making a conscious choice or effort to remain under the influence of a society is an unconscious agreement with that society to live our lives by its standards and virtues. After establishing his own agreement with his city’s virtues, Socrates believes in the validity of the decision imposed upon himself. He states that his decision is justified by the fact that the laws and governing agents of the society must command a certain degree of respect.
Any person who unjustly disobeys these laws is deliberately attempting to destroy them and the society that has imposed them. For example, whoever remains when they see how we conduct our trials and manage the city in other ways has, in fact, agreed to obey our laws (Crito p. 63e). If the decisions of the city’s governing agents are not thoroughly respected as just and cohesive parts of society, the very structure by which the society stands is subject to collapse. If a person violates what their society stands for and does not accept the consequences for their actions, then there cannot be a system of law in place to create order. You must either persuade it or obey its orders and endure in silence whatever it instructs you.
