Crito

Author: Plato

This book occurs while Socrates is in jail waiting for his execution. His friend Crito tries to convince Socrates to escape to exile, and Socrates argues against it.

Crito gives a few arguments for why Socrates should leave.

• His death will reflect badly on his family and friends because they will think they did nothing to try and save him. Socrates response is that we shouldn’t worry about public opinion and instead only focus on wise and expert advice.
• Crito says that if Socrates stayed, he is helping those who falsely accused him, which would be acting unjustly himself.
• Lastly he says that Socrates would be abandoning his sons

Since Socrates is not worried about public opinion, the only question he is concerned with then is whether it is unjust to escape or not.

To frame this argument, Socrates personifies the voice of the law. He says the voice speaks to him and says that the law is one entity, and confirms that escaping is unjust. Since the law is one entity, Socrates says breaking one law is breaking them all, which would cause great harm to the laws. Socrates says that as citizens of Athens, people are bound to the law like a child is to their parent. He says that instead of breaking the law, people should try and convince the laws to let him escape.

Socrates says that if he were to escape, he would become an outlaw and would not be welcome in any other civilized states anyways. So he convinces Crito it would be better to not escape.

Socrates argument gets into the philosophical idea of a social contract. There are opposing views to the social contract, perhaps the most famous coming from John Locke vs Thomas Hobbes who had very opposite perspectives. There are a lot of interpretations that could come from the book. Is Socrates idea too legalistic? Does his perspective open the door for authoritarians? There are liberal interpretations to his social contract as well though. I think this is one of the reasons this book is so influential. It opened the door and provided the philosophical framework to have this discussion. Whether someone agrees with Socrates or not is besides the point, the book is so impactful because of the discussion, not because of the answers.

I read somewhere about books that have stood the test of time. They said that it is the amount a book gets referenced that solidifies it in time. Even if Socrates ideas were wrong, his ideas are still referenced and used in philosophical discussion, and discussion around how to organize societies, and how governments and people should behave within societies, and so many other facets that are clearly very relevant to all our lives. So over the last 2000 years as humans have wrestled with this idea, Crito is being referenced, and built upon.