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This document contains portions of a public domain translation of Plato's Crito by Benjamin Jowett. This document is intended as a PUBLIC DOMAIN edition for non-profit educational and scholarly use only. No fee may be charged for this document, although a nominal amount to cover the cost of copying and distribution materials may be charged provided the author is notified in writing. The contents of this publication may not be modified or changed prior to being distributed in any way EXCEPT in that this file may be added to or annotated.
THE HYPERTEXT CRITO draws on the electronic text version of the Crito released into the public domain by wiretap.spies.com. I have done my best to keep the text intact, but I have broken some of the longer speeches with paragraph marks where I thought appropriate. Also, I have added my own hypertext commentary at points where I feel Jowett's translation is not quite true to the original text. Additionally, and in the spirit of scholarship, I have added my rebuttal to Jowett's introduction. Wiretap's credits as to the source of this translation appear as follows:
The Internet Wiretap Edition of
CRITO, by PLATO
Translated by BENJAMIN JOWETT
From DIALOGUES OF PLATO, New York, P.F. Collier & Son.
Copyright 1900 The Colonial Press.
This was scanned from the 1900 edition and mechanically
checked against a commercial copy of Crito from CDROM.
Differences were corrected against the paper edition. The text
itself is thus a highly accurate rendition.
This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN, released August 1993.
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This document was constructed from materials available over the Internet and suitably supplemented by its composer. It is written and intended for non-academic philosophers and for a first-year undergraduate audience. The Crito and many other e-text documents are available from the gopher at wiretap.spies.com as well as many other locations on the web.
The composer may be reached via e-mail at "rohrer@darkwing.uoregon.edu". Feedback is welcomed. You may send me snail mail at Tim Rohrer, The Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.
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THE CRITO seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates in one light only, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine mission and trusting in the will of Heaven, but simply as the good citizen, who having been unjustly condemned is willing to give up his life in obedience to the laws of the State.
The days of Socrates are drawing to a close; the fatal ship has been seen off Sunium, as he is informed by his aged friend and contemporary Crito, who visits him before the dawn has broken; he himself has been warned in a dream that on the third day he must depart. Time is precious and Crito has come early in order to gain his consent to a plan of escape. This can be easily accomplished by his friends, who will incur no danger in making the attempt to save him, but will be disgraced forever if they allow him to perish. He should think of his duty to his children, and not play into the hands of his enemies. Money is already provided by Crito as well as by Simmias and others, and he will have no difficulty in finding friends in Thessaly and other places.
Socrates is afraid that Crito is but pressing upon him the opinions of the many: whereas, all his life long he has followed the dictates of reason only and the opinion of the one wise or skilled man. There was a time when Crito himself had allowed the propriety of this. And although someone will say "The many can kill us," that makes no difference; but a good life, that is to say a just and honorable life, is alone to be valued. All considerations of loss of reputation or injury to his children should be dismissed: the only question is whether he would be right in attempting to escape. Crito, who is a disinterested person, not having the fear of death before his eyes, shall answer this for him. Before he was condemned they had often held discussions, in which they agreed that no man should either do evil, or return evil for evil, or betray the right. Are these principles to be altered because the circumstances of Socrates are altered? Crito admits that they remain the same. Then is his escape consistent with the maintenance of them? To this Crito is unable or unwilling to reply.
Socrates proceeds: Suppose the laws of Athens to come and remonstrate with him: they will ask, "Why does he seek to overturn them?" and if he replies, "They have injured him," will not the laws answer, "Yes, but was that the agreement? Has he any objection to make to them which would justify him in overturning them? Was he not brought into the world and educated by their help, and are they not his parents? He might have left Athens and gone where he pleased, but he has lived there for seventy years more constantly than any other citizen." Thus he has clearly shown that he acknowledged the agreement which he cannot now break without dishonor to himself and danger to his friends. Even in the course of the trial he might have proposed exile as the penalty, but then he declared that he preferred death to exile. And whither will he direct his footsteps? In any well-ordered State the laws will consider him as an enemy. Possibly in a land of misrule like Thessaly he may be welcomed at first, and the unseemly narrative of his escape regarded by the inhabitants as an amusing tale. But if he offends them he will have to learn another sort of lesson. Will he continue to give lectures in virtue? That would hardly be decent. And how will his children be the gainers if he takes them into Thessaly, and deprives them of Athenian citizenship? Or if he leaves them behind, does he expect that they will be better taken care of by his friends because he is in Thessaly? Will not true friends care for them equally whether he is alive or dead?
Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of life and children afterwards. He may now depart in peace and innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil. But if he breaks agreements, and returns evil for evil, they will be angry with him while he lives; and their brethren, the laws of the world below, will receive him as an enemy. Such is the mystic voice which is always murmuring in his ears.
That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against him during his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages. The crimes of Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils, were still recent in the memory of the now restored democracy. The fact that he had been neutral in the death struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation, undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far more than that; and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the hand of the artist. Whether anyone who has been subjected by the laws of his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape is a thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley is of the opinion that Socrates "did well to die," but not for the "sophistical" reasons which Plato has put into his mouth. And there would be no difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred to a glorious death the good which he might still be able to perform. "A skilful rhetorician would have had much to say about that" (50 C). It may be remarked, however, that Plato never intended to answer the question of casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show Socrates, his master, maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life. Not "the world," but the "one wise man," is still the philosopher's paradox in his last hours.
See also the Rebuttal to the Introduction
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Q: Of what city was Socrates a citizen?
In the Apology, Socrates speaks as himself as "having been sent to this city as a gift of the god" (31a). But what sort of gift to Athens is a man who likens Athens to "a large thoroughbred horse which because of its great size is inclined to be lazy, and needs the stimulation of some small [gad]fly" (30e) and who professes that the god "has attached me to this city to perform the office of such a fly" (30e)?
When Socrates speaks of himself as a gift from the god, it is easy to misconstrue him as a citizen not of Athens, but of some universal Augustinian 'City of God.' The picture of a gadfly stinging some placidly cud-chewing horse may lend itself to such an interpretation of Socrates as an outlander in Athens, but in the CRITO, where questions of citizenship are at the core of the dialogue, Socrates chooses to die an Athenian.
The CRITO opens with Socrates waking from a peaceful and comfortable sleep and encountering a restless and depressed Crito. This dramatic tension--ironic in that Socrates, the man condemned to death, should be consoling Crito--sparks the rest of the dialogue. Crito tells Socrates he is upset because "your death is a double calamity for me. I shall not only lose a friend whom I can never possibly replace, but besides a great many people who don't know you and me very well will be sure to think I let you down, because I could have saved you if I had been willing to spend the money. And what could be more contemptible than to get a name for thinking more of money than of your friends?" (29b-c).
Socrates, however, is non-plussed by the prospect of his impending death, questioning Crito's fear of other people's opinions. He tells Crito he cannot abandon his principles simply because this accident has happened to him, "not even if the power of the people conjures up fresh hordes of bogies to terrify our childish minds, by subjecting us to chains and executions and confiscations of our property" (31c).
The difference between Socrates' and Crito's moods is that Socrates knows and understands what a city is. He brings Athens to life in the crucial passage: "Look at it this way. Suppose that while we were preparing to run away from here--or however one would propose to describe it--the laws and constitution of Athens were to come and confront us and ask this question, Now, Socrates, what are you proposing to do? Can you deny that by this act which you are contemplating you intend, so far as you have power, to destroy us, the laws, and the whole state as well? Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgements which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?" (50a-b). In personifying the laws of Athens, Socrates hopes Crito will realize he is advocating a metaphorical murder.
Plato here anticipates the social contract theory of Hobbes and Rousseau by some 2000 years. The state is understood as a set of agreements--the Laws--which are binding because they gave Socrates his life in the first place. The laws tell Socrates his parents were married under the state's laws of marriage, and his education and upbringing were fostered under other parts of those laws. The laws conclude: "we maintain that anyone who disobeys is guilty on three seperate counts: first, because we are his parents, secondly because we are his guardians, and thirdly because, after promising obedience, he is neither obeying us nor persuading us to change our decision if we are at fault in any way" (51e).
The ultimate vindication the laws cite is that Socrates is fully a citizen of Athens. He has lived his life within its borders, hardly ever left except as required on military expeditions, nor become a part of another city's constitution and culture. And, as final confirmation of his choice of citizenship, they cite that he has begotten children in Athens. If Socrates were to flee, would he bring his children along and make foreigners of them, or would he leave them in Athens to reflect upon the fact of his running away?
Socrates clearly chooses to be a citizen of Athens, not of any ideal 'city of god.' It is perhaps a better Athens than actually existed, an ideal Athens to which Socrates subscribes in principle and act, but he is an Athenian by birth and an Athenian by death. However, the dialogue provokes important questions: who is a full citizen of the state, and if one is not a full citizen, what are one's obligations to the laws? It is easy to imagine how a freeborn Greek male citizen (Socrates) is bound by an agreement with the state, but would a Greek slave or woman be bound by the laws and how? Or how would a younger Socrates be bound? Consider the matter with respect to the United States today: Are disadvantaged inner-city minority youth full citizens? What obligation do they have to the laws? Are they bound by them? Is the accidental locale of birth what really matters to citizenship? And what of those of us who were brought up in not one, but many cultures? Where should our allegiances fall? Last, but not least, does the binding force of the laws come from the reasonable willingness of the members of the state to abide by them, or does the binding force of the law come only from a cruel, mechanical and behavioristic fear of death, torture and imprisonment?
Note: The translations offered in this essay may not always coincide with Jowett's translation.
See also the Translator's Introduction to the Crito
Or, read the text of the Crito
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CRITO
OR, THE DUTY OF A CITIZEN
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Persons of the Dialogue: SOCRATES and CRITO
Scene: -- The Prison Cell of Socrates in Athens
SOCRATES: Why have you come at this hour, Crito? It must be quite early.
CRITO: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: What is the exact time?
CRITO: The dawn is breaking.
SOCRATES: I wonder the keeper of the prison would let you in.
CRITO: He knows me because I often come, Socrates; moreover, I have done him a kindness.
SOCRATES: And are you only just come?
CRITO: No, I came some time ago.
SOCRATES: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of awakening me at once?
CRITO: Why, indeed, Socrates, I myself would rather not have all this sleeplessness and sorrow. But I have been wondering at your peaceful slumbers, and that was the reason why I did not awaken you, because I wanted you to be out of pain. I have always thought you happy in the calmness of your temperament; but never did I see the like of the easy, cheerful way in which you bear this calamity.
SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be repining at the prospect of death.
CRITO: And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes, and age does not prevent them from repining.
SOCRATES: That may be. But you have not told me why you come at this early hour.
CRITO: I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful; not as I believe, to yourself, but to all of us who are your friends, and saddest of all to me.
SOCRATES: What! I suppose that the ship has come from Delos, on the arrival of which I am to die?
CRITO: No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will probably be here today, as persons who have come from Sunium tell me that they left her there; and therefore tomorrow, Socrates, will be the last day of your life.
SOCRATES: Very well, Crito; if such is the will of God, I am willing; but my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.
CRITO: Why do you say this?
SOCRATES: I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the arrival of the ship?
CRITO: Yes; that is what the authorities say.
SOCRATES: But I do not think that the ship will be here until tomorrow; this I gather from a vision which I had last night, or rather only just now, when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.
CRITO: And what was the nature of the vision?
SOCRATES: There came to me the likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in white raiment, who called to me and said: O Socrates-- "The third day hence, to Phthia shalt thou go."
CRITO: What a singular dream, Socrates!
SOCRATES: There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, I think.
CRITO: Yes: the meaning is only too clear. But, O! 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 is 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, but that I did not care. Now, 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, and that you refused.
SOCRATES: But 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.
CRITO: But do you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, as is evident in your own case, because they can do the very greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion.
SOCRATES: I only wish, Crito, that they could; for then they could also do the greatest good, and that would be well. But the truth is, that they can do neither good nor evil: they cannot make a man wise or make him foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.
CRITO: Well, I will not dispute about that; but please to tell me, Socrates, whether you are not acting out of regard to me and your other friends: are you not afraid that if you escape hence we may get into trouble with the informers for having stolen you away, and lose either the whole or a great part of our property; or that even a worse evil may happen to us? Now, if this is your fear, be at ease; for in order to save you, we ought surely to run this or even a greater risk; be persuaded, then, and do as I say.
SOCRATES: Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but by no means the only one.
CRITO: Fear not. There are persons who at no great cost are willing to save you and bring you out of prison; and as for the informers, you may observe that they are far from being exorbitant in their demands; a little money will satisfy them. My means, which, as I am sure, are ample, are at your service, and if you have a scruple about spending all mine, here are strangers who will give you the use of theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a sum of money for this very purpose; and Cebes and many others are willing to spend their money too.
I say, therefore, do not on that account hesitate about making your escape, and do not say, as you did in the court, that you will have a difficulty in knowing what to do with yourself if you escape. For men will love you in other places to which you may go, and not in Athens only; there are friends of mine in Thessaly, if you like to go to them, who will value and protect you, and no Thessalian will give you any trouble. Nor can I think that you are justified, Socrates, in betraying your own life when you might be saved; this is playing into the hands of your enemies and destroyers; and moreover I should say that you were betraying your children; for you might bring them up and educate them; instead of which you go away and leave them, and they will have to take their chance; and if they do not meet with the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks to you. No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nurture and education.
But you are choosing the easier part, as I think, not the better and manlier, which would rather have become one who professes virtue in all his actions, like yourself. And, indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us who are your friends, when I reflect that this entire business of yours will be attributed to our want of courage. The trial need never have come on, or might have been brought to another issue; and the end of all, which is the crowning absurdity, will seem to have been permitted by us, through cowardice and baseness, who might have saved you, as you might have saved yourself, if we had been good for anything (for there was no difficulty in escaping); and we did not see how disgraceful, Socrates, and also miserable all this will be to us as well as to you. Make your mind up then, or rather have your mind already made up, for the time of deliberation is over, and there is only one thing to be done, which must be done, if at all, this very night, and which any delay will render all but impossible; I beseech you therefore, Socrates, to be persuaded by me, and to do as I say.
SOCRATES: Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the evil; and therefore we ought to consider whether these things shall be done or not. For I am and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the best; and now that this fortune has come upon me, I cannot put away the reasons which I have before given: the principles which I have hitherto honored and revered I still honor, and unless we can find other and better principles on the instant, I am certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors. But what will be the fairest way of considering the question? Shall I return to your old argument about the opinions of men? some of which are to be regarded, and others, as we were saying, are not to be regarded. Now were we right in maintaining this before I was condemned? And has the argument which was once good now proved to be talk for the sake of talking; in fact an amusement only, and altogether vanity?
That is what I want to consider with your help, Crito: whether, under my present circumstances, the argument appears to be in any way different or not; and is to be allowed by me or disallowed. That argument, which, as I believe, is maintained by many who assume to be authorities, was to the effect, as I was saying, that the opinions of some men are to be regarded, and of other men not to be regarded. Now you, Crito, are a disinterested person who are not going to die tomorrow--at least, there is no human probability of this, and you are therefore not liable to be deceived by the circumstances in which you are placed. Tell me, then, whether I am right in saying that some opinions, and the opinions of some men only, are to be valued, and other opinions, and the opinions of other men, are not to be valued. I ask you whether I was right in maintaining this?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of the unwise are evil?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what was said about another matter? Was the disciple in gymnastics supposed to attend to the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man only--his physician or trainer, whoever that was?
CRITO: Of one man only.
SOCRATES: And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of that one only, and not of the many?
CRITO: That is clear.
SOCRATES: And he ought to live and train, and eat and drink in the way which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than according to the opinion of all other men put together?
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding, will he not suffer evil?
CRITO: Certainly he will.
SOCRATES: And what will the evil be, whither tending and what affecting, in the disobedient person?
CRITO: Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the evil.
SOCRATES: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we need not separately enumerate? In the matter of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding, and whom we ought to fear and reverence more than all the rest of the world: and whom deserting we shall destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice; is there not such a principle?
CRITO: Certainly there is, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Take a parallel instance: if, acting under the advice of men who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improvable by health and deteriorated by disease--when that has been destroyed, I say, would life be worth having? And that is--the body?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be depraved, which is improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: More honored, then?
CRITO: Far more honored.
SOCRATES: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you suggest that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable. Well, someone will say, "But the many can kill us."
CRITO: Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.
SOCRATES: That is true: but still I find with surprise that the old argument is, as I conceive, unshaken as ever. And I should like to know whether I may say the same of another proposition-- that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued?
CRITO: Yes, that also remains.
SOCRATES: And a good life is equivalent to a just and honorable one--that holds also?
CRITO: Yes, that holds.
SOCRATES: From these premises I proceed to argue the question whether I ought or ought not to try to escape without the consent of the Athenians: and if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt; but if not, I will abstain. The other considerations which you mention, of money and loss of character, and the duty of educating children, are, as I hear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who would be as ready to call people to life, if they were able, as they are to put them to death--and with as little reason.
But now, since the argument has thus far prevailed, the only question which remains to be considered is, whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape and paying them in money and thanks, or whether we shall not do rightly; and if the latter, then death or any other calamity which may ensue on my remaining here must not be allowed to enter into the calculation.
CRITO: I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we proceed?
SOCRATES: Let us consider the matter together, and do you either refute me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my dear friend, from repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of the Athenians: for I am extremely desirous to be persuaded by you, but not against my own better judgment. And now please to consider my first position, and do your best to answer me.
CRITO: I will do my best.
SOCRATES: Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonorable, as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by us? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown away? And have we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover that we are no better than children?
Or are we to rest assured, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, of the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonor to him who acts unjustly? Shall we affirm that?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we must do no wrong?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we must injure no one at all?
CRITO: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Again, Crito, may we do evil?
CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many--is that just or not?
CRITO: Not just.
SOCRATES: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?
CRITO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premise of our argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For this has been of old and is still my opinion; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.
CRITO: You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.
SOCRATES: Then I will proceed to the next step, which may be put in the form of a question: Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or ought he to betray the right?
CRITO: He ought to do what he thinks right.
SOCRATES: But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the principles Which were acknowledged by us to be just? What do you say?
CRITO: I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.
SOCRATES: Then consider the matter in this way: Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: "Tell us, Socrates," they say; "what are you about? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us--the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals?" What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to be carried out; and we might reply, "Yes; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence." Suppose I say that?
CRITO: Very good, Socrates.
SOCRATES: "And was that our agreement with you?" the law would say; "or were you to abide by the sentence of the State?" And if I were to express astonishment at their saying this, the law would probably add: "Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes: you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us what complaint you have to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the State? In the first place did we not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage?" None, I should reply. "Or against those of us who regulate the system of nurture and education of children in which you were trained? Were not the laws, who have the charge of this, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?" Right, I should reply.
"Well, then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or to your master, if you had one, when you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands?--you would not say this? And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? And will you, O professor of true virtue, say that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and if not persuaded, obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country."
What answer shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?
CRITO: I think that they do.
SOCRATES: Then the laws will say: "Consider, Socrates, if this is true, that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For, after having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good that we had to give, we further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him; and none of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, and take his goods with him. But 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 he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are wrong; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us; that is what we offer, and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all other Athenians."
Suppose I ask, why is this? they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. "There is clear proof," they will say, "Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love. For you never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other States or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our State; we were your special favorites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and this is the State in which you begat your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you might, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment in the course of the trial-- the State which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not grieved at death. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us, the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or not?"
How shall we answer that, Crito? Must we not agree?
CRITO: There is no help, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then will they not say: "You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but having had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, which you often praise for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign State. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the State, or, in other words, of us her laws (for who would like a State that has no laws), that you never stirred out of her: the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
"For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what good will you do, either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the neighboring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well-governed cities, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well- ordered cities and virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates? And what will you say to them? What you say here about virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed States to Crito's friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and license, they will be charmed to have the tale of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the fashion of runaways is--that is very likely; but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you violated the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things; you will live, but how?--as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men; and doing what?--eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue then? Say that you wish to live for the sake of your children, that you may bring them up and educate them--will you take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is that the benefit which you would confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive, although absent from them; for that your friends will take care of them? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world they will not take care of them? Nay; but if they who call themselves friends are truly friends, they surely will.
"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. 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. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, 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 that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito."
This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you may say will be in vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
CRITO: I have nothing to say, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then let me follow the intimations of the will of God.
[End.]
See also the Translator's Introduction to the Crito
See also the Rebuttal to the Introduction
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Read the Speech of the Laws in the Crito
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Jowett's was elected the master of Balliol College in 1870. Shortly thereafter he published his translations of The Dialogues of Plato (1871) and of Thucydides' History (1881) and Aristotle's Politics (1886). His 30 year long project of translating of Plato's Republic was published in 1894, a year after his death.
His reputation as an eccentric, knowledgeable and brilliant lecturer reputedly earned him much campus notoriety: for example, he supposedly had one sweater which he wore at all times, and he reportedly was the subject of a sarcastic little campus ditty---"If there is anything to know, ask Jowett--he'll know it."
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In more modern times, the social contract was developed by thinkers such as Hobbes and Rousseau. Eventually, flowing through the eloquent pens of such thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, the idea of a social contract gave shape to the principles of the United States constitution. Much contemporary democratic theory rests on a metaphormetaphor proposed by Plato nearly 2400 years ago. When people complain about the clogged legal system in the U.S. today, they rarely realize that it is because as a nation we have agreed to resolve our disputes in the law courts--a solution deemed better than nepotism (government by the family) or martial tyranny (government by force), the other two models Plato proposes.
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The view of human nature which led Hobbes to social contract theory was mechanical. He saw human beings as mere machines motivated by desire for goods and fear of death, and theorized that humans once must have lived in a state of nature where might made right. In the state of nature, every human being simply acted out of their own desire or fear without regard for others. Hobbes called the right to the use of force to satisfy desire or avoid death a "natural right." Now since humans do not live in a state of nature but in a civil society where our right to the use of force is severly limited, Hobbes argued that humans must have transferred our right to the use of force to the state (or the king) via an unwritten social contract. Under this social contract the state holds the right to use force in punishing lawbreakers and disobedience, while individual citizens have the right only to bring their grievances to the courts. According to Hobbes, the state is a giant person called the Leviathan, so terrifyingly powerful that it can compel individual human beings into obeying the law. Since people are machines made by God, it follows that the Leviathan is a giant machine made by people so that they can force themselves and others into obeying the social contract.
See also Social Contract Theory
or Rousseau
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In The Social Contract Rousseau argues that civil society requires exchanging our natural liberty for civil liberty and the right to private property. Natural liberty is an unlimited freedom to take all which tempts a person, while civil liberty is limited by society. Now if the swap was merely natural liberty for civil liberty, Rousseau thinks the bargain would be poor one; however, the bargain is made more palatable when in civil society one also gains private property rights (or the right to possess the space one occupies). So although liberty is dimished by civil society, the acquisition of positive rights to property compensates the citizen for the loss of liberty.
See also Social Contract Theory
Or see Hobbes
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Most Greeks believed that there were many gods (Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, Pluto, Demeter, etc.) instead of one god, but Plato was very influenced by the teachings of the philosopher-mathematician Pythagoras. Pythagoras, in addtion to producing the geometric theorem that bears his name, taught that all things were manifestations of the One. In fact, whether all things were One or Many was a dominant question among the early Greek philosophers: Parmenides, for example, held that our ordinary experience was a matter of illusion and that there was one underlying reality or truth which bound together those illusions; Heraclitus held that the Logos, or the rationality of the way things hang together, was a unity underlying the appearances. Plato, who knew the teachings of all these thinkers, recognized that there was a similarity in their teachings in that the One was always deemed divine and holy, whether it was called number, truth, or logos. Socrates was put to death for impiety because he also maintained that the divine had one aspect, not many; the tyrants who put him to death construed this to mean that Socrates did not worship the many Greek gods. However, in Plato's dialogues we repeatedly see Socrates draw the one divine aspect out of a dialogue with the many citizens whose opinions he engages. This point is at the heart of the Platonic dialogues: Doesn't our sense of one truth best come from our experience of evaluating many opinions?
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There is a large and growing body of work in the area of how metaphor influences thought. A good introductory book is Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980).
Visit the Metaphor Center Online
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End.