Crito

If you thought it would be nice if Socrates had a happy ending, you’re probably going to be very disappointed, but he would disagree with you.

This dialogue happens the night before Socrates is to be executed. The trial resulted in Socrates being offered the choice of renouncing his blasphemous and anti-aristocratic speeches (his philosophy) or being executed. I think you can guess what he chose.

His friend Crito is a wealthy man who is very close to Socrates, appearing in a few different dialogues. He also has a lot of influence in the city as he’s able to gather a team to break Socrates out of prison during the night and get the guard to look the other way during the break out.

The dialogue starts with Socrates waking up to see Crito, and while he has the perfect escape plan, the one problem he could never see coming was Socrates himself.

From the beginning he is opposed to being broken out, not outright saying it at first, just disagreeing with Crito’s reasoning.

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. 

Soc. Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but by no means the only one.

…

Soc. Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the evil

Socrates wants his friend to convince him to leave, but he is already convinced by his better judgement that staying in his cell is the right thing to do, so it is an up-hill battle for Crito.

Socrates then runs Crito through the main reason why he doesn’t think it is right to leave his cell. He doesn’t have a name for it, but in the present we call what he is talking about ‘the social contract’.

The social contract is a concept that states that by living within a State’s laws and property, we gain the right to the benefits of that civilization, but we also have the responsibility to adhere to any punishments as set out in the law. If people start to corrupt the social contract by breaking/evading the laws that they live by, the State can and will punish these people in the same way, by bending and ignoring their laws.

This isn’t focused on criminals and other law breakers, it’s about average citizens who think that their life and/or others will be improved by ignoring a law, whether in an isolated example, or in every example. It’s a little piece of social rhetoric that’s used to justify injustice in the modern day. People will say that by living in and enjoying the benefits of a country, you need to accept the negative aspects as well.

These days it’s debatable whether this has merit or is just a tool used to suppress the right of the masses to rebel, but for Socrates, living by the social contract was a pretty good move, seeing as Athens was an incredibly just society compared to other cities its size at the time.

This is what he explains to Crito, through an example of the laws debating with himself:

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.

Socrates has been a part of Athens, its laws and benefits his whole life. He has been given every chance to go live in another state if he doesn’t like the laws, but he stayed because he wanted to remain a part of Athens and be subject to its laws. Now the time has come for him to receive the harsh side of justice, and for him to deny it would be to deny the good side he has had the privilege of his whole life.

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.

He is not being killed by the laws, he is being killed by men, and to retaliate against the laws in kind would be to harm what has allowed him a good life. Not only that, but it would make an enemy of the law for his friends and family in this life and the next, as new cities will be aggressive to those who have disregarded laws in the past, while the afterlife is governed completely by divine laws, if common theories on the afterlife are to be believed.

After this short but valid reasoning, Crito accepts defeat and leaves Socrates to be executed the next day.

If you want to understand the points covered at the depth that Plato intended, feel free to read through the dialogue here.