 Hi, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and today I'm going to be talking about Plato's classic dialogue, The Crito, about civil obedience. Now, I really love this dialogue, especially because it's a great general introduction to the field of ethics and utilizes virtually all of the general types of ethical arguments that we still see around. And it's also got an innovative dialogue structure. So that's the first thing to know about the Crito is that it's a Socratic dialogue by Plato and one that depicts Socrates in a prison cell in Athens 399 BC, one or two days before he is to be executed. That's to happen the day after a ship from Delos returns from Athens. So the dialogue takes place after the events of Plato's Euthyphro and Apology, the dialogue in which Socrates is depicted as giving his defense speech, and the events here are prior to the Fido, which is the dialogue depicting Socrates last conversation and then his drinking the hemlock. The characters in the Crito technically amount to just two Socrates and his old friend Crito. Now, Crito was mentioned as being present at Socrates trial in Plato's Apology, and he's present in a couple of other Socratic dialogues, and he's mentioned in Socratic dialogues of Xenophon, so we can infer that he was probably a real person around the same age as Socrates and a good friend of his. Now another feature of the dialogue, which we'll get into is the personification of the law, and Socrates gives voice to an argument or rhetorical personification of the law in the city and the government speaking to him and him kind of interacting, and this creates a kind of virtual third character in the dialogue. But really, this is a theoretical embodiment of what we later call the body politic or the Leviathan and kind of taking the state to be a person who has intention and will and arguments and is susceptible more or less to persuasion, but definitely commands obedience. Now, let's look at a general outline of the contents of the dialogue. It begins with a greeting and a portrayal of Socrates' tranquility while he sits in prison, awaiting his execution, and a report of a prophetic dream he had about when his execution will take place, so he's already envisioned all of the events happening, and yet he's fine and tranquil about it, exhibiting a suitably philosophical tranquility with respect to the events. Then we have Socrates' entry to Socrates, begging him to allow Socrates to help escape prison and go into exile in some other city, and we also have Socrates' arguments for why Socrates should first, regard the opinions of the majority and what they think Socrates should do, and second, why he should escape from prison and avoid being put to death, that presumably being the worst possible harm that could happen to someone. Then we have Socrates responding to these two points specifically. So he first points out why the opinions of the majority or the masses, Hau'i Ploé, should not be regarded, and second, he argues why his being put to death would not be the worst thing that could happen to him, and this is important because he argues that the worst thing could happen to him would be if he were to do wrong. So it's worse in Socrates' view for he himself to do wrong than it is for him to have wrong done to him, and that's a point that was argued at length in the Gorgias. Now, the rest of the credo and really the core of the credo consists of Socrates' arguments to show that his escape from prison and escaping the penalty, the death penalty that the Athenians have imposed on him, escape from that would be doing wrong. And here's where he gives a variety of ethical arguments of three major kinds. First, deontological arguments, that is, arguments about what should or ought be done. Second, social contract arguments, arguments about what Socrates is obligated to do by virtue of explicit or implicit agreements or covenants between him and the state. And third, consequentialist arguments about the real effects and outcomes of the courses of action available to Socrates. Now, after giving deontological social contract and consequentialist arguments for why his escape would be wrong, and after having shown that his doing wrong would be worse than his having the wrong done to him of being put to death, then Socrates draws the conclusion that he should allow the Athenians to put him to death, thus responding negatively to Crito's entreaty to allow him to help Socrates escape from prison and to escape the penalty. And so the dialogue ends with an extremely brief capitulation on Crito's part to Socrates' arguments. But let's go back to the beginning and look at the initial greeting. Crito has been sitting in Socrates' room waiting for him to wake up. Socrates is calm enough to have a good night's sleep, even though he's on the brink of execution. And again, the tranquility that he displays in the face of these otherwise anxiety-ridden last days in confinement before his execution shows that Socrates is happy with the decisions he's made, happy with what he's said in the Apology despite the conviction and despite the sentence that was imposed on him. He also reports a prophetic dream to Crito, which indicates that Socrates will be executed the day after tomorrow, not tomorrow, which is the kind of segue for Crito to point out that time is getting short and Crito begs Socrates to allow him to help him escape from prison. And that's what occasions the main action of the dialogue. Now, it's important that right after Crito asks Socrates this, he states his motive for making the offer. And that's on Staphanus page 44. Oh, 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's 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, but that you refused. So first of all, this shows the view of the many or the majority, Huypilloy, that they will assume that somebody in a situation like Socrates would escape and that that's what you should do. And so they will assume that people like Crito must have been greedy and not willing to help their friends bribe the guards and so forth to allow their friend to go into exile. But it's interesting because Crito's motive here, he states explicitly is his own fear of shame and disgrace and embarrassment. He doesn't initially state that it's for Socrates benefit, although he believes it would be and he states many reasons why he thinks it would be later. But his initial motive is his own reputation and how he will be perceived. And that's because he puts value on the opinions of the majority of people, as is made clear in the crucial dialogue exchange on page 44. Socrates says, 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? We'll think of these things truly as they happened, meaning the things that happened with Socrates trial. And Crito says, but you see Socrates that the opinion of the many must be regarded as is evident in your own case because they can do the greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion. And Socrates denies this. He says, I wish that were true, but they can to actually do any good or any harm and they basically act at random. And this exchange is crucial because much of the rest of the dialogue is actually Socrates response to the two points that Crito makes here. One, that the opinion of the many or the majority, Hoy Ploy should be regarded and two, that they are capable of doing the greatest evil to someone. Socrates denies both of those claims and what follows. But first, look at Crito's arguments that he offers Socrates for why he thinks Socrates should escape. One, it will be easy for his friends to bribe the relevant people in order to get Socrates in exile somewhere like Thessaly. Second, it's the right thing to do. Otherwise, he'd be hurting his friends and helping his enemies. And so this violates a kind of archaic or original concept of justice that justice is helping friends and hurting enemies. Socrates would be hurting his friends, as Crito just said, making them look bad, making them feel embarrassment and disgrace at not helping Socrates escape. And he'd be, on the other hand, helping his enemies by seeming to justify his conviction if he doesn't try to escape. He'll make it like he would agree with what's the sentence that's been imposed on him. And so third, Socrates' course of action seems to Crito to basically amount to something like suicide. Further, he'd be hurting his own children, like child abandonment, but he has an obligation to educate them. And finally, Socrates will be perceived as acting from a vice, like cowardice or laziness. It won't be perceived as a courageous thing to do to go softly towards that punishment. Instead, it will be said that he was too cowardly to, or too lazy to escape the punishment. And so Crito says all of these would be sad and discredible consequences of Socrates not escaping. And that's an interesting point to remember because Socrates does later respond to some of these points, but not at great depth because he doesn't take this whole family of argument seriously. And that's because he basically doesn't think that the consequences of his actions are all that important. And all of these are simply consequences of his actions. He thinks that consequences of your actions are something that the majority of people would look at and would be fixated on, but that's not the basis on which Socrates is going to make his decision. He's going to make it on the basis of other principles, as he then goes on to explain, beginning with an argument against having any regard for the opinion of the majority. So Socrates says that he's always guided by reason and what he thinks is the best reason. And he says, you know, the opinions of some people are to be regarded as reasonable. Others are to be disregarded as being unreasonable. And I think that's something most people can easily agree to. And specifically, the opinions of the good people are those that should be regarded. Those of bad people are the ones that should be disregarded. And further, that the opinions of the wise are the same as those of the good. And those of the unwise are the same as those of the bad. So you ought, in other words, to regard the opinions of the wise, not the opinions of the majority. And if you think about those who are wise in a given domain, for example, gymnastics or medicine, those are few people, not many. Gymnastic training is a very specialized activity. Medicine is a very specialized activity. Only a few people are trained in them. So if a pupil that was trying to learn gymnastics or a patient who was trying to be healed from some disease were to follow the advice of the majority of people and not the few gymnastic trainers or doctors, then the pupil or the patient would end up being worse off with respect to their bodies. And so by analogy, Socrates argues, if one were to follow the advice of the majority and not the few who know and have wisdom about justice, then one would become worse off with respect to one's soul or what, at least with respect to the part of oneself that is more valuable than the body. And since this part is more valuable than the body, one must not follow the majority, but rather follow the few with respect to it, just as one should not follow the majority with respect to their views about health or gymnastic training, but should follow the few. Therefore, he concludes, we must not regard what the majority say of us, but what he, the one who has understanding of just and unjust will say and what the truth will say, which he here takes to be identical. Now, having refuted the point that we ought to regard what the majority says, he moves on to the next point of Crito's overall argument, and he argues that being put to death would not be the worst thing for him. So notice that the conclusion that we've just reached contradicts the first part of Crito's claim, but not the second part that, hey, they can put you to death and that's the worst thing that can happen to you. And Socrates refutes that by arguing essentially that one, we ought to value the good life and living well more than mere survival and living on. And second, that to live well and to enjoy the good life is to live a good and honorable life. And so we ought to value living a good and honorable life above mere continual survival or continuing to live. And so for this reason, the only consideration is not can they kill me or not? Am I going to be put to death or not? But am I a good person and have I done the honorable thing? So Socrates says, the other considerations which you mentioned, the other things that Crito called consequences of money, loss of reputation, duty of educating one's children, those I fear are only the doctrines of the majority. The only question that remains to be considered is whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape. If he decides that it is right, then he will do it. If he decides it is wrong, he will not do it regardless of the consequences. Actually, let's look at the reasons that he gives for why escape would be doing wrong since now that's all that matters is whether he would be doing right or doing wrong in doing the activity. Then the rest of the dialogue consists of specifying why he would be doing wrong and he gives three kinds of arguments for why he would be doing wrong. And this is, as I said, gives us an overview of different kinds of ethical argumentation. First of all, he offers deontological arguments, that is, arguments about what should or ought to be done. He gives arguments for why one should or ought not do wrong in return for his having been done wrong by the city. So one should not retaliate. One should not repay wrong for wrong. Second, he makes social contract arguments, that is, arguments about agreements that we implicitly make in order to live in society. He talks about arguments that follow from compacts and agreements that he's made with the city of Athens and that he's either explicitly agreed to or made it clear that he believes and agrees to because he's lived under and benefited from these laws all along. And finally, he offers consequentialist arguments, arguments about the consequences and actual effects of the course of action, about the effects on his friends, his reputation, his children, et cetera, the kind of considerations that Crito brought up. Now, looking at these deontological arguments, he argues one should never do wrong. Doing wrong is always evil and dishonorable. And he assumes that it is always possible to avoid doing wrong. One is not forced to do wrong or if one is forced to do something that is apparently wrong, then one does not have responsibility because one was forced. So he says, in spite of the opinion of the many and in spite of consequences, whether better or worse, shall we insist on the truth of what was then said that injustice is always an evil and dishonor to him who acts unjustly and Crito agrees to that point. So one should never do wrong regardless of the consequences. So the means are not justified by the ends. The means and the morality of the means have to be analyzed independently of their consequences. And Crito in agreeing agrees to the claim that doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many is unjust. So the majority of people would define justice as being something like returning evil for evil. And that is exactly what Socrates denies and secures Crito's agreement to the point that that's wrong. Now Socrates reiterates that this opinion has never been held and never will be held by any considerable number of persons. So he knows it's a very counterintuitive, almost paradoxical view, but he never the last secures Crito's agreement to it and restates that my first principle that neither injury nor retaliation nor wording off evil by evil is ever right. He says this principle will govern his actions. And as I said, this exhibits deontological reasoning, deontology is the study of what should or ought to be done coming from the Greek word day on meaning one should or one ought. It's relevant here because Socrates and Crito are discussing whether he should or should not escape. That still lies in the future to determine whether it will happen or not. And so it is still worth debating whether he should do it or not. But in order to resolve whether he should do it or not, we have to look at what exactly is meant by should and Socrates just argued that the only sense of should that he's interested in is whether it would imply doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing. Now, he argues in what follows that somebody could accuse him of doing wrong to the city and the laws, even of overthrowing and trampling upon the laws of the state if you were to escape the sentence that's imposed on him. And this is where he introduces another kind of character into the dialogue, which he gives voice to and that is the laws. And here we get the social contract style arguments. Socrates imagines a skilled orator or a rhetorician giving some speeches on behalf of the government of the law and arguing against Socrates escape. And the first line of reasoning that they give is about the agreement that we have with you. They are speaking to Socrates, but you can imagine them speaking directly to you and you should imagine how far these arguments apply to you. They ask what complaint of yours could possibly justify you in acting to destroy the laws and the state. After all, the state is responsible for your very existence, the lawful marriage of your parents depended on the state's approval. You're nurturing through the child welfare laws that are set up and that guarantee that you'll be raised in accordance with a certain set of principles and further your education because all of you are getting a public education now and you're all benefiting from the fact that the state set up this institution. And so the state is responsible for your existence, what you grew up as and what you're becoming now. You are like a child or he says a slave even to the state. And so you have to submit to its paternalistic or as it were, despotic authority. In fact, the state is to be valued even more than your parents or any ancestor. All of your ancestors and your parents depended for their existence on the state. So they're all posterior to the state. Thus you must either persuade or obey the state, but you can't just disobey the state anymore than you can just disobey your mother and father and do battle with them and destroy them or murder them. So you could have also left the state at any point after the state brought you into existence and nurtured you and educated you. You were free to leave at any point in time, live under any other set of laws that you think is better, but they say 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 so there's an implied contract either implicit or explicit contracts that you have with your parents, your educators like me, your teacher and the state itself. These oblige you to either persuade or obey and not to rebel against them or escape their judgment or their lawfully imposed punishment. And Socrates admits that all of this applies to him. I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. He refers not only to agreements, but also compacts, covenants, contracts and so forth. So this is an obligation that Socrates has and he takes this obligation seriously and it's a kind of adjunct to these day ontological arguments. It helps affirm what he should do and what he should not do and he should not rebel or be disobedient to the state, which has made his existence possible. And even if the state has treated him wrong, it is earlier been showed that he should not retaliate against them or do wrong in return as escaping certainly would be. Now the dialogue concludes with him also considering some consequentialist arguments and these reply almost point by point to the arguments made by Crito. So the personified laws also mentioned these consequences that he will be hurting his friends by getting them involved in crime. He will be helping his enemies by proving his accusers right that he was a criminal and a corruptor of the youth. He won't be proving them wrong. He'll be proving them right. So he'll be hurting his friends and helping his enemies and so even according to that archaic concept of justice, he will be acting wrongly. Furthermore, he'll produce more enemies by turning the rest of the state and law abiding citizens against him and he'll have no peace or tranquility. He won't have these nice dreamy sleeps that he's been having and that's whether he goes to a well-governed or to a poorly governed place. If he goes to a well-governed place will be held in dishonor because he's a common criminal and escapee. If he goes to a dishonorable place, he may be honored by dishonorable people, but they're very fickle about who they honor and dishonor and will basically change their allegiance at random. Further, he will harm his children and their education. They would do much better under the guidance of his friends, not under the shadow of a criminal fugitive father. So for all of these reasons, the day ontological reasons, the social contract reasons and the consequentialist reasons, Socrates shows that he would be doing wrong by accepting Kratos offer to allow him to escape and doing wrong is worse than the wrong being done to him by allowing the state to put him to death. Therefore, his response to Kratos is no, I will not allow you to help me escape. Now to conclude on just some questions about the dialogue that occurred to me this time reading through it. Why at the end of the dialogue does Socrates mention these bad consequences of his escape? Recall that earlier he'd said that he's going to proceed to argue the question whether I ought or ought not to try to escape without the consent of the Athenians. And if I'm clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt. But if not, I will abstain the other considerations which you cry to mention of money and loss of character and the duty of educating one's children, I are I fear only the doctrines of the multitude. The only question which remains to be considered is whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or not escaping. Now why does another question why does Socrates personify the laws in order to state the social contract and the consequentialist arguments? Why doesn't he just continue to state them directly as he does with the arguments against retaliation and what I've been calling the deontological arguments. I think that those two questions can actually be answered together that to some extent the arguments by the personified laws indicate the rhetorical and conventional approach to the topic that Socrates is arguing and by making them. He shows that he can mount just as rhetorically of effective arguments as the ones that could be made in favor of his leaving, but he ultimately distances himself from those arguments and doesn't take them as seriously as the main argument that prevents him from accepting Crito's offer. And that's because it would be doing wrong. And so what he's really interested in is not the consequences, which as he says, he does not put much store in because he doesn't put much store in the things valued by the majority, the multitude, the many, the masses, Huypilloy. He only values the opinions of the wise. So he does not regard the bad consequences to be relevant. All that matters supposedly is the analysis of what he should or shouldn't do. To some extent, the social contract arguments are between these. They implicate what he should or shouldn't do, but they are to some extent based on consequences that those actions would have for the state that they would injure the state. They would trample the state's authority and so on. Now, the last question I'll ask, but without even venturing the beginning of an answer is what the significance of Socrates prophetic dream at the very beginning about which he says there can be no doubt about its meaning. I wonder if Socrates appeal to his dream can cast any doubt on his claim that quote I am and have always been one of those natures who must be guided by reason. So in general, we can ask if Socrates actions are reasonable, including his taking seriously a prophetic dream message. Are they reasonable by his own standards or by other standards of reason ability that we might consider more reasonable? I'd like to hear what you think of that.