Like many of Plato's dialogues, the Crito takes its name from Socrates ' primary interlocutor. Crito is a long-time follower of Socrates , and is deeply distraught at the prospect of Socrates ' impending execution.
The dialogue takes place in Socrates' prison cell, where he awaits execution. He is visited before dawn by his old friend Crito , who has made arrangements to smuggle Socrates out of prison to the safety of exile. If it is just, he will go with Crito , if it is unjust, he must remain in prison and face death.
Socrates tries to use REASON rather than the values embedded in his culture to determine whether an action is right or wrong. The Crito records the conversation that took place in the prison where Socrates was confined awaiting his execution. It is in the form of a dialog between Socrates and Crito , an elderly Athenian who for many years has been a devoted friend of Socrates and a firm believer in his ethical teachings.
What does crito mean? Crito or ; is a dialogue by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. What are some of the main reasons crito gives Socrates for escaping? Socrates has three main reasons for not escaping from prison. Reason number 1 - he owes it to the state, i. Rather than simply break the Laws and escape, Socrates should try to persuade the Laws to let him go.
These Laws present the citizen's duty to them in the form of a kind of social contract. By choosing to live in Athens, a citizen is implicitly endorsing the Laws, and is willing to abide by them. Socrates, more than most, should be in accord with this contract, as he has lived a happy seventy years fully content with the Athenian way of life. If Socrates were to break from prison now, having so consistently validated the social contract, he would be making himself an outlaw who would not be welcome in any other civilized state for the rest of his life.
And when he dies, he will be harshly judged in the underworld for behaving unjustly toward his city's laws. Socrates could probably have avoided the whole affair by not coming to court to defend himself. And again, in court, as we witness in The Apology, he made no effort whatsoever to apologize for his actions. When found guilty, he firmly rejected the options of prison, exile, or censure, insisting that if they would let him live, they must let him live as he had always done.
Thus, Socrates forced the hand of the Athenian jurors, putting them in a position where they must either execute him or let him go free. Though they may not have wanted to execute him, Socrates left them no choice.
Now, the authorities would probably be as eager as Socrates' friends to have Socrates escape and live out his years in exile. It is only Socrates' own principled stubbornness that leads to his death. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook.
Summary Summary Context Analysis and Themes 43a - 44b 44b - 46a 46b - 50a 50a - 51c 51c - 53a 53a - 54e. At a later date, Plato's pupil Aristotle left Athens to escape death at the hands of the anti-Macedonians, saying that he wanted to spare the city from another crime against philosophy.
It has been suggested by some Greek scholars that Plato might have escaped from prison if he had been in Socrates' position. We cannot be certain about what he would have done under these circumstances, but there is one important difference between Plato and Socrates at the time when the conversation with Crito took place: Socrates was seventy years old, while Plato was only a young man in his early thirties. Socrates had spent his entire life in Athens. During all of those years, he had been the recipient of the many benefits that the city bestowed and had often acknowledged his indebtedness to its system of government and social order.
If he had chosen to do so, he could have left the city at any time, but his very presence and participation in the life of the city was evidence of his approval of the way in which its activities had been maintained. Plato was at this time too young to have been under the same or equal obligation to the state inasmuch as he had not received as much from it.
His situation was quite different from that of an old man who had lived during those years when the Periclean Age was at its greatest height of achievement. Socrates could not go back on his obligations to the city, and unless commanded to do that which in his judgment was morally wrong, he was duty-bound to obey its laws.
Crito had urged Socrates to return evil for evil, which was a principle accepted by the many, presumably on the assumption that only in this way could the demands of justice be met.
No one questioned the idea that criminals should be punished or that the severity of the punishment should be determined to some extent by the nature of the crime. There was, however, a difference of opinion concerning the purpose of the punishment. According to one view, its purpose was to serve as a corrective measure that would be of benefit to the criminal by helping him to overcome his evil tendencies.
A quite different view was held by those who believed that the proper function of punishment was to enable society to get even with the criminal by inflicting upon him an evil that was equivalent to the one he had caused others to suffer.
Socrates accepted the former of these two views but rejected the latter. He did not believe that two wrongs make a right or that you can cure one evil by committing another one. Therefore, an escape from prison in violation of the law would be an evil act on his part and in no way would counteract the evil performed by the court. Although Socrates lived and died several centuries before the Christian era, his position in this respect was similar to what later came to be known as the Christian view, which forbids one to overcome evil with evil but states rather that evil should be overcome with good.
Crito has said that the opinion of the many should be feared because they have the power to put people to death. Socrates is not disturbed by this fact, for he believes that death is not necessarily an evil thing. It is the committing of an evil act that should be feared rather than having to die.
The many may think that it is within their power to do the greatest evil to one who has lost their good favor, but such is not the case. They cannot make a person wise or foolish, nor can they cause him to do good or evil. It is true that they may injure one's body and may even be the cause of one's physical death but they have no power over his soul, which is what really matters.
What Socrates believed in this respect was identical with what the Christians of later centuries taught when they said "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. It was his conviction that the element in each individual in which wickedness and righteousness have their seat is far more precious than the physical body.
Crito and Socrates have been able to discuss the question about making an escape from prison because they have agreed on certain points. They both believe that to commit a wrong is under all conditions a bad thing for the person who commits it. From this it follows that a person must never repay ill-treatment by ill-treatment; no treatment received from another ever justifies doing something wrong in return.
If they did not believe alike on these points, any discussion of the question would be useless. Socrates has made an effective reply to the arguments advanced by Crito, stating at some length his reasons for believing that it would be wrong for him to escape.
Still, Crito insists that he has not changed his mind, and Socrates decides to try a different approach to the question. He will relate what he imagines the many, or people in general, will say if he does escape from prison and go to some foreign land to spend the remainder of his life. This might seem at first to be a strange thing for Socrates to do in view of all that he has said concerning the shallowness of the opinions of the many.
But, in this case, he will attempt to relate not simply what they might say but rather what they would have a right to say in the event that he escaped. The opinion of the many is not necessarily wrong, but neither is it necessarily right.
It can be right if it is based on actual facts and what can logically be inferred from them. This is what Socrates intends to present as he makes his final speech in defense of the position he has taken. Let us consider, he says, what the State or the Laws would have to say in the event they should discover Socrates making his escape from prison.
This personification of the State, or what is sometimes referred to as the Laws, is an artistic device that brings home to the imagination in a powerful way the message that Socrates has been trying to convey.
It does not contain any additional argument to what has been said before, but it is designed to produce a mood of feeling that is appropriate for an elevation of the ethical demands of conscience. Its purpose is to arouse an unconditional reverence for the dignity of the moral law that demands and justifies the course that Socrates is taking.
The basis for the remarks that follow is the "social contract" that exists between the individual citizen and the society to which that citizen belongs. It is this contract, or implied agreement, in which the citizen promises to obey the laws of the state and to abide by the decisions of its courts that makes possible a well-ordered society in which people can live at peace with one another.
If Socrates should follow the advice of Crito and escape from prison, the Laws might complain that he is breaking the contract that he made with them. Since the contract was made voluntarily, he cannot offer the excuse that it was made under duress or obtained by false representation.
Neither was it made in haste without sufficient time for consideration. Socrates has had seventy years for reflection, and in all this time he has not left the city in search of a different place to live.
His choice of living under the laws of this city has been free and deliberate. His entire life bears witness to the fact that he has accepted the institutions of the society into which he was born, and it is an essential part of the system under which that society operates that its citizens shall respect and obey the decisions of its duly constituted courts.
Socrates is not at liberty to reject the decisions of the court because he believes they have gone beyond their jurisdiction or that they have made a wrong decision in his case. For him to run away in order to escape the execution of the court's sentence would not only be a dishonorable act, it would indicate an insincerity on his part since he is not willing to abide by the lofty ideals that have characterized his teachings.
If Socrates should escape, his family and friends will run the risk of banishment and loss of property. If he goes to neighboring cities, he will be looked upon by all honest citizens as an enemy. Even if he should escape that disgrace, he will be regarded as a parasite, or one who is seeking favors from the rich and the powerful.
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