Plot Synopsis

The setting for Plato's dialog "Crito" is Socrates' prison cell in Athens in 399
B.C.E. A few weeks earlier Socrates had been found guilty of corrupting the youth
with irreligion and sentenced to death. He received the sentence with his usual
equanimity, but his friends are desperate to save him. Socrates has been spared
so far because Athens does not carry out executions while the annual mission it
sends to Delos to commemorate Theseus' legendary victory over the minotaur is
still away. However, the mission is expected back in the next day or so. Knowing
this, Crito has come to urge Socrates to escape while there is still time.

To Socrates, escape is certainly a viable option. Crito is rich; the guards can be
bribed; and if Socrates were to escape and flee to another city, his prosecutors
wouldn't mind. In effect, he would have gone into exile, and that would probably
be good enough for them. Crito lays out several reasons for why he should escape
including that their enemies would think his friends were too cheap or timid to
arrange for him to escape, that he would be giving his enemies what they want by
dying and that he has a responsibility to his children to not leave them fatherless.

Socrates responds by saying, first of all, that how one acts should be decided by
rational reflection, not by appeals to emotion. This has always been his approach,
and he is not going to abandon it just because his circumstances have changed.
He dismisses out of hand Crito's anxiety about what other people will think.
Moral questions should not be referred to the opinion of the majority; the only
opinions that matter are the opinions of those who possess moral wisdom and
really understand the nature of virtue and justice. In the same way, he pushes
aside such considerations as how much escaping would cost, or how likely it is
that the plan would succeed. Such questions are all utterly irrelevant. The only
question that matters is: would trying to escape be morally right or morally
wrong?

Argument For Morality

Socrates, therefore, constructs an argument for the morality of escaping by saying
that first, one is never justified in doing what is morally wrong, even in self-
defense or in retaliation for an injury or injustice suffered. Further, it is always
wrong to break an agreement one has made. In this, Socrates posits that he has
made an implicit agreement with Athens and its laws because he has enjoyed
seventy years of all the good things they provide including security, social
stability, education, and culture. Before his arrest, he further posits he never
found fault with any of the laws or tried to change them, nor has he left the city to
go and live somewhere else. Instead, he has chosen to spend his whole life living
in Athens and enjoying the protection of its laws.
Escaping would, therefore, be a breach of his agreement to the laws of Athens and
it would, in fact, be worse: it would be an act that threatens to destroy the
authority of the laws. Therefore, Socrates states that to try to avoid his sentence
by escaping from prison would be morally wrong.

Respect for the Law

The crux of the argument is made memorable by being put into the mouth of
the Laws of Athens who Socrates imagines personified and coming to question
him about the idea of escaping. Furthermore, subsidiary arguments are
embedded in the main arguments outlined above. For instance, the Laws claim
that citizens owe them the same sort of obedience and respect that children owe
their parents. They also paint a picture of how things would appear if Socrates,
the great moral philosopher who has spent his life talking so earnestly about
virtue, to don a ridiculous disguise and run away to another city just to secure a
few more years of life.

The argument that those who benefit from the state and its laws have a duty to
respect those laws even when doing so seems against their immediate self-
interest is cogent, easy to grasp and is probably still accepted by most people
today. The idea that the citizens of a state, by living there, make an implicit
covenant with the state, has also been tremendously influential and is a central
tenet of social contract theory as well as popular immigration policies with
respect to freedom of religion.

Running through the whole dialog, though, one hears the same argument that
Socrates gave to the jurors at his trial. He is who he is: a philosopher engaged in
the pursuit of truth and the cultivation of virtue. He is not going to change,
regardless of what other people think of him or threaten to do to him. His whole
life exhibits a distinctive integrity, and he is determined that it will stay that way
to the very end, even if it means staying in prison until his death

Dialogues of Plato | Socrates's Reply to Crito Summary

(46b–50a) | Summary
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Summary
Socrates's response is that Crito's impassioned plea should be considered only in terms of whether or not it is
correct. His judgment should not change simply because his life is in danger; what he thought right and wrong
before is still applicable. As he maintained in his defense (Apology), living is not the goal of life, but
living well.
Crito agrees that only the expert opinion should be followed, since that is the beneficial one. Other opinions
could very well be harmful. Consequently, one "ought to welcome the praise and fear the blame of that one
man, not of the multitude." In this case, then, Socrates should be concerned only with whether it is right for
him "to try to escape without permission of the Athenians." This, then, should be the goal of their inquiry.
First, Crito agrees with Socrates that, "one must never do injustice." That is because injustice is always
dishonorable and bad—they've long maintained this view and see no reason to disagree now. Second, and
related to the first, it is always wrong to return an injustice with an injustice. That is because "there is no
difference between doing ill to men and doing injustice." In this case, escaping prison without first having
persuaded the state to let him go is an instance of injustice. It is an injury to the state, by whose laws he has
agreed to abide.

Analysis
Socrates's response to Crito's entreaties rests on the principle that to know the good is to do the good, and its
corollary, no one does wrong voluntarily. Each person, according to Socrates, always does what they think is
good. If they are mistaken about the good, they will likely do what's wrong. A simple example is smoking.
Anyone who smokes does so because they think there is some good in it. If they knew that smoking was bad
for their health, they would stop immediately. The fact that they do not stop smoking means, in Socrates's
view, that they are ignorant of its dangers. Another possibility is that their judgment is clouded by addiction.
Similarly, getting caught up in the emotion of Crito's impassioned pleas would cloud Socrates's rationality. He
would, then, not be in a position to clearly think his way through to a conclusion about whether it is right to
escape.
Socrates's argument about meeting injustice with injustice sets him up to discuss the obligation he has to the
Laws of Athens. It also allows him to distinguish between the men who enforce the laws and the laws
themselves. The former, if Socrates's speech in the Apology is to be believed, commit injustice. The latter do
not.
Socrates's argument about injustice is interesting for an apparent inconsistency with claims made in
the Gorgias about punishment. There, Socrates argues that punishment is rehabilitative. Would that not also be
the case here, such that Socrates maintains two inconsistent positions? After all, if Socrates has done wrong,
punishment should improve him. In his cross-examination of Meletus in the Apology, he concludes one of his
arguments with the claim that, if he has done wrong, he has done so unintentionally, and so should be
educated. If punishment is a form of education, a way to rehabilitate someone to reunite with society, Socrates
should welcome his circumstance. Punishment is no more an injury to a wrongdoer than Socratic method is to
one of Socrates's interlocutors. (The reader should consult the servant boy sequence in Plato's Menofor a
discussion of the benefits of Socrates's method.)
This critique arguably rests on an erroneous assumption, namely that Socrates has done wrong. Both he and
Crito take the position that Socrates has been unjustly accused, convicted, and sentenced. Consequently, he is
not in need of rehabilitation.

Crito's point is that because Socrates hasn't done any wrong, but instead an injustice has been done to him, he
has been injured. Socrates rejects this idea. As he has already pointed out, it is impossible for a good man to be
injured—no external force can corrupt a good man's character. Instead, doing wrong harms that part of us (the
soul, for Socrates) that justice improves. Consequently, the injustice he has suffered has not, properly
speaking, harmed him. On the other hand, he would harm the Laws of Athens if he broke his agreement with
them when it suited him.
In both the Apology and here in the Crito, Socrates's view is that he has been unjustly accused,
convicted, and sentenced. Consequently, he has been wronged. In the Apology, Socrates maintains
it is his accusers who have wronged him, and he maintains this position in the Crito. If the laws are
inherently just, then Meletus and the other accusers have betrayed the law. This would seem to
imply that Socrates would not be wrong in trying to escape. However, that is not the position he
stakes out. That is because, in returning an injustice with an injustice, he would harm the laws.
Doing an injustice, according to Socrates, is clearly worse than suffering it.
Dialogues of Plato | Apology | Summary
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Summary
Socrates begins his defense by referring to longstanding accusations against him. He does not know how
negatively they have affected the jury, and he implores them to listen to what he says, not how he says it. He
will, after all, use the language he enlists in the marketplace, where most of his discussions have occurred.
While he will not speak prettily, he will tell them the truth. Their responsibility is to determine whether what
he and his accusers say is just or unjust.
Well before the current charges brought against him, the older generation had been saying similarly slanderous
things, such as "Socrates investigates into things below and above the earth," and "Socrates makes the weaker
argument appear the stronger." He vehemently denies that he is like the Sophists, not only because he has
never received money for teaching but also because he has been concerned only with seeking the truth.

Furthermore, Socrates says, his accusers do not properly understand what virtue is. There is no such expert
among them, so there is no reason for him to be brought before his fellow Athenians. However, he can explain
how he gained the reputation he has.

It started when his friend Chaerephon went to the Delphic oracle and asked whether anyone was wiser than
Socrates. The priestess declared that no one was wiser. Socrates tells the jury that this confused him. After all,
he knew he was not wise, but he also knew the god could not lie.

Socrates endeavored to find someone wiser than he, to no avail. The politicians, who have the highest
reputation for wisdom, think they are wise. However, this reputation and self-image are unfounded. The poets
and craftsmen also think they are wise, but the poets are merely divinely inspired, and the craftsmen, while
knowing how to make things, mistakenly believe they are experts in matters of "great importance."

Socrates tells the jury he decided he was "better off as I am." He is wise in that he does not think he knows
what he does not. At that point, he decided it was his religious duty to continue questioning people who
thought they were wise, so that he could help them recognize their ignorance. This did not win him any
friends.

Socrates goes on to explain that those who witnessed his discussions could not adequately explain what he did
and how he did it, so their accounts turned into the basis for the charges against him: he corrupts the youth,
worships false gods, and does not worship the city gods.

At this point, Socrates turns to Meletus, who, he says, has frivolously brought these charges against him. Not
only that, but he has been irresponsible in bringing together the jury. However, worst of all is that he does not
truly care about the things he accuses Socrates of doing. To prove his point, he cross-examines Meletus.

The first two arguments resulting from the cross-examination concern the charge of corrupting the youth:

1. The youth should be made as good as possible (24d).

2. Everyone, with the sole exception of Socrates, makes the youth of Athens better citizens: the laws, the
jury/judges, senators, and members of the assembly (24d–25).
3. Horses are made better only by horsemen; i.e., those who are skilled in the art of horsemanship (25b).
4. By analogy, the youth are made better only by those skilled in educating (25b).
5. Not everyone is skilled in the art of horsemanship or education (25b).
6. Therefore, these unskilled people can do harm/corrupt (25b).
7. So, Socrates is not the only one who can/does corrupt the youth (25b).
1. It is better to live amongst good citizens than bad ones (25c).
2. Bad citizens are harmful to themselves and others, and good citizens are beneficial (to themselves and
others) (25c).
3. No one wants to be harmed, and everyone wants to be benefited (25d).
4. Socrates corrupts the youth intentionally (25d).
5. Socrates knows he will be harmed by those he corrupts (25e).
6. Therefore, either Socrates does not corrupt the youth, or he does so unintentionally (26a).
7. So, if the former is the case, Socrates ought to be acquitted of the charges. If the latter is the case, then
Socrates should not be charged with corrupting the youth, but should be taken aside and instructed (26a).
Socrates's next two arguments concern the charges of impiety, which amount to a charge of atheism:

1. Socrates is an atheist (and teaches the youth the same) (26b–c).

2. Socrates worships false gods and introduces new divinities (and teaches the youth the same) (26c–e).
3. Socrates both believes in the gods and doesn't believe in the gods (and teaches the youth the same) (27a).
1. Everyone who believes in human activities believes in humans (27b).
2. Everyone who believes in horses' activities believes in horses (27b).
3. Everyone who believes in musical activities believes in musicians (27b).
4. Analogously, everyone who believes in supernatural activities believes in supernatural beings (27c).
5. Socrates does not believe in the state's gods (27c).
6. Socrates teaches the youth about supernatural activities (27c).
7. So, Socrates both believes in supernatural activities but not in supernatural beings (27d).
8. But this contradicts the previous claim that everyone who believes in supernatural activities believes in
supernatural beings (27d).
9. So Socrates believes in supernatural beings (27d).
The cross-examination complete, Socrates declares he is not ashamed of his activities. To anyone who says his
actions have brought him to this point, where he is in danger of dying, he says he would respond as follows:
"You are wrong, Sir, if you think that a man worth anything at all should take thought of for danger in living or
dying." Socrates argues there are more important matters than one's physical mortality, continuing: "He should
look when he acts to one thing: whether what he does is just or unjust, the work of a good man or a bad one."
One should fear being an unjust or bad man, not death. One does not, after all, know if death is something
good, yet men fear it as if it is the greatest evil. Indeed, fearing death is a sort of pretense to wisdom.

What he does know, he says, is that it is evil to do wrong. This belief is so strong, he says, that he is not willing
to compromise the good for an acquittal. If the jury were to offer to let him go on the condition he cease doing
philosophy, he would refuse. Indeed, he will continue to exhort his fellow Athenians to care not for money or
power, but for their soul. If he is sentenced to die, Athens will be harmed, not him. He has been like a gadfly to
Athens, stinging and exhorting it to wake up.

Socrates goes on to explain that, from the time he was a child, he's had an inner, divine-like voice that has
always stopped him from doing some things, although it has never encouraged him. This is why he has hardly
participated in Athens's political life.

His choice has also been partly motivated by his desire for a just life, which militates against the sort of public
life required by politics. When confronted with the choice between what is politically expedient and what is
just, he has chosen the latter—even at the risk of prosecution or death. He gives examples of his similar
behavior opposing the previous democratic government as well as the Thirty Tyrants, who ruled Athens in
404–03 BCE. There is no reason now why he should change. He won't, for example, cry and plead for his life;
he won't trot out his children to cry for their father, or his friends to beg for his acquittal. If he is innocent, and
he is, he should not have to resort to such tactics. Reason should win out.

Analysis
Plato's Apology purports to be essentially a transcript of Socrates's defense speech. Some scholars argue that it
is Plato's idealized version of Socrates, and as such, is a fiction. Other scholars argue that, if not in actual
speech, in other important ways, the dialogue is an accurate representation of the historical event.
Socrates's trial was widely popular. Five hundred and one jurors appeared, a large number for a typical trial.
These jurors were all Athenian citizens—male property owners, not judges. The trial would proceed in three
phases: (1) a judgment about guilt; (2) if a guilty verdict is reached, proposals for penalties, one from the
prosecution and one from the defendant; and (3) a judgment about which penalty to enforce. Each side had the
time it takes for the water to run out of a water clock to make their case.

Long before his interest in human affairs, specifically the moral well-being of an individual's soul, Socrates
was briefly engaged in astronomy and geology. Added to this, his method of doing philosophy brought him a
reputation as something of a Sophist, someone who takes money for teaching people how to win arguments.
However, Socrates is adamant that he is not a Sophist, and not only because he does not take money for
teaching people. He also does not teach, but is instead concerned with the condition of people's souls. Indeed,
he disavows wisdom, as his retelling of the oracle story shows. Moreover, the oracle story also provides
evidence against the charges of impiety, at least one of which—that he does not worship Athens's gods—
seems to derive from Socrates's mistaken reputation as a Sophist.

One of the most serious charges against the Sophists was that they valued language more than truth. In
particular, rhetoricians such as Gorgias were accused of twisting words to mean whatever they wanted them to
mean, regardless of the consequences. In fact, rhetoricians gave oral displays as a sort of advertisement for
their courses. In one of the most infamous of these, Gorgias defended the most notorious sinner in all of Greek
history, Helen of Troy. Therefore, Socrates's injunction to the jury that they listen to what he says and not how
he says it is a subtle way of evading the charge of Sophism, ironically by employing a Sophistic strategy.
Socrates finds himself in a peculiar position. He is charged, among other things, with impiety. However, at the
same time he claims that his entire enterprise has reflected a deep piety. He does not think he is wise—
certainly, he does not think he has the sort of wisdom enjoyed only by the gods—but he also defers to the
superiority of the oracle's pronouncement. (The oracle at Delphi was one of several priestess of the god
Apollo.) Rather than attempt to simply reject it, he attempts to force clarification when he presents someone
wiser than he. The problem is that he cannot find such a person. For although he is not wise, he also doesn't
think he is. Everyone he examines thinks himself wiser than he really is. Consequently, his humility is a sort of
wisdom. He knows his activities have generated a lot of animosity toward him, but he believes he is following
his religious duty.

It is interesting to note that Socrates seeks wisdom first in that class of men who should most exhibit it,
namely, the politicians. These, after all, are the ones who guide the city's social life, provide for its welfare,
and protect it legislatively. If anyone should know what the good is, it should be the politicians. The poets are
next in line. They should know what is good as guardians of the culture and values articulated in the works of
Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which influenced much of Greek culture. Nevertheless, they do not. The
lowest social class—the craftsmen—are more like poets than politicians because they at least have know-how.
In their case, they know how to make things, like harnesses, but they do not limit their claims to their craft.
Each is effectively blinded to his own ignorance by a view of himself as an expert or someone otherwise
knowledgeable about what's most important in life.
Socrates's cross-examination of Meletus provides an opportunity for the reader to witness an example of the
Socratic method. More specifically, Socrates gets Meletus to agree to statements that are contradictory.
Because both can't be true at the same time, Meletus is guilty of inconsistent beliefs, if not outright ignorance.
Unfortunately, it is likely that Socrates's technique backfires. Members of the jury would likely have
sympathized with Meletus and seen in him themselves, being made fools of by their children, who were
learning Socrates's techniques in the streets.

In this section of the dialogue, Socrates makes several remarks worth noting. He mentions beliefs about death,
to which he will return again. Here, it serves two purposes. First, it provides Socrates with an opportunity to
reflect on prioritizing living a good life over all else, even death. Where many people are afraid to die or would
be willing to compromise their principles in order to save their lives, Socrates is not. His commitment to being
a good man is more important than death. Second, and related to the first point, is that fearing death
betrays hubris (exaggerated pride) or a claim to knowledge that one cannot possibly have. Those who fear
death do so without knowing what it is. It may be something good rather than something to fear.
Socrates's one knowledge claim—that it is shameful to do wrong—is rooted in his commitment to self-
examination. Doing wrong, the reader will learn, is damaging to the soul. A damaged soul is an unhappy and
unhealthy soul—perhaps also one that will not benefit in the afterlife, but surely one that will not do well while
alive.

Socrates's remark about being Athens's gadfly is among the well-known images Plato uses to describe
Socrates's method—and its discomfiting results. A gadfly, or horsefly, is considerably larger than the ordinary
housefly. It latches onto those parts of a horse that cannot be reached by a swishing tail, biting mouth, or
stamping hoof. Typically, a horse bitten by a horsefly will try to flee. Similarly, Socrates finds those beliefs in
people that either cannot be justified or are inconsistent with other beliefs. Also similarly, those who are stung
by Socrates tend to flee when they become uncomfortable.

Socrates mentions his daimon, or inner voice, both in the Euthyphro and here in the Apology. It not only is the
likely source of the charge that he creates new divinities, but it also technically rescues him from the charge of
atheism.