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Crito by Plato

Introduction

Crito recounts a friend's urgent plea for Socrates to avail himself of the ample opportunity to escape and the latter's justification on moral grounds for remaining in prison voluntarily, although the execution will occur two days later. The dialogue is probably meant to explain Socrates' personal reasons for taking this course of inaction, rather than to prescribe a universally applicable norm for the individual unjustly condemned by the state, and some writers have suggested that Plato himself would probably have chosen to escape rather than to accept the sentence (Kahn, pp. 150).

Discussion

When the dialogue opens, Socrates has been in prison a month, for no death sentences could be carried out in Athens during the annual voyage of the state vessel to Delos, in commemoration of the legendary deliverance of the city from the Minotaur by Theseus. However, the ship is reportedly about to return, and Crito, having arrived at the prison before dawn, is waiting for Socrates to awake, in order to break the news and try to convince him to escape while there is yet time. It is typical of Socrates that he slumbers peacefully while Crito is wakeful and desperate, and that in the ensuing discussion it is Socrates who is the more rational and objective, though it is his own life that is at stake (Plato, pp.20).

Crito's reasons for urging Socrates to escape, though perhaps on a less lofty plane than the latter's rebuttal, are not specious but are rather quite practical and persuasive. It is the weight of these, plus that of the circumstances under which Socrates was condemned, which gives the dialogue its moral significance. Crito begins by pointing out that if Socrates dies, an irreplaceable friend will have been lost, and besides, Crito will gain a reputation for loving money more than his friends, since many people will think he could have saved Socrates had he only been willing to put up the necessary cash; they will not believe that Socrates stayed in prison voluntarily (Plato, pp.20).

Socrates answers that people of reason will believe only the truth; why should one regard majority opinion? Crito then points out that popular opinion is not to be taken lightly, which fact is confirmed by Socrates' present circumstances. However, the philosopher replies that common people, unfortunately, are of limited capacity to do evil, because otherwise they could likewise do great good. This segment of the ...