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Citizenship and Socrates in Plato's Crito

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Michael J. Rosano
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Extract

Plato's Crito articulates the problem of political obligation by clarifying the paradoxical relation between Socratic philosophy and citizenship embodied in the relationship between Socrates and Crito. Scholars obscure the dialogue either by taking the arguments Socrates gives to the laws of Athens as his own reasons for obeying the law rather than as agents of Crito's edification or by severing Socrates from the laws while misunderstanding Crito's significance to political obligation. Socrates bolsters Crito's commitment to civic virtue and the rule of law while revealing their parameters and the self-sufficiency of Socratic philosophy by implicitly raising the issue of voluntary injustice. The tension between Socratic philosophy and citizenship shows the need to view Socrates' defense of citizenship in the light of his defense of philosophy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , Summer 2000 , pp. 451 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2000

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References

1 Friedlander, Paul, Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), pp. 2: 173–78Google Scholar. See also Kraut, Richard, Socrates and the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), esp. p. 191Google Scholar; and Ober, Josiah, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 184–89.Google Scholar

2 Allen, R. E., Socrates and Legal Obligation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), pp. x, 65–70Google Scholar; Kraut, , Socrates and the State, pp. 3–12Google Scholar; Ober emphasizes that Kraut's book remains the most important secondary work on the Crito and reviews additional literature accordingly (Political Dissent in Democratic Athens, p. 179, n. 45).

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5 Young, Gary, “Socrates and Obedience,” Phronesis 19 (1974): 1–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Orwin, Clifford, “Liberalizing the Crito: Richard Kraut on Socrates and the State,” Platonic Writings—Platonic Readings, ed. Griswold, (New York: Routlege, 1988): 171–76Google Scholar; Weiss, Roslyn, Socrates Dissatisfied—An Analysis of Plato's Crito (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Weiss offers the most extensive treatment of the Crito and the secondary literature from this perspective. Orwin's essay and Coby's, Patrick, “The Philosopher Outside the City” [Law and Philosophy: The Practice of Theory: Essays in Honor of George Anastaplo, Vol. I, Ed. Murley, John et al. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992], pp. 84–110)Google Scholar, would add to her discussion.

6 The exchange between Orwin and Kraut is promising (Kraut, Richard, “A Reply to Clifford Orwin,” Platonic Writings—Platonic Readings, pp. 177–82).Google Scholar

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11 Weiss, Socrates Dissatisfied, chap. 3.

12 ibid., pp. 45, 55.

13 Adkens clarifies the problem, confronted by Plato, of reconciling agonistic values with the rule of law, “even in the law-courts of democraticAthens,” but overstates the inability of such citizens as Crito to “be recalled by moral suasion or rhetoric” to justice or the common good, in Moral Values and Political Behavior in Ancient Greece (New York: Norton and Company, 1972), esp. pp. 68–72, 146–47Google Scholar. Raphael Sealy shows the importance of the rule of law in democratic Athens, in The Athenian Republic (University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1987). Cf. n. 30.Google Scholar

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17 Weiss, Socrates Dissatisfied, Ch. 4.

18 Schleiermacher's belief that the Crito is an “occasional piece” that lacks philosophical argumentation leads him to neglect its drama, despite his broad appreciation of the drama to Platonic dialogues (Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato [Cambridge: J. & J. J. Deighton, 1836]), pp. 140–41Google Scholar. Strauss indicates why philosophy and the soul are not mentioned in the Crito (Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, p. 58). Following Strauss, Coby notes that on its surface the Crito is “thoroughly doctrinaire” insofar as it aims at Crito's instruction, but nonetheless treats these central arguments as “dogmatic” versions of Socratic arguments. E.g., he stresses that “Socrates repeats some six times that knowledge is the preserve of one person” (“The Philosopher Outside the City”, p. 88. n. 12). Cf. note 19.

19 Scholars treat this as an explicit claim to knowledge because it seems to recapitulate a common Socratic argument. E.g., Allen, , Socrates and Legal Obligation, pp. 70–71, 119–20Google Scholar; and Ober, , Political Dissent in Democratic Athens, p. 180.Google Scholar

20 Scholars gloss over these arguments as standard fare. E.g., Woozley, , Law and Obedience, p. 17Google Scholar. Allen translates the noble before the shameful to correct Socrates' apparent mistake (Socrates and Legal Obedience, p. 120).

21 Allen assumes that this argument is just a “version of what may be called the Socratic Proportion, that Health: Body:: Virtue: Soul” (Socrates and Legal Obedience, p. 71).

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24 Cf. Strauss, , Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, p. 58.Google Scholar

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26 Strauss, , Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, p. 59.Google Scholar

27 Woozley, , Law and Obedience, pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

28 The scholarly debate over what Socrates means by kakos reflects problems built into the dialogue. Many scholars translate kakourgein as to do harm. But Socrates here does not speak of doing harm (blaptein) as he does in his discussion with Polemarchus (Republic 335b-e). E.g., Young, , “Socrates and Obedience,” p. 10Google Scholar, and Ober, , Political Dissent in Democratic Athens, p. 179Google Scholar. This reading cannot explain Crito's different reactions to Socrates' various formulations. Kraut favors speaking of doing wrong (Socrates and the State, p. 26 n. 2), and Weiss of doing bad (Socrates Dissatisfied, pp. 69–71), to catch Socrates' moral tone. Coby observes that Socrates mixes dogmatic and conventional moral reasoning with profoundly unconventional and flexible moral reasoning, but overstates the conventional imperative as a Christian-like injunction against doing harm and, like Weiss, does not uncover the problem of obligation because he views Socrates' justice and legal obedience as moral and civic obligations based on his own apparently rational moral code or ethic of self-love (“The Philosopher Outside the City”, pp. 89–93; also, Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment [Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1987], pp. 183–86).Google Scholar

29 Allen, , Socrates and Legal Obedience, p. 82Google Scholar; Santas, , Socrates, pp. 10–19Google Scholar; Kraut, , Socrates and the State, pp. 19–27.Google Scholar

30 Weiss, , Socrates Dissatisfied, pp. 108–133, 167Google Scholar; Kraut, , Socrates and the State, p. 66Google Scholar. Ober's criticism of Kraut on this point could be reconsidered on this basis (Political Dissent in Democratic Athens) p. 187, n.59.

31 M. I. Finley observes that the Crito offers a unique argument for political obligation on top of the accepted opinion that the good polis and thus the good life depends on the rule of law (Politics in the Ancient World [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983], pp. 135–36).Google Scholar

32 Allen, , Socrates and Legal Obedience, pp. 81–85.Google Scholar

33 Walzer, Michael, Obligations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 16–19Google Scholar; Kraut, , Socrates and the State, pp. 128–37Google Scholar; Weiss, , Socrates Dissatisfied, pp. 89–91.Google Scholar

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37 Ultimately, the claim that the laws rule over Socrates as their offspring and slave weakens their authority, but Crito's acceptance of this claim shows that it reflects his common sense. Cf. The Laws 715d5 with 875d, and consider Pangle's, Thomas analysis of the rule of law in The Ennobling of Democracy (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), Chap. 7.Google Scholar

38 Kraut, , Socrates and the State, pp. 65–73.Google Scholar

39 Orwin, , “Liberalizing the Crito,” pp. 174–76.Google Scholar

40 Cf. Ober, , Political Dissent in Democratic Athens, p. 187.Google Scholar

41 Cf. Aristotle, , Politics, Bk. 1, chaps. 1–2 and Bk. 3, chaps. 4, 9–12.Google Scholar

42 Brickhouse and Smith try to cut this Socratic knot by stressing the legal limitations of the jury to impose on Socrates a penalty of silence or death and Socrates' apparent deference to laws in the Apology (Socrates on Trial, [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989], pp. 139–53Google Scholar). This misses the point of Socrates' unqualified defense of philosophy. The connection between juries and the assembly in democratic Athens supports Kraut's point that a law against philosophy could be passed (Socrates and the State, pp. 13–17).

43 Consider Lutz's, Mark analysis of this issue in “The Problem of the Noble and the Practicality of Platonic Political Philosophy,” Journal of Politics 56 (1994): 95–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and in Socrates' Education to Virtue (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), chap. 8.Google Scholar

44 The apparent lack of such arguments leads scholars to regard the Crito as an early or inferior Platonic dialogue. E.g., Woozley, , Law and Obedience, pp. 2–14.Google Scholar

45 Young, , “Socrates and Obedience,” pp. 16–18Google Scholar; Orwin, , “Liberalizing the Crito,” p. 174Google Scholar; Weiss, , Socrates Dissatisfied, pp. 96–112.Google Scholar

46 Burnet, , Plato's Euthyphro, p. 286Google Scholar. Woozley maintains that “nothing can be made out of this point, brought in twice, that the agreeing was done by action rather than by words” (Law and Obedience, p.100).

47 Strauss, , Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, p. 64Google Scholar. Cf. Republic, Bk. 8. Kraut maintains that the Laws' argument suffers from a “devastating defect” because it assumes that if citizens are satisfied with their country they are satisfied with its laws (Socrates and the State, p. 191). Orwin criticizes Kraut for ascribing this defect to Socrates (“Liberalizing the Crito,” p. 175).