Socrates has been condemned to death by a jury of Athenian citizens for the crimes of asebeia and corrupting the youth. Now he sits in prison awaiting his execution, which cannot take place until the conclusion of a nearby religious ceremony. No one is sure exactly when the ceremony will conclude, so Socrates can only guess how long he has left to live. He wakes up early one morning to find Crito, his friend and student, waiting to speak with him. Crito tells him that he has come to arrange for him to break out of prison, and asks him to prepare to leave quickly, as he suspects executions will resume soon. Socrates disagrees––a vision in a dream told him he still has a few days to live––but they put the question aside as Crito reasserts the urgency of departing immediately. He makes an impassioned plea for Socrates to leave, begging him to consider not only his own well-being but also that of his friends and family. Socrates responds by criticizing Crito’s sensitivity to public opinion, which he claims has absolutely no bearing on the immorality of escaping a death to which he has been legally condemned. Crito continues to push him, arguing that it would be cowardly to make no effort to save himself, stressing how shameful it would be if Socrates died and the public assumed that Crito and Socrates’ other friends had made no effort to help him. Socrates asks Crito to remember how they have always addressed such problems, and challenges him to rationally justify the course of action he proposes.
This challenge initiates the philosophical dialogue proper. Socrates minimizes the importance of the public’s perception of his death, arguing that the public has no capacity to distinguish moral and immoral behavior. He reminds Crito that they have always agreed that it is wrong to take revenge for whatever wrongs one has suffered, since acting unjustly in return for injustice still means acting unjustly. When Crito affirms that he still believes this, Socrates accuses him of inconsistency. To illustrate this accusation, he outlines a three-part argument for why citizens owe complete loyalty to the state: first, that citizens owe the state for the benefits it provides; second, that citizens always have the opportunity to convince the state to take a different course of action; and third, that citizens can always leave the state if they disapprove of its laws. Taken together, Socrates’ arguments imply that living in a state as a citizen is like signing a social contract consenting to obey its will, even when one disagrees with it. Breaking the law in response to an unfair verdict would mean violating this contract for the sake of taking revenge, and therefore committing a wrong for a wrong.
Socrates also considers what his life would be like in exile. He argues that any well-governed city would view him with suspicion, given that he had already shown his willingness to break the law when it suited him. In a badly governed city, on the other hand, he would be forced to spend the rest of his days surrounded by political chaos. Furthermore, if he dies in Athens, his friends will take care of his family; if he dies abroad, he cannot vouch for them.
Socrates concludes by arguing that violating his moral principles for the sake of his own self-interest would mean risking a bad fate in the afterlife, adding that he feels both intuitively and intellectually confident that his convictions line up with the principles of divine justice. Crito declines to admit that Socrates is correct, but concedes that he has nothing left to say. Socrates bids him farewell.
