The Virtuous Life
In Plato’s Crito, Socrates is visited in prison by his wealthy friend Crito shortly before his execution for corrupting the youth of Athens. Crito tries to convince Socrates to escape to another city, promising that he’ll use his wealth to assist him. Socrates refuses, challenging Crito to justify the morality of illegally fleeing Athens. Crito takes up that challenge by forcing Socrates to consider how his execution will reflect on those close to him…
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Truth and Public Opinion
For Crito, public dishonor is a great evil. He suggests that one can only maintain good moral standing in one’s community by acting in accordance with their values, and that acting in any other way is “shameful.” Crito’s argument is therefore premised on his belief that the community is the ultimate judge of right and wrong action. Socrates, on the other hand, insists that the truth is fully independent from public opinion. For…
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Political Obligation
Socrates’ account of the virtuous life is based on a version of what later theorists will call social contract theory. According to this theory, living in a politically organized community is like signing a contract consenting to follow the rules that govern it. For Socrates, there is no real alternative to this contract––the disconnected life of the exile is, from his point of view, hardly a life at all. This contract serves as the…
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Dying Well
Socrates is strikingly unfazed by the prospect of his own execution. According to his worldview, this attitude models a wise person’s approach to death: if one’s goodness matters more than one’s life, then death is insignificant for anyone who has lived well. The good philosopher can die without fear. This promise is one of the main concerns of Platonic philosophy: living by well-reasoned, consistent principles can liberate the individual from fleeting, day-to-day concerns in order…
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