Crito

Author: Plato · Year: c. 4th c. BCE (trans. G.M.A. Grube, Hackett 1997) · Type: dialogue

Set in Socrates' cell before dawn, with the Delos ship — and his execution — one day off, the Crito stages a single decision: should Socrates accept Crito's offer to bribe the jailers and escape? Crito presses three things — that refusing will ruin his friends' reputation, that the means are cheap and ready, and that staying is itself unjust (it betrays Socrates' sons and abandons the philosophical life). Socrates answers only the first two, and rules that the decision must be made by argument alone, unmoved by the nearness of death: heed not the many but the one who knows, and ask only whether escape is just. From the principle that one must never do wrong, never return wrong for wrong (49b) — the same non-retaliation thesis the Gorgias argues as "better to suffer injustice than to do it" — he derives that a just agreement must be kept, then hands the argument to the personified Laws of Athens, who cross-examine him: to escape is to destroy the city; the citizen stands to the laws as child to parent and slave to master, with no right of retaliation; his only lawful options are to persuade or obey; and by residing in Athens he tacitly agreed to abide by her judgments. Socrates must stay — and "the god is leading us" this way (54e). Cooper notes the speeches are deliberately "jumbled," and that the dialogue, settling the obedience question too fast, re-opens through Crito's ignored appeal a wider question about justice than Socrates himself supplies.

Core Arguments

  1. Claim (Crito's case for escape — the position to be refuted): Socrates ought to let his friends bribe the jailers and flee. Because: refusing ruins Crito's reputation (the many will think he "value[d] money more highly than one's friends," 44c); the means are cheap and ready (45a–b); and staying is itself unjust — it betrays his sons, hastens what his enemies want, and abandons the courageous path (45c–46a). Against: Socrates dismisses the reputation and means points and largely ignores the private-justice charge — the deliberately "jumbled" speech (Cooper) lets him "not hear" Crito's strongest claim. Location: 44b–46a.

  2. Claim: The decision must be made by argument alone, unchanged by the imminence of death. Because: Socrates listens "to nothing… but the argument that on reflection seems best" (46b) and "cannot, now that this fate has come… discard the arguments I used"; fear and the majority's bogeys are disqualified inputs. Against: an opponent says principles untested against dying are cheap, and circumstance should revise them; Socrates makes invariance-under-pressure a criterion of soundness. Location: 46b–47a.

  3. Claim: Heed not the many but the one who knows, for the soul (the part justice improves) outranks the body — so the only admissible question about escape is whether it is just. Because: the athlete heeds his trainer, not the crowd (47b); disregarding the expert "ruins" the body, and likewise corrupts "that part of ourselves… improved by just actions and destroyed by unjust actions" (47d); since "the most important thing is not life, but the good life" — and good, beautiful, and just "are the same" (48b) — money, reputation, and children "belong to the many" and cannot decide it. Against: the analogy assumes a moral expert exists as the trainer does — a substantive premise — and brackets exactly Crito's strongest point, that justice has obligations in the private sphere too. Location: 47a–48d.

  4. Claim: One must never do wrong, never return wrong for wrong, never do harm for harm — and a just agreement, once made, must be kept. Because: "wrongdoing… is in every way harmful and shameful to the wrongdoer" (49b), so retaliation is merely more wrongdoing; this silently rejects "help friends, harm enemies." The agreement-keeping premise (49e) then converts the abstract rule into a specific obligation, setting up the Laws. Against: Socrates flags the premise as agreed, not proved — "only a few people hold this view" and between them and the many "there is no common ground" (49d). Location: 48d–50a.

  5. Claim (the personified Laws): To escape is to destroy the laws and the whole city; the citizen stands to the city as child to parent and slave to master, with no right of retaliation. Because: a city cannot survive "if the verdicts of its courts have no force but are nullified… by private individuals" (50b); and the Laws gave the citizen birth, nurture, and education, making him "our offspring and servant" (50e), owing the country more reverence than his parents (51b) — so striking back is forbidden as it is against a parent. Against: Socrates' reply ("the city wronged me," 50c) is raised and set aside; the parent/master analogy smuggles in the asymmetry that does all the work, and an opponent denies that a just parent's authority transfers to an unjust sentence. Location: 50a–51c.

  6. Claim: The citizen's only lawful options are to persuade the city or obey it; and by residing in Athens, Socrates tacitly agreed to her laws — more bindingly than any Athenian. Because: "You must either persuade it or obey its orders" (51b); every Athenian who, at voting age, sees how the city runs and remains "has in fact come to an agreement… to obey" (51e), free to "take his possessions and go." Socrates stayed most consistently of all, had children there, and never travelled — "convincing proofs" across "seventy years" (52e), made "without compulsion or deceit." Against: residence-as-consent is the argument's softest joint — staying may reflect inertia, poverty, or attachment, not a promise; and a child born into a city never agreed to the benefits now billed to him. Location: 51b–52e.

  7. Claim: Socrates must stay; escaping would be self-defeating, shameful, and inconsistent with his trial — and "the god is leading us" this way. Because: he chose death over exile at the trial when he could have proposed exile (52c), so fleeing now contradicts that choice; he would arrive elsewhere "as a destroyer of the laws" (53b), his lifelong talk of justice ringing hollow. "Do not value… your life or anything else more than goodness" (54b); to flee is to "depart after shamefully returning wrong for wrong" (54c). Against: a consequentialist register is oddly grafted onto a justice argument, and the rational case is finally sealed by a non-rational image — the Laws' words "resound" as the Corybants hear their flutes (54d), "the god… leading us" (54e). Location: 52c–54e.

Key Findings

  • Plato's strongest social-contract text — and it is vertical. The personified Laws ground a citizen's duty to obey through residence-as-consent (51d–52e), a contract between citizen and city, not among citizens (Cooper). This is the opposite valence of the Republic's Glaucon contract-of-the-weak (a horizontal pact Plato refutes); same label, opposite structure. See nomos-phusis.
  • The same non-retaliation principle as the Gorgias. "Never return wrong for wrong" (49b) restates "better to suffer injustice than to do it" in a civic key — a thesis, Socrates concedes, held by "only a few" (49d). See plato-gorgias.
  • The Crito anchors the Apology consistency theme. Socrates refuses to "discard the arguments I used" under the prospect of death (46b) and honours his trial choice of death over exile (52c) — death as the enactment of a lifelong principle. See plato-apology.
  • "The many vs. the one who knows" recurs structurally. The trainer/doctor craft-analogy (47a–48a) ties the Crito to the Gorgias/Protagoras/Republic, deployed here for political obedience (whose opinion to heed). See socratic-intellectualism.

Concepts Developed

  • nomos-phusis — the personified Laws of Athens as nomos given a voice (prosopopoeia, 50a–54d): the vertical citizen↔city social contract; "persuade or obey"; the city as parent and master; obligation grounded in residence-as-consent. (A different valence from the page's existing horizontal Glaucon contract-of-the-weak — endorsed here, refuted there; the contrast is flagged, not merged.)
  • elenchus — the Laws turn question-and-answer back on Socrates "since you are accustomed to proceed by question and answer" (50c): the cross-examination method enacted by the law itself on its practitioner.

Concepts Referenced

  • socratic-intellectualism — the one-expert-vs-the-many craft-analogy (47a–48a), used here for which opinions to heed, not for the unity of virtue.
  • statesmanship — the citizen's political obligation (obey or persuade), complementary to the Statesman's account of who should rule.
  • socrates — the condemned man who refuses rescue, abiding his lifelong principles against death (entity page).
  • plato-apology — the consistency link: Socrates chose death over exile at the trial (52c) and now refuses to revise.
  • plato-gorgias — "never return wrong for wrong" (49b) ≈ the Gorgias's "better to suffer than do injustice."

Key Passages

"value money more highly than one's friends" (44c) — Crito's reputation case "They cannot make a man either wise or foolish" (44d) — the many's impotence over what matters "the argument that on reflection seems best" (46b) — decision by argument alone "improved by just actions and destroyed by unjust actions" (47d) — the soul as the stake "the most important thing is not life, but the good life" (48b) "Nor must one, when wronged, inflict wrong in return" (49b) — non-retaliation "only a few people hold this view or will hold it" (49d) — the minority principle "should one fulfill it or cheat on it?" (49e) — just agreements must be kept "if the verdicts of its courts have no force but are nullified" (50b) — escape as destroying the laws "you are our offspring and servant, both you and your forefathers" (50e) — city as parent/master "You must either persuade it or obey its orders" (51b) — peithein ē poiein "has in fact come to an agreement with us to obey" (51e) — tacit agreement "if you depart after shamefully returning wrong for wrong" (54c) — non-retaliation closes the speech "the Corybants seem to hear the music of their flutes" (54d); "the god is leading us" (54e) — the non-rational seal

What's Not Obvious

  • The dialogue settles the obedience question, then the editor re-opens it. Cooper's head-note asks: "Did justice really require that Socrates stay to accept his death?" The dialogue answers yes (persuade or obey), but only by ignoring Crito's strongest charge — that staying is itself unjust to Socrates' sons and to the philosophical life (45c–46a). The deliberately "jumbled" speeches let Socrates settle the civic obligation while leaving the private obligation unweighed; the tension is real and is left standing, not synthesized away. See nomos-phusis.
  • The "persuade" half of "persuade or obey" is load-bearing — and routinely forgotten. The obligation is not unconditional obedience but obedience-unless-you-can-lawfully-persuade (51b, 52a); it is what makes the Laws "not savage." But the disjunction also closes the obvious loophole — leave to evade harm, not to retaliate — by treating any unauthorized departure as nullification of the verdict (50b), so the seemingly liberal third option does almost no exculpatory work for Socrates, who did try to persuade (at the trial) and failed.
  • The rational case is sealed by a non-rational image. Having insisted the decision rest on argument alone (46b), Socrates closes with the Laws' words "resound[ing]" in him "as the Corybants… hear the music of their flutes" (54d) and "the god is leading us" (54e). The dialogue that disqualified fear and the crowd's bogeys as inputs ends by handing the verdict to a quasi-religious audition — the argument is finished, but its grip is figured as enthusiasm, not proof.

Critique / Limitations

The contract argument's load-bearing step — residence-as-consent (51c–52e) — is also its softest: staying in a city one was free to leave may reflect inertia, poverty, or attachment rather than a promise, and a citizen born into the polis never agreed to the marriage-and-nurture benefits the Laws now bill him for. The parent/master analogy (50d–51c) does its work by smuggling in the very asymmetry at issue — that benefits received cancel any right to strike back — and assumes a just parent's authority transfers intact to an unjust sentence. The non-retaliation first principle is agreed, not proved ("only a few people hold this view," 49d). And the closing appeal shifts register from argument to the Corybants' flutes (54d), conceding that the rational case is finally sealed by a non-rational image.

Connections

  • is a reformulation of plato-gorgias — restates the Gorgias's "better to suffer injustice than to do it" as the civic non-retaliation rule "never return wrong for wrong" (49b); plausibly the same principle argued twice.
  • builds on plato-apology — the trial's choice of death over exile (52c) is the prior commitment the Crito refuses to revise, making Socrates' death the enactment of his "never do wrong" principle.
  • applies ... to ... statesmanship — applies the problem of political obligation to the individual citizen (obey or persuade), complementary to the Statesman's account of who should rule.
  • builds on socratic-intellectualism — redeploys the one-expert craft-analogy (47a–48a) for political obedience (whose opinion to heed), not the unity of virtue; an added attestation in a new register.
  • contrasts with thomas-hobbes and jean-jacques-rousseau — false friend: the Laws' contract is vertical (citizen↔existing city, grounding a duty to obey), not the modern horizontal contract among individuals constituting a sovereign; it grounds obligation, not sovereign-legitimacy-from-origin. Do not assimilate.

Sources

  • Crito, trans. G.M.A. Grube, in Plato: Complete Works (Hackett, 1997), Stephanus 43a–54e; raw file lines 949–1155 (includes Cooper's intro note, raw 951–955, and the Iliad ix.363 translator footnote, raw 994).
  • Depth layer: wiki/sources/.extraction-plato-crito.md.