Socrates' Agreement with the Laws of Athens

A central question in Plato's dialogue Crito is whether one can break the law in order to prevent injustice. Specifically, Crito urges his friend Socrates to disobey the unjust death sentence by an Athenian court of law and to escape in order to avoid death. Crito says that the escape has been arranged and argues that Socrates' death will have bad consequences - for example, his sons will be orphaned and his friends will be considered cowards for not helping him to escape.

Socrates, however, tells Crito that the question is of the principle, not the consequences, of the action: Is it right and just to flee Athens without acquittal?

He proposes that they examine the question through argument. Through his usual method of questioning, the elenchus, Socrates gets his friend to agree to an argument that is structured as follows:

Premise 1: It is never right to do wrong, not even to retaliate when one has been wronged or injured.

Premise 2: We must fulfill just agreements.

Premise 3: Socrates has implicitly agreed, in word and in deed, to either obey the laws of the State or else persuade the State to change the laws.

Premise 4: By breaking the agreement and fleeing, Socrates would injure the State and its laws.

Conclusion: Fleeing would be unjust, even if the State has wronged Socrates. He must fulfill his agreement with the City and its laws and not flee.

What interests me, in the contemporary political context, is to examine the third premise. It states an early version of the social contract – the idea that citizens make a mutually binding contract to obey the laws of the State in order to coexist peacefully in society.

My inclination is to argue against Socrates' stance in this regard and to agree with Thoreau when he states, in “Resistance to Civil Government,” that when the law forces one to be an agent of injustice to another, one mustn't wait to change the law but must resist it at once. But let me begin by noting some reasons that speak in favor of Socrates' view.

First, Socrates defends the importance of the rule of law. He personifies the laws which, upon his attempt to escape, would reproach him: “Tell me, Socrates, what are you intending to do? Do you not by this action you are attempting intend to destroy us, the laws, and indeed the whole city, as far as you are concerned? Or do you think it possible for a city not to be destroyed if the verdicts of its courts have no force but are nullified and set at naught by private individuals?” (50a-b). Stable political life relies, in this model, on the rule of law and the capacity of to enforce the verdicts of courts.

Given the practical realities of a society in which people often act unjustly - a society in which democratic individuals are not prepared for Thoreau's anarchist ideal - I do appreciate the importance of enforcing the rule of law for the sake of justice. I have lived in or visited several countries, including this one, in which citizens can grow frustrated when laws that aspire to justice do not apply, for example, to the economic and political elite. They act unjustly, often breaking the law, without suffering the consequences. This erodes political life.

Second, Socrates regards the laws as just and wise educators. This strikes as quite different from a liberal “negative” conception of law as establishing the limits of individual action without prescribing a “positive” course of action, that is, a way of life. The personified laws ask of Socrates: “Did we not, first, bring you to birth, and was it not through us that your father married your mother and begat you? Tell us, do you find anything to criticize in those of us who are concerned with marriage?...Or in those of us concerned with the nurture of babies and the education that you too received? Were those assigned to that subject not right to instruct your father to educate you in the arts and in physical culture?” (50d). In all case, Socrates agrees that the laws have been just guides and educators throughout his upbringing.

Third, Socrates thinks he has had ample time throughout his lifetime to deliberate on the justice of the laws of Athens. The fact that Socrates has stayed willfully throughout his life in Athens is further proof of his agreement with its laws. And these laws are fairly flexible in allowing free, property-owning citizens to leave the city and take their property with them if they find the city disagreeable. From my perspective, assuming that one is already privileged to be a free citizen, there seems to be a desirable degree of mobility to go to colonies or to other Greek cities. I wish it were that way for all citizens in contemporary nation states. At any rate, I acknowledge that if one has been able to deliberate about the justice of the laws of one's state and has remained a citizen, one better have very good reason to break the law.

Given these reasons, according to Socrates the personified laws conclude: “We only propose things, we do not issue savage commands to do whatever we order; we give two alternatives, either to persuade us or to do what we say” (52a).

Fair enough, if the laws are just. Still, what if a law is unjust? Have citizens agreed to either obey or persuade in such a case? Must we wait to persuade the State to change unjust law?

Note: Text cited from Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates, Trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1975).