Kicking Socrates While he's Down The Crito is the recorded debate of two Athenian men, Crito and Socrates. The debate begins when Crito comes to visit his friend Socrates in the local jail. Socrates is scheduled to be executed in the next day or so and Crito tells Socrates that an escape has been arranged for him. But Socrates, must first be persuaded into thinking this escape is truly the just thing to do. "-if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt; but if not, I will abstain." (Socrates, page 51, paragraph 15) In the end, Crito cannot persuade Socrates, and Socrates is executed by drinking the poisonous hemlock. During the debate, several good points were made my Socrates, but he was wrong in choosing death because: he was misguided in his argument about good versus bad opinions, his values about retaliation were wrong, his idea about the citizen being a slave to the State was wrong, and his opinions in regard to consequences are biased. Crito is extremely emotional in his side of the debate, and Socrates makes it a point to remain unbiased and rely only on intellect. Crito's first argument is that after Socrates is put to death, the majority of the people will think that Crito could have saved Socrates with bribery, but Crito was too stingy with his money. "-can there be a worse disgrace than this-that I should be thought to value money more than the life of a friend?" (Crito, page 47, paragraph 11) Socrates disagrees, saying that we should not care about the opinion of the many. "Good men, and they are the only persons worth considering, will think of these things truly as they happened." (Socrates, page 47, paragraph 12) Crito then emphasizes the fact that the opinion of the many must be regarded because the many are capable of causing great harm to those who lose their good opinion; Socrates himself will lose his life because of the opinion of the many. But Socrates states that justness should be followed through, no matter the consequences. Socrates gives the example of the gymnast who must follow the advice of his trainer only, and disregard all other critiques. By following others, evil would be brought open the gymnast's body in the form of lowered performance. Similarly, on a mental parallel, Socrates did a good thing by following only his trainer (his own principles), but just because Socrates listens to his trainer, doesn't make his trainer the best or most just. By saying that only the opinion of the good should be regarded, Socrates is contradicting himself. By letting the execution go on, Socrates is following the opinion of the many whom convicted him. And as Socrates himself says, "And the opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of the unwise are evil." (page 50, paragraph 5) Therefore, if Socrates goes through with the execution, he is following the opinions of the unwise, which are evil, and therefore unjust. It would be unjust for Socrates not to escape. The premise of Socrates next argument is that injustice even in the form of punishment is always evil and dishonorable. " -this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number or persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely they differ." (Socrates, page 52, last paragraph) Since I disagree with Socrates, I can only state my opinions and his since we have no common grounds, and everything said will come back to this original premise of punishment. It seems to me that this 'punishment is evil' argument came out of ancient times when the gods were responsible for everything, and will never be prevalent in modern times. Socrates then brings up the fact that escaping from jail would injure the State and be an injustice. Even though an injustice was done to Socrates, he maintains that circumstances are irrelevant and justice should always be acted out. "Then we ought not retaliate or render evil for the evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him." (Socrates, page 52, paragraph 17) Socrates states that if he did escape, the laws would lose their power, and this would be a terrible injustice to Athens. However, this non-retaliation ideal is not congruent with every individuals right of self-perseverance in the natural state and in the civilized state. In the natural state, if someone attacks you and takes your twigs and berries, it is necessary to retaliate by fighting back and taking your food back. Noncompliance results in death. In the civilized state, the entire punitive system is based on retaliation. When speaking of the death penalty, people will ask what gives anyone the right to take another persons life? The right to take another persons life is the same right we have to imprison someone for life. We must injure those who have injured in order to lessen the future injuries. This is a safety precaution that evolved from the natural state's right of self-perseverance. The Athenian State was trying to injure Socrates because he supposedly injured the State by corrupting the youth. Since the original injury of corrupting the youth was not a reality (since it was not a written law), it is Socrates' duty to retaliate to the States injury, for his own self-perseverance, and to terminate the original injury in the future. So now, escaping will be the just thing to do for Socrates and the State. Although Socrates maintains that he is against all forms of retaliation, he is not very sure of this belief because he has the need to justify himself by saying that the citizens are slaves to the state. Therefore, retaliation against anything is unjust, but retaliation against the State is extremely unjust. Socrates believes that the citizens are slaves to the state because: the state nurtured them, educated them, married everyone's parents and is therefore responsible for each child's conception, and gave everyone the right to leave if they disliked the State in any way. I completely disagree with this statement. Human inspiration developed education, people were very capable of nurturing themselves as well as reproducing before civilized government. "The character inherent in the people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done sometimes more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way." (Thoreau, page 283, paragraph 1) And what about the implied consent Socrates had, to follow the rules of the State; if he didn't agree he could have left? This is true, but the only problem is that Socrates didn't break any written laws! And since there was no written law broken by Socrates (because corruption of the youth is a vague and easily misinterpreted law), Socrates had no opportunities to persuade the State to change the laws. Socrates then points out that since we are slaves to the State, we are not on equal terms with them. Socrates asks, "Would you have the right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or to your master, if you had one, when you had been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands?" My answer, Socrates, is yes! Under no circumstances is it just to enslave another human being or beat a child, and retaliation is the only way to achieve self-perseverance. Socrates later says, "-when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence." (Page 54, paragraph 1) Socrates then contradicts himself by saying, "-he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just." How would one go about changing views of justice and remain silent at the same time? Going back to Socrates' views on retaliation against the State, we can never injure the State. And, according to the state (which we must blindly follow like a master), Socrates injured the state with his words alone. Therefore, people would never be allowed to justly express opinions different than that of the State. This now contradicts Socrates' view of the opinions of the many (regard only the good opinions), because by not speaking our own opinions, we are implicitly consenting to the opinions of the majority. These contradictions weaken Socrates' argument because they show it was not as well thought out as was earlier thought. But, the main point is that people have an inborn right to rebel against injustices such as slavery. One mark of a great man is that he sticks to his principles, no matter what the consequences. "-the principles which I have hithero honored and revered I still honor, and unless we can find other and better principles on the instant, I am certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonment's, confiscation's, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors." (Socrates, page 49, paragraph 2) Thus, on the fourth page of The Crito, Socrates makes it clear that he is willing to die for his beliefs. But, after a fun filled debate with Crito, Socrates begins to contradict himself about this very important point. While considering if escaping would be the just thing to do, Socrates seriously analyzed all the negative consequences this action would produce. Socrates claims that his friends would be driven into exile, lose their property, his children would lose Athenian citizenship, and that Socrates himself would become an enemy of any State, which he traveled to (even the world below). Crito had used almost the exact same scare tactics at the beginning of the essay to try to persuade Socrates to escape. Crito said that if Socrates stayed in jail, he would be betraying his own life and his children's, Socrates would be a shame in the eyes of his friends, and that Socrates would be base, cowardly, disgraceful, and miserable. Socrates refuted him by saying that Crito was too overzealous, and that we should be guided by reason. Crito should have called Socrates on his contradiction in the later instance, as a result Socrates failed to live up to his greatest personality trait in his last days of life, because Socrates himself was now using his heart instead of his mind. Also, his view was now biased, and not to be taken seriously. Overall, Socrates was wrong in his choice not to escape because: he was misguided in his argument about good versus bad opinions, his values about retaliation were wrong, his idea about the citizen being a slave to the State was wrong, and his opinions in regard to consequences are biased. Some people may say that Socrates was put to death merely because he was annoying and argued for the sake of argument. I think I have to agree with this statement. Socrates was old and ready to die, he lived a good life and knew that execution would be the best for him and his reputation. "-when a man has reached my age he ought not to be repining at the prospect of death." (Page 46, paragraph 11) Also, escaping would be like admitting that he was sheepishly acting when he seemed so sure of himself and his ideals during the trial. "-you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not grieved at death." (Page 55, paragraph 1) Socrates decided in his mind that he was ready to die, and was certainly not going to lose his final debate.