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Socrates Obedience To Authority In Zwolinski's Crito

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In the text “Crito”, Socrates converses to Crito his beliefs about one’s Obedience to Authority. Socrates is incarcerated “for having corrupted the youth and not believing in Athenian Gods” and is “sentenced to death by drinking hemlock” (Zwolinski 109). Since Socrates has a day or two until he must be put to death, Crito believes that he should try to escape his death as soon as possible. Socrates does not believe that it would be right for him to escape because “this is an attempt to destroy the state” (Zwolinski 109). Socrates believes that if one is taken care of by the state and is treated just as the rest of the citizens for his or her whole life, then one should abide by the states rules and regulations. Also, he believes that no one man’s opinion hails greater than …show more content…

Furthermore, Socrates believes that “neither injury, retaliation or warding off evil by evil is ever right” (Zwolinski 114). Crito attempts to persuade Socrates to escape, but Socrates states that “no matter what evil he has suffered, retaliating with more evil” is morally wrong (Zwolinski 114). He believes that if one does not wish to abide by the rules and regulations then one always has the option to get up and leave the state at anytime. Although, Crito believes that Socrates should escape because if Socrates accepts his death then he is “not only betraying his friends, but also his children; for he might bring them up and educate them; instead of which he goes away and leaves them, and they will have to take their chances” (Zwolinski 111). Crito states that this route is a route that only a coward would take and that a real man would persevere to the end of their nurture and education. Socrates goes against Crito’s claim because he believes that one is not doing any justice to friends or family in transgressing in this sort of

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However, instead of planning the escape Socrates started the dialog about why he would rather obey the law and be executed. At first, Crito presented two arguments to

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Crito implied that Socrates must escape his death to educate his children and that

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I surprised me when Crito came to Socrates with the notion of escaping. Crito was mentioned in the Apology for a brief line in the long work, however I did not except him to be such an avid supporter of Socrates. Also how adamantly Crito spoke to Socrates about the idea of escaping, and presented it as an easy decision for Socrates to make by saying things along the lines of “Fear not. There are persons who at no great cost are willing to save you and bring you out of prison” and “do not on that account hesitate about making your escape”. It surprised me that Socrates takes a steps back and says lets think this through by saying “Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the evil; and

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Moreover, Socrates’ claims that escaping from prison will “break the covenants and agreements” (37) between him and Athens, and argues that complying with injustice will cause moral harm to himself and to his state, Athens. In Crito, when Crito asks Socrates, that why comply with such crowning absurdity. Socrates answered, “do we ought to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them, or the opinion of the one man who has understanding?” (33). Socrates further explained that disobeying the state laws, by escaping from prison, is a compliance with injustice, rather than agreeing to an unjustified sentence.

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