During Plato’s Crito, the titles namesake, goes and visits Socrates as his friend. Crito tells Socrates that arrangements have been made, and he is there to smuggle Socrates out of prison. Everybody knows—including Socrates—that he has been wrongly convicted. Instead of leaving with Crito, Socrates says that he should not make a hasty decision, and instead examine the different possibilities. Socrates says that whatever he decides it must be just. Socrates makes the case for staying put,
And we say that whoever does not obey commits a threefold injustice: he disobeys us as his parents; he disobeys us as those who brought him up; and, after having agreed to obey us, he neither obeys nor persuades us, if we’re doing something that isn’t right (52e). In the aforementioned quote, Socrates invokes the voice of the city to make his claim. Socrates claims that disobeying the law would be like disobeying a parent, that is to be impious to the people who are your caretakers. The idea is that the city has been Socrates benefactor his entire life, but now if he turns against the laws, it undermines the authority of the Law and implies that Law and Order are meaningless. How could they city uphold laws if they have no power?
The second
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There is little doubt that I would act as Socrates did, if I lived in his day. However, living in modern times, I would not the exact opposite of what Socrates did. Given the opportunity, I would certainly escape death row. For one, the only reason that I would be of death row today is if I were to do something extreme, say mass murder. But if I were wrongly convicted, that would mean that the person who committed the crime would still be free in the world, with the ability to roam the earth, ultimately causing more havoc. If I just accepted my death sentence, then more people would be allowed to die on my behalf. Allowing murder to happen, and committing murder are both just as