Philosophy Essay

Philosophy Essay

It is common for people to preach water while they gallop gallons of hard liquor. People could preach about A, whereas they do B instead of A. Others purport in their laws to prevent and banish corruption, whereas they are the merchants of corruption. Behind the scenes and given a chance, they do the very things they stop others from doing. No one would disagree that such a disposition is immoral. Socrates was a proponent of morality, doing what is right and just. Yet, escaping from prison is unjust (D’Amato 15). His friend Crito tested him to do the unfair and to go against what he used to teach the youths of Athens. He refused to preach water while he drunk wine himself and instead stood by what is. Yet, the entire scenario is a paradox. Socrates’ conviction was unjust. He was accused of corrupting the youths of Athens, a charge that he was not guilty of doing (Kohen 45).

On the contrary, through his famous Socratic method, he was helping the youths of Athens to gain knowledge and wisdom. Therefore, Socrates is in prison for a wrongful conviction. As much as he tried to defend himself, the hell-bent authorities had already predetermined to kill him, most probably to protect their political ambitions, which they may have felt threatened. Indeed, Crito is concerned about Socrates’ wrongful conviction, and as a true friend, he hatches a plan for his escape. The paradox crystallizes when Socrates dissents from escaping from an unjust sentence. Should he heed to popular opinion and accept to flee from wrongful convictions? Socrates believes otherwise. He responds to Crito by saying, “Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone”. This response defines Socrates’ moral worldview.

There are two possible ways that one could view the idea of popular opinion and morality. The first one is the unjust prevalent laws that the Athenian state had put in place. The point of difficulty is whether it is moral to adhere to unfair laws. The second way of view is looking at Crito and his friends, who were determined to secure the escape of Socrates as popular opinion. However, let us start with the first view. Socrates was an Athenian, and he was being tried using the Athenian criminal justice system. The people established the Athenian criminal justice system and the laws governing them. In escaping, Socrates believes that he would be doing injustice to the Athenians who developed the criminal justice system (Kohen 56). Mainly, this is apparent when he tells Crito, “In leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? Or rather do I wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the principles which were acknowledged by us to be f?” of course, the Athenians must have created very just laws for the judgment of offenders. However, specific individuals in the system were wrongfully using these laws, most probably without the people’s knowledge. The Athenians believed that they elected a just and fair system of convicted criminals. If Socrates went ahead and escaped from prison, such would appear as if he defied the justice system that the Athenians had put in place (Kohen 57). From Socrates’ point of view, this would amount to an injustice (Kohen 58).

What would be the morality of refusal to escape based on popular opinion? Although his conviction was wrong, Socrates did good or was morally justified to adhere to the system that the populace had put in place for proffering justice (Bonner 4). Any escape was an injustice to the people who put the system in place. Escape would be a wrong precedent in the eyes of the people. It would imply that Socrates advocated for escapes from prison. Escaping could have further affirmed the conviction that he was corrupting the youths of Athens (Bonner 5). In an analogy, robbers went to steal at Timothy’s place at night. However, since Timothy had constructed a high-tech security system, the system locked them up in one room where they were unable to escape. When the neighbors heard that the robbers had been captured, full of anger, they came and demanded that he releases them from the room so that they could face mob justice. Of course, the thieves were guilty of injustice, yet, Timothy could not release them to face mob justice because it would be a contravention of the law. In the same way, although those who convicted Socrates were wrong, he could not escape prison by doing another wrong.

In the second phase of the argument, Socrates’ friend offers help to him to escape from the injustice, but this involved bribing. Bribing is an immoral action, of which Socrates abhorred and was teaching people against the practice. Accepting Crito to bribe for his release was a test of Socrates’ moral acumen (Bonner 6). As a critique of injustice, it would appear a mockery if he agreed to his friends to do things that he often challenged. In fact, at Socrates’ time, moral decadence was at its peak, with a lot of political animosities and social injustices which Socrates resolved to address in public gatherings, and through asking of questions, which were meant to enlighten his audience. Doing the things that he was against could have demonstrated some moral dishonesty. Of course, refusing to escape did not imply that Socrates accepted the fairness of the laws, which he was tried and convicted with (Bonner 7). Socrates did not receive the fairness of these laws because he challenged them. He wrote his own defense, to not only try to exonerate himself from the accusations but also to point out the injustice of the system and accusations. Refusing to render evil for evil cannot suggest that he accepted the fairness of the laws but rather demonstrate Socrates’ moral disposition.

Finally, and although Crito and his friends attempted to accuse Socrates of committing an immoral action from refusing to escape injustice, Socrates could have committed a crime by escaping from prison. Notably, this means that the existence of injustice does not justify the perpetuation of another. In the analogy used, Timothy could have committed an unjust act if he allowed the mob to take the law into their own hands and kill the robbers. Although the robbers were guilty of a crime, killing them through mob justice was unlawful. In the same token, escaping from prison, even though convicted unlawfully, is a crime. Socrates could have been guilty of committing a crime and more especially set a bad precedent in the society in which he was at the forefront in cultivating morality. Refusing to escape was the right thing for Socrates to do. Besides, he did not want to tarnish his reputation as a moral advocate, and this confirms the fact that public opinion mattered to Socrates, insofar as it was meant to achieve good, and not evil.

Works Cited

Bonner, Kieran. “Principles, Dialectic and the Common World of Friendship: Socrates and Crito in Conversation.” History of the Human Sciences, vol. 27, no. 2, 2014, pp. 3-25.

D’Amato, Anthony. Obligation to Obey the Law: A Study of the Death of Socrates. Southern California Law Review, vol. 49, no. 111, 2010, 1079-1108.

Kohen, Ari. “Plato’s Heroic Vision: The Difficult Choices of the Socratic Life.” Faculty Publications: Political Science, vol. 45, 2011, pp. 45-75.