Crito

Crito
medieval author · Public domain · source
Name	Crito
Author	Plato
Original title	Κρίτων
Language	Ancient Greek
Genre	Socratic dialogue
Date	c. 360 BCE
Setting	Athens, Prison of Athens
Main characters	Socrates, Crito

Crito is a Socratic dialogue attributed to Plato that dramatizes a conversation between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito in the hours before Socrates’ execution in 399 BCE. It explores questions of legal obligation, civil disobedience, justice, and the relationship between the individual and the polis through a concise exchange set in an Athenian prison. The dialogue has been influential in later philosophy of law, political philosophy, and debates over conscience and duty.

Background and Setting

The dialogue takes place in the context of post-Peloponnesian War Athens following Socrates’ conviction on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth at the hands of an Athenian jury presided over under the democracy restored in 403 BCE. The historical Socratic trial intersects with events such as the rule of the Thirty Tyrants and the restoration of democratic institutions associated with figures like Thrasybulus and Alcibiades. Plato situates the scene in a prison near the Athenian Agora where Socrates is held, as he awaits execution by hemlock, a method also documented in accounts by Xenophon and later retellings in Hellenistic biographical traditions. The interlocutor who visits him, a wealthy Athenian born in Alopece, is presented as eager to arrange escape via connections among islanders, shipowners, and sympathetic citizens, echoing real practices in Classical Athens where exile, bribery, and sanctuary were politically salient.

Summary of Dialogue

Crito opens with his friend reporting that he has arranged funds, contacts in Salamis and Piraeus, and a ship to transport Socrates to safety, while lamenting public opinion and the loss to Socrates’ children. Crito urges flight to avoid the perceived injustice of execution and to preserve Socrates’ teaching for followers like Plato and Xenophon. Socrates resists, invoking respect for law and principle. He personifies the Laws of Athens to argue that an unlawful escape would harm the city, breach a tacit agreement between citizen and polis, and undermine justice. The exchange includes discussions of obligations arising from birth, upbringing, property rights, and legal contracts, and culminates with Socrates asserting that one must never commit injustice even in response to wrongdoing. Crito, though persistent, concedes, and Socrates remains, preparing for his death as depicted later in Plato’s dialogue "Phaedo".

Philosophical Themes and Arguments

The dialogue foregrounds the tension between obligations to friends and obligations to political institutions, invoking notions tied to the Athenian legal system and concepts familiar in Greek ethics. Central to the argument is the thesis that citizens have tacitly consented to the laws by choosing to live under them, a position that resonates with later theories of social contract developed by thinkers associated with Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau though arising independently in the classical context. Socrates’ portrayal of the Laws appeals to legal personification and naturalized duty, linking piety and civic obedience similarly discussed by Aristotle in his ethical and political works. The dialogue also articulates a deontological principle: the wrongness of responding to injustice with injustice, which anticipates debates in Immanuel Kant’s work on moral law and is contrasted with consequentialist considerations found in later utilitarian discussions associated with Bentham and Mill. Themes of reputation, the good life (eudaimonia), and the relationship between private conscience and public legality intersect with corridors of thought in Stoicism and Cynicism, both of which engage questions about conformity and dissent.

Historical Interpretation and Influence

Scholars have debated whether Plato’s account reflects the historical Socrates or Plato’s own philosophical development during the Middle Dialogues period, alongside works such as "Apology (Plato)" and "Phaedo". The dialogue’s influence extends to Roman republican thinkers like Cicero and later to modern theorists of civil obedience and civil disobedience such as Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., who engaged with questions about the moral limits of legal compliance. Jurisprudential reflection on tacit consent informs jurisprudence debates in common law traditions and in writings by Hart and Fuller. Crito’s compact form made it a staple in pedagogical treatments within Western philosophy curricula and in legal theory seminars examining foundational notions of legitimacy, authority, and dissent.

Reception and Criticism

Reception has been divided: defenders emphasize Plato’s rigorous defense of principled obedience and the dialogue’s role in clarifying Socratic ethics, while critics argue that the tacit consent argument is historically and philosophically weak, relying on questionable analogies and ignoring the possibility of unjust laws or tyrannical regimes such as the Thirty Tyrants. Feminist and postcolonial scholars have critiqued the dialogue’s narrow civic focus and its neglect of noncitizen groups like metics and slaves in Classical Athens. Analytic commentators have scrutinized logical gaps in the personification of the Laws and the justification for lifelong submission implied by birth and residence, while political theorists have probed the implications for legitimate resistance. Despite disputes, the dialogue remains central in discussions of moral philosophy, legal obligation, and the enduring question of when, if ever, disobedience is justified.

Category:Dialogues of Plato