Living Well (Plato and Crito, forth century BCE)

Living Well

Socrates is in prison, condemned to die. His friend Crito has arranged an escape.

CRITO: I know some people who are willing to rescue you and get you out of the country. Why throw away your life?

SOCRATES: My dear Crito, I appreciate your warm feelings, if, that is, they have some justification. Tell me this: Isn’t the really important thing not to live but to live well?

CRITO: Why, yes.

SOCRATES: And to live well means the same thing as to live honorably or rightly?

CRITO: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then in the light of this we must decide whether it is right for me to get away without an official discharge. Is it not so that one ought to fulfill all of one’s agreements, provided they are right?

CRITO: One ought to fulfill them.

SOCRATES: Then consider the logical consequence. Suppose while we were preparing to run away from here the Laws and Constitution of Athens were to come and confront us and ask, “Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be destroyed if the legal judgments pronounced in it have no force, but can be nullified and destroyed by individual persons?” Suppose they said, “Was there a provision in the agreement between you and us [the Laws and Constitution] for you to disobey, or did you agree to abide by whatever judgments were pronounced?” What are we to say, Crito? Are we not bound to admit that we must obey?

CRITO: Indeed we are bound, Socrates.

SOCRATES: That, my dear friend Crito, is what I seem to hear them saying, just as a mystic seems to hear the strains of music, the sound of their arguments rings so loudly in my head that I cannot hear the other side. Do you wish to urge a different view?

CRITO: No, Socrates, I have nothing more to say.

SOCRATES: Then give it up, Crito, and let us follow the proper course, since God points out the way.

                                                                                               — Plato,Crito,

                                                                               abridged, fourth centuryBCE

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P.S. If we have any disagreements with Plato's argument, where would be the place to start?