Hi EvEIE, welcome to the boards. I noticed that your last two posts have been about dialogues involving Socrate’s (are these from Plato’s dialogues?) I personally have not read any of the literature in this area, although one day I hope to, and so I cannot even begin to answer the questions you have.
Is there anyway you could explain the arguments enough so that us ignoramus can give a coherent answer? It is unlikely that we have any Platonic scholars and if we do, they are all hiding in the closet. I would very much like to help but unfortunately my knowledge stops way before Crito, Socrates and the Laws.
first off, why do you ask if he did the right thing by escaping from prision. i am a political science student and have read plato’s work. socrates ops to drink poison and kill himself rather than escape. second, the diologue is central to understanding why he stayed and died rather than escape like crito wanted him to. the laws are personified to show us that living rightly weather an injustice has been done to us or not is better than living wrongly. he personies laws to show a parent child relationship, the laws gave him a home, a family, shelter, if he was so unhappy he could have left, but he choose to stay thus he accepts the social contract of Athens and must live out its sentence. for him, if he were to leave or escape he would be breaking the law which would mean living wrongly. and even though it means his death it is better to live rightly then wrongly no matter the unjustice done to him. “to do wrong is in every sense bad and deishonorable.” “one must not do wrong even when one is wronged.” at least that is what they are accepting as an above average understanding of crito these days.