Was Socrates right to submit to his punishment?

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1

Was Socrates right to submit to his punishment?

  • Yes! Athens must come first!
  • No! His death was irrational!
  • Your paper sucks.
0 voters

This is another of the papers avaliable on Symposia, for the sake of the opportunity for commentary I thought I should post it on here too! (Although my first paper does appear to remain a virgin to the world of replies… Im not sure if tht is a good or a bad thing.) Nevertheless I hope you enjoy the paper!

[size=150]Was Socrates right to submit to his punishment?[/size]

The Crito features a dialogue between Socrates and Crito, a dear friend, in which Crito attempts to persuade Socrates to escape from prison thus avoiding his imminent death. This is a fictional dialogue based on real events, and it therefore ends with Crito being persuaded by Socrates and Socrates dies from poisoning by hemlock (as records show to have actually happened). It is the case however that the arguments Crito offers for Socrates’ escape are weak “straw-man” arguments and Socrates commonly cited “rational” argument for submitting to any conviction by the state is not rational at all.

Crito at first appeals that Socrates submission to death will effect more than just Socrates himself, claiming that he himself and Socrates’ other followers will suffer as many will not believe that they tried to save Socrates. Socrates simply explains that the opinion of the ignorant majority should be disregarded, regardless what power they may hold. Socrates here uses the analogy of a gymnastics student (which Socrates was) and his master, and how the student will benefit from adhering to the opinion of his one master only.

I would question that Socrates problem really tackles Crito’s challenge here as the potentially mortal danger in which Socrates risks leaving his friend seems to have normative value. Socrates goes on to argue later that he has made an implicit contract with the state to accept any conviction, just or not, and not retaliate and risk destabilising the state. This argument is questionable in itself, and I will go on to analyse this in detail later, but even accepting this agreement and existing and true, is it not the case Socrates also to some extent has an implicit contract to keep his friends from harm in return for their friendship? I would argue that friendship entails just the same sort of implicit contract. If so, the safety of his friends seems a far more immediate and pressing commitment than the slight possibility of a small degree of state destabilisation (which I will go on to justify). Even if his friends are not in mortal danger, but merely risk being outcast and persecuted by Socrates’ sympathisers who believe Socrates’ friends should have done more to save him, I would argue it is the case, and should be the case, that Socrates has just as much an implicit duty to take these factors about his friends into account as he has a duty to obey the state.

Crito then appeals to the family of Socrates, his wife and three children, and how it would be immoral for him to simply leave these children to poverty and deprive them the benefit of his teachings. Socrates claims this is again the morality of the many and that it is therefore irrelevant to his dilemma.

Again I would question that Socrates is overlooking an implicit contract here and if he wishes to argue he has an implicit contract with the state, he surely has one with his children too! Socrates could in fact simply reject that such a contract exists between parents and children, but to press such a point seems to argue for an unusually inhuman world and would be difficult to support convincingly without seeming callous.

Socrates also goes on to claim that not a life, but a good life, is worth living, and this above all matters; so if sustaining life requires morally wrong action, death is preferable. This commitment to morality over mortality seems unproblematic, and if you contend that one should value one’s beliefs and act according to them, it seems Socrates should accept his fate, but this is only if it is the case that his escaping would be immoral, which is the question in the first place.

Socrates claims that the state could collapse, or at least be put under strain, by his escape, as the law would seem powerless. He argues that to injure the state in this way in unjust, despite any injury the state may have done him by falsely sentencing him. This is where I would question Socrates’ claim that he has made an implicit contract with the state to accept any conviction, just or not, and not retaliate and risk destabilising the state. I would argue this view is mistaken. I would in fact agree that an implicit contract has been formed to obey the rules of the state and to accept its conviction, but I would add that this is a conditional agreement. It is the very nature of social contracts that they are two-way, and Socrates disregards this. The state, I would argue, is also in contract with all its citizens to be just. As Socrates’ sentence “corrupting the youth” was an unjust charge against a man who regards Athens to highly, I would argue the contract was broken by the state. Socrates here presents a straw man version of this argument, that retaliation against the State is unjustified as he does not accept “an eye for an eye” type philosophy, but breech of social contract is very different from revenge. If Socrates retaliation against the state was emotionally motivated, and rationally unjustified, it would indeed be unjust. It is however the case that as the state is in breech of contract by being unjust and therefore Socrates’ escape is entirely rationally justified.

Socrates does in fact mention a duty on his part that when the state is unjust he should “change their view of what is just”. I would question how exactly he could fulfil this duty once he is dead, and what importance he grants this duty. It would surely seem rational to suggest this is a very important duty indeed, as an unjust state could potentially commit all sorts of evils and is void from social contract. I would argue that to maintain the state it is necessary to correct their views of what is just.

This duty, to prevent the state, which has a monopoly of force, from committing unjust acts and handing out unjust sentences to its citizens, seems to override the social contract Socrates has held with Athens for 70 years which is now void due to breech of contract on the part of the state. The problem is not that Socrates has been sentenced to death, but that he has been sentenced to death unjustly and this is a distinction Socrates fails to make. Socrates denies his own powers of human reason by blindly accepting the unjust sentence of the state and ignoring the problems of an unjust state.

2

Socrates did have choices other than escaping or accepting the sentence. Without escaping, he could have simply refused to drink the poison, stating that to it would be morally wrong for him to do so. If the state were then to forcibly execute him, it would be by its own action rather than by his.

3

That’s a good point. It reminds me of the age old “killing” vs. “letting die” scenario. Surely it is the same to drink the hemlock as is it to allow yourself to be killed. The inaction does nothing for the morality of the situation. I would take it even further and say he could have ESCAPED if he had wanted to, and his descision to remain was rationally unfounded.

4

Well socrates was an educator , that is what he lived to do. His ways and beliefs were what he taught. Now take into consideration that at the time of his incarceration he was under stress , a great deal of stress.
this very stressed out educator of thought and belief, is trying to resolve in himself his demise and ways of thought and how best to live or die by the standards he set for himself. As an educator he deeply felt the need to set himself as an example for those he helped. To turn his back upon what he taught would have dismissed his life. His family while very important would have understood his choice and respected such.

If you think that Socrates was at the top of his game while in this condition, that is really unrealistic to even begin to judge such supposed arguments. I mean come on, have someone put a loaded gun to your head and is very willing to shoot you. See how well you would be arguing rationally. Jeez.

It isn’t his arguments that should be judged or even discussed, that is insulting to the man. It is his ideals, his teachings, his beliefs that should be discussed. How these things put him there and made him do what he did.
Those final arguments should be in any case dismissed.
They did not come from a rational mind. therefore not valid.

5

Submission is the dead man’s wine glass.

Never… Anything but that… Anything but bitter, diseased, putrid weakess.

6

I do not think he submitted. I believe he did the hardest. He stood for his teachings and his beliefs, he stood in defense of his family… Submission would have been running and going into hiding. How would that have benifited he or his family or his students, if anything it would have endangered the whole lot. Remember back then the gov’t. was not adverse to skewering babies to prove its points. (ow, pun was not intended). So looking upon the whole situation. He did preserve his family and friends and he did preserve his teachings and beliefs. There lies bravery and strength.

7

I agree Socrates was trying to live by the standards he set, I am also claiming he failed to. How is setting himself as an example a good thing when that example happens to be “Submit to death if you are charged by the state. Regardless of whether or not you committed any crime.” This is no good example at all.

I think it is a little closed minded, and offensive, to say that socrates was not in his right mind when he chose to die, I think he knew his reasons, it just so happens they were the wrong ones.

By escaping Socrates would have stood for reason over all, but in submission Socrates only affirms the role of dogma.

8

I don’t think he failed. One of the doctrines he put forth in his final speech could be said to be “Do not fight evil with evil”. The state had wronged him, but that did not allow him to wrong the state in return, according to his own ethics. It’s not much different from the Christian ideal of “turning the other cheek”, and while it might not be what we would think a good ideal, it fully lived up to the standards Socrates set for himself.
He was also convinced that Death was not to be feared, as it was either a “dreamless sleep” or a glorious afterlife wherein he could continue his search of truth. Of course, we cannot be certain he really believed that.

9

I have an idea in mind similiar to Nietzsche’s idea of the characters of both Jesus and Socrates, which even in the event that neither actually existed, the persona of each type of character and their “philosophical” and moral significance as they are revered as icons and archetypes is influential as long as Christian morality is there in the foreground.

Nietzsche concluded that both were monstrosities; with Socrates he called the intellect and instinct reversed roles, to a point of perversion of otherwise natural inclinations of real behavior. Presumably the instinct to resist and fight…to live, to stay alive, should at all times precede the inclination or even the capcity to rationalize otherwise. There can be no creative will where the body “talks itself into submission.” Despite what moral contracts might occur, an example being Socates and Jesus’s prosecution by law, they both literally believed that they should or had to die.

This I think is where Nietzsche formulated his revaluation of the Jesus and Socrates episodes in history without the invention of the moral rational subject before God who bothers with contracts, going to such lengths as literally offering oneself up for sacrifice. That kind of shit didn’t come from dionysus, I know that much. That’s something Apollo would would do.

The intellectual martrydom is the origin of the religious fable and caricature of the prophet, I believe. The mechanics of the ethical archetype they both represent are platonic and later, Christian, moral systems.

Both Jesus and Socrates were decandent types. But absolutely necessary antipodes, might be a way to put it. (I might be using the word antipodes wrong here. I told you, I don’t have a webster. But I can spell antidisestablishmentarianism, so f**k off)

No. George Carlin was the greatest moralist of the twentieth century. To stay alive…that is the best morality.

10

So, when does Jesus bring the porkchops? :smiley:

11

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This is similiar to saying that Jesus denied his power of reason by deciding not to attack the romans with force , or that gandhi was wrong to do as he done . Its a matter of perspective

.

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Socrates was convicted of not respecting the law. By accepting his punishment, he demonstrated that he did believe in rule by law. It was his final refutation of an argument against him. Had he not accepted the punishment, he would have lost the argument and been revealed as a hypocrite.

bis bald,

Nick

13

i think he wanted to be a martyr. he wanted to be the one philosopher who would die for his ideals.