Another Look at The Crito

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE CRITO
PHILIP SOPER
I. INTRODUCTION
A. THE PUZZLE OF THE Crito

If we measured the difficulty of a text by the conflicting
interpretations it inspired, the Crito would qualify as one of the least
comprehensible of the Platonic dialogues. By any other measure, it
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is not clear why that should be so. The text is short and easy to
read, and the argument seems relatively straightforward. No myths
require interpretation, no allegories veil hidden meanings, no subtle
dialectical distinctions obscure the discussion. The dialogue could
almost pass for a contemporary treatment of the problem of political
obligation except that the context makes the discussion anything but
academic: Socrates will go to his death, despite the chance for escape
offered by his friend, if he decides that he is morally obligated to
obey the law.
The surface simplicity of the text supports the conclusion that the
puzzle of the Critothe puzzle that generates the conflicting
commentaryis one of appreciation rather than comprehension. How
is it possible for Socrates to have held views about the basis and
extent of political obligation so at variance with modern views? It is
not just that Socrates seems to accept and act on an almost unlimited
duty to obey the law, however unjust; more puzzling is why he acts
as he does. The reasons he gives for his action, in the famous speech
of the Laws, embrace each of the three major arguments for political
obligationconsent, fair play, and the harmful consequences of
disobediencethat are familiar today mainly as examples of bad
arguments: none of these arguments are thought today to establish
a general obligation to obey the law.1
1. For two, widely cited contemporary discussions of the obligation to obey

the law, see A.J. Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (1979); and
M.B.E. Smith, "Is There a Prima Facie Obligation to Obey the Law?," 82 Yale
L.J. (1973), p. 950. Each of these authors concludes that classical arguments from
consent, fair play, and consequentialism fail to ground even a prima facie duty to
obey law. See also J. Raz, The Morality of Freedom (1988), p. 97 (the claim that
there is a general obligation to obey the law has "been refuted by various writers
in recent years"). For the contrary view, see Soper, "The Moral Value of Law,"
84 Michigan L. Rev. (1985), p. 63.
103
104 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF JURISPRUDENCE (1996)
B. INTERPRETING VENERABLE TEXTS
In this essay, I defend an interpretation of the Crito that supports
the claim Socrates makes concerning the universal moral force of
lawan interpretation that does not, however, rely on the dubious
arguments advanced by the Laws. In offering this interpretation, I
confess to some doubt about the point of continuing to argue about
the meaning of venerable texts. I am also aware that it is not always
easy to distinguish "interpreting" a text from simply using the text
as a pretext for expounding one's own views. But this essay is not
about "interpretation," and so I shall say no more about that than

this: First, I concede at the outset that the interpretation I offer here
is "personal" in the sense that it reflects my own views about the
best argument that can be made for the moral force of the State.
At the same time, however, I defend the view developed here as an
"interpretation" of the Crito on the ground that it is more consistent
in many respects with the text than other, standard interpretations
in the existing literature. These remarks will, I hope, become clearer
after a brief review of some of the major attempts to "reconcile"
the Crito with modern views.2
II. STANDARD INTERPRETATIONS
A. "EXPLAINING AWAY" WHAT THE LAWS SAY
Most contemporary explanations of the Crito, uncomfortable with
the endorsement of a broad duty to obey law,3 distinguish what
2. I make no attempt here to cite, much less summarize, the extensive com-
mentary on the Crito. (A computer search of the Philosopher's Index under the
term "Crito" will quickly generate abstracts of more than 30 articles since 1940.)
For a listing of representative samples from this literature see Weinrib, "Obedience
to the Law in Plato's Crito," 27 Am. J. Juris. (1982), p. 85, 86 (listing 21 recent
discussions).
3. The duty to obey has two dimensions: The scope of the duty refers to the
frequency with which obligations arise just because of the law. A broad scope
implies that all laws, or almost all, create moral duties to obey. The force of the
duty refers to the strength of the resulting obligation. The duty may be universal
in scope, but weak in forcecapable of being easily outweighed by countervailing
duties. This view accords with the common suggestion that the duty is prima facie
only.
I am mostly concerned in this paper, as Socrates is in the Crito, with the scope
of the duty: if the Crito is taken at face value, the scbpe is very broad indeed,
maybe universal. It is important to remember that establishing such a broad duty
is consistent with admitting that the duty can be outweighed on occasion by other
moral duties. Conscientious citizens who think the duty is universal in scope, but
may be outweighed in appropriate cases, will reveal a significant difference in their
practical deliberations when compared to those who think that law does not impose
even a prima facie duty to obey: the former will need to "justify" a decision to
disobey in a way that would not be necessary if law imposed no moral duty to
obey. See generally "The Moral Value of Law, pp. 66-69.
PHILIP SOPER 105
Socrates does from what he says. In the language of the lawyer,
viewing the dialogue as if it were a judicial opinion, one distinguishes
the "holding" from the various "dicta" that appear in the
rationalization of that holding. Here are some common examples:
1. THE PRUDENTIAL EXPLANATION

The minimum "holding" that is necessary to explain Socrates'
action is that he does no moral wrong in choosing to obey the law
by drinking the hemlock; Socrates' further claim that he is morally

obligated to take such action is dictum.
This interpretation, which I shall call the "prudential" explanation,
begins at the right point: the claim that what one does is morally
permissible is the minimum claim implied in the action of any
conscientious agent. Socrates must explicitly make at least this claim
because Crito, at the outset, raises the possibility that Socrates'
failure to escape might itself be immoral (you do wrong to abandon
your children or to aid your enemies [54d]).4 In responding to this
challenge, Socrates, according to the prudential explanation, goes
further than is necessary to ward off Crito's suggestion. The decision
to drink the hemlock is not morally wrong (as Crito suggests), but
neither is it morally required (as Socrates suggests). Either action-
escape or compliance with the lawis morally permissible, and thus
Socrates' choice between these morally neutral alternatives can be
justified on purely prudential or non-moral grounds.5
One advantage of this view is that it helps explain Socrates'
apparent concern in the dialogue with his own reputation.6 That
concern, seemingly out of place if a serious moral issue were at
4. All references in the text are to the standard page and paragraph numbers
of the Crito. For quoted passages, I have used the translation by Tredennick in The
Collected Dialogues of Plato (E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, eds. 1961). I do not
believe that the interpretation I develop here depends on which translation is used,
though I can appreciate that other interpretations, more dependent on the precise
language of the text, might. See R. Kraut, Socrates and the State (1984) p. 57 n.
10 (suggesting a critical difference created by a mistake in Tredennick's translation).
5. The conclusion that no moral issue is at stake also requires one to assume
that Socrates is not choosing to commit suicide or, at any rate, that such a choice
involves no moral issue. For Socrates' views on suicide (which help support the
conclusion that the "amoral" interpretation of the Crito should be rejected), see
The Phaedo; for general discussion, see A. Woozley, Law and Obedience: The
Arguments of Plato's Crito (1979) pp. 57-58; Horowitz, "The Morality of Suicide,"
3 /. of Critical Analysis (1972), p. 161.
6. As discussed below, the Laws taunt Socrates (53d) with the claim that he
will suffer ridicule and humiliation if he escapesan argument that Socrates seems
to take seriously. See text at note 29 infra.
stake, is fully appropriate if only prudential considerations are
involved. Socrates, after all, is an old man. His life and reputation
are largely behind him. Even if he does no wrong in escaping, many
may think that he does, and then "where will your discussions about
goodness and uprightness be?" (54d). Similarly, even if compliance
with the law is not morally obligatory, many may think that it is
after all, even Socrates seems to think it is. Under this interpretation,
then, Socrates, however unwittingly, caps his career in martyr-like
fashion by acting on apparent principle, reaping rewards for his
reputation that far exceed any personal benefits that might attend

life in exile. He made, in short, the right decision (on prudential
grounds), but for the wrong reasons (the moral reasons suggested by
the Laws).
If the goal of the prudential explanation is to find a way of
interpreting the Crito without endorsing that dialogue's broad view
of political obligation, the best one can say is that the explanation
succeeds by half. It certainly avoids endorsing the Crito''s views on
political obligation, but only by abandoning any plausible claim to
still count as an "interpretation" of the text. The prudential
explanation requires one to consign most of the dialogue, including
all of the Laws' speech, to dicta. It also leaves Socrates in the
position of either completely misunderstanding the issue himself or
deliberately misleading Crito and subsequent readers. These features
make one reluctant to accept the explanation as the best interpretation
of the text, however sympathetic one may be with the general
conclusion.
2. DlSTINGUISfflNG THE PARTICULAR FROM THE GENERAL
A second strategy for limiting the scope of the duty to obey in

the Crito is the argument that the Laws' claims are overbroad: they
apply at best to Socrates' own particular circumstances, but they do
not establish a general obligation on the part of all citizens to obey.7
This explanation is easier to defend than the preceding one and
does considerably less violence to the text. It also fits comfortably
with the views of many modern theorists who are skeptical about
the scope of law's moral force. The contemporary skepticism is not
7. For interpretations of the Crito that rely on this distinction between the
general obligation to obey all laws, and the particular obligation that Socrates may
be under, see G. Vlastos, "Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience," 63
Yale Review (1974), p. 517; Dyson, "The Structure of the Laws' Speech in Plato's
Crito" 28 Classical Quarterly (1978), pp. 427-36.
PHILIP SOPER 107
about the possibility that some people might, for example, consent
to obey the law; rather, the skepticism is about the ability of an
argument from consent to generate an obligation to obey on the part
of most citizens: most citizens simply do not consent, tacitly or
otherwise.
As applied, however, to Socrates' particular position in the society
of fifth-century B.C. Athens, each of the theories advanced by the
Laws plausibly grounds a prima facie obligation for him to obey.
Thus, Socrates may well have assumed special roles and positions in
Athens that make the inference of consent in his case more plausible

than in the case (ridiculed by Hume) of someone who has simply
refused to leave the country.8 And the special benefits Socrates may
have derived from his position could generate a duty of fair play,
requiring him to obey the law, even if no such duty applies to
ordinary citizens who enjoy no special privileges or roles.9 Finally,
though most philosophers today reject the argument that disobedience
will always have worse consequences than obedience, in the case of
one as prominent as Socrates in a community as small and close as
the Athens of this period, it is not so easy to quarrel with the Laws'
concern that Socrates' example could lead to a general disregard for
State authority whose consequent bad effects would outweigh the
benefits of escape.10
The above interpretation, in short, preserves much of the dialogue's
central thrust by accepting Socrates' claim that he is morally obligated
to obey the law as well as the central arguments of the Laws. The
interpretation also receives some support in the speech of the Laws,
where repeated reference is made to special arrangements and benefits
between Socrates and the State. Still, it must be admitted that the
explanation requires one to ignore dicta that suggest, under any fair
reading, that the reach of the moral claim is not intended to be
limited to Socrates alone. The duty to obey may have special weight
in his case, but the scope of the duty extends to all. Socrates,
8. Compare Hume, "Of the Original Contract," in David Hume's Political

Essays (H. Hendel, ed. 1953), p. 51, with Crito 52b: "[T]here are few people in
Athens who have entered into this agreement with [the Laws] as explicitly as I
have."
9. For the suggestion that a duty to obey the law may exist for those who
accept special roles and benefits within a legal system, but not for citizens generally,
see Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971), pp. 113-16.
10. See, e.g., Farrell, "Illegal Actions, Universal Maxims, and the Duty to Obey
the Law: The Case for Civil Authority in the 'Crito'," 6 Pol. Theory (1978), p.
173.
certainly, does not suggest otherwise to Crito; if anything, the sense
is the oppositethese arguments of the Laws apply to subjects
everywhere, and Crito, as well as Socrates, is supposed to acknowledge
their force.11
3. REDEFINING SOCRATES' ACTION
Those who advance the preceding explanations assume that what
Socrates does is obey an unjust law; they then purport to show that
the reasons for his action do not entail a general prima facie
obligation to obey all such laws. The current explanation disputes

the description of what Socrates does. The typical case in which
unjust laws raise serious questions about the duty to obey are those
in which an injustice is about to be done to someone else: the law
commands one to participate in an unjust war, or the law gives
privileges to one group that are unjustly denied to another and, in
protest, one disobeys that law or some other law. In Socrates' case,
however, the only "victim" of the unjust sentence is himself. By
choosing to comply with the sentence, Socrates need not be seen as
endorsing an obligation to obey the law at the expense of doing
injustice to others. Even if one thinks that Socrates has "duties to
himself,-" such duties, arguably, are weaker than duties to others.
Thus, the fact that Socrates chooses to follow the law rather than
preserve his own life has little or no precedential value with respect
to more typical clashes between law and morality.12
Like the preceding interpretation, this one too is likely to find a
sympathetic modern audience. Those who argue for the morality of
civil disobedience in appropriate cases so long as the civil disobedient
is willing to accept the punishment for the act,13 will observe that
11. Among the passages that suggest the obligation is universal, rather than
limited to Socrates, are those that rely on the mere fact that Socrates has had
children or received an education in the State, as well as the rather bluntly stated
claim that failure to leave the country is tantamount to agreeing to obey:
[I]f any of you stands his ground [instead of leaving the state] when he can
see how we administer justice and the rest of our public organization, we hold
that by so doing he has in fact undertaken to do anything that we tell him.
And we maintain that anyone who disobeys is guilty of doing wrong . . . (51e).
12. For examples of this interpretation, stressing the distinction between doing
injustice and suffering injustice, see R.E. Allen, "Law and Justice in Plato's Crito,"
69 J. of Phil. (1972), p. 557; Wade, "In Defense of Socrates," 25 Rev. of
Metaphysics (1971), pp. 311-25; Bertram, "Socrates' Defense of Civil Obedience,"
24 Studium Generate (1971), pp. 576-82. For criticisms of the interpretation, see
Momeyer, "Socrates on Obedience and Disobedience to the Law," 8 Philosophy
Research Archives (1982), pp. 21, 42-43.
13. See, e.g., A Theory of Justice, p. 366.
PHILIP SOPER 109
the interpretation not only accords with that view; it also offers hope
of reconciling the Apology and the Crito. Socrates, after all, is under
sentence of death because he refuses at his trial to cease his
philosophizingrefuses, that is, to obey the law. Now, however, he
accedes to the judgment and accepts the legal consequences of that
refusal. So interpreted, the Crito is not about the duty to obey at
all, but about the duty to accept the legal consequences of civil
disobedience.14
Unfortunately, this explanation once again ignores a good deal of
what the text actually says. The speech of the Laws is unambiguously

addressed to the duty to do whatever the State says, not simply the
duty to accede to the punishment when one disobeys.15 That, at least,
is the fairest reading if one takes the Laws' speech at face value,
and it is this reading that leads some to conclude that Socrates is
simply inconsistent in what he says here and elsewhere.16
4. INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN THE CRITO

One final explanation of the Crito deserves mention because it is
often made and because it will figure again in the present essay. This
explanation skirts the problem of reconciling what Socrates does with
what he says by denying, in essence, that he "says" any one thing.
The most frequently encountered such argument focuses on the
"persuade or obey" language which appears on more than one
occasion in the dialogue: Socrates' duty is not to obey simpliciter,
but to "persuade or obey."17 At one extreme, this might mean that
14. See, e.g., Law and Obedience The Arguments of Plato's Crito, pp. 56-58
(discussing Wade, "In Defense of Socrates," 15 Rev. of Metaphysics (1971).
15. The Laws do, at times, refer to the duty to accept one's punishment, but in
the same passage indicate that the duty extends to other acts commanded by the
law as well:
Do you not realize that . . . if you cannot persuade your country you must do
whatever it orders, and patiently submit to any punishment that it imposes,
whether it be flogging or imprisonment? And if it leads you out to war, to be
wounded or killed, you must comply, and it is right that you should do so.
You must not give way or retreat or abandon your position. Both in war and
in the law courts and everywhere else you must do whatever your city and your
country command, or else persuade them in accordance with universal justice
. . . . (51c).
16. See Law and Obedience: The Arguments of Plato's Crito, p. 60; James,
"Socrates on Civil Disobedience," 11 So. J. of Phil. (1973), p. 119; "Socrates on
Obedience and Disobedience to the Law."
17. One version of the "persuade or obey" language is not that it is inconsistent
with other arguments for obedience in the Crito, but that it is the argument of
Socrates and thus the most "consistent" interpretation of the dialogue. See, e.g.,
Socrates and the State.
Socrates can continue to disobey as long as he thinks that he may,
in the end, eventually persuade the State to change its mind and its
laws ("obey or keep-on-trying-to-persuade-while-disobeying").18
Somewhat less extreme is the view that Socrates may disobey a law
and later try to persuade the court at the trial or sentencing stage
that the law is unjust, failing which, Socrates must then and only
then submit to the punishment. This latter view collapses, in substance,
to the previous one: citizens do no wrong in disobeying laws they
sincerely believe to be unjust so long as they submit to the punishment
if they fail subsequently to persuade courts to let them off.19

I suppose that if Socrates (Plato) had been accustomed to the ways
of modern logicians in guarding against the ambiguities of language
(is the "or" in "persuade or obey" inclusive or exclusive?), he could
have avoided the problems associated with this particular phrase. On
the other hand, one may doubt that he would have substituted more
precise language any more than modern writers, aware of latent
ambiguity, substitute wooden formulae for common sense, context,
and natural language. The natural reading of the "persuade or obey"
language is that Socrates, like any citizen in democratic Athens, must
recognize that he has, at least, been given the opportunity to
"persuade" the State that its laws should be changed or should not
be interpreted to apply to his case.20 He is thus not totally without
input in the substantive debates about "justice" that determine the
content of the State's laws, as he might be under an arbitrary
dictatorship.21 Having given him an opportunity for such input, the
18. Of this interpretation, Woozley comments that:

It is too easy, too permissive; it makes any disobedience at all to a law
legitimate, only so long as it is a sincere and principled attempt to change the
minds of those who have the authority to alter or repeal the law. A moral
license to break the law can hardly come at as low a price as that. Law and
Obedience: The Arguments of Plato's Crito, p. 32.
19. This interpretation seems to be Woozley's. See ibid., pp. 30-31. For the
contrary view, supporting the more "extreme" version, see Socrates and the State,
pp. 76-77. For criticism of Kraut's view as "an end run around the 'obey' horn of
the dilemma," see Luban, "Difference Made Legal: The Court and Dr. King," 87
Mich. L. Rev. (1989), pp. 2152, 2208.
20. Luban describes this (modest) interpretation as:
The unhelpful thought that the citizen may try to get a law changed or repealed,
but if he fails he must obey. Since in practice one will seldom be able to get a
law repealed, this suggestion amounts to precisely the encomium to absolute
obedience. Ibid., p. 2208.
21. For the suggestion that Socrates had no chance to persuade the State or the
city, but, at best, only a chance to persuade his fellow citizens at his trial, see
PHILIP SOPER 111
State has done all that can be expected, and Socrates, having failed
to "persuade," must obey.
There are other apparent inconsistencies within the dialogue, notably
the contrast between what the Laws say and what Socrates himself
says when he first responds to Crito before the Laws appear. Because
this contrast bears directly on the argument of this essay, I shall
consider it only after first introducing another approach to the
problem of interpreting the Crito that differs sharply from all of the
preceding approaches.

B. THE "RHETORICAL" INTERPRETATION: THE LAWS DO NOT
SPEAK FOR SOCRATES
Despite their differences, all of the preceding examples are alike

in one respect. Each assumes that the arguments made by the Laws
represent views that Socrates himself accepts. Operating under this
assumption, each interpretation suggests a way to justify and explain
Socrates' decision without, however, similarly endorsing the Laws'
broad claims of political obligation.
There is, however, another approach to explaining the Crito that
has recently received renewed attention in the literature, even though
it remains to date a minority view. This approach, which has been
called "the rhetorical interpretation,"22 does not view the Laws as
speaking for Socrates: the Laws are speaking for themselves, as an
independent character in the drama. Their arguments and views are
not necessarily arguments that Socrates himself accepts.
The rhetorical interpretation, of course, avoids entirely the problem
of explaining how Socrates could endorse arguments from consent,
fair play, and consequentialism that appeal to few today; but it does
so at the cost of introducing another problem: If the Laws' arguments
are not Socrates' arguments, then what is Socrates' theory about the
extent and basis of political obligation? On this question, two recent
advocates of the rhetorical approach, Gary Young and Ernest
Young, "Socrates and Obedience," 19 Phronesis (1974), pp. 1. 21. Young's view
seems to require that "persuasion" be direct, almost confrontational. A more modest
reading would require only the kind of participation, emphasized in democratic
theory, that ensures that competing viewpoints are brought to light and fairly
considered before legislation is passed. See the additional discussion in the text at
notes 41-42, infra.
22. See Momeyer, pp. 22, 23.
Weinrib,23 reach dramatically different conclusions. Young concludes
that Socrates does indeed accept a nearly universal duty to obey
every law of the Statewith the single possible exception of the
command that Socrates give up philosophizing.24 Weinrib, in contrast,
gives the impression that Socrates' action can be explained without
resolving the question of the extent and basis of the duty to obey,
almost as if the decision rested entirely on non-moral grounds.25
It is easy to see what the problem is. Having removed the obstacle
of the Laws' weak explanation for the grounds and extent of the
duty to obey, very little is left in the dialogue to provide a Socratic

political theory. Young simply announces a conclusion of political
theory that is, at least, consistent with Socrates' action and general
claimthe duty to obey is nearly universalbut now there are no
reasons (not even bad ones) to support that claim. Weinrib takes no
positionand ascribes none to Socrateson the general question of
political theory, explaining Socrates' decision instead in terms that
do not involve the application of any general theory about the duty
to obey the law. The result is that the dialogue, with the core political
theory removed, hardly seems to be about the obligation to obey the
law at all but about something elsefriendship, perhaps, or how to
23. In this paper, I focus mainly on the interpretations offered by Gary Young
and Ernest Weinrib; see, "Socrates and Obedience"; "Obedience to the Law in
Plato's Crito." Both papers are examples of the "rhetorical" interpretation. See
Momeyer, ibid., (identifying Young's article as the "seminal" piece in the category).
Of course, long before Young's article, skepticism about the relationship between
the Law's views and Plato's own views had been expressed. See G. Grote, Plato
and the Other Companions of Socrates (1885), pp. 428-34 (arguing that the Laws'
speech was invented by Plato to give a better press for Socrates). Nor are Young
and Weinrib the only recent commentators to argue for the rhetorical approach.
See Quandt, "Socratic Consolation: Rhetoric and Philosophy in Plato's 'Crito,'"
15 Phil. Rhet. (1982), pp. 238, 252 n.4 (listing at least five other recent commentators
in this category, of whom only Young argues that the Laws' views are actually
contradictory to Socrates' own). See also J.B. White, Acts of Hope (1994), ch. 1,
and pp. 310-11 (endorsing Weinrib's general approach, while offering a different
explanation of the point of Socrates' attempt to reconcile Crito to his decision).
24. "Socrates and Obedience," pp. 28-29.
25. See "Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito," p. 108:
[T]he expectation of the many that Socrates would flee was the very factor
which made flight impossible. The many would see in Socrates' escape, not the
judgment of the moral expert but the verification of their own assumption that
self-interest has priority over law.
Compare this explanation with the discussion in part II (A) (1) of this essay:
Socrates' action can be explained in terms of his own prudential interest in preserving
his reputation, rather than as an instance of fulfilling a moral duty to obey the law.
See also note 35, infra.
PHILIP SOPER 113
help a friend accept the distressing news of the decision to choose
death over the viable alternative of escape.26
In the remainder of this essay, I follow the lead of those who
suggest that the Crito is best understood by not ascribing to Socrates
the Laws' arguments for the duty to obey. I propose, however, to
fill the gap that results by showing how the Crito, even under this
approach, remains first and foremost a dialogue about the obligation
to obey the law. I also suggest a different explanation from the one
advanced by both Young and Weinrib for why Socrates makes the
Laws appear to speak for him. Socrates is not resorting to the only

explanation (knowing it to be false) that he thinks Crito will
understand. Rather, Socrates is illustrating in the speech of the Laws
(rather than expressing through that speech) his theory of political
obligation. The reason Socrates has a duty to obey is not because
the arguments of the Laws are correct, but because the Laws sincerely
believe they are correct. The duty to obey the law is an instance of
a general duty to respect the sincere beliefs, however erroneous, of
certain persons in certain contexts. Which persons, which contexts?
The Crito illustrates the two most plausible answers: in the case of
friends, and in the case of the State, what counts is not only what
is right, but also what one's friends and lawmakers think is right.
III. USE AND MISUSE OF THE RHETORICAL INTERPRETATION
A. SUPPORT FOR THE RHETORICAL INTERPRETATION

The evidence for the rhetorical interpretation is both stylistic and
substantive. The stylistic evidence begins with the oddity of having
the Laws appear just at the critical stage in the argument. Many
commentators have noted that the Crito is unusual in this respect,
and some have concluded that this is just a rare example of Socrates
himself giving the answers instead of leading the participant to
"discover" them.27 But this viewthat Socrates is answering his own
questionignores the fact that it is not literally Socrates who answers,
but the personified Laws. The dialogue is, in short, at least two steps
26. For a similar explanation, see Acts of Hope, pp. 36-37, 311 (the Crito
actually has little or nothing to say about the authority of the law; its subject is,
instead, "the meaning of Socrates' situation"his life, his death, as evidenced in
part by the kind of friendship Socrates manifests here toward Crito.)
27. For an example of the easy assumption that the Laws are simply Socrates'
way of giving his own answers, see Law and Obedience: The Arguments of Plato's
Crito, p. 4.
removed from other dialogues in eliminating the role of both the
participant and Socrates in responding to the issue at hand. To this
doubly unusual manner of proceeding, add the jarring impression
created by the emotionally charged speech of the Laws and the
conclusion seems easy: it just does not sound like Socrates. No one
has made the point better than Professor Vlastos:
[I]n a curious act of self-abnegationan act without parallel in
the Platonic corpus[Socrates] yields the floor to a majestic
surrogate, the personified "Laws and Community" of Athens,
and they go on to deliver so unsocratic a speech that George Grote

called it a "discourse of venerated commonplaces." There is no
dialectic here; no definition of terms, no facing up to obscurities
and perplexities, no consideration of counter-examples. Time and
again we see the diction running to hyperbole and the thought
blown about by gusts of feeling.28
Almost as noticeable as the stylistic shift when the Laws appear
are the substantive changes in the arguments the Laws make compared
to what Socrates says in his initial reply to Crito. Socrates begins
the dialogue by reminding Crito that what counts in moral matters
is what is right rather than what people might think. In contrast,
the speech of the Laws relies in at least two respects on what people
might think. First, the Laws taunt Socrates repeatedly with the claim
that Socrates' reputationwhat others will think of himwill suffer
if Socrates escapes.29 Second, despite casting their argument in general
philosophic terms (consent, fair play, consequences of disobedience),
the Laws rely heavily on appeals to Socrates not to turn on his
guardians and "true friends" (the State).30
28. "Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience," p. 519; quoted in

"Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito," pp. 28,
102.
29. "And will no one comment on the fact that an old man of your age,
probably with only a short time left to live, should dare to cling so greedily to life,
at the price of violating the most stringent laws? Perhaps not, if you avoid irritating
anyone. Otherwise, Socrates, you will hear a good many humiliating comments. So
you will live as the toady and slave of all the populace, literally 'roistering in
Thessaly,' as if you had left this country for Thessaly to attend a banquet there.
And where will your discussions about goodness and uprightness be then, we should
like to know?" 53d-54a.
30. Young and Weinrib both build on this latter fact to suggest that the Laws
are primarily urging obedience, not on the high ground of philosophic principle,
but on the very appeal to the opinion of the many that characterizes Crito's own
initial arguments. Whether Young and Weinrib are correct in this explanation is less
critical at this point (it will be critical in the next section) than the one point on
which I agree with both Young and Weinrib: the Laws are speaking for themselves,
not (necessarily) for Socrates. But see Law and Obedience: The Arguments of Plato's
Crito, p. 29 (mentioning Young's thesis, but dismissing it without discussion as
"implausible").
PHILIP SOPER 115
The stylistic and substantive evidence for the rhetorical interpretation
seems to me fairly strong, even though the only way to convince
oneself of that conclusion is by re-reading and confronting the
dialogue in its entirety. Reading the dialogue with this interpretation
in mind makes the Laws' appearance very much like the appearance
of a new, third character in the drama; Socrates stands apart from
that character in both what he says and how he says it. As any good
playwright might, Socrates (Plato) leaves the audience to decide how
to fit together the views of Crito, the Laws, and Socrates. That the
"moral" of the drama should prove to be the literal claim about the

basis for political obligation shrilly voiced by one of the actors is,
at best, only one of several possible conclusions; aesthetically it is
the least pleasing interpretation, the least consistent with the seriousness
of the issue and the attempt of a good playwright to make the
audience feel the point, as well as simply hear it announced.
B. MISUSE OF THE RHETORICAL INTERPRETATION

It is one thing to show that the Laws speak for themselves, rather
than for Socrates. It is another to show how this view of the dialogue
helps one understand the Crito. Why might Socrates put into the
mouths of the Laws arguments he did not himself accept, and why
would he invite Crito, apparently, to think that he does endorse
those arguments?
Young and Weinrib give essentially identical answers to this
question:31 Crito, who lacks great intelligence or philosophical
sophistication, would be incapable of understanding the true,
philosophical principles that explain why Socrates must obey the law.
31. Young's claim that Crito cannot be expected to understand the true principles
behind Socrates' action is the central argument of his essay. See "Socrates and
Obedience," p. 6, passim. Weinrib's thesis is virtually identical to Young's. (Inter-
estingly, Weinrib does not acknowledge the similarity of his argument to Young's,
nor does he credit Young with the thesis. His sole reference to Young's article occurs
in an initial "string cite," listing some 21 recent discussions of the Crito. See
"Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito"). Weinrib's main addition to Young's
thesis consists of a somewhat clearer account of the connection between the kind
of arguments the Laws are making (a version of the opinion of the many) and the
kind of argument that Crito can be expected to understand. Both scholars reach
the same conclusion concerning Socrates' motivation: Socrates wants to persuade
his friend to accept his action and is more worried about Crito's feelings than about
giving Crito the true philosophic explanation. In contrast, J.B. White's suggestion
is less condescending and more appealing: the reason Socrates casts his response in
the speech of the Laws in the same terms as Crito (the voice of the many) is not
"to give arguments of a lesser kind to a person of lesser capacity . . . [but] to move
him to the point where the issue disappears." Ibid., p. 311.
Therefore Socrates, whose main concern is to reconcile his friend to
his death, makes the Laws advance an argument in terms that Crito
can understandthe opinion of the many. Crito, after all, began his
own entreaty with arguments that were no doubt popular among the
unsophisticated: friends, and the preservation of one's own life, are
more important than obeying the orders of the State, particularly if
one can easily escape the penalty. Instead of explaining why this
unreflective, common view must yield to higher philosophical
reasoning, Socrates decides to argue from the same "popular"
viewpoint, but manages now to make the argument yield the opposite

conclusion: the State is the larger "friend" to whom Socrates owes
loyalty, and Socrates' self-interest (in terms of his reputation) lies in
complying with the wishes of this particular Friend. Crito is hoist
with his own petard:
The Laws are not engaging in a philosophic critique of Crito's
position. They are rather stretching the values revealed in Crito's
speech so as to secure for themselves priority over the more
entrenched relationships of friendship and family. The Laws are
claiming that they are the ultimate and fundamental friends, that
they are in the relationship which is the sine qua non of the more
familiar relationships, that they are truly those who ought least to
be harmed.32
If the suggestion that the Laws are not speaking for Socrates
seemed plausible, this suggestion about what Socrates is up to does
not. So many objections spring to mind it is difficult to know where
to begin. Perhaps the most obvious objection is that the image that
results of Socrates' relationship to Crito is so condescending and
patronizing that it is almost a parody of, rather than a paean to,
friendship.33
Second, there is no reason to think that Crito is any less sophisticated
than other participants in other Platonic dialogues who do not,
because of their unsophistication, get watered-down Socratic treatment.
Socrates may well have believed that only "experts," and philosophers
at that, can penetrate to ultimate truth, but that view never led him
to treat participants in other dialogues as unworthy of even the
attempt at enlightenment. Indeed the point of many such dialogues
is to show even the unsophisticated that "the unexamined life" is
32. "Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito," p. 104.

33. See "Socrates' Defense of Civil Obedience," p. 25. But see "Socratic
Consolation: Rhetoric and Philosophy in Plato's 'Crito'," pp. 248-49 (suggesting
that the apparent condescension to Crito is tempered by an interpretation that sees
Socrates also being consoled at the end by the rhetoric of the Laws).
PHILIP SOPER 117
not worth living. It is hard to believe that the emotion that surrounds
Socrates' impending death is so great that Crito must be treated
differently in this respect from Euthyphro, Laches, or Ion.34
Third, the suggestion that the Laws are only giving voice to the
instinctive reactions of the crowd overlooks the major thrust of the
Laws' speech. The Laws do give philosophical argumentsthe same
philosophical arguments (consent, fair play, consequences of
disobedience) that have dominated political theory ever since. They
just happen to be (many think) flawed arguments. That they are
flawed arguments, incapable of grounding a universal duty to obey,

may be a reason for disagreeing with the Laws; it is not a reason
for charging the Laws with appealing solely to the opinion of the
many, urging pursuit of one's own prudential interest in aiding friends
and harming enemies.
Fourth, the proffered interpretation explains Socrates' motives in
misleading Crito, but gives no explanation for the true reasons for
his decision. Why does Socrates drink the hemlock? What does he
think about the scope of the duty to obey? If the answers to these
questions are not those advanced by the Laws, then Socrates, after
his initial insistence that what counts is what is right, has yet to
explain what is right. With no explanation for the critical decision,
one can only guess whether Socrates really means what he seems to
say about the duty to obey being almost universal, or whether he is
going along with the death sentence for other, perhaps prudential,
reasons.35
34. This point is made with considerable force in R. McLaughlin, "Socrates on

Political Disobedience: A Reply to Gary Young," 21 Phronesis (1976), pp. 185,
188. See also Congleton, "Two Kinds of Lawlessness: Plato's Crito," 2 Pol. Theory
(1974), pp. 432-46 (arguing for a rhetorical interpretation of the Laws' speech that
exaggerates their moral authority for Crito in light of a variety of defects in Crito's
character).
35. As noted earlier, Young concludes that Socrates endorses a nearly universal
obligation, though the reasons for that position are not to be found in the Crito.
Weinrib seems to think that the dialogue is mostly about friendship, not political
obligation, and that Socrates is really acting out of recognition that his escape will
be misconstrued:
The many would see in Socrates' escape not the judgment of the moral expert
but the verification of their own assumption that self-interest has priority over
law. . . . Only through obedience to the law could Socrates secure the future
of philosophical reflection on justice. Only the self-abnegation involved in
deciding to remain in prison and drink the hemlock could bring home the
significance of the enterprise on which Socrates was engaged. Otherwise Socrates'
accomplishment would have been washed over and absorbed by the traditional
conceptions of excellence which he was seeking to transform. "Obedience to
the Law in Plato's Crito," p. 108.
Finally, in addition to the condescension shown toward Crito, the
proffered interpretation portrays a Socrates acting inconsistently with
much that he stands for elsewhere. Socrates at the end of his life
becomes, under this view, the master rhetorician, able to use the
techniques of persuasion to accomplish whatever ends seem
appropriate. He attends to Crito's grief as a parent might to a
child's, telling stories that dispel the fear but avoid the truth.36 Having
spent so much of his life resisting this art of the rhetorician's,
Socrates now goes to his death reconciling Crito by abandoning his
principles.37 If the point of drinking the hemlock was to ward off

the popular misconception that he would simply be saving his own
skin by escaping, the proffered interpretation suggests that Socrates
made a mistake: his reputation as standing for principle must give
way when one sees what he is in fact doing. In short, if the proffered
interpretation is correct, better that we had never chanced upon it,
for it sullies Socrates' reputation in exactly the way that led him to
dissemble in the first place.
Again, it is easy to see what has happened. The stylistic and
substantive arguments for concluding that Socrates wants readers to
distinguish his views from the specific arguments advanced by the
Laws are so persuasive that one is inclined to seek any explanation,
however weak, to explain why the Laws speak at all. If Socrates
does not subscribe to the content of the Laws' speech, he must be
using the speech only rhetorically. Since he is obviously concerned
about his friend Crito, what other explanation is there but the one
offered: this is a device to help console, not to help educate, his
friend.
But there is another explanation, one that avoids most of the
problems of the current one. Moreover, it is an explanation that
both takes seriously what Socrates seems to say about the universal
scope of the duty to obey and preserves the central thrust of the
36. This conclusion is explicitly embraced by one commentator who actually

draws an analogy to Socrates' prescription in the Phaedo of a lullaby for children
who are plagued by dreams of hobgoblins. See "Socratic Consolation: Rhetoric and
Philosophy in Plato's 'Crito'," p. 248.
37. This particular criticism of the standard "rhetorical" interpretation is per-
suasively developed by "Socrates on Obedience and Disobedience to the Law," p.
25. For a brief and insightful explanation of Socrates' antagonism toward rhetoric
because of its indifference to truth, see Kronman, "Foreword: Legal Scholarship
and Moral Education," 90 Yale L.J. (1981), pp. 955, 959-61 (discussing the relevance
of Socrates' hostility to rhetoric, as illustrated in the Gorgias, to the training of law
students in the art of advocacy).
PHILIP SOPER 119
dialogue as an explanation of the grounds of that duty. Since the
explanation cannot be the one offered by the Laws who, I am
assuming, do not speak for Socrates, and since Socrates himself
offers none other explicitly, the explanation must be illustrated by
the dialogue as a whole. The answer to Crito's initial appeal "I will
lose a friend" and the answer to the question "Why should I obey
the law?" are both revealed in the drama, rather than stated in the
speeches of any of the participants. Moreover, they are in structure
the same answer. To that we now turn.

IV. A NEW INTERPRETATION
A. TRUTH AND OPINION
The central intellectual puzzle of the Crito that underlies many of
the above interpretations is the clash between mere opinion and
moral truth. Socrates stands for and defends the latter, while the
Laws, it is claimed, rely heavily on the former.
What if, however, Socrates were not quite so hostile to the opinions
of others as the preceding interpretations assume? Suppose that what
Socrates wanted to demonstrate in the Crito is that the right thing
to do is sometimes determined, at least in part, by the opinions of
others: that those opinions, reached in a good faith effort to discover
moral truth, deserve respect in a sense that requires one to weigh
them and the action they counsel against one's own view about what
is right.38 If this were the case, the opinions of others about what is
right would create countervailing, prima facie duties to act in accord
with those opinions, even if the opinions were wrong as measured
by one's own assessment of moral truth. Where the action counseled
by others is sufficiently unjust, the prima facie duty presumably
would be outweighed, but at least we would now have a plausible
basis for understanding, in this prima facie sense, the claim about
the universal obligation to obey the law.
Note that if this interpretation is plausible, it solves virtually all
of the problems just discussed in the preceding section. (I consider
in the next section some of the new problems created by this view.)
First, the lesson of the Crito is one that is offered to Crito for his
understanding, just as much as it is offered to the more philosophically
38. I do not mean simply that one takes opposing views into account as a way
of considering whether one's own views are correct. That much is easy. I mean to
make the stronger claim that even if one is sure about the "right" action, the law,
even if mistaken, creates a countervailing duty. The "right" action in the ultimate
sense will be the action that survives the balancing of these conflicting duties.
sophisticated reader of the dialogue. In both cases, to be sure, the
lesson must be inferred from the drama, rather than simply picked
out of the mouth of one of the actors, but that still leaves Crito in
the same position as any other reader of the dialoguethere is no
need for condescension.
Second, since Crito under this view is being offered the same
chance as anyone else to understand Socrates' true explanation for
the grounds of political obligation, we avoid the need to explain why
Socrates would make Crito the one exception to his usual tactic of
treating participants as capable of handling the truth. The truth here

is presented indirectly for reasons, discussed below, that do not apply
to Crito alone.
Third, we are no longer in the embarrassing position of concluding
that the Crito, which purports to be about political obligation,
actually has nothing to say about the matter; the dialogue does have
something to say about the extent and ground of the duty to obey
the law, though it says it indirectlyas good dramas often do
rather than directly.
Fourth, this interpretation no longer ignores the central arguments
made by the Laws. Instead of characterizing the Laws as simply the
voice of the many, we recognize that the Laws are trying to advance
philosophical arguments that many people, even today, continue to
take seriously. The arguments may, in the end, fail to satisfy modern
philosophers, but at least they are capable of filling the role assigned
to them in the current interpretation: these arguments are standard,
common arguments for the duty to obey, supporting the conclusion
that their proponentsin this case the Lawsare sincerely and
plausibly claiming a moral right to allegiance, rather than resting the
demand for obedience on power alone.
Finally, there is the matter of Socrates' general approach to moral
inquiry in the Crito compared to his approach in other dialogues. If
Socrates means to suggest that the Laws deserve obedience, in part,
because of their sincere attempt to act justly, however wrong the
State's laws (or arguments) may be in fact, we rescue the dialogue
from the view that Socrates is engaged in the art of persuasion for
its own sake and restore it to what it purports to be: a sketch of a
substantive political theory. On the other hand, many will object
that it is even more inconsistent with Socrates' general position in
other dialoguesas well as with what he says hereto suggest that
mere opinion can ever displace "truth" in moral inquiry. Because
this objection points to what is, no doubt, the most troublesome
aspect of the present interpretation, most of the rest of this essay
will be devoted to it.
PHILIP SOPER 121
B. EVIDENCE FOR THE N E W INTERPRETATION
1. TEXTUAL SUPPORT
I begin again with stylistic or textual evidence for the possibility

under consideration: that Socrates sometimes permits the opinions
of others, even when false, to play a role in moral decision. For this
purpose, it will help to recall the basic structure of the dialogue.
Crito has come to visit his imprisoned friend, bringing with him the
bad news that the event that will set the time for Socrates' execution
is only a day away. After an opening exchange in which Socrates

tells Crito of the dream he has just had,39 Crito explains that he can
easily arrange an escape; he then presents four arguments for why
Socrates should take advantage of this chance:
(1) If Socrates does not escape, Crito will lose a friend;
(2) If Socrates dies, Crito's reputation will suffer because eve-
ryone will think that Crito could have saved him but didn't;
(3) Socrates, by going to his death, will be achieving exactly the
result that his enemies want and thus be an accomplice to evil
himself;
(4) Socrates has an obligation to preserve his life for the sake of
his children.
Socrates responds in some form to each of these arguments except
the first: no reply to Crito's appeal from friendship appears. The
fact that the appeal from friendship is Crito's very first argument
makes the failure to reply even more noticeable than might otherwise
be the case and provides an early hint that at least some of Socrates'
responses to Crito are to be illustrated by the dialogue as a whole,
rather than expressed within the dialogue.
Socrates' initial response to Crito consists of a lengthy reminder
of what I shall call, for purposes of this essay, Socrates' "moral
absolutism"what counts is not what people think, but what is in
fact right:
What we ought to consider is not so much what people in general
will say about us but how we stand with the expert in right and
wrong, the one authority who represents the actual truth (48a).
This reply is a response to Crito's concern for his own reputation.
It is also a response to the argument that Socrates will be aiding his
enemies. If escaping is wrong, then it does not matter that Socrates
himself has been wronged or that his enemies will derive satisfaction
39. For an intriguing discussion of the relevance of the dream to an interpretation

of the Crito see "Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito" p. 2.
from his death, for "it is never right to do a wrong or return a
wrong or defend oneself against injury by retaliation . . . ." (49e).
Finally, Socrates brushes aside Crito's appeal to consider his children
almost as if he viewed the argument as an appeal to Socrates' self-
interest rather than to a moral duty;40 in any event, the answer here
is the same as the answer to the other two arguments: if it is wrong
to disobey the law, then neither children nor life nor anything else
can play a role in his decision (54b).
This review of the structure of the dialogue, though brief, provides
evidence for the interpretation under consideration. Note that Socrates'

initial response to Crito, in which he insists that what counts is what
is right, is in many ways at odds with much of the rest of the
dialogue. In the first place, it is hard to understand why Socrates
goes on at such length with what is at best only the preface to the
critical question. The entire passage, which occupies almost as much
space as the speech of the Laws, has something of the air of one
"protesting too much," as if Socrates is himself uncomfortable with
the idea that the opinions of others never count.
Second, if opinions do not matter, why does Socrates even present
as a serious argument the Laws' repeated claims about his reputation
if he escapes? If escaping is morally justified, why should he care
that the masses may ridicule him? If others fail to perceive that the
decision is justified on moral principles and mistakenly assume he is
simply saving his skin, why not fall back confidently on the opening
refrain of his response to Crito (what we ought to consider is not
what people will say but how we stand with regard to the actual
truth [48a]). That Socrates can even pretend to take seriously the
concern for what others will think if he escapes, after having firmly
declared it to be irrelevant, suggests that maybe he is himself uncertain
about the strictness of his moral absolutism. Maybe, in some contexts,
the opinions of others do count.
Third, recall again the one argument of Crito's that Socrates never
answers: Crito will lose a friend. It is not hard to see Socrates
replying to this argument, not directly, but indirectly, illustrating
through the course of the entire dialogue the form and content of
the appropriate response to such an appeal. The answer to Crito's
appeal, I suggest, is this: Socrates will take Crito's opinion seriously,
even if that opinion is wrong, and may even act against his own
40. For the suggestion that Socrates too casually dismisses the possible moral
duty he owes his children, see Law and Obedience: The Arguments of Plato's Crito,
pp. 10-11.
PHILIP SOPER 123
view of what is right if he cannot persuade Crito. Friends are in the

same position as the State, though for different reasons: their sincere
opinions matter and must be given prima facie weight in moral
decisions that affect common interests.
Because this analogy to friendship is so important in the dialogue,
it is worth pausing to identify separately those passages that support
this interpretation. At least three passages lend weight to the current
suggestion about how friends, with different opinions about serious
moral issues, are to be treated:
(1) After Crito has pleaded his case, Socrates reaffirms the moral

absolutist's view that requires him "never to accept advice from any
of my friends unless reflection shows that it is the best course that
reason offers" (31b). At the same time, however, he admits that
even if Crito's strong feelings are not justified, the stronger the
feelings, the "harder to deal with" (ibid.). Several exchanges later,
Socrates repeats this suggestion that his action may well depend, in
part, on Crito's opinion, even if that opinion is not justified:
Let us look at it together, my dear fellow; and if you can challenge
any of my arguments, do so and I will listen to you; but if you
can't, be a good fellow and stop telling me over and over again
that I ought to leave this place without official permission. I am
very anxious to obtain your approval before I adopt the course
which I have in mind. I don't want to act against your convictions
(48e).
(2) At the conclusion of the argument of the Laws Socrates does
not say that what the Laws say is true; he says something else:
That, my dear friend Crito, I do assure you, is what I seem to
hear them saying, just as a mystic seems to hear the strains of
music, and the sound of their arguments [emphasis added: note
not the truth of their arguments] rings so loudly in my head that
I cannot hear the other side (54d).41
41. The significance of this passage has been noted by others. Weinrib, for
example, focuses on the reference to mystics who are in a Corybantic frenzy and
suggests that the passage supports his interpretation in three respects: (1) Socrates
is pointing to the status of the Laws as an hallucination; (2) Socrates is indirectly
suggesting that Crito's grief has made him, like the mystics, incapable of reason
and thus in need of the therapy administered by Socrates through the device of the
Laws; (3) Socrates is indicating his own disagreement with the reasons offered by
the Laws. See "Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito," p. 101. (A similar account
of this "Corybantic Consolation" may be found in "Socratic Consolation: Rhetoric
and Philosophy in Plato's 'Crito'," pp. 248-52.) Only the last of Weinrib's sugges-
tions is consistent with the interpretation offered here. Socrates is indicating that he
does not necessarily agree with the reasons given by the Laws. But he is not
(3) Finally, Socrates turns back to Crito and the initial appeal to
friendship is indirectly confronted again:
I warn you that, as my opinion stands at present, it will be useless
to urge a different view. However, if you think that you will do
any good by it, say what you like (54d).
Fortunately, Crito has nothing more to saycontrolled in his response
just at the crucial point in a manner familiar to readers of Platonic
dialogues. Had Crito not been persuaded, is it so clear that Socrates
would have proceeded nonetheless to act on his own lights? Isn't it

possible that Socrates here illustrates the dilemma of one confronted
with conflicting prima facie moral duties: he has moral responsibilities
to his friend Crito not to "act against his convictions" even if those
convictions are wrong; he has similar duties to the State to obey its
laws, even if those laws are unjust. It may well be that this conflict
would still have been resolved in favor of the action Socrates took.
The important point is that both duties share a similar structure and
stand as sources of obligation independent of one's own view of the
truth of the matter.
A fourth source of textual support for the present interpretation
is the notorious "persuade or obey" doctrine. Interpreted by some
as a significant qualification on the absolute duty to obey, its more
natural interpretation is far weaker. "Persuade or obey" points to
the primary, reciprocal obligation that the State has in return for
the ability to create moral obligations to obey even bad laws: the
State must in good faith believe that it is pursuing justice and the
common good, which means that the State must be prepared to listen
to arguments about the injustice of its laws, just as Socrates is
prepared to listen to Crito's arguments. Socrates must persuade Crito
or respect his convictionspossibly to the point of acting against
Socrates' own views. Similarly, Socrates must persuade the State
(which he has failed to do) or obey. "Persuade or obey" is simply
suggesting that Crito is in a grief-induced trance. Rather, he is emphasizing that

what the Laws say and believe, however wrong, turns out to have moral value that
outweighs the "truth" of the matter in this case, thus requiring Socrates to heed
the Laws regardless of his own view of the merits of the law that has condemned
him or the reasons offered by the Laws for obeying. The emphasis of the current
interpretation, in short, is on the fact that Socrates says he "hears" these arguments,
not that he accepts them as true, or that he (or the Laws, or Crito) is in a trance.
And on this point, Socrates is surely correct. Ask any ordinary person who urges
obedience to controversial laws why one should obey and the response is likely to
be exactly the response of the Laws. Only philosophy, and recent philosophy at
that, reveals the limitations of the common sense answer.
PHILIP SOPER 125
a reference to the minimal requirement that the State, or friend, be
sincere in the attempt to reach the right conclusions about the action
to be taken.
Finally, consider again the central device of the dialoguethe
personification of the Laws. That device performs several functions.
First, it emphasizes the parallel between the response that friends
deserve and the response to which the State is entitled and alerts the
reader to seek the answer to Crito's appeal, as well as to the Laws',
indirectly in the action rather than in the speech. Second, though we
have not yet said anything about the substantive arguments for

respecting the opinions of others, it is unlikely that one can make
the transition from friendship, where the argument may have an
initial appeal, to the anonymous State unless the State appears as
more than a faceless bureaucracy. It may well be, in short, that the
substantive theory that underlies the current interpretation requires
that the State, at least ideally, approximate the personal confrontation
between ruler and ruled that Socrates makes visible in the dialogue
a relationship between citizen and State that is perhaps easy to see
in Socrates' Athens, harder to see in the modern world. Third,
personifying the Laws makes vivid the essential point that underlies
the arguments advanced by the Laws: the point is not that these are
good arguments, but that they are the common, standard arguments
that one is likely to encounter even today if one asks an ordinary
citizen who supports the law why someone who disagrees with the
law should obey. The answers provided by the Laws still "ring"
loudly today, even if the reasons, on reflection, seem as unpersuasive
as "your countrylove it or leave it" did during the Vietnam War.42
2. SUBSTANTIVE SUPPORT
There remains the substantive issue: what reasons support the view
that the sincerely held opinions of friends and the State create even
prima facie moral duties to act in accordance with those opinions,
however wrong? What reason is there to think that Socrates held
such a view?
The latter question, about Socrates' own view, is the more
problematic and touches once again on issues about the nature of
interpretation that I shall not attempt to broach in this essay beyond
the following disclaimer. I do not view the above interpretation as
an historical claim about Socrates' (or Plato's) actual or subconscious
42. See the discussion in the preceding note and the accompanying text.
state of mind at the time of these events or when writing the dialogue.
It may well be that the view I am defending here is too much at
variance with what Socrates represents in other dialogues to be
persuasive as an empirical claim about his actual thought. That
empirical claim is not the point of this essay. The point, rather, is
an aesthetic/moral one: what is the best possible case one can make
for the position advanced in the Critol What interpretation, if any,
preserves the maximum amount of the text (counts less of the text
as a "mistake"), while still remaining sufficiently plausible to have
some appeal to modern views about the duty to obey the law?43 Of

course if modern views begin with the assumption that no plausible
theory can establish a nearly universal duty to obey the law, much
of the Crito must inevitably be counted a mistake, and that is the
dominant attitude of the contemporary scholarship. If, however, one
takes seriously Socrates' apparent claim in the Crito, then the problem
of constructing a plausible political theory to support that claim,
while still remaining maximally consistent with the text, must lead,
I suspect, to something like the present effort.
But is the present suggestion plausible? Is there more appeal to
the theory that friends and States can create prima facie moral duties,
despite erroneous moral conclusions, than theories based on consent,
fair play, and straightforward consequential arguments?
Support for an affirmative answer, at least in the case of close
relationships, is easy to find in ordinary experience as well as moral
philosophy. The fact that people consistently give special attention
to loved ones despite the greater utility that can arguably be realized
by sharing wealth with strangers has enough persistence to cause
utilitarians to go to some lengths to reconcile that settled practice
with their moral theory. (By attending to the needs of those closest,
I am more likely to maximize utility in the long run than by
dissipating energy among all claimants, etc.) Of course, this particular
problem, as it is usually rehearsed in debates between utilitarians and
Kantians, involves the question of whether one who chooses to favor
loved ones commits moral error in a world where strangers might
43. As will be evident, I do not attempt in this essay to reconcile the Crito with
the Apology, or to compare the views of Socrates in other dialogues with the
interpretation offered here. My interest is in the Crito alone and the interpretation
most consistent with that dialogue's general claim about the obligation to obey the
law. Thus, though I attempt a substantive defense of the interpretation in terms
that I believe to be mostly consistent with Socratic principles, I do not offer the
defense as an exegesis of Socratic philosophy. To do so would require a far more
extensive examination of other aspects of his life and thought.
PHILIP SOPER 127
benefit more from the same attention. The current suggestion assigns
an even stronger role to friends: it is not just permissible to favor
loved ones; it is prima facie wrong not to take into account (and to
act on, if no greater countervailing duties exist) the convictions of
those in certain cases of close relationships (henceforth
"friendships"44).
Examples used to test the plausibility of this hypothesis must be
chosen with some care. I am not suggesting that one has a duty to
follow a friend's advice, contrary to one's own opinion, just in order
to please the friend. Going along with advice one thinks wrong just

in order to please a friend is, no doubt, a double insult rather than
a requirement of friendship.45 But that is not the present case. Crito
is doing far more than just advising. He cannot, like the State, issue
a "command" to Socratesnot because he doesn't have the power
to enforce it, but because friendship is not that kind of relationship.
But Crito has "convictions" about what Socrates should do that
make clear that his own interests are intricately connected with
Socrates' decision in a way that is not true of one who is merely
giving disinterested advice.
I suspect that with the right examples in mind, it will be easy to
acceptand to explainthe hypothesis I have in mind. If caring
spouses differ over serious mattersranging from child-rearing issues,
to questions of family planning, to more routine problems of equity
in allocating daily tasksone thing that counts in deciding what to
do is the intensity and conviction of one's spouse in comparison to
the strength of one's own convictions. In such cases, there is, of
course, an easy, consequential explanation for why the opinions of
others count. The "right" action requires sensitivity to context; in
addition to the values implicated by the action one takes, there is
another value to considerthat of the relationship itself. Compromise,
even to the point of acting against one's own view of the matter,
may be the "best" thing to do in light of the resulting effect on the
larger value represented by the relationship, with the question of
who is to yield determined by some fair method or by rough estimates
of comparative strength of feeling.
44. I use the term "friendship" to designate the kind of relationship I have in
mind, recognizing that the term is wide enough to include relationships that are
probably too weak to generate the moral duty under discussion. Close, intimate
relationships are, no doubt, the best candidates for testing intuitions about the
hypothesis under discussion.
45. See Raz, "Authority and Justification," 14 Phil, and Pub. Affairs (1985),
pp. 7, 19; Raz, The Morality of Freedom (1988), pp. 35-37.
All of this is familiar enough, I assume, at least in the context of
friendships, to give content and plausibility to the notion that opinions
should and do sometimes count in deciding what to do. What about
the commands of the State? The consequential argument just offered
in the case of friends is not so clearly available here: there is no
"personal" relationship that may suffer if, disagreeing with the
State's judgment about the law, I refuse to obey. That is why
consequential arguments seem to most people unable to ground the
obligation to obey: if the law commands an unjust act, no larger
value seems at risk if I choose to disobey. The legal system, which

I may in general value, will not collapse, and no persons will "care"
in the way that might require compromise in order to preserve the
larger values of a personal relationship.
These disanalogies between States and friends indicate that a full
explanation of the political theory is likely to be different from the
simple "consequential" argument in the case of friends. Note,
however, that the State, unlike the friend, is in the position of issuing
commands. It does not just express its strong convictions that I obey
the law; it claims the right to enforce its view of the action to take
regardless of dissenting opinions. If this claim about the State's right
to decide46 can be rationally supported, then it is easy to see why
many have thought that there is a connection between the concepts
of political obligation and "legitimate authority."47
In the centuries since the Crito, political theory may not have
made arguments from consent, fair play, and consequentialism much
more appealing as bases for grounding the obligation to obey the
law. But political theory has by and large shown that there is no
alternative to giving the State the relative monopoly on force that
underlies its claimed right to decide. If I acknowledge this much
authority of the State, then obeying the law may be an example of
the same type of respect for the necessity of compromise that one
recognizes in friendshipin this case the necessity of allowing a
single voice to determine how State power shall be used in pursuit
of justice where people disagree about the content of justice.48 The
46. For a fuller discussion of the State's "right to decide," see Soper, "Law's
Normative Claims," in The Autonomy of Law (R. George, ed. 1996), p. 215.
47. See H. Arendt, On Violence (1970), pp. 44-45.
48. Analogies between friends and the duty to obey the law are also to be found
in contemporary discussions. See Raz, The Authority of Law (1979), pp. 253-61
(rejecting a duty to obey law, but endorsing a right to respect law in an analogy to
friendship); R. Dworkin, Law's Empire (1986), pp. 195-206 (developing an argument
for the obligation to obey law as a species of "associative" obligation, akin to the
obligations that arise in close relationships based on mutual respect).
PHILIP SOPER 129
duty to obey results, not from considering the "consequences of
disobedience" on the existence of the State or on my relationship
with identified officials, but from the fact that I acknowledge that
the State has no choice but to issue enforceable directives (not just
advice) with respect to action it believes to be just.
I shall not attempt further substantive defense in this essay of the
political theory implicit in the current interpretation.49 For present
purposes it may be enough to suggest why one need not be distressed
at an interpretation that suggests that even Socrates, the spokesman
for reason and objective truth in moral thought, might have been

able to accept that the practical business of living with friends and
within the law requires at least some qualification of the absolutist's
position.
First, note that the exception for doing what is right is narrow
only friends (intimates) and the Law may be able to affect the
decision otherwise to follow one's own lights, regardless of the
opinions of others.
Second, it is critical to remember that the decision to respect the
opinion of others even in these cases follows a good faith effort, by
the friend, by the State, to reach the correct result. We are not
embarked on an enterprise completely at odds with Socrates' insistence
that reason can guide moral inquiry. Quite the contrary. It is the
assumption that reason can distinguish truth from error, appearance
from reality, opinion from fact that characterizes the good faith
attempt to find answers to difficult moral questions in the case of
both friends and the State. The duty to respect the convictions of
others is not a response to the emotional appeal of friendship or the
power of the State to punish; it is a response to the commitment to
a shared search for truth that typifies most of the Socratic dialogues.
The only qualification to Socrates' absolutism that results arises out
of the practical observation that action must sometimes precede final
judgment about who is right in cases of honest disagreement over
difficult moral questions.
Finally, the universal duty to obey that this interpretation of the
Crito supports remains only prima facie. In egregious cases of moral
error, the duty to the State must be weighed against the duty to do
what is right. That too is arguably consistent with Socratic doctrine50
49. For additional discussion, see "The Moral Value of Law"; Soper, A Theory
of Law (1984).
50. The classic example, in the Republic, is Socrates' claim that it is right to
break a promise to return a weapon where the owner, who asks for its return, has
and with the present interpretation of the Crito: what Socrates
endorses is a universal duty to obey the law that is, however, not
absolute in force. In the Crito, as it turns out, the only countervailing
duty Socrates has (having persuaded Crito to give up his claim from
friendship) is mainly to preserve his own life and that duty, if it is
one, is not outweighed by the duty to obey.51
V. A FINAL PROBLEM: SOCRATES' MOTIVATION
I have described one of the admitted gaps in the interpretation I

am offering: much still needs to be said about why it is that close
friends and States are in the position of being able to affect correct
moral action, despite unjust laws and erroneous opinions. But I shall
leave this gap in the argument for now. If the current interpretation
is plausible, it is clear that the rest of the argument must be filled
in, rather than extracted from the Crito. This gap, in short, is an
inevitable consequence of the view taken here that Socrates is
illustrating, rather than expounding, a political theory.
If, however, we explain the existence of the above gap as due to
Socrates' illustrating, rather than explaining, we are left with another
gap involving, once again, Socrates' motivation. Why might Socrates
leave Critoand readersto discover the theory suggested here rather
than announce it directly? Why doesn't he explain to Crito that he
and the State both have the power to affect Socrates' moral duties
by their sincere, if erroneous, beliefs?
There is, I believe, an answer to this question that actually helps
reenforce the present interpretation. Of course, one might suggest
that Socrates, who has just reiterated in his opening response to
Crito his well-known moral absolutism, would fear being
misunderstood if he now tried to explain and defend what appear to
be exceptions to that doctrine for friends and the State.52 But this
explanation is little different from the previous, unappealing one.
Socrates is not afraid that he will be misunderstood; rather, it is part
since gone mad. Republic 331c. One interpretation of this passage is that the duty
to keep a promise, though universal in scope, is not so strong as to outweigh other
duties on appropriate occasions. The Crito can be viewed as making the same claim
for law: duties created by law are universal in scope, though not absolute in weight.
51. See Dyson, "The Structure of the Laws Speech in Plato's Crito," 28 Classical
Q. (1978), pp. 427-36.
52. There is no ultimate inconsistency, of course. Socrates would still be de-
fending as objectively "right" (supported by the reasons hinted at in the preceding
section) the view that sometimes the opinions of others count in determining what
one should do.
PHILIP SOPER 131
of his theory that the truth here is best illustrated, rather than
announced, for a very simple reason. If one is told that what counts
is sincere opinion, there is a danger that one stops thinking about
the merits of the issue and simply announces one's opinion. That
danger is particularly apparent in the case of the State. The political
theory that gives the State the power to create moral obligations to
obey even unjust laws depends on the State trying to enact just
lawsand believing that it has succeeded. The surest sign of bad
faith in this context involves leaping over the difficult question of
content directly to the conclusion supported by the political theory:

since content does not matter, anything the State says creates a duty
to obey. Thus fiat, not reason, determines moral duty.
Fiat does determine moral duty, but only after reasoned argument
has failed to produce agreement. The interpretation under
consideration does not displace the belief that there are objective
values, accessible to reason; on the contrary, it requires faith in that
process and good faith efforts to determine what is right.
It is always tricky business to suggest that, in the end, faulty
content may be compensated for by process. Parallels may be found
in other areas of the law. Even if we think that jury nullification is
a good thing, it may be that we do not want to advise juries that it
is available. Or even if we think that mitigation should be available
if homicide is committed under duress, we may be uncertain about
the effect on the calculations of potential criminals if we make that
defense generally known.53 Socrates is in a similar position. The best
way to explain that he might have to follow Crito's convictions, if
he can't persuade him, and the best way to illustrate that what counts
is that the Laws' convictions are sincere, rather than right, is not to
cloud the issue of sincerity by calling attention to the theory. Sincerity
requires belief in the correctness of the conclusion; the political
theory being illustrated makes the correctness of the conclusion
irrelevant to the resulting duty. Though one can try to explain all of
this (as I am here), one can easily sympathize with the decision that
the best way to make the point is to illustrate it. To do so is not so
much an act of condescension as it is a case of emphasizing, through
indirection, the importance of sincerity in the debate about value.
VI. CONCLUSION
The Crito is a drama, a drama of far more powerful effect than
one is likely to realize if it is treated simply as a "mini-treatise on
53. See generally Meir Dan-Cohen, "Decision Rules and Conduct Rules: On
Acoustic Separation in Criminal Law," 97 Harv. L. Rev. (1984), p. 625.
legal obligation."54 Part of that drama lies in seeing that the political
theory works best when illustrated, rather than openly acknowledged
and discussed. Whether the theory is in the end persuasive will, of
course, depend on considerable further discussion, far more than one
can find in the Crito alone. But that, too, is characteristic of the
Platonic corpus: no one has suggested that Socrates' thought put an
end to philosophy, though some have suggested that it provides the
text, along with Aristotle, to which all subsequent philosophy is a
footnote. In the present case, the footnote that would complete the
argument would have to be considerably longer than the text itself,

but, if successful, it would at least have the advantage of preserving
as much of the sense of the Crito as possible, while at the same time
reducing the distance between modern and classical views about the
moral value of the law.
54. "Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito," p. 87.

Another Look at The Crito

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Another Look at The Crito

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ANOTHER LOOK AT THE CRITO

A. THE PUZZLE OF THE Crito

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1. For two, widely cited contemporary discussions of the obligation to obey

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1. THE PRUDENTIAL EXPLANATION

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2. DlSTINGUISfflNG THE PARTICULAR FROM THE GENERAL

A second strategy for limiting the scope of the duty to obey in

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8. Compare Hume, "Of the Original Contract," in David Hume's Political

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4. INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN THE CRITO

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18. Of this interpretation, Woozley comments that:

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Despite their differences, all of the preceding examples are alike

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III. USE AND MISUSE OF THE RHETORICAL INTERPRETATION

A. SUPPORT FOR THE RHETORICAL INTERPRETATION

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28. "Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience," p. 519; quoted in

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B. MISUSE OF THE RHETORICAL INTERPRETATION

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32. "Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito," p. 104.

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34. This point is made with considerable force in R. McLaughlin, "Socrates on

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36. This conclusion is explicitly embraced by one commentator who actually

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I begin again with stylistic or textual evidence for the possibility

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39. For an intriguing discussion of the relevance of the dream to an interpretation

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view of what is right if he cannot persuade Crito. Friends are in the

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suggesting that Crito is in a grief-induced trance. Rather, he is emphasizing that

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V. A FINAL PROBLEM: SOCRATES' MOTIVATION

I have described one of the admitted gaps in the interpretation I

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54. "Obedience to the Law in Plato's Crito," p. 87.

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