Socrates's loyalty to athens

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Recommended: Athens Political Life

In “Crito,” Socrates’s loyalty to Athens is the determining principle that leads him to face the jury’s sentencing instead of taking the chance to escape from execution. But why is Socrates loyal to what he believes to be a corrupt society? While in his prison cell, Socrates’s loyalty to Athens is tested by his good friend, Crito. Crito puts forth the effort to provide Socrates with an argument as to why he should escape his death. Socrates makes a counter argument as to why he should stay and abide by his sentencing. Socrates poorly argues that he should abide by the sentencing of the Athenian jury because of his distaste for injustice, his happiness with Athens, and an agreement made at the voting age with the Law.
Socrates claims that just acts contribute to the health of the soul, while unjust acts contribute to the corruption of the soul (Plato 50). Injustice should never be committed since a life with a corrupted soul is not worth living (Plato 50). Therefore, you should never act with injustice, not even for revenge (Plato 52). Ethics should be obtained at all times. Once this is proven with Crito, Socrates brings attention to the Laws and Commonwealth of Athens. The Laws put forth arguments for the assertion that Socrates would be committing an injustice if he were to escape his sentencing. The first argument states that a citizen has an obligation to his or her state; this obligation should be stronger than that of a child’s obligation to his or her parent. Athens acts as a parent to its citizens by nurturing and educating them. Since the city of Athens has given Socrates many benefits, he feels as though he has an obligation to his city. Socrates does not want to reap the benefits, without providing his loyalty to Athen...

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...isleading and confusing. There is also a problem with his argument involving the agreement. If one agrees go the statement of the social contract as told by Socrates, there’s still room to question the other side of the contract. Along with citizens having obligations to the law, the law also has obligations to the citizens. The agreement is broken if the obligations are not met by the law. And if the agreement is broken by one side, isn’t the other side then free from its obligations to sustain its side of the agreement? Consequently innocent Socrates is free to escape an injustice, if that’s his choice to. It’s as if Socrates didn’t take into consideration the other side of the agreement; his loyalty to Athens blinded the other side. His loyalty to his city and the jury is to be admired; however, his arguments are not well put together, and rather hard to accept.

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