draft of 10-12-04
PHIL 100: Socrates and Plato
Fall 2004; David O. Brink; UCSD
Handout #6: Democracy and Disobedience in the Crito

The Laws demand obedience even on the assumption that Socrates's conviction and punishment are unjust (Ap 30d4; Cri 54b7-9).  Does Socrates's account of his own political obligation imply that everyone has an obligation to comply with any law his state issues no matter how unjust or burdensome?  An authoritarian account of political obligation would apparently be inconsistent with the selective disobedience endorsed in the Apology.  In deciding what to do one should not take risk of death into account but must "look to this only in one's actions, whether what one does is right or wrong" (28b7-9).  So if the state commands me to do something that is wrong, I would be right to disobey, even if this means punishment or death.  Socrates applies this principle when he refuses to comply with the command of the Thirty, which he regards as unjust, that he produce Leon of Salamis for execution (32c5-e1) and at his trial when he contemplates the possibility that he might be acquitted on the condition that he not practice philosophy, he replies that he would then obey the gods, rather than the jury's verdict (29c6-d4).  There seem to be three main strategies for a less authoritative reading.

  1. The Grounds and Scope of Obligation.  Socrates might argue that the ground of political obligation is such that even if he satisfies the relevant conditions in the present case, this does not imply that everyone, or even he, is always obligated to obey every law.  If so, the scope of his account of political obligation will be limited, not perfectly general.
  2. The Content of Obligation.  Even if the scope of Socrates's account of obligation is quite wide, the account will be authoritarian only if its content is simple obedience.  But, at several points, the Laws indicate that they offer him a choice to persuade or obey (51b3-c1, 51e8-52a4).  If persuasion is another way of fulfilling one's political obligation, besides obedience, then Socrates's account of political obligation may not be so authoritarian.
  3. The Weight of Obligation.  Even if Socrates recognizes a general obligation to obey, we need to know something more about the weight of this obligation.  Is the duty an all-things-considered obligation, or is it simply a prima facie obligation that may be overridden by other moral considerations?  If Socrates justifies only a prima facie obligation, then his resulting account of obligation need not be authoritarian.
GROUNDS I: AGREEMENT
At several points, socrates or the Laws claim that Socrates has an agreement with the state that creates an obligation to the state (49e5-6, 50c2-3, 51d2-e2, 51e8, 52a7-53a6).  What sort of agreement is in question?  Is mere residence a sign of agreement (51de)?  This would be tacit, rather than express, consent.  Does this overlook the real costs of emigration?  The Laws appeal to Socrates's citizenship (51d2-3), not mere residency, and this involves Socrates's express consent in the dokimasia (a ritual of democratic citizenship).  Nor does consent in the distant past appear sufficient.  They supplement past express consent with appeal to continued satisfaction and consent.  Socrates has lived in Athens for seventy years without emigrating or even traveling (52e2-4).  Even though he admired the constitutions of Sparta and Crete, Socrates never traveled to any other city, Greek or foreign, except during his military service (52b1-c1, 52e4-53a7).  Socrates apparently thought well enough of Athens to raise his children there (52c2).  And when presented with an opportunity at his sentencing to choose exile, he chose death in preference to exile (52c3-7).  How is this sort of satisfaction evidence of consent?

GROUNDS II: FILIAL GRATITUDE
The Laws also ascribe a filial duty to Socrates (50d-51c).   Is the parent-state analogy merely appealing to a duty of gratitude?  Do I have a duty of gratitude for benefits per se, even if I did not seek the benefits?  Presumably, the parent-state analogy appeals to a special benefactor-beneficiary relationship.  Both good parents and a good state provide significant formative benefits that make it possible to lead a full life, and both involve an ongoing benefactor-beneficiary relationship in which the beneficiary comes to rely on and demand its benefits and to criticize failures to provide these benefits.  This might explain why the Laws link the gratitude and agreement arguments.

THE CONTENT OF THE OBLIGATION: PERSUADE OR OBEY
It's common to suppose that the content of political obligation is simple obedience, but that assumption is not mandatory, as reflection on both contractual and filial duties shows.  Normally, contracts specify the duties of contractors.  What duty is required by an agreement with the state?  Nor is it clear that one owes one's parent unconditional obedience no matter how inappropriate her demands.  Perhaps what one owes one's parent is obedience or some account of one's disobedience.  The Laws do not demand simple obedience; they require Socrates to persuade or obey (52a1-3).  There are two important questions in understanding the persuade or obey doctrine (POD).

For instance, is it sufficient to attempt persuasion, or must the persuasion be successful?  An unjustified attempt would be too easy to discharge.  But a successful attempt may be too much to require if the state is as unreasonable when it listens to the dissident's account as it is in its initial demands.  Moreover, successful persuasion would presumably result in the state changing its demands, but then persuasion ceases to be a real alternative to obedience.  Perhaps we should understand POD so that it demands that citizens obey or provide a justified account of their disobedience.

If we allow justified but unsuccessful dissent to count as persuasion, then POD appears to allow one to act contrary to the state's wishes and without its consent.  The Laws contrast persuasion with force (51c1-2) and insist that it would be wrong for Socrates to use force against Athens by acting against its wishes without its consent (52c5-6).  But if Socrates escapes without having successfully persuaded, then it seems he will act without the city's consent and, hence, with impermissible use of force; apparently, only successful persuasion before escape will allow Socrates to act with the city's consent.   But this line of argument begs the question about what counts as persuasion.  For if the Laws demand that Socrates persuade or obey -- where persuasion consists in providing a justified but not necessarily successful account -- then Socrates does not act without their consent even when his persuasion is unsuccessful, provided that he offers a justified account.

Consider the parental analogy.  I make both first-order and second-order requests of my sons.  My first-order requests are that they act in certain ways in certain circumstances; my second-order request is that they take my first-order requests very seriously, that they depart from them only for good reason, and that they explain these reasons to me when they fail to comply with my first-order requests.  My second-order request does not stipulate that I must accept his explanation as supplying good reasons.  It's clear that my second-order request is controlling.  My son acts without my consent if he fails to comply with my first-order request and does not bother to explain his reasons to me.  But if he fails to comply with my first-order request for good reason and explains these reasons to me, then he has complied with my more fundamental second-order request; his failure to comply with my first-order request, therefore, does not mean that he has acted without my consent.

Hasn't Socrates already given a justified account of how the state acts unreasonably, at his trial in the Apology?  If so, this must be the wrong interpretation of what counts as persuasion, for the Laws imply that Socrates has not persuaded (51e9, 52a3-4).  Though it is agreed that Socrates's sentence and punishment are unjust, it is arguable that Socrates has not publicly expressed dissatisfaction with, or attempted to justify disobedience of, the law which he would be disobeying if he escaped, viz. his sentence.  For though he did contest the charges against him, he did not contest his punishment; indeed, he turned down an obvious opportunity to draw a much lighter punishment and suggested that the jury reward him with free meals in the Prytaneum (52c3-7, Ap 36d1 38b9).

Another important question for the interpretation of the POD is

The main question here is whether persuasion must be prospective or whether it could be retrospective.  Because the Laws seem now to demand obedience, we might suppose that persuasion must be prospective.  However, the Laws may simply be noting that Socrates has not yet persuaded, that it would be wrong for him to escape without persuading, and that given that he has no plans to persuade, he should obey (51c6-8).  Indeed, if persuade is to be a realistic option, we may want to allow it to be retroactive.  For an unsuccessful but justified attempt to persuade before the fact would tip Socrates's hand and alert the state to take special measures to prevent disobedience (e.g. escape into exile), even though the disobedience would, by hypothesis, be justified.  If so, retroactive persuasion may be acceptable, provided, of course, that the account given is justified.

Depending on how we answer these questions about the POD, that doctrine appears to make the Socratic account of political obligation less authoritarian than might first appear.

WEIGHT
A less authoritarian reading results if the Laws argue only for a prima facie, rather than an all-things-considered, obligation.  The account of political obligation concerns an all-things-considered obligation if it settles how an agent should behave.  If other considerations, beyond the obligation to obey, are required to establish that on-balance an agent ought to obey, then the obligation to obey is only prima facie.

Socrates thinks that he should never act wrongly (49ab); this is compatible with eudaimonism, because he thinks the good life is the just life (48b).  He concludes that the only issue that he needs to decide is whether or not it would be just or right to escape (48d1-4).  The argument of the Laws implies that it would not be just to escape.  This supports the all-things-considered reading of political obligation.

However, the Laws do go on to argue that escape would do no one any good (53a-54b).  If this is an independent and indispensable argument, then the case for a political obligation must be only prima facie.  But it is neither independent or indispensable.  It is not indispensable; it is an ad hominem argument directed against Crito's consequential arguments for escape (cf. 45b-46a).  It is not independent; the fact that no good would come of escape can and should be read as being merely consequential on the injustice of escape (48b, 48d, 54bc).

SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY
Someone might press certain theoretical objections against democracy, at least as part of ideal theory, yet think that democratic institutions are appropriate in non-ideal circumstances and have no desire to replace an actual democratic regime with a non-democratic one.  This may be Plato's view.  Is it also Socrates's?

Socrates thinks that the majority not only act immorally but punish those who try to stop them and offers this as a reason he has not been active in Athenian politics (Ap 31c4-32a3).  He also thinks that the many have false beliefs, especially about the virtues, and that we should therefore not value their opinions but listen instead to knowledgeable experts (Cri 47a1-48a8, La 184d1-185a7).  Indeed, this is an aspect of democratic decision-making and education about which he is skeptical.  Athenians let everyone speak and vote at the Assembly, rather than appealing to experts (Pr 319b4-e1) and they entrust the care of their children's moral development to conventional wisdom and biological parents, rather than those especially distinguished by their moral knowledge (Pr 319e1-320b4; La 184d1-185a7).  The craft analogy also reinforces Socrates's belief that moral knowledge would be held by a select group of experts (Ap 28b, Cri 47c8-d5, La 184d-185a).  This might seem to be a commitment to the desirability of aristocratic rule, provided the rulers were genuine moral experts.  We might not be reassured by the greater knowledge of moral experts, if we believe that they might not choose to use this knowledge.  But, because Socrates believes that moral knowledge would be sufficient for virtuous action, he should argue that genuine moral experts, if they could be found, could be counted on to rule well.

Despite this concern with moral expertise, there is something very democratic or egalitarian about Socratic method and the role of the elenchus in a good life.  Though Socrates may set special store in the value of elenctic inquiry with distinguished interlocutors, such as Protagoras (Pr 348d8-e2) or Gorgias, or clever and brash interlocutors, such as Callicles (G 486d1-487e7) or Thrasymachus, he practices elenctic inquiry about the virtues with ordinary Athenians (Ap 29d1-30b3, 30e1-8, 36c1-d1, 41e1-42a2).  In these inquiries he cares only about the argument with his interlocutor and about his sincere agreement (Ch 163e5; Pr 331c5-6, 359d1; G 472c6-d2, 474a6-8, 475e7-476a3, 495a7-8).  Participation in such discussions is not only open to all; it is the greatest good for each (38a2-6).  If so, it's essential to each person's happiness to engage in dialectical inquiry about moral and political matters, even when others are more knowledgeable than he is.  But then it looks as if Socrates has good reason to advocate democratic governance, as only democratic governance involves each citizen in a public debate about moral and political matters.  Moreover, the Crito implies that he is better satisfied with Athenian democracy than other constitutions that were available to him.  Surely part of his reason for liking Athens so well is its system of democratic liberties that made his own dialectical inquiries possible (cf. G 461e1-3 and M 80b4-7).  Democratic freedoms of speech and association are necessary conditions of the right sort of dialectical inquiry that Socrates takes to be the greatest good, and democratic deliberation and decision-making are actually part of this good.

If democratic participation is intrinsically good, then we cannot square Socrates's attitudes toward democracy, as some want to, by saying that he accepts aristocracy as the ideal form of government in those (counterfactual) circumstances in which experts in virtue are available, but accepts democracy as the best feasible alternative.  He has some reasons to regard democracy as the best ideal government, because democratic discussion and decision-making are constituents of the best life.  But this does not make Socrates's attitude toward democracy inconsistent, for it's not clear that his claims about moral experts require anti-democratic conclusions.  He claims that we should listen to and be guided by the advice of experts; he does not claim that we should be ruled over by them, against our will.  Though we rightly listen to experts on technical matters, Socrates does not suppose that the votes on technical matters should be cast only by experts.  Democratic citizens might assume a kind of political responsibility, in relation to moral experts, not unlike the sort of responsibility, assumed by young men and their parents in the early dialogues when they consult Socrates and others in their decisions about the right sort of training and education for young men's souls.