Crito And Socrates Death Punishment

Throughout the Crito, the discussion on whether Socrates’ should accept his death penalty and stay in jail occurs. During the discussion between Crito and Socrates, Socrates presents moral arguments for why he believes that he should remain in Athens. In this paper I will be evaluating Socrates’ arguments for staying in prison and accepting his death sentence. Through doing this, I will be demonstrating how his argument is sound, while still considering possible weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Living a just life is one of the basic principles that Socrates strives to define throughout his life. Every action that he commits he preforms out of pure goodness, regardless of what others believe. Socrates understands that there are “actions …show more content…
Socrates feels as if the city of Athens is comparable to a parent. Particularly, Socrates believes that the city has “given you birth, nurtured you, educated you” and has “given you and all other citizens a share of all the good things [they] could” (54). Thus, breaking the agreement with Athens has an equivalence to breaking an agreement with one’s parents. Throughout Crito and Socrates’ discussion, it is clear that Socrates believes that one should not harm one’s own parents. The belief in this principle and the constant pursuit for justice causes Socrates to consider breaking the agreement with Athens a reason to stay in jail and not flee into …show more content…
The main weakness that I see within Socrates’ argument is the fact that one cannot predict consequences. An individual will never know who will be directly, or even indirectly, affected by one’s actions. One of Socrates’ fears was that his consequences would negatively affect the citizens and government of Athens, but there is always an option that his actions could have a positive result. For example, if Socrates’ was able to escape and flee Athens, the city could increase their security and hire guards that cannot be bribed, which in the end would benefit the city and their citizens. This weakness could directly affect Socrates’ premise about destroying the laws of Athens. If someone were to challenge this, they could show how escaping could result in a positive outcome for Athens. By demonstrating how Socrates is not destroying the laws but finding holes in them, one could establish the result that the government would strengthen their laws to the benefit of their citizens. This is just one example of the challenges that one could pose against Socrates argument. If I had to predict how Socrates would respond to the challenge like the one above, or respond to it on his behalf, I would look at the aspect that you always have to be prepared for the worst. In a similar way to how Socrates responded to Crito’s argument about leaving family