Socrates

by William J Prior

  The Crito as an Atypical Elenctic Dialogue

  The Crito differs from other elenctic dialogues in that it does not deal with a theoretical question, such as the nature of temperance or piety, but with a practical one: should Socrates escape? This question is not an open-ended one, like the questions of definition we have considered. There are only two choices: Socrates should escape, or he should remain in prison. Here is one place where the elenchus can have a positive result: if one of the two alternatives is refuted, but the other is not, then the unrefuted alternative must be the correct choice. If the Crito is unusual in having this structure, it is also unusual in that Socrates does not play the role of the barren, ignorant inquirer. Rather, he plays the role of advocate, defending the view that he should remain in prison. Socrates does not, as he usually does in elenctic dialogues, profess his ignorance. He does not state that he is an expert on moral questions, but he tells Crito that one ought to listen to the expert and not to the many, and the principles that he puts forward on behalf of remaining in prison are his own. The Crito is an elenctic dialogue – the body of the dialogue is devoted to the elenctic examination of Crito's view that Socrates should escape – but it is not a typical one.

  Socrates’ Response to Crito

  Socrates believes that he should remain in prison and await execution. He begins his argument against Crito by commenting on Crito's zeal: it would be valuable if Crito were right, but it is only harmful if he is wrong. “Not only now but at all times I am the kind of man who listens to nothing within me but the argument that on reflection seems best to me,” Socrates says (46b).1 We ought not to listen to the opinions of the ignorant many, but only to those of the wise. In the case of physical training, the wise person is the trainer. Failing to listen to the trainer harms the body. In the case of

  … actions just and unjust, shameful and beautiful, good and bad, about which we are now deliberating, should we follow the opinion of the many and fear it, or that of the one, if there is one who has knowledge of these things and before whom we feel fear and shame more than before all the others. If we do not follow his directions, we shall harm and corrupt that part of ourselves that is improved by just actions and destroyed by unjust actions.

  (47c–d)

  Crito agrees that we ought to follow the advice of the wise person, if one exists. The part of us that is improved by just actions and destroyed by unjust actions, though Socrates does not mention it by name, is the soul, or perhaps the character of the person.

  Life is not worth living if one's body is “corrupted and in bad condition” (47e); likewise it is not worth living if the part of us that is concerned with just and unjust actions is corrupted. This part is more valuable than the body. The most important thing is not to live, but to live well. “And (to live) well is the same thing as to live admirably and justly” (48b; my translation). Here Socrates does not only endorse the ideal of the life that is kalos kagathos, admirable and good; he adds to ideals of the admirable and good the ideal of justice. The just life is the same as the admirable and good life. The admirable and good person is a just person. This triad of adverbs: to live well, admirably and justly, constitute Socrates’ account of the happy life. Eudaimonia is not a matter of wealth, reputation, or honors, but of goodness, admirability, and justice.

  The implication of this description is that if a just person has to die in order to avoid damaging his or her soul, then he or she should do so. We ought never to do wrong willingly, for that “is in every way harmful and shameful to the wrongdoer” (49b). This implies that we ought not to wrong or mistreat another, even in return for a wrong done to us: “one should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him,” to which Socrates adds, “and Crito, see that you do not agree to this, contrary to your belief. For I know that only a few people hold this view or will hold it, and there is no common ground between those who hold this view and those who do not, but they inevitably despise each other's views” (49c–d).2

  So far, Socrates has outlined a constructive account of an ethical theory. The aim of life is to live well, which is to live admirably and justly. The idea that the good life is the life of pleasure, the view put forward in the Protagoras, is not to be found here. Justice requires that one do no wrong. However pleasant it might be to wrong another person, that is absolutely forbidden by the Crito's ethical code. There is no calculation of the pleasure or pain produced by a particular action, only a determination that an action does, or does not, wrong or mistreat someone. Socrates rejects the traditional Greek idea, defended by Polemarchus in Republic I, that justice is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies. There is no indication in the text that these principles, which are attributed to the wise, are tentative or uncertain. Socrates has in the discussion been careful to get Crito's agreement each step of the way as he lays out his ethical principles. He states that these are principles he has long held, and which he will not abandon now that he is threatened with death. The impression given is that Socrates and Crito have discussed these principles in the past and that Crito has agreed with them. Socrates wants to persuade Crito that he, like himself, should not abandon these principles under his current circumstances.

  Socrates’ next step is to ask Crito whether one ought to fulfill one's just agreements, and Crito again agrees that one should. If he were to escape, then, would he be in violation of a just agreement? Would he be “mistreating people whom we should least mistreat?” (50a) Crito is unable to answer this question; he says he does not know. The remainder of the dialogue is concerned with the speech of the laws, who persuade Socrates and Crito that he has an obligation not to escape but to remain in prison and await execution. It is not my purpose here to examine that speech. (I examine the speech in the next chapter.) What is important for our present purposes is the ethical theory just presented. The theory, though only presented in outline, states what is necessary to live a good life. It characterizes the good life as the just life, and it argues that one ought not to perform unjust actions, as they harm the soul. The argument creates an analogy between a healthy life, achieved by following the trainer who has expert knowledge, and a just life, achieved by following the one who is wise concerning justice. Justice is a virtue because it enables one to live a life that is mentally healthy, a life that is not ruined by acts of injustice. The good life, the happy or eudaimōn life, is the mentally healthy life.

  Virtue and Happiness: The Gorgias

  If the first defense of the just life as the happy, eudaimōn life, occurs in the Crito, the second, much longer defense, occurs in the Gorgias. In the Crito Socrates makes his case before Crito, an old and dear friend, who has agreed in the past to Socrates’ principles. Crito does not contest the Socratic claim that the admirable and good life is the just life and that the just life is good because it is mentally healthy. What would happen, however, if those contentions were questioned? In the Gorgias we see Socrates’ answer to that question. Plato provides Socrates with two interlocutors, Polus and Callicles, who reject Socrates’ claims. They defend lives that are, on Socratic principles, unjust and therefore unhealthy. Callicles has a conception of justice that is quite different from and opposed to that of Socrates. The Gorgias is the greatest defense in the elenctic dialogues of the Socratic way of life, the pursuit of wisdom, truth, and the best state of the soul as opposed to wealth, reputation, and honors … and, most importantly, pleasure and power.

  Socrates and Gorgias on Rhetoric

  The setting of the Gorgias is the house of Callicles. The action occurs immediately following a speech, a rhetorical display, by Gorgias. The characters are Socrates and his associate Chaerephon, on the one side, and Gorgias, his student Polus, and Callicles, an aspiring Athenian politician, on the other. Callicles is otherwise unknown. Some have suspected that he is a Platonic invention. The opening conversation of the dialogue concerns the nature of rhetoric. What kind of a craft is it that Gorgias teaches? Gorgias tells
Socrates that he teaches people to speak well on “the greatest good,” (452d), which is the ability to persuade others in the law courts, council, and assembly. Socrates gets Gorgias to admit that this kind of persuasion does not involve knowledge, but only conviction. The orator persuades the ignorant, not the knowledgeable. Nor does the orator need to know the medical art to be able to persuade better than the doctor. Gorgias warns against the misuse of rhetoric, and claims that not he, but his students are to blame if they use it for unjust purposes. Gorgias admits to Socrates that he will teach his students justice, if they come to him not knowing what it is. Socrates then states that, since the just person will do just things, there is no point in Gorgias’ warning against the unjust use of rhetoric.

  Socrates and Polus

  At this point Polus breaks into the conversation. Gorgias, he says, was ashamed to admit that one of his students might not know “what's just, what's admirable, and what's good” (461b) and said that he would teach him, which led to an inconsistency, “just the thing that gives you delight” (461c). Polus challenges Socrates to explain what kind of a craft he thinks rhetoric is, and Socrates says it is no craft at all, but a “knack … for producing a certain gratification and pleasure” (462c). He compares it to pastry baking and calls it a form of flattery. A legitimate art cares for the good of its subject, whereas a “knack” cares only for pleasure. Polus is shocked by this treatment of rhetoric as a knack: doesn't Socrates believe that orators are held in high regard in the city? Don't they possess power? Socrates responds that they are held in no regard at all, and, if power is the ability to accomplish something good, as opposed to pleasant, they have no power. They do what they see fit to do, but not what they want. What they want – what everyone wants – is what is good. As people want to be healthy and have their bodies in good condition, so they want to be happy and have their souls in a similar state. Orators do what they see fit to do: they put people to death, exile them, and confiscate their property; but unless they know that these things are done for the sake of what is good, they are not doing what they want.

  Again, Polus is shocked. Wouldn't Socrates want the “power” to do what he sees fit? Socrates denies this: those who do what they see fit to do, but who are mistaken about whether it serves their good, are pitiable and miserable. If they put others to death unjustly, they do what is the worst thing they can do; doing injustice is worse than suffering it. Even a child could refute this, claims Polus. Consider Archelaus, the tyrant of Macedonia. He committed “the most heinous crimes” (471a) to become ruler, but now he is happy. You are trying to refute me rhetorically, replies Socrates. You offer witnesses in favor of your view, but “if I don't produce you as a single witness to agree with what I'm saying, then I suppose I've achieved nothing worth mentioning” (472b). The view on which they differ is whether one can be unjust but happy: Polus affirms that one can, and Socrates denies it. Moreover, Socrates holds that the person who is punished for unjust acts is better off than the one who escapes punishment, which Polus regards as laughable.

  The Refutation of Polus

  Polus is surely right to claim that his view is that held by almost everyone but Socrates. How does Socrates argue that he is mistaken? First of all, he gets Polus to admit that, while suffering injustice is worse than doing it, doing injustice is more shameful. Polus accepts a distinction between the pair “admirable” and “good,” on the one hand, and “shameful” and “bad” on the other. If something is admirable, it must be either because it is pleasant or because it is useful (beneficial), and if something is shameful it must be so either because it is painful or bad. If acting unjustly is more shameful than suffering injustice, it must be either more painful or worse. It isn't more painful (to the agent, that is; it might be more painful to the recipient of injustice), so it must be worse. Acting unjustly, therefore, is both more shameful and worse than acting justly. “Submit yourself nobly to the argument, as you would to a doctor,” Socrates tells Polus (475d). Polus agrees that “on this reasoning, anyhow,” no one would prefer acting unjustly to suffering unjustly (475e).

  Socrates now moves on to his second point, that for one who acts unjustly, not paying what is due (“getting away with” injustice, we might say) is a worse outcome than paying the just penalty. Justice involves being disciplined, punished, by someone. If the punishment is just, it is admirable. If it is admirable, it is either pleasant or beneficial. Being punished is not pleasant, so it must be beneficial, and thus good. This means that the soul which is punished justly is benefited, improved, and the person who is punished “gets rid of something bad in his soul” (477a). Socrates mentions three bad conditions of a human being: poverty, which affects one's financial condition; “weakness, disease, ugliness and the like” (477b), which affect one's body; and “injustice, ignorance, cowardice and the like” (in other words, vice), which affect one's soul. Corruption of the soul is the most shameful, and therefore the worst, of the three. (The argument here recalls Socrates’ claims in the Crito that life is not worth living with a body that is ruined by illness or with a soul that is ruined by injustice, and that damage to one's soul is worse than damage to one's body.) It must therefore be more painful or more harmful than poverty or disease. It is not more painful; therefore it must be more harmful, and therefore “injustice, then, lack of discipline and all other forms of corruption of soul are the worst thing there is” (477e). Financial management gets rid of poverty, medicine gets rid of disease and justice gets rid of injustice. As injustice is the worst, most harmful condition one can have, justice is the most admirable of the three. Again, this means that it must be most pleasant or beneficial; but being punished is not pleasant; therefore, it must be most beneficial. The happiest person is not the person who gets rid of something bad but someone who does not have that condition in the first place. The second-best person is the one who gets rid of it; the least happy person is the one who retains it. This is the condition of the tyrant, such as Archelaus. The person who is unjust and who does not submit to just punishment is like the person who is ill and does not submit to a painful but beneficial medical procedure.

  Socrates now sums up the argument: Polus had argued that someone like Archelaus, who was unjust without paying the penalty for it, was happy, whereas Socrates had denied this. He had held that to be unjust was worse than to suffer injustice, and that to escape punishment was worse than to be justly punished. Hasn't the argument proved Socrates correct? Polus answers, “apparently” (479e). Rhetoric would have a good use if it were used in the service of justice, not in the service of injustice. Now Polus, who has been going along with Socrates’ argument, balks: “I think these statements are absurd, Socrates,” he states, “though no doubt you think they agree with those expressed earlier” (480e). Socrates, having responded to Polus that we must either abandon our earlier statements or accept their conclusion, now puts the icing on the cake: if we help ourselves and our friends and relations by seeing to it that we and they are brought to justice, we harm our enemies by seeing that they elude punishment, and so live as long as possible in corruption.

  Critique of the Argument against Polus

  The argument with Polus has been criticized.3 It would seem that Polus dooms himself at the very start, when he admits that something may be admirable (kalon) in one of only two ways: by being pleasant or by being good (beneficial), and shameful by being painful or bad. By admitting that injustice is more shameful than justice he is forced to admit that it is worse. But this association between what is admirable and what is good and between what is shameful and what is bad would have seemed unproblematic for his Greek audience. Though the argument is complex, the Socratic points that underlie it are simple: the good condition of the soul is virtue – justice, courage, self-control, wisdom – and the bad condition of the soul is vice, including injustice. Virtue is the source of the health of the soul, and vice the source of its unhealthy, diseased condition. A healthy soul is a happy one, while a diseased sou
l is unhappy. As no one wishes to be unhappy, no one can wish, rationally, to be unjust. Injustice must be the result of ignorance about what is just or unjust. Virtue is knowledge, but in this case it is not knowledge of what is most pleasant, as it was in the Protagoras, but knowledge of what the healthy condition of the soul is. By noting that what is admirable may be either what is pleasant or what is good Socrates makes it clear, for purposes of this argument, at least, that the good life is not necessarily the most pleasant life. His argument relies on his rejection of hedonism as an account of the good. This argument, with its association between eudaimonia and the health of the soul recalls the analogy in the Crito between the health of the body and the health of the soul. This analogy will be important also in the final argument of the Gorgias, that against Callicles. As Polus’ response to Socrates at 480e indicates, he is not convinced by Socrates’ argument. No doubt he, like Meno at Meno 80a–b, feels that he has been tricked somehow by Socrates, though he can't say exactly how. If the elenchus aims at convincing Socrates’ interlocutor that Socrates’ view is correct, by enlisting the interlocutor as a witness on Socrates’ behalf, this elenchus is a failure.

  Callicles

  At this point the third interlocutor, Callicles, enters the argument. As in Republic I, which it resembles in this respect, the three interlocutors exhibit increasing hostility toward Socrates and his line of argument. Gorgias is shocked by Socrates’ disparagement of rhet­oric, but he is interested in what Socrates has to say, and he encourages Callicles to continue his discussion with Socrates when Callicles wants to quit. Gorgias is not a proponent of injustice; he is not happy with the idea that rhetoric might be used for unjust ends. Polus, on the other hand, is. Polus is an advocate of injustice as a means to happiness, and he does not accept Socrates’ argument to the contrary. Polus is an immoralist, an advocate of immorality as a means to happiness. The same is often said of Callicles. It seems, however, that Callicles has a morality, an ethics, but one which is different from both convention and Socrates’ view. As noted above, we do not know anything about Callicles apart from what this dialogue tells us. He is described as a politician, and a democratic one: Socrates says he loves the dēmos, the Athenian people, and cannot contradict what they say. He shifts back and forth, whenever the people change their minds. Socrates says that he, on the other hand, is a lover of philosophy, which always says the same things.