What the Laws Would Say

Socrates does something unusual here. He imagines the Laws of Athens speaking to him as a kind of voice, arguing their case. This is one of the most powerful passages in all of Western philosophy. The Laws make an argument about obligation, gratitude, and what it means to be a citizen.

“Let me try something,” Socrates said. “Imagine the Laws of Athens themselves walked in right now and stood in front of us. What do you think they would say?”

He paused, then began to speak as though he were the Laws.

“Socrates, what are you doing? By escaping, you are trying to destroy us. You are saying that a court verdict means nothing if you personally disagree with it. Do you imagine a state can survive if individuals set aside its decisions whenever they feel they are right?”

“But it was an unjust verdict,” Crito said.

“Let the Laws continue,” Socrates said. “They would say: Did we not give you seventy years of life in this city? Did you not raise your children here, build your friendships here, live your whole life under our protection? In all those years, did you ever leave? Did you ever say our laws were unjust and find somewhere better? You had the freedom to go. You stayed. By staying, you agreed to abide by our decisions, including this one.”

“That is true,” Crito admitted.

“And now, the one time we ask something hard of you, you want to break that agreement. What would people say? That Socrates, who spent his whole life talking about justice, abandoned justice the moment it became personally inconvenient?”

Crito had no answer.

“The Laws would also ask: where would you even go? To Thessaly? To spend the rest of your days as a fugitive? An old man in hiding, sneaking around, living on someone else’s charity, pretending to be someone you are not? Is that the Socrates you want to be at the end of your life?”

Socrates looked at his friend. “Every time I try to think of a good reason to escape, the voice of the Laws comes back louder than before. I keep testing the argument, and the argument keeps holding. I cannot find the flaw in it.”