Plato's Crito
The arguments in the Crito are famous.
Among the most famous is the claim by Socrates that "I'm not the sort of person who's just now for the first time persuaded by nothing within me except the argument that on rational reflection seems best to me. I've always been like that." (46b)
It's not living, but living well, that is important. Living well is the same as living finely, which is the same as living justly. 48b
Whether he is acting justly or not is the only consideration that has any weight. 48d.
One should never do injustice. 49b.
And so, doing injustice in return for injustice is wrong. 49b.
Disobeying will destroy the laws. 50c
One must either persuade, obey. 51b
Staying in a city, especially one you are born and raised in and by, constitutes an agreement to abide by its laws. 51e.
If Socrates were to leave Athens, he would be the enemy of whatever regime he entered. 53b.
One frequently-asked question about the dialogue is whether Socrates would countenance civil disobedience. Another question is whether Socrates was perhaps engaged in civil disobedience of a sort.
The Encyclopedia Britannica discusses Civil Disobedience as follows:
"Civil disobedience is a symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law, rather than a rejection of the system as a whole. The civil disobedient, finding legitimate avenues of change blocked or nonexistent, sees himself as obligated by a higher, extralegal principle to break some specific law. It is because civil disobedience is a crime, however, and known by actor and public alike to be punishable that the act serves as a protest. By submitting to punishment , the civil disobedient hopes to set a moral example that will provoke the majority or the government into effecting meaningful political, social, or economic change. Under the imperative of setting a moral example, the major spokesmen of civil disobedience insist that the illegal actions be nonviolent."
The Encyclopedia continues later:
"On a pragmatic level, the efficacy of civil disobedience hinges on the adherence of the opposition to a certain morality to which an appeal can ultimately be made."
It seems to me clear that Socrates would not only countenance but would himself commit a sort of civil disobedience. He says as much when he says that if Athens were to sentence him to ceasing to philosophize, he would disobey. His reason for disobeying would be that the god commanded him to philosophize. Hence he would break the law in obedience to a higher morality and would willingly suffer the punishment. But would he be doing it to make the point that the law itself is unjust? That is the essence of Civil Disobedience, with capital C and D, the one that gets an entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, and I am not sure that changing the law would be Socrates' reason according to what he says in the Crito.
Socrates seems to think in general that it is open to you to break a law, but you are not free to break it and then avoid the consequences. The consequences in Athens will be a trial before a jury. Since you broke the law, you will be found guilty, and you will be sentenced. You can certainly try to persuade the jury that they should sentence you to a reward, not a punishment. But suppose they sentence you to a punishment. Then you must endure it. The fact that you have to endure the sentence is part of the civil disobedience. Civil disobedience does not mean that you get off scott-free. In fact, Ghandi is said to have told the judge who did not want to sentence him that he had to sentence him. The whole point of Ghandi and King's civil disobedience was not breaking the law, but forcing society to impose the penalty. Forcing the imposition of a penalty is what has the persuasive force: it make the injustice of the law clear. It is in fact a form of persuasion.
In essence, civil disobedients respect the law incredibly: they respect it so much that they insist on enforcing it even when it is unpalatable to do so. They want the law in line with what society considers moral.
My questions about the Crito are as follows:
1. When Socrates says "persuade of obey," he is talking about persuading the assembly, the very group of people who he denies are experts! If he must persuade non-experts, whether or not he is an expert might be irrelevant. Many times the non-expert is more persuasive than the expert, to a crowd at least! Socrates himself acknowledges this in the Gorgias. I.e. Socrates is departing from his devotion to the idea of expert-knowledge. He is "caring what the majority think." Isn't he wrong to do so, by his own standards? 44c+d
2. Why is he so loyal to Athens in particular? What is rational about that? Why is his mission to improve Athenians, BUT NOT others. That seems wrong.
3. If everyone disobeys the law, it is true that it is lacking something crucial to a law. What is it lacking? Is it not a law then?
4. How would Socrates' running away with Crito "destroy" the law? Wouldn't it simply be one law-breaking event among many? Do those other events destroy the laws? Doesn't Athens in fact have laws all the while? 53b
5. If Socrates does not know what virtue or justice is, how can he have such great confidence that lawful conduct is right? 53c
6. It seems that impiety is whatever the prosecutor can convince a jury is impious. In other words, it is not fixed and defined by law, but rather is a fluid concept that is greatly amenable to abuse. The charges against Socrates are likewise not specific enough to be in violation of a particular written law. Meletus says Socrates does not believe in gods at all but then says that he introduces new gods, which is contradictory, but the essential thing is that the charges are not precise enough to be amenable to a yes or no answer. Doesn't this make the whole idea that being convicted is a "lawful" procedure itself questionable? I'm putting that badly, but it seems there is a problem here which has to do with justice. Perhaps I am simply asking that it be objective, which it never will be.