Crito

The dialogue's spine is Socrates' refusal to escape from prison, grounded in two linked arguments. First, one must never return wrong for wrong, even when wronged—so escaping would harm the laws and the city, which Socrates treats as a form of injustice to be avoided at all costs . Second, the Laws of Athens, personified in Socrates' imagination, argue that he owes them obedience as a child owes a parent, having accepted their benefits and never choosing to leave . The dialogue rejects the ordinary logic of self-preservation and the vendetta principle that wrongs may be answered with wrongs. Whether Socrates' position is principled or troublingly authoritarian is a question the text leaves open.

The two dialogues are traditionally read as companion pieces: the Apology shows Socrates defying the court in the name of philosophy, while the Crito shows him refusing to defy the law in the name of self-preservation. This apparent tension—defiance in court, obedience in prison—has generated extensive debate. Brad Inwood argues that interpreters should not constrain their reading of the Crito by assuming it must cohere with the Apology, noting that the dialogue could even come from a later period in Plato's career . The scholarly consensus is not settled. Some see a consistent Socrates who obeys the law while continuing to practice philosophy; others see a genuine contradiction between the man who would disobey an unjust command to stop philosophizing and the man who accepts an unjust death sentence.

The Laws' Speech is the centerpiece of the Crito, in which Socrates imagines the personified Laws of Athens addressing him. They argue that he is their child and slave, that he has agreed to obey them by remaining in Athens, and that escaping would be an act of impiety and ingratitude . The argument is controversial for several reasons. It appears to conflate the obligation to obey one's parents with the obligation to obey the state; it assumes a 'tacit contract' from Socrates' mere presence in Athens; and it treats the laws as a unified agent rather than a system that can be unjust in particular applications. A.D. Woozley and others have criticized the argument for failing to distinguish between the laws as a whole and the specific unjust verdict that condemned Socrates .

The Crito has been a foundational text for debates about political obligation, civil disobedience, and the limits of state authority. Its claim that a citizen who cannot persuade the laws must either obey or leave has been read as an early statement of social contract theory, though the 'contract' is implicit rather than explicit. Modern critics note that the argument seems to leave no room for legitimate civil disobedience within a state—one must either persuade, obey, or emigrate. Defenders respond that Socrates' commitment to 'persuade or obey' is itself a principle of nonviolence: the citizen may resist unjust laws through argument, but never through force or deception. The dialogue remains central to discussions of whether one can be both a good citizen and a critic of one's country.

The Crito is a short dialogue (around 20 Stephanus pages, 43a–54e) and has been translated into English many times, from Thomas Taylor (1804) through Benjamin Jowett (1892) and H. N. Fowler's Loeb edition (1913) . The standard scholarly reference is by Stephanus page and section (e.g., Crito 51a), based on Henri Estienne's 1578 edition . The main translation challenges concern the rhetorical force of the Laws' Speech, which shifts into a different register when the Laws speak, and the precise meaning of key terms like homologia (agreement) and to adikein (to do wrong). Different translations render Socrates' fundamental principle—that one must never do wrong in return—with varying degrees of emphasis, which affects how uncompromising his position appears.