This is based on the Crito, a platonic dialogue on duty. The dialogue involves Crito and Socrates discussing whether Socrates should escape from prison to avoid execution. Their discussion can help one make just decisions about agreements and contracts you have made.
When you have given your word or signed a contract it is a form of a law. Without these “laws” there is no stability or trust that agreements will be kept. Socrates says;
“Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?”
“Who would care about a state which has no laws?”
Concerning civil duty Socrates and Plato state that one should never breach any law since you have benefitted from society. The benefits include your parents meeting, having their marriage legally honoured which lead to your existence, nourishment and education. Put another way Socrates pretends he is the personification of the laws and says;
‘Or against those of us (the laws) who after birth regulate the nurture and education of children, in which you also were trained? Were not the laws, which have the charge of education, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?
“For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Anyone who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him”.
Now suppose you are punished for violating an agreement. Can you say what is said in the Crito;
“Yes; but you have injured me and given an unjust punishment.”
Plato and Socrates claim you cannot make this statement and just because you have received the punishment it does not void your earlier agreement. Socrates also says that when punished;
“And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she (the laws) lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him”
Socrates stayed, did his duty and died partly because of the following as the laws state;
“Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love. For you never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other states or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our state; we were your especial favorites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and here in this city you beget your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile and that you were not unwilling to die”
” if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, both which states are often praised by you for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign state. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the state, or, in other words, of us, her laws that you never stirred out of her; the halt, the blind, the maimed were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
Thankfully Socrates does add a safety check to blind obedience (to the country, state, city ,company) when he says on three occasions;
“either to be persuaded, or if not persuaded, to be obeyed?”
“obey, or he must change their view of what is just”
“but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us”
Socrates warns those who break oaths, agreements and contracts when he says:
“all citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind”
In the end Socrates was the “victim, not of the laws, but of men”. Men who were ignorant of the truth and who lacked the four cardinal virtues: Courage, Wisdom, Discipline and Justice.
Please make your comments since one can argue in different directions and everyone will benefit from different view points in our search for the truth.
Moralities and the Moral Republic 