Mind & Desire Episode 6 - Consistency, Expertise, and Moral Values In Plato's Crito

One of the aspects of Platonic dialogues (which you might have noticed already, or this may be a bit new to you), one that I find very rewarding and even fascinating is the fact that there is so much being said. I won't even say between the lines, because it's right there in the lines, but typically the ones that we're not paying adequate attention to, because we think that they're just sort of there to advance the key arguments that we're interested in.

And the short dialogue, the Crito, is a prime example of this. I would say, just based on my own experience, that there's two main aspects of the work that most first-time, even second-time readers are going to focus on almost exclusively.

One of these, of course, is the interesting feature of the laws of Athens themselves coming in as characters and making accusations and arguments with Socrates. Now, how could you not be struck by that? It's a really cool idea, isn't it? And it kind of prefigures social contract theory, so people interested in political philosophy, focus in on that.

And then we have the entire question of whether Socrates should take the invitation that is being urged upon him by his friend Crito to leave Athens without permission, avoid his execution, and go somewhere else where he can live out a few more years being welcomed and celebrated.

There is more to this dialogue than that though. And so I'm gonna point out several interconnected features to you that you might've missed, or this might just be review for you, but it's always worth going back over these.

And I think that these are not just about this Platonic dialogue, but we can ask whether these should be applied within the scope of our own lives.

So the first one, Socrates tells Crito, I appreciate your warm feelings. That is, assuming that they have some justification. If not, the stronger they are, the harder they will be to deal with So let's consider whether we ought to follow your advice or not. You know, this is not a new idea of mine.

It has always been my nature never to accept advice from any of my friends unless reflection shows it is the best course that reason offers. I cannot abandon the principles which I used to hold in the past simply because this accident has happened to me. They seem to me to be much as they were, and I respect and regard the same principles now as before. So unless we can find better principles on this occasion, you can be quite sure that I shall not agree with you. Not even if the power of the people conjures up fresh hordes of bogeys to terrify our childish minds by subjecting us to chains and executions and confiscations of our property.

So what's going on in that passage? Notice there's a few points that he's making.

He tells us, tells Crito, that I've got a way of doing things that I have been carrying out consistently. And I can't just change that, abandon my principles, because I'm in a new situation, a scary situation perhaps. I'm going to get executed. I need to stick to them. Unless somebody can convince me of a better way of looking at things. So two different things going on there that mutually reinforce each other.

What does he say in the very next paragraph? He says, was it always right to argue that some opinion should be taken seriously but not others? Or was it always wrong? Perhaps it was right before the question of my death arose, but now we can see clearly it was a mistaken persistence in a point of view, which was really irresponsible nonsense.

So there's a couple different possibilities there. Maybe they were always right about that and they should stick with it. Or maybe they were always wrong Or maybe it's something that changes, depending on the situation that you're in. Or maybe it was wrong, but they couldn't see that it was wrong until Socrates was in this deadly situation, and now he can see that it was the wrong point of view.

So he tells Crito: I should very much like to inquire into this problem with your help and see whether the argument will appear in any different light to me now that I'm in this position or whether it will remain the same and whether we shall dismiss it or accept it. So they're going to reason together. They're going to think this through.

Socrates may be bringing a little bit more to the table than Crito does, or frankly, perhaps a lot more to the table.And here we get to the second key idea. He says that serious thinkers I believe have always held some such view as the one which I mentioned just now, that some of the opinions people entertain should be respected, others should not.

And he asks Crito don't you think this is a sound principle, and he says listen you're not going to be executed tomorrow - I mean you could die, but you're probably not going to, so you don't have to worry about that sort of thing, do you think that this is still a sound principle that one should not regard all the opinions people hold, but only some and not others? And Crito says, yeah, that's right. I agree with that.

So this leads us then to the third key idea. Whose opinions are good and whose opinions are bad? And Socrates is going to use a couple different terms, a couple different comparisons.

He's going to start out by saying, the opinions of the wise are good and the opinions of the foolish are bad. And Crito says, yes, that's quite right. And a little bit later, this is going to be the opinions of the one, the expert, and the opinions of the many, the multitude, the people.

Some people actually know what they're talking about. Other people talk more or less at random and can't provide you with good advice. They've got mistaken understandings, mixed up priorities. And if you listen to them, you're probably going to go wrong and do some damage.

And Socrates will bring up a couple different examples. One of them is athletic training. Should you listen to everybody? Should you take advice from any random person? Possibly the guy next to you using the weights? No, you should go to somebody who actually knows what they're doing, the trainer. Likewise, medical matters. Well, you could consult your cousin who thinks they know something about diet and viruses or medicine. You could just go to a doctor who actually has studied the matter.

And Socrates says we ought to regulate our actions and exercise and eating and drinking by the judgment of an instructor, not by the opinions of the rest of the public in the case of the trainer. Same thing with the doctor. And if you don't do that you're going to screw yourself up we might think about should you trust a financial planner or should you just listen to your cousin who suggests that bitcoin is the best thing you ought to be doing right about now

And this is going to bring us to the fourth really important point. This is the crux of it all. If we want our lives, our souls to be good, who should we be listening to?

Socrates says, tell me, Crito, we don't want to go through all the examples one by one. Does this apply as a general rule and above all to the sort of actions we're trying to decide about?

And notice he's going to talk about three different opposed paths. pairs of types of actions, just and unjust, honorable and dishonorable, good and bad.

Ought we to be guided and intimidated by the opinion of the many or by that of the one, assuming there is someone with expert knowledge? Is it true we ought to respect and fear this person more than all the rest put together and that if we do not follow his guidance, we will spoil and mutilate that part of ourselves which, as we used to say, is improved by right conduct and destroyed by wrong? Or is all of this nonsense?

And Crito says, no, I think it is true Socrates. Now these are things that Crito and Socrates do agree upon. Something that they have bought into before and they're not going to change. Crito, without changing these things, is not going to succeed in getting Socrates to leave with him breaking the laws of the city of Athens.

Now notice three really important things. The first is that we're talking about an entire range of what we can call moral values. So we have the just and the unjust or the right and the wrong. We have the good and the bad in some other senses as well.

And then we have what's translated here as the honorable and dishonorable, but which we could also translate as beautiful and ugly, or fair and foul. They correspond to the Greek term kalon and aiskhron, which are difficult to translate, not because there isn't a right word for it, but because there's too many potential right words for translating them, and we have to decide between them.

So these are the sorts of things that some kind of expert,somebody who possesses that skill or knowledge, somebody who's wise in that way, understands better than most other people. And notice that Socrates has framed this more or less as a hypothesis. If there is such a person, then we should listen to them, not to the many.

Socrates himself doesn't claim to be that person, although perhaps he is. Perhaps he does have that knowledge and acquired it from somebody else or worked it out himself, and that's what his students are carrying forward in the many traditions that come from Socrates' own teaching and example.

So what can we take from this for our own lives? We don't have to say that we know everything. Socrates himself isn't asserting anything like that.

But we can say if we've found some principles, some ideas that seem to be working pretty well, even if other people don't respect them or agree with them, we should stick with them until we are convinced that there is actually something better out there.

And we shouldn't listen to the voice of the many telling us that what we're doing isn't actually right, or cool, or popular, or whatever it is that we're going to worry about.

And we've seen that Plato demarcates what we should really be concerned about. What we need to find experts in, these moral values, how to distinguish them, how to tell them apart, how to properly apply these terms and these concepts, how to decide what actually is good and what actually is bad, and thereby to make good decisions for ourselves that will improve us, and not worsen us or ultimately destroy us.

Notice that Crito has agreed to all of this along the way, that Socrates himself is convinced of it, that presumably Plato the author also believes this, and that as we read along with this, we most likely agree with all of these points as well, because we're so eager to see where this dialogue is going.

We should think about whether we actually do believe these things, whether we do agree with Socrates and Crito - and Plato - on these very important matters for how philosophy intersects with our practical life.