Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

exile as a possible alternative sentence. Taken together, this is clear voluntary consent to the institutions of Athens. Does he now (contrary to what he avowed at 49e) intend to break his agreement?
Much of Socrates’ argument has been conducted at a high level of principle, sometimes dizzily high—as when he said that compared with the importance of doing what is right, matters of reputation (his friends’ as well as his own) and the upbringing of children were of no account. But here in the closing pages of Crito, between 52c and the end, there are signs of him covering his back. Whether he wants to be sure of convincing those not convinced of his lofty principles, or whether he isn’t himself altogether happy to let the entire issue rest on them, the fact is that reputations, the risks to his friends, his prospects in exile, and the education of his children now make a reappearance.
Not many pages back Socrates was telling Crito not to bother about the opinion of the crowd. But ‘the Laws and the State’ think it is at least worth mentioning that he is in danger of making himself a laughing stock (53a), and of hearing many deprecatory things about himself (53e), and of giving the jurors reason to think that they made the right decision (53b/c). (More important to one holding Socrates’ principles is that he himself would be ashamed if he were to go back on what he so proudly said at his trial (52c)—his own integrity ought to mean more to him than that.) He should think of the practical consequences: if he escapes his friends will be in danger (53b), his life in exile will be unrewarding and demeaning (53b–53e). And finally (54a), what will it benefit his children? Is he to bring them up in Thessaly (Thessaly of all places!), exiles themselves? And if they are to grow up in Athens, what difference to them whether he is dead or merely absent? His friends will see to their education in either case.
The laws have one last card to play, well known and much used by moralists from earliest times right down to our own: the old fire-and-brimstone manoeuvre. Should Socrates offend against them, they say, he can expect an uncomfortable reception in the afterlife. The laws of the underworld are their brothers, and will avenge them.
Finally, Socrates speaks again in his own person (54d). His closing words broach another perennial topic: the relationship between morals and religion. Some have held (and many have disagreed with them) that morality is impossible without belief in a god. There is no reason to attribute that view to Socrates. But he does appear to be doing something just as time-honoured as the fire-and-brimstone trick, and a good deal more comforting: claiming divine moral inspiration. ‘These things I seem to hear, Crito . . . and these words re-echo within me, so that I can hear no others. . . . Let us then act in this way, since this is the way the god is leading.’
The dialogue is over; I hope you have enjoyed reading it. Moral problems are notoriously hard to settle, not just when several people are trying to reach agreement, but even when they are trying to make up their own minds as individuals. We have seen a little of why this should be: so many factors, of so many different types, are involved. Should you do A or not? Well, what will the consequences be if you do? There may be consequences for your friends, your family, and others, as well as those for you yourself. And what if you don’t? How do the consequences compare? Alternatively, never mind the consequences for a moment, just ask whether you can do A consistently with your own view of yourself—would it involve betraying ideals that till then you had valued and tried to live up to? How will you feel about having done it? Or again, however pleasant the consequences may be, would it run contrary to some duty, or some obligations you have incurred? Obligations to whom?—and might you not be in breach of other obligations if you don’t do it? Do obligations to friends and family take precedence over duties towards the State, or vice versa? And if you have a religion what does it say about the choice? All this complexity is only latent in Crito, because Socrates manages to make all the relevant factors come out either neutral (it won’t make much difference to his children either way, nor to his friends) or all pointing in the same direction. But it doesn’t take much imagination to see the potential for agonizing moral dilemmas.
3. Still debating with his friends, Socrates takes the hemlock from the gaoler. Jacques Louis David’s well-known painting The Death of Socrates (1787).
Some people expect philosophy to tell us the answers to moral problems. But unless it can somehow impose simplicity on the complexities we have been looking at, the prospects for that don’t look good. For it would have to show us, convincingly, that there was just one right way to balance out all the various considerations. Socrates was going for simplification when (starting at 48c) he tried to make the whole thing turn on just one issue. Kant, whom I mentioned earlier (p. 19), went for simplification in basing morality on a single principle closely related to the familiar ‘what would happen if everyone did that?’ Some try to simplify in another way, advising us not to think in terms of duties and obligations but only of the consequences of our own proposed actions for everyone whom they will affect. We shall see more of this kind of view in Chapter 5.

Chapter 3 How do we know? Hume’s Of Miracles
Many—including your present guide—regard the Scotsman David Hume (1711–76) as the greatest of all philosophers who have written in English. He was of wide-ranging intellect: his multi-volume History of England had the effect that