Note: This is a followup to Philosophy Summary: Crito by Plato
In point point 22 Socrates said that he consented to being judged and asked for the death penalty instead of exile. Also from the Apology dialogue he says that he expected to be deemed guilty. From these we can infer that he had already made his mind up to die.
Why this is relevant to Libertarianism is that the fate of Socrates ultimately was not connected to a social contract but a private agreement. Emigrating into a foreign state or making a defence contract in a hypothetical anarcho-capitalist society are equivalent to his decision. Regardless of the author’s intention this is not an argument against such actions but a warning that such decisions should not be made lightly.
Here Plato hints at how there are two reasons why a person might be opposed to a government:
To prevent the government from committing further abuses
To take the government’s role as primary abuser
At first the Thessalonians might have seemed virtuous as they would have been protecting Socrates but having the second motivation there would have been a high chance of demanding that Socrates join in their abuses.
Likewise Libertarians ought not to romanticise non-violent offenders. For example while there are strong arguments against the prohibition of drugs it is also widely known that many cartels take joy in aggression.
In Point 5 Socrates says that only the wise minority are worth listening to as opposed to the ignorant mob which is then re-iterated in points 11 and 13. The problem though is that his death verdict was given by none other than the same unruly mob that would shun Crito.
The question of whether or not the legal system of Athens is worth protecting is not addressed at all. Most obviously there is the verdict of Socrates its self but there is also the fact that the guard accepted a bribe to help Socrates escape. These seem clear signs that Athens was a society of hypocrites.
Originally published at libertariancommentaries.com
