Socrates and the Moral Limits of Legal Obligation

Abstract

This article presents a critical analysis of Plato's Apology and Crito — focusing on the moral limits of legal obligation that ground both Socrates' resistance to state injustice and his acceptance of his unjust sentence. It does so by juxtaposing Socrates' advocacy of the priority of right action in the Apology to his equally ardent rationalization of legal obligation in the Crito, thereby placing him at a critical juncture in the evolution of western legal thought. Throughout this work, a particularly Heideggerian perspective is used to manifest this transition as clearly as possible. This article proceeds in four distinct stages. Part one presents the contextual background of Socrates' trial as depicted in the Apology. Part two develops the primacy of justice set forth in the first half of the Crito, and upon this basis recreates the genealogy of legal obligation that crowns this work. Part three raises two paradoxes that haunt these works — those of the apparently contradictory alternatives of “persuade or obey” and the dichotomy of “doing versus suffering injustice.” Part four projects the insights so gained onto modern legal positivism and back to ancient Greek tragedy.