Fair Play: Resolving the Crito-Apology ProblemJonathan HechtFinal draft–please do not citeAbstractMost interpretations of theCrito, such as the absolute obligation viewand the civil disobedienceview, are thought to largely be grounded in anobligation ofgratitude. I present arguments for why these interpretationsarenot viable, and then propose an alternative solution; thisalternative is theobligation of fair play. While the obligationof fair play has been discussed before in relation to theCrito, this is the first full account of the position.The fair playinterpretation both precludes absolute obligation and doesnotrequirecivildisobediencetoresolvesupposedinconsistencieswiththe Apol-ogy.“[W]hateverdirectiontheargumentblowsus,that’swherewemustgo.” —Socrates11 IntroductionFor some time, a number of interpreters maintained that thedialogic Socrates ar-gued for absolute legal obligation inPlato’sCrito, but various scholars haveraiseddoubtsaboutthisapproachinlightofSocrates’apparentendorsementoflegitimate1 Republic, 394d; John Cooper (ed.),Plato: Complete Works(Indianapolis, 1997). All futuretranslations from the Platoniccorpus are from Cooper,Plato, unless otherwise noted.I owe thanks to participants of the 2009SAGP and IPA conferences for helpful comments, aswell as StevenBarbone, J. Angelo Corlett, Mark Wheeler, my anonymous refereesand the editor of this journal for according me far moreattention than I deserved. Thanks go also to my non-academicfriends for making the paper readable.1

  civil disobedience.2Both of these interpretations were based on the premise ofafundamentalobligation ofgratitudeto a legalsystembornebythecitizens.3Ishallargue that this common ground is problematic. In contrastto most interpretationsof theCrito, I contend that the obligation of fair play is fundamental.Curiously, itappears that the presence of arguments in theCritoinformed by fair play has beentaken for granted by someinterpreters, while others have assumed the absence of sucharguments. In the end, each side mentions fair play in passing,but neither side provides arguments, details, or evidence fortheir respective claims.4To begin, I analyze and criticize the view that Socrates arguedthat obligationto a legal system is based on obligations ofgratitude. After this, I demonstratethat textual analysis5and specific historical evidence provide adequate reasonto believe that the primary argument—presented by Socrates andthe Laws6in the2E.g., Reginald Allen,Socrates and Legal Obligation. (Minneapolis, 1980); Joel Feinberg,‘Civil Disobedience in theModern World’,Humanities in Society, 2 (1979), pp. 37-60, esp. pp.47-50; Anthony Woozley, ‘Socrateson Disobeying the Law’, inThe Philosophy of Socrates: ACollection of Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Vlastos (Garden City NJ, 1971), pp. 299-318;RexMartin, ‘Socrates on Disobedience to Law’,The Review of Metaphysics, 24 (1970), pp. 21-38;Francis Wade, ‘In Defense of Socrates’,The Review of Metaphysics, 25 (1971), pp. 311-325.3

It is dubious that Socrates believed there was a specialobligation to the law. In theCrito, heappealed to other special obligations and moralconsiderations in a way that is too apologetic for something ofthat nature.4Articles that explicitly dismiss the presence arguments informedby fair play in theCritoin-clude: Anthony Woozley,Law and Obedience: The Arguments of Plato’s Crito(London, 1979), p. 135, and Nathan Hanna, ‘Socrates andSuperiority’,The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 45 (2)(2007), pp. 251-268; Jeffrie Murphy, ‘Socratic Theory ofLegal Fidelity’ inRetribution, Justice,and Therapy, (Dordrecht, 1979), pp. 40-57, esp. pp. 49-50.Works that havementioned the thesis positively include: Ernest Weinreb.‘Obedience to theLaw in Plato’s Crito’,American Journal of Jurisprudence, 27 (1982), pp. 85-108, esp. pp. 86,99; Francis Buckley,Just Exchange: A Theory of Contract (New York, 2005), p. 180; PhilipSoper, ‘Another Look at theCrito’,American Journal of Jurisprudence, 41 (1996), pp. 103-132;Richard Dagger, ‘Political Obligation’,inStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2007, 13 Mar 2009.(<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/political-obligation>);Andrew Mason, ‘Special Obliga-tions to Compatriots’, Ethics, 107 (3) (1997), pp. 427-447, esp. p. 428; Andrew Mason,Commu-nity, Solidarity, and Belonging (Cambridge, 2000), p. 99.5GregoryVlastos,‘SocratesonPoliticalObedienceandDisobedience’,YaleReview,63(1974), pp. 517-534, esp. pp. 527-28 and Woozley,Law and Obedience, provide insight as to where intheCrito

textual evidence supporting my thesis may be found.6Throughout my analysis, I use the phrase “Socrates and the Laws”several times. I have tworeasons for speaking this way:a) It iscounterintuitive to suppose that a manifestation of the laws thatis called forth to supportSocrates’ argument would havedrastically differing views regarding this same argument. b)Insofar as the arguments that I present are concerned, the twocharacters seem to be synchro-2

  Crito —entails that legal obligation is grounded in obligations of‘fair play’6, notthose of gratitude (though arguments in theCritoconcerning obligations of grati-tude may well support the primaryargument related to obligations of fair play).More specifically,I contend that the primary argument in theCritorelies uponthe notion of an obligation of fair play, and thata fortioriif it informs the primaryargument, it informs an argument in theCrito. Having demonstrated that the pri-mary argument in theCritoconcerning legal obligation is based in the obligationof fairplay, I show how this resolves inconsistencies between Plato’sCritoand Apology.7Beyond the primary benefit of clarifying what is meant in theCrito,the resulting analysis based on this new foundation refutes thepersistent myth of Socrates arguing for absolute obligation,adding to the mounting evidence thatinternal congruity existsbetween the Crito

and theApologydespite superficialdifferences.8Finally, it has been discussed many times before that one of thear-guments put forth in theCritois that of a social contract. Full analysis of thisgeneralargument has not been provided in which thegrounding of this “Socratic”social contract is demonstrated; the obligationof fair play may act as that ground.nized in their views. Even if they are not in agreement on allmatters, they are for my purposes.6When I discuss the obligation of fair play isolated from context,I use it as it was defined byJohn Rawls; John Rawls, ‘LegalObligation and the Duty of Fair Play’, inJohn Rawls: Collected  Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, MA, 1964), pp. 117-129.7For a discussion of local and global unitarianism in the Platoniccorpus, cf. chapter one of J.Angelo Corlett,Interpreting Plato’s Dialogues(Las Vegas, 2005).8Some arguments for internal congruity in the Crito and theApologyconcern the supposeddating of the dialogues being close inproximity to one another as well as their being themati-callylinked. Another popular argument is that Plato would not havemisrepresented the views of Socrates in either the Crito or theApology, because they were such pivotal scenes in Socrates’ life,and tohave done so would disrespect him. Woozley, ‘Socrates onDisobeying’.Gene James, ‘Socrates on Civil Disobedience andRebellion’,The Southern Journal of Philos-ophy, 11 (1973), pp. 119-127, esp. p. 121, takes a view that I agreewith in which we can still talk meaningfully of a

prima facie inconsistency between the Crito and theApologydespite not know-ing definitively the answer to the “Socraticquestion”. The arguments herein are not predicated oneither amouthpiece or anti-mouthpiece interpretation. I do not attributeany views to Plato, nor rely on the belief that Plato argued forany views himself. I discuss the arguments put forth bythecharacters in the dialogues, though I do discuss (with somehesitancy) the “intentionality” of thecharacters.3

  2 The Concept of Obligation From Gratitude andIts ImplicationsA popular interpretation of theCritois derived from the explanation given in thedialogue thatSocrates was raised by the legal system of Athens. The systemcaredfor him and though he had many chances to leave Athens, hedeclined to do so; asa result, Socrates had a general obligationto the legal system.9This explanationfor the root of Socrates’ arguments, via theLaws, seems to have been generallyaccepted with only a fewexceptions.10Even those who do not accept this as thecentral argument,including myself, do not deny that gratitude played asupportingrole for Socrates’ arguments in theCrito.Obligations from gratitude arise because “in general, byaccepting benefitsfrom others we incur ‘debts of gratitude.’”11One would be acting “ungratefully”if gifts were received gladlyand there was no demonstration of any form of recip-rocation. Ifwe accept that this type of obligation does exist, then thoseobligationscan be owed to a variety of conceivable entities (andnot necessarily other people)such as parents who raise a child,mentors, states that provide for their citizens,employers, and soon.Arguments that theCritois informed by the obligation from gratitude favour either

absolute obligation to a legal system or obligation stemmed bycivil disobe-dience.Theseviewscanbederivedfromotherformsofobligationandmayindeedsupplement them. If neither absolute obligation nor civil disobedienceargumentswork, however, then the arguments in favour ofobligation from gratitude inform-ing the primary arguments in theCritocannot hold.It is significant that one of the features thatdistinguish the notion of obligationfrom gratitude from thenotion of obligation of fair play is to whom the obliga-tion canbe owed. With obligation of fair play, obligation is necessarilyowed toother people. By contrast, with obligation from gratitude,it is possible to havean obligation to an abstract concept, suchas the state, rather than to a particular individual or group ofindividuals (the citizenry).Itis, however,generallysupposedthattherewasnoconceptofanabstractstate9Feinberg, ‘Civil Disobedience’, pp. 47-49; Allen,Socrates; Martin, ‘Socrates on Disobedi-ence’.10For exceptions, see Hanna, ‘Socrates and Superiority’, p. 266 andVlastos, ‘Socrates on Po-litical’, pp. 527-28.11Feinberg, ‘Civil Disobedience’, p. 47.It is notable that Feinbergproceeds to argue that obligation to a state cannot arise from adebt of gratitude (Feinberg, ‘Civil Disobedience’, pp. 48-50).4

  in ancient Greece.12The state in a democracy was constituted by the citizenryandthere was not thought to be an emergent entity. The state in ademocracy was con-stituted by the citizenry and there was notthought to be an emergent entity. Butthere is some reason tobelieve this was not the case; within the Platonic corpus,forexample, some consider Republic IV to be a discussion of an emergent state.13Despite this, I shall show that an abstract state is notdiscussed in theCrito

, hin-dering claims in favor of the obligation of gratitudeinterpretation.If we were to presuppose that the Greeks lackedthe concept of an abstractstate, then my argument that theobligation of gratitude is not the primary argu-ment in theCritowould be made easier. Obligations from gratitude cannotexisttoward a state that is not agential. Obligation fromgratitude is owed to an agentor agents by whom one is aided,whereas the obligation of fair play is owed to allwho agree toparticipate in the fair play contract. In the case of fair play,this can be the citizenry.With obligations of gratitude, it doesnot make sense to aver that obligation isowed to the entirecitizenry rather than only those who directly or indirectlyaidedSocrates.14Indeed, we could take a more extreme case and imagine a personiso-lated by happenstance from all but one individual in thecitizenry. In this case, if sheowesanobligationofgratitude,itwouldonlybetothatindividualdespiteboth parties being part ofthe citizenry.15Surely, this extreme possibility is not some-thing Socratesintended. By contrast, with obligations of fair play, theobligationmanifests upon awareness and agreement, even fromdirect contact with just one12This point was clearly put forth in Moshe Berent. ‘Hobbes and the‘Greek Tongues’’,Historyof Political Thought , 17 (1996), pp. 36-59; Moshe Berent. ‘Anthropology and theClassics: War,Violence and the Stateless Polis’,The Classical Quarterly, 50 (2000), pp. 257-289; and MosheBerent. ‘Sovereignty: Ancientand Modern’,Polis: The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought , 17 (1-2) (2000), p. 2-34. In these works, Moshe Berent arguesthat the conceptwetypicallyassociatewiththestateisHobbesianandthedifferencesbetweenthe polisandthestatearesufficientthatthepolisistobeconsideredstateless;thisisparticularlybecauseofthedecentralizednature of thepolisand lack of coercive means.

13Cf. J.R.S. Wilson. ‘The Argument of  Republic IV’  ,The Philosophical Quarterly, 26 (103)(1976), pp. 111-124. It is also not, in my mind,unreasonable to read Aristotle’sPoliticsIII in thismanner.14If we try to get too indirect and claim that all citizens areconnected, there is no reason tosuppose this would not extend tothe whole world, thereby implying a universal obligation of grat-itude—which, althoughaninterestingconcept,iscertainlynotwhatthedialogicSocratesintended.15This is all not to mention Feinberg’s contention, discussedearlier, that obligations from grat-itude cannot be owed to anykind of state. Feinberg is not alone in this view; e.g., GeorgeKlosko,‘Four Arguments against Political Obligations fromGratitude’,Public Affairs Quarterly, 5 (1)(1991), pp. 33-48.5

  individual. Since the nature of the Greek state remainscontroversial and one viewcondemns the target of my criticismwhile the other leaves it intact, I shall assumethe mostdifficult position for myself. That is, I shall assume that theGreeks pos-sessed the idea of an abstract state.The received viewof the arguments presented by Socrates and the Laws intheCrito, stemming from the assumption of arguments in favour ofobligationfrom gratitude, has led to the belief that Socratesargued for absolute obligation tothe legal system. This argumenthas been defended by Rex Martin,17whose dis-cussion is archetypical; the basis of his position isthat Socrates refused the offer to escape from jail despiteclaiming innocence. Socrates stated in theCritothat“[o]ne should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man,no matter how onehas been mistreated by him.”

16According to Martin, given that Socrates agreedto remain in theAthenian legal system, despite the opportunity to leave,Socratesheld that breaking such an agreement is morallywrong.Martin explains that because Socrates agreed to the legalsystem as a whole,acknowledging that unjust laws exist, he agreedto obey both just and unjust laws,thereby making any disobedienceto the law unfounded ethically. Martin arguesthat “[i]t should beevident that the position developed in the dialoguebetweenSocrates and the Laws disallows morally justifieddisobedience to unjust laws.The reason is that one has agreed,barring the removal of a law through dissua-sion, to obey any andall laws, just or unjust.”17There are, however, at least three major problems with Martin’sanalysis:First, Martin’s analysis directly contradicts theApologyin which Socrates de-clared that if set free, he would havedisobeyed a direct order from the court of Athens and practisedphilosophy.18Furthermore, Gene James notes that Socrates“is reported as sayingthat on at least one previous occasion, during the reign of TheThirty, he had risked death rather than obey the state.”1917See Martin, ‘Socrates on Disobedience’.16Crito, 49c-d.17Martin, ‘Socrates on Disobedience’, p. 32.18 Apology , 29c-d, 32a-e. Woozley,Law and Obedience, attempts to resolve this issue by ex- plaining that while onesentence would be an order and binding according to the law, theother would be a statement; therefore the obligation to each isdifferent.Although the official charges brought against Socratesare those of corrupting the youth and of impiety,ithasbeensaidbeforethattheprimaryreasonsthatSocrateswasputontrialwerepolitical(c.f. Douglas MacDowell,The Law in Classical Athens

(Ithaca, 1978), p. 202. This position isreasonable in light ofSocrates’ relationship to Critias and Alcibiades.19James,‘SocratesonCivilDisobedience’,p.120,discussesthecontradictionbetweentheCritoand theApologyas well. For more detailed analysis as to why Socrates may havedisobeyed The6

  Contramy criticism, Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith argue thatnei-ther The Thirty nor the court had the legal authority to givesuch orders. If theylacked authority, then theApologycannot be used as an example of disobedienceto the law.20This may be the case, particularly with The Thirty; however,therestill seems to be incongruity between the dialogues. It isnot clear enough thatthere was no authority behind the courtorders (at least in Socrates’ mind) for usto deny outright thatSocrates’ proposal was meant to be a response to anorder.According to Brickhouse and Smith, only the litigants intrials could propose penalties but the hypothetical situationproposed by Socrates shows only the ju-rors giving orders.21Brickhouse and Smith state that “[s]ince the jury couldonlychoose between the penalties proposed by the litigantsthemselves, the jury couldnot legally assign the abandonment ofphilosophy as Socrates’ penalty. If some-how they did so,Socrates would be under no legal obligation to obey thejury’scommand.”22Brickhouse and Smith’s position does not seem any more likelythan interpret-ing Socrates’ proposal as indicating that thelitigants would suggest his alternative punishment. It iscounterintuitive to think that Socrates would have proposedahypothetical situation in which the court would have given himan order that theyhad no authority to give, as there is nomeaning in disobeying an order one hasno duty to obey. If it werethe case that the court lacked authority to give suchan order by

Athenian legal standards, Socrates never acknowledged this factandeither must have considered the authority legitimate by hisown standards or thelack of authority irrelevant.There is thefurther issue that this order may contradict laws against piety,23 but this merely highlights the idea that there may be cases inwhich disobedienceto a law is necessitated, even if solelybecause conflicting laws exist. The issueof whether such an orderis legal within the minutiae of Athenian policy does notappear tobe of concern to Socrates, only whether it is an order that oughtto beobeyed on virtue of its own merits. Indeed, although the Critoand theApologymaynot be concordant with one another, this discrepancy should betaken intoconsideration as a serious problem with Martin’sargument.24Thirty, see p. 122.20Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith,Socrates on Trial (New York, 1989), pp. 137-143.21Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith,Plato’s Socrates(New York, 1994), pp. 144-146.22Ibid., p. 145.23Ibid., pp. 146-149.24For further criticism of Martin in particular, see Wade, ‘Defenseof Socrates’—this argumentis noted in pp. 318-321.7

  ThesecondissueisthatMartinisattemptingtodrawageneraltheoryofSocrates’view on legal obligation from a specific case of appliedethics rather than a discus-sion of the concept as a whole.Socrates may not have been arguing that one mustalways obey anunjust decision but simply that he must obeythisunjust ruling.

25Thirdly, an account of theCritoin which Socrates is arguing for absolute obli-gation implieshighly counterintuitive views. Unless we attribute to Socratestheunreasonable view that there is a lexical ordering of ethicalduties in which theduty to obey the law trumps all otherconceivable duties, there must be a possiblecase in whichSocrates may be right to disobey the law. The reason is that forab-solute obedience to be morally justified, either there mustnever be a contradiction between morality and the law or theremust be a lexical ordering of moral dutiesin which the duty toobey the law is greater than any other moral duty. As itisimplausible to believe that morality is always consonant withthe law, we wouldhave to attribute to Socrates this system oflexical ordering to account for his abso-lute obedience to thelaw. But this is also implausible given the peculiarity ofthislexical system combined with the lack of sufficientdiscussion of lexical ordering,or related concepts, in theCrito.A more recent interpretation, one which came about primarily inorder to re-solve the alleged conflict between the Crito and theApology, has as its premisethe notion that Socrates was arguing forsomething similar to civil disobedience.26‘Civil disobedience’ is commonly defined as a conscientious non-violent act of  public disobedience to a law for the purpose ofpersuading or dissuading the legalsystem regarding taking futureactions.27The reason that this argument reconciles differences between theCritoandtheApologyis that if Socrates had continued to practise philosophy, as hesaid hewould in theApology, then it would have been an act of public disobedience tothelaw. If, however, he had simply escaped in theCrito, then it would have been anact of private disobedience,

“damaging” to the law.2825For a similar point, see Martin Bertman, ‘Socrates’ Defence ofCivil Obedience’,StudiumGenerale, 24 (5) (1971), pp. 576-582.26Cf. Wade, ‘Defense of Socrates’ and Curtis Johnson, ‘Socrates onObedience and Justice’,The Western Political Quarterly, 43 (4) (1990), pp. 719-740.27John Rawls,A Theory of Justice, Revised (Cambridge, MA, 1999), p. 320.28The claim that Socrates may either escape into exile or submit tothe punishment appears to be a false dichotomy. Alternatively, hemay escape and continue to practise his philosophy, actingas hesaid he would act in theApologyif set free. As it affects both the received view andmyinterpretation equally, I accept this fallacy as an assumption.Further, because it is a premise thatSocrates was operating underin his arguments, attempts to draw out his intentions shouldacceptit as a premise. The choice of exile that is presented isgiven when Crito says, “If you want to go8

  This argument may make sense from a modern vantage point, but itcreatesseveral problems. Charles Young notes that the idea ofcivil disobedience in thePlatonic corpus is an anachronism.29It is possible that the concept of civil dis-obedience existed in5thcentury BC Athens; but, without evidence, it issomewhatspeculative to attribute such modern concepts toSocrates’ reasoning.30Beyond that, if we accept that civil disobedience is notanachronistic, it seemsodd that Socrates would have considered

the act of civil disobedience but not theclosely related conceptof conscientious evasion as a viable alternative. Joel Fein- bergexplains that the “conscientious evader genuinely believes thatthe law heviolates is morally wrong, even though validly enacted,and personal gain is nota large element... He thinks that he cando more good for the cause of justice byremaining free to violatethe iniquitous law some more than by making a martyr of himself.”31Given that Socrates held that he was charged unjustly, he couldhave acted asa conscientious evader, acting for the cause ofjustice itself (acting against an un- just ruling) rather than asa legal reformer.32While conscientious evasion wouldnot have been a public act ofprotest, as is the case in civil disobedience, Socratescould havecontinued to attack these unjust laws (or specific court rulings,as thecase may be) by flouting them as he stated that he would doin theApology. For is the law not meant to be malleable? How could Socratespossibly correct thisunjust decision if he were dead? Would notSocrates, of all people, be best ableto find a way to improve theminds of Athenians through conscientious evasion ashe hadpreviously attempted to do in other ways?33Indeed, Socrates was in factto Thessaly, I have friends there who will greatly appreciate youand keep you safe, so that no onein Thessaly will harm you” (Crito, 45c).Some may claim that though the initial act of disobediencewould not be public, the rest of hislife would be public.However, if he had truly gone into exile, then his philosophicalinquiry wouldnot have been directed towards Athenians.29Charles Young, ‘Untitled Book Review’,The Philosophical Review, 91 (1) (1982), pp. 109-112, esp. p. 109.30Whether we call it civil disobedience or something else entirely,theideastill seems to be ananachronism as well.31Feinberg , ‘Civil Disobedience’, p. 40.

32Though it is not unreasonable to think that legal reform couldcome about as a result of this particular case of evasion,evasion would not be the intention of Socrates; it would simplybe a sideeffect. As well, one might claim that legal reformersact for the cause of justice itself and that thetwo concepts canalso be differentiated by the intentionality, as he who acts forthe cause of justiceitself does not necessarily act as a legalreformer but may still act with the intention of acting for thecause of justice.33Josiah Ober,Political Dissent in Democratic Athens(Princeton, 2002), p. 179.9

  ignoring (or not taking into deep enough consideration) that hewas, in complyingwith the state, killing a morally innocent man(himself), despite his previous re-fusalto“collaborateinthemurderofaninnocentperson.”34Whetherthatinnocentman was himself or someone else is ethicallyirrelevant.One might object that Socrates was simply obeying anorder and is thus notmorally responsible for such actions becausehe was not an independent moralagent insofar as he was followingthe law. One might analogously link this situa-tion, asBrickhouse and Smith have done, to that of soldiers followingorders andthus lacking individual culpability for followingunjust orders.35Brickhouse andSmith claim that “unjust laws may be passed; but inobeying them, the citizensdo not act unjustly...”36This, however, fails to take into account both Socrates’ownethical views, as presented in theCrito, and the historical context in whichSocrates lived. Theindividualistic nature of Socrates’ ethics in theCrito, in whichhis focus is on the soul, is contrary to the idea ofobeying orders blindly. Withregard to whether Socrates would havethought that he might be exculpated fromany unethical actions dueto being under orders, it is important to examine the his-torical

context. This is because there is not sufficient discussion ofthe topic in thedialogue to come to a definitive conclusion, andlooking at contemporary theoryon the topic would beanachronistic.Socrates’ reference to Achilles in theCritounderscores his actions. The Il-iadic Achilles is praised andrevered for his individual initiative when he pushes beyond hisorders and is valorous in doing so. Achilles’ valor was widelyrec-ognized among the Greeks. If one is praiseworthy for doing agood action by breaking rank, then the implication of this isthat one is responsible for one’s ac-tions independently oforders. By this same principle, one must be blameworthyfor not breaking ranks and doing something maleficent as a result.Withregard to the arguments presented by Martin and others for thecivil dis-obedienceinterpretation,althoughtheseargumentsarederivedfromtheobligationfrom gratitude, they do not exist solely withindiscussions of obligation from grat-itude; these arguments mayvery well be derivable from other forms of obligation.The fact,however, that these arguments are not applicable in the case oftheCritois of particular concern for those who argue that the notion ofthe obligation fromgratitude is present in the dialogue. Aplausible alternative to the choice of either civil disobedienceor absolute obligation has not been presented.34Richard Kraut,Socrates and the State(Princeton, 1987), p. 20.35Brickhouse and Smith,Plato’s Socrates, pp. 151-153.36Ibid., p. 152.10

  By contrast, the arguments that will be presented in support ofthe notion of obligation of fair play provide a plausiblealternative that cannot be derived fromthe obligation fromgratitude, and these arguments can answer the concerns of al-

ternative interpretations.The two primary arguments that resultfrom the obligation from gratitude in-terpretation containinternal consistency issues. The argument given forabsoluteobligation that was traditionally discussed, and thatappears prima facieto be whatSocrates argued in theCrito, cannot exist in light of what Socrates argued in the Apology. Further, the argument for civil disobedience, which reconcilesthe ap- parent contradictions between the Crito and theApology, is anachronistic without justification. Moreover, those infavour of the presence of arguments for civildisobedience in the Crito and theApologyhave not addressed the idea of con-scientious evasion that is soclosely related to it and which would haveallowedSocratesanescape.Partoftheappealofargumentsinfavourofthepresenceofthenotion of theobligation of fair play in theCritois that it reconciles apparent differ-ences between the Crito and theApologyin terms properly applicable to Socrates’time.37These reasons, among others, are why some interpreters are nowcoming torealize that the foundations of the dialogues, ratherthan failing popular exegeses,require further examination. NathanHanna, for example, explored new territoryin his examination ofthe foundations; however, he missed the correct path.383 Evidence and Arguments for Socratic Fair PlayBefore analyzing the idea of fair play in theCrito, it is prudent to define the mean-ing of ‘fair play’ andcarefully distinguish it from obligations from gratitude. Byfairplay, it is meant that a group of individuals agree, such as in a

social contract,to work together for the common good, sacrificingin order to achieve benefits.39If one person violates the terms of the agreement for hispersonal advantage, thenhe is taking advantage of the othermembers of the agreement and thus violatingthe obligations offair play.37While there may be an issue of anachronism for fair play due tothe word not being presentin Greek (discussed further later), theother problems remain for civil disobedience alone, makingfairplay preferable.38Hanna proposes a “superiority thesis” in which there is ahierarchy of authority, and he dis-misses the fair playinterpretation as unfounded.39Rawls, ‘Legal Obligation’, p. 128.11

  Another way to explain this is by analogy. Imagine that there isa group of  people playing a board game. They all agree to followthe rules (sacrificing someliberty)so thattheymay allenjoyplaying thegame(benefitingfromthesacrifice).One person decides tocheat so that he might win the game, but he is caught. Theotherparticipants accuse him of “not playing fair”; he is in violationof considera-tions of fair play. John Rawls explains that “ourmoral obligation to obey the lawis a special case of fair play.”40In my discussion of the concept of the obligation of fair play intheCrito, thenotion may not be identical to the highly refined idea ofthe obligation of fair playdiscussed by John Rawls but rathersomething that is at least an early precursor toit.41We cannot know exactly how Socrates viewed fair play, though itdoes seemthat there are significant similarities that make theanalysis effectively equivalentto Rawls’.Ancient Greek fair playmay manifest in a way that the details are distinct fromitscontemporary counterpart. While the guiding characteristicsshould not be toodifferent from modern fair play, the relationsbetween fair play participants may be changed. This is because,

in light of Aristotle’s discussion of friendship in Nicomachean Ethics, it is evident that what was significant to the ancient Greeksindiscussions of fairness was not equality but equity.42It should be noted thatPaul Schollmeier argues (correctly) thatone ought not to give a Rawlsian inter- pretation of Aristotelianpolitical friendship because while Aristotle’s argumentsarepredicated on a fundamental altruism, Rawls’ are predicated onegoism (PaulSchollmeier,Other Selves: Aristotle on Personal and Political Friendship(Al- bany, 1994), pp. 139- 153). This is not a problem for makinguse of Aristotle indiscussing Rawlsian ideas here because theideas we are extracting from Aristotleare supposedly part of theGreek culture as a whole—not just limited to Aristotlehimself—andtheCritois harmonious with Rawlsian theory in that Socrates’ mo-tivationsare egoistic. Aristotle explains that what is equitable is morejust thanuniversal statements43and “it is plain, then, what the equitable is, and that itis just and is better than one type of justice [i.e., equality]”.44This implies that therights, duties, and obligations of citizensvaried in relation to their status as vir-40Ibid.41For the original articles in which fair play is discussed, seeHerbert Hart, ‘Are There Any Nat-ural Rights?’,The Philosophical Review, 64 (1955), pp. 175-191 and Rawls, ‘Legal Obligation’.42]43 Nicomachean Ethics, 5.10.1137b20-26.44Ibid., 5.10.1137b33-34. This translation is by David Ross andrevised by James Urmson inThe Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, 1984).12

  tuous agents, e.g., the superiority of one person over another,45and the type of relationship they were in with other agents.46If we are to read Socrates in terms of equity instead ofequality, then Socraticfair play holds that the degree ofobligation that participants of the fair play agree-ment havevaries according to their characters and interrelationships. Theciti-zenry, however, might be seen as citizensquamembers of the agreement for the purpose of the obligation offair play rather than as membersquavirtuous char-acter or relational value. In this case, therewould be an artificial equality and theusual equity would bemoot. If we are to interpret the citizens in this way, all citi-zens are alike in that they are citizens. As Aristotle said,“that we should not givethe preference in all things to the sameperson is plain enough”.47Whether Socratic fair play ought to be understood in terms ofequity or equal-ity does not affect the question of whether therewas Socratic fair play. Even so,once the latter question isanswered, the former helps us to understand what typeof fair playwas discussed.The reasons are manifold as to why the concept offair play is a plausible and probable foundation of arguments forlegal obligation found in theCrito. It has been stated many times before that Socrates argued intheCritofor obligation tothe legal system of Athens due to tacit consentor some other form of social con-tract—this implies a ground,which may very well be fair play.48The primary source of this argument is “the Laws’” speech:Bygiving every Athenian the opportunity, once arrived at votingageand having observed the affairs of the city and us the laws,we pro-claim that if we do not please him, he can take hispossessions and gowherever he pleases. Not one of our laws raisesany obstacle or for- bids him, if he is not satisfied with us orthe city, if one of you wantsto go and live in a colony or wants

to go anywhere else, and keep his property. We say, however, thatwhoever of you remains... has in factcome to an agreement with usto obey our instructions.4945Ibid., 8.13.1162a34-1162b6.46Ibid., 8.12.1162a30-33.47Ibid., 9.2.1164b30-31.48E.g. Kraut, Socrates and the State, pp. 52-53; Woozley,Law and Obedience, pp. 42-64, etc.49Crito, 51d-e.John Simmons,Moral Principles and Political Obligations(Princeton, 1979), p. 96, notes thatthe arguments presented heremake a “claim through residence which is much more plausiblethanthe Locke-Rousseau conception.”Michael Rosano, ‘Citizenshipand Socrates in Plato’s Crito’,The Review of Politics, 62 (3)13

  Many have contended that the argument presented above is a formof an argumentfor a social contract theory of sorts—one is givena choice to be a member of asystem and agrees to that choice. Inthis case, the reason it may be considered atacit agreement isthat, by deciding not to leave Athens, Socrates agreed to bea participant in the legal system of Athens, though notexplicitly.50Many contemporary philosophers have noted a connection betweenconsent,eithertacitorexplicit,andfairplay.Somehaveevenarguedthatthesocialcontractis predicated on theobligation of fair play. Whether this connection is director indirect is debatable; however, what type of causal connectionexists is irrelevantaslongasthereisaconnection.51

Thisisnottosaythatargumentsforanobligationfrom tacit consent musthave existed in theCritofor the notion of the obligationof fair play to be present, asthere could be ade factoobligation of fair play. Butif arguments for an obligation fromtacit consent were present in theCrito, then itwould support the arguments in favour of the notion ofthe obligation of fair play being present in theCrito.52Historical evidence makes it clear that the earlier charges ofanachronism donot apply to the notion of the obligation of fairplay. In fact, that very historical(2000), pp. 451-477, esp. p. 468, calls this “implicit agreement”rather than tacit consent; if itis implicit rather than tacit,then that would add some legitimacy to the arguments. This isbecausesome contemporary philosophers (such as Ronald Dworkin, aswill be discussed in an upcomingnote) deny that tacit consent istrue consent.50One of those who see arguments for tacit consent in theCritois George Klosko in GeorgeKlosko,The Development of Plato’s Political Theory(New York, 2006), p. 245 and GeorgeKlosko, ‘Fixed Content onPolitical Obligations’,Political Studies, 46 (1) (1998), pp. 53-67, esp. p. 59.51Stephen Guest,Ronald Dworkin(Edinburgh, 1991), p. 86, argued that the presence of an“elementof ‘fair play’” makes it more likely that “citizensought , if there had been a chance, tohave consented to government.”This implies that fair play can exist without a social contractandmay be a positive (though not sufficient) condition of thatcontract if one did exist.52Contrarily, John Simmons has argued and reaffirmed that one must

accept the benefits of a fair  play scheme willingly andknowingly in order for the obligation of fair play to a system toexist:Simmons, Moral Principles, p. 132; John Simmons, ‘The Principle of Fair Play’ inJustificationand Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations(New York, 2001), pp. 1-26; John Simmons,‘Fair Play and PoliticalObligation: Twenty Years Later’ inJustification and Legitimacy: Essayson Rights and Obligations(New York, 2001), pp. 27-42. Richard Arneson, however, has arguedcontrahiscommentthatonemustknowinglyandwillinglyacceptthebenefitsinRichardArneson,‘The Principle of Fairness and Free-Rider Problems’,Ethics, 92 (4) (1982), pp. 616-633. Arneson proposes a reformulation ofRawls’ fair play in order to make it more stable. But, we neednotdiscussthisindetailasthereisnoclearformulationofSocrates’tobeunstable. Thefairplaydebateis ongoing—for recent work, cf. withGeorge Klosko,The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation, 2nd ed. (Lanham, 2004) and George Klosko,Political Obligations(New York, 2005).14

  analysis supports the idea of the obligation of fair play’spresence in theCrito.Jeff Miller, in relation to the topic of the true nature ofAthenian democraticequality,53summarizes an article on the topic by Moshe Berent:More recently,scholars like Moshe Berent have argued that the ab-sence ofcoercive apparatuses, or what Berlin refers to above as ‘pub-licauthority’, characterizedtheGreekpolisandallowedforthedevel-opment of a distinctive conception of politics that waspredominantlydesigned to create internal ethical checks on theindividual.54This reliance on “internal ethical checks” as a derivation ofobligation stronglyresembles a social contract theory in which itis not a matter of there being an“authority”toenforcethelaw,suchasinanon-ethicsbasedlegaltheory, butrather an internal social

agreement that creates ethically binding obligations.Miller laterquotes Demosthenes as having said:...aseverycitizenhasanequal(ison)shareincivilrightssoeverybodyshould have an equal (ison) share in the laws; and therefore he movedthat it should not belawful to propose a law affecting any individualunless the sameapplied to all Athenians.55Demosthenes’ speech also appears to support arguments concerninga socialcontract’s presence in classical Athens. Even more thanthat, it describes some-thing that resembles the notion of theobligation of fair play. At the very least, thisquote can be usedto show the presence of historical evidence in favour of asocialcontract without discussing the notion of the obligation offair play. This is stilluseful for my fair play thesis due to therelationship between a social contract andthe obligation of fairplay, as has been previously discussed.Further, Josiah Ober hasexplicitly argued, based on the writings of Aristotle53 Isonomia(ἰσονομία)—which translates roughly as ‘equality under the laws’—andcoinciden-tally translated in Alfred Zimmern,The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in FifthCenturyAthens(Oxford, 1911), p. 126, as ‘fair play’—has been traditionallydiscussed in relationtoAthens.Howevercurrenthistoricalevidencecastsdoubtontherelationshipof isonomiatoAthe-nian culture (Jeff Miller, ‘Democratic Characterizationsof Democracy: Liberty’s RelationshiptoEqualityandSpeechinAncientAthens’, HistoryofPoliticalThought ,22(2001),pp. 400-417,esp. p. 404). It is worth mentioning thatthis is a very recent historical opinion, and that thepresenceof isonomiain the classical Athenian democracy has been assumed as recentlyas 1989 in JosiahOber,Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens(Princeton, 1989), p. 68.54

Miller, ‘Equality and Speech’, p. 402; the article he refers tois Moshe Berent, ‘Stasisor theGreek Invention of Politics’,History of Political Thought , 19 (3) (1998), pp. 331-362.55Miller, ‘Equality and Speech’, p. 408.15

  combined with historical knowledge of Athenian equality, that theAthenians hada near-Rawlsian social contract.56He states that “if we stay within the citizenship,the Atheniansocial contract at least roughly recapitulates the principlesdevelopedwithin Rawls’ thought experiment.”57AlthoughtheRawlsiansocialcontractonlyseemstoholdinclassicalAthensif it is solely the citizens who are discussed, this isirrelevant; Ober’s analysis showsthat a social contract—possiblya Rawlsian social contract—existed in classicalAthens, properlyimplemented or not. As long as the idea existed in theancientcontext, then it is not anachronistic to argue that it ispresent in theCrito.58Withall this historical evidence, it is unreasonable to considerthe obligation of fair playanachronistic; indeed, this evidencesupportsthe idea that Socrates had the obli-gation of fair play inmind.Arguments often used to support obligation from gratitudecan also apply tothe idea of fair play. As Leslie Green notes,“[t]he core idea is that those whoaccept the benefits of the fairscheme of cooperation have an obligation to do their allottedpart under that scheme: if others obey the law to our benefit, weowe theman obligation not to take a free-ride on theircompliance.”59It is evident that the part of theCritodetailing the benefits granted to Socrates by the city wassimplyexplaining that the fair play precondition of incurred

benefits was satisfied.Thisallusionwouldhavebeencleartoacontemporaryaudiencewhosebeliefsconcern-ing obligation to the Athenian legal system were informedby fair play.Gregory Vlastos believes that Socrates had fair playin his mind intuitivelyas an underlying reasoning throughout theCrito, and particularly noted 51c-d, inwhich the laws state, “[w]ehave given birth to you, nurtured you, educated you;we have givenyou and all other citizens a share of all the good things wecould.”60While this line from the dialogue and the argument presented byVlastos concern-ing it are not sufficient reasons in and ofthemselves to contend that the idea of fair  play was the basisof the arguments put forth in theCrito, it does add credence to56Cf. Josiah Ober,The Athenian Revolution(Princeton, 1996), pp. 161-188.57Ibid. 185.58One might contend that arguments for civil disobedience beingpresent in theCritois itself historical evidence that makes the claim no longeranachronistic. Possibly so, but without inde- pendentcorroboration of the concept, it makes the claim dubitable.59Leslie Green, ‘Legal Obligation and Authority’, inStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.2003. 18 Feb 2009 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-obligation>.60In Vlastos, ‘Socrates on Political’, p. 528, the line referred towas translated as, “[w]e havedistributed to you and all the othercitizens all of the fair things it was in our power tobestow.”The Greek is: “ἡμεῖς γάρ σεγεννήσαντες, ἐκθρέψαντες, παιδεύσαντες, μεταδόντεςἁπάντωνὧν οἷοί τ᾽ἦμεν καλῶν σοὶ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις πᾶσιν πολίταις.”16

  my fair play thesis.There is a significant difference between thedebt incurred in obligation fromgratitude and that in obligationof fair play. In the notion of obligation from grat-itude it isthe case that obligation exists directly to an abstract state,and in thenotion of obligation of fair play it is the case thatobligation exists directly to other citizens—and if theobligation exists to an abstract state at all, then it isindirect.Concerning these arguments, if one person violated thelaw, then there wouldnot be any dire consequences; however, ifmany people were to violate the law,then there would besignificant repercussions. Socrates, in violating the lawof Athens, would potentially be causing harm to the Laws—ifothers were to vio-late the law as well—and would certainly beabusing the trust of other citizens.Therefore, Socrates’ takingadvantage of the others’ obedience to the law would be aviolation of the obligation of fair play. The damage to the legalsystem oc-curs when many people decide to take advantage of theagreement with the other citizens. The damage is done to the lawbecause the trust that initially underlaidthe agreement has beenbroken.61As arguments typically used to support the claim of obligationfrom gratitudehave been compromised in favor of the obligation offair play, we may proceedwith our analysis and examine textualevidence from theCritoin support of thelatter thesis.In Woozley’s analysis, he pointsoutCrito49e-50a, stating that “[i]f we leavehere without the city’spermission, are we harming people whom we should leastdo harm to?And are we sticking to a just agreement, or not?”62He indicates thatthis seems to be an argument for obligation offair play, or at least a precursor of it, stating that “the Greekin 49e-50a could stand that interpretation which wouldgive us aninteresting forerunner of the Rawlsian justice as fairness.”63But Woo-zley does not elaborate on this. He apparently doubtshimself and later says that61This idea is similar to the “garrison threshold” discussed in

Joel Feinberg,Harm to Self  (NewYork, 1986), pp. 21-23: if one person does something wrong,then it is not horrible in and of itself, but if many people doso, then it would be a disaster.62Crito, 49d.63Woozley,Law and Obedience, p. 25.One might object here that Woozley would be referring tojustice as fairness inA Theory of   Justice, in which Rawls had already abandoned fair play. This, however,is not entailed by thecomment. Justice as fairness was firstproposed in 1958, and fair play as a grounding of it wasfirst proposed in 1963. He only abandoned fair play as thegrounding of obligation of justice as fairnessyears later inA Theory of Justice. This abandonment furthermore does not mean that justiceasfairness is not compatible with, or does not lead to, fairplay. Rather, Rawls merely did not think that fair play was asufficient account of the source of obligation.17

  there was no reference to obligation because of other people. He claims that “it isnowheresuggested, eitherby Socratesorbythepersonified lawsofAthens, thatto break the law is to treatother people unjustly,” and he continues to assert thatfair  play would “hardly have been intelligible to Socrates andhis contemporaries.”64In response to Woozley’s criticism about theCritonot referring to “people”when discussing where our obligationslie, it is important to note that the wordthat is translated hereas ‘city’ is ‘πόλιν’, which can refer to the city in the generalsense, i.e., all ofthe citizenry. In addition, the phrase that is translated as‘people’is difficult to explain grammatically, due to the

differences between Greek andEnglish; however, it is more easilytranslated in such a way that it refers toall the people of Athens.65This textual analysis demonstrates that when discussing gen-eralobligation to the legal system, it is plausible that Socratesdid indeed refer tothe people of Athens and that which he owed tothem rather than solely the state.This in turn demonstrates thatthe obligation existed through agreement directedtoward thepeople rather than to the state, which is one of the factors thatdistin-guishes the obligation of fair play from obligation fromgratitude. It should also be noted that the discussion of what weowe to people was the first argument thatSocrates put forth inthe dialogue in favour of general legal obligation.64Woozley, Law and Obedience, p. 135.There is no word in ancientGreek associated with the notion of fair play. This, however,doesnot entail that the concept is missing. This can be evidencedby my earlier discussion of an abstractstate. The issue ofwhether the Greeks had the concept of an abstract state could beeasily resolvedif a specific word for such a state existed. Evenso, despite the lack of word, the issue remainscontroversial. Butthe point is well taken and I admit that my thesis may succumb toanachronisticcounterarguments. Despite this, I maintain thatthese issues are less demanding than the issues Ihave raisedagainst the competing theories and the interpretive benefitsassociated with adoptingthe fair play thesis outweigh thedeficiencies.65This effectively means, at least in this case, the same thing as‘  polis ’ (or ‘ polin’ in this case).Ober states that “the presence of noncitizens inthe polis was foundational rather than epiphenom-enal; were theyremoved from the koinonia , the polis could not exist.” Ober,Athenian Revolution, p. 168.The Greek is “Σωκράτης: ἐκ τούτων δὴ ἄθρει. ἀπιόντες ἐνθένδε ἡμεῖς μὴ [50a]

πείσαντεςτὴν πόλιν πότερον κακῶς τινας ποιοῦμεν, καὶ ταῦτα οὓςἥκιστα δεῖ, ἢ οὔ; καὶ ἐμμένομεν οἷςὡμολογήσαμεν δικαίοις οὖσιν ἢοὔ.”18

  4 The Implications of Fair Play as a Foundation of theCritoWhen examining what effect this new foundation has oninterpretations of thedialogue, the first thing that should benoted is that the notion of absolute legalobligation isincompatible with the idea of fair play.66Letussupposethattheideaoffairplayweretheonlysourceoflegalobligationin the following example:There is a situation in which a groupof individuals is held hostage. A gun is pointed at each person’shead. One of the captors says, “You! If you punch the person onyour right, then we’ll let you all free. If not, then we’ll killyou all.”Given considerations of fair play, it would seem absurdfor the first individual notto punch the second individualdespite the violation of established laws againstassault. Thereason it is absurd is because that individual is violating theduty toobey the previously agreed upon laws, butall individuals are benefiting from thisviolation including thedirect victim of the violation (being punched rather than beingkilled) and all indirect victims (their agreement beingtemporarily violatedrather than all of them dying). There is nosacrificial lamb because nobody isharmed by the violation of theagreement; all have benefited. One of the definingcharacteristicsof fair play is that a group of individuals agrees to worktogether for the common good, sacrificing in order to achievebenefits. In this situation,clearly considerations of fair playfor the common good take precedence over thegeneralagreement.This example implies that absolute obligation to obeythe law is incompatiblewith fair play and that claims that thereare arguments for absolute obligation intheCritoare problematic.The next point that must be addressed is thediscrepancy between the argu-ments in the Crito and theApology

. While it is clear that Socrates intended todisobey a directcourt order in theApology, he would not have done so for the pur- pose of persuading thelegal system;67he would disobey the law so that he could,as he said, continue topractise philosophy and spread knowledge—even if it wereknowledgeof his lack of knowledge. How is the problem of conflict betweenthe66One may conceive of a perfectly just society that allows fordisobedience to certain laws for ethical purposes and is alwaysperfectly just in deciding what is allowed in all conceivablesitua-tions. Even so, I am going to assume that this situation istoo remote to be relevant.67Socrates never stated his intentionality in theApologywhen claiming that he would disobeya court order, so assumingthat he would do so for the purpose of persuading the legalsystem of Athens is overly speculative.19

  dialogues resolved in arguments concerning obligation of fairplay, if it is not re-solved through civil disobedience?Thepurpose of fair play is to maximize the benefits of the peoplepartakingin the agreement once thepro tantoduties have already been established.68Onemight think that Socrates would have thought that he washelping the others rather than cheating them by disobeying thelaw. His dissemination of knowledge di-rectly benefited eachindividual, thus avoiding the question of whether he wastakingadvantage of them.69In interpreting theCrito, however, I accept the bifur-cation presented to him as apremise of his logic. He was only given two choices;he might havefled into exile or submitted to the law and died. If he had fledintoexileinthissituation,

thenhewouldhavebeentakingadvantageofotherindividu-als because hewould not have given them any benefit as a result of hisviolation of theagreement.Heandhisfriendsandfamilywouldhavebeentheonlybenefactorsof hisdisobedience, while others would have suffered from theirmisplacement of trust in him; thus he would have been violatingconsiderations of fair play.70Concerning this, one might ask whether Socrates’ decision todrink the hem-lock was right. Did not the judges who condemnedhim violate considerations of fair play first, thereby “ruiningthe game” and making it so that Socrates no longer had anobligation to follow the rules?In response to this question onemight think that Socrates would respondasfollows:“Oneshouldneverdowronginreturn,normistreatanyman,nomatterhowonehas been mistreated by him.”71Or Socrates might repeat a line from theGorgiasin which he states that he “would choose suffering over doingwhat’s unjust.”72Hemight say that, though he was mistreated by those who condemnedhim, it would68In Rawls, ‘Legal Obligation’, p. 128, Rawls notes that this isnot to be confused with solelyutility but that it “would indeedbe irrational to prefer a lesser to a more efficient just schemeof cooperation.”69One anonymous reader noted that this benefit occurs throughSocrates’ persuasion to, for ex-ample, not do wrong under eachcircumstance under consideration. I, however, think thatthe benefit occurs merely through the transference of knowledge,as that knowledge increases theca- pabilityof the recipient to be aware of what is right or wrong under avariety of circumstances.70Rawls, ‘Legal Obligation’, p. 127, implies that conscientiousevasion is inconsistent with fair  play.It is not clear thatSocrates himself would even have benefited from going into exile.If he couldnot philosophize freely in Athens, then there islittle reason to think that he could do so elsewhere,and

philosophizing is an essential characteristic of Socrates’developed soul.71Crito, 49c-d.72Gorgias, 469c.20

  not be just for him to violatehisend of the agreement. If he were to have violatedconsiderationsof fair play, then he would have been sinking to their level, sotospeak;73doing so would have damaged his soul. Whether they hurt him firstisirrelevant, as an unjust action is an unjust action in and ofitself. The previouslyquoted line from theCrito, however, has been subject to debate as it may have been meantfacetiously rather than sincerely.74It must be said that Socrates himself is the beneficiary of allthese actions be-cause of his avoidance of the damaged soul. Thedialogic Socrates in theCritodoes not put on a show of selflessness, and all Socrates’ moralclaims concernhow they might affect the state of his soul;whether these soul-benefiting actionshappen to benefit others ismerely incidental. This feature of the dialogue, in fact,might beinterpreted as sympathetic toward the idea of fair play, asagreeing to afair play contract is an intrinsically selfishaction.Alternatively, one might think that Socrates might havebeen ignoring the ideaof collective responsibility as it extendsto all the people of Athens. To rebut, hemight have said that,though these judges in whom he lost trust condemned him,he stillhad an obligation via considerations of fair play not to cheatall the other  people of Athens.5 A Weakened Claim and a Problem SolvedConsistency cannot be achieved between the Crito and the

Apologywhile relyingon the obligation of gratitude interpretationbecause of the problems with both ab-solute obligation and civildisobedience. There is, however, historical and textualevidencefor the obligation of fair play; and an interpretation relying onthe ideaof the obligation of fair play informing theCrito’s primary argument resolves theconsistency problem. But somemight object that the textual evidence noted infavour of theobligation of fair play informing arguments constitutes only asmall partofthedialogue.Infact,thetextualevidenceinfavouroftheconceptofobliga-tion fromgratitude,inter alia, informing the arguments makes up a much greater 73The assessment that in the concept of obligation of fair play onemay have an obligation toan unjust decision, or law, has beendiscussed before, such as in Michael Menlowe,‘PoliticalObligation’, inTheories and Concepts of Politics(Manchester, 1993), pp. 174-196, esp. pp. 182-185.74In addition to arguments concerning the line from theCrito, Joseph Raz has argued that 469cfrom the Gorgiaswas stated for its rhetorical power (Joseph Raz. ‘On the SocraticMaxim’,Notre Dame Law Review, 75 (2000), pp. 1797-1806.)21

   part of the dialogue. In theCrito, 50e-51b, a master-slave relationship, as well asa father-childrelationship, is discussed when describing Socrates’ relation tothestate. It seems inconsistent with the obligation of fair playbecause of an unequalrelationship between an individual and thestate.While this is not generally something that would bediscussed when analyzingthe obligation of fair play, it is notinconsistent. In fair play, thepro tanto

dutiesestablished by the relationship are clearly superior to themere volition of an indi-vidual. This is not because the state isinherently superior, however, but becausethe individual hasalready agreed to obey the laws.This adds depth to the fair playinterpretation and begins to imply that the ar-guments in theCritoare not solely informed by the obligation of fair play.Thedialogic arguments may support obligationsimpliciter while, at the same time,discussing a variety of sources ofobligation. These sources are consistent withone another and helpto delineate the extent of one’s obligation.In favour ofarguments informed by the obligation of gratitude, one simplyneedrefer to 50d-e and 51c-52b, which discuss all that the Laws havedone for Socrates and that he accepted the benefits theyconferred. These arguments seem prima facieto be much more significant than the social contract aspect. Itwould,however, be a mistake to give undue weight to thisargument. Certainly the lengthoftheargumentintheCritocannotbeanaccurateindicatorofitsintendedstrength—for tersearguments are oftentimes much stronger than longer ones. And anyother method of determining one argument’s weight relative toanother would be spec-ulative.If we accept that argumentsinformed by, inter alia, obligation from gratitude,obligationfrom superiority, a social contract, and particularly one relyingon fair  play, all appear within the dialogue harmoniously (asnone directly contradictsany other), then the problems ofinterpretation and consistency are both solved. Italso allowsmany previous discussions concerning theCritoto stand in additionto allowing many to preserve their positionthat Socrates argued for their favouredgrounding obligation intheCrito.If we allow that all the arguments for obligation presented intheCritoholdequal weight (or even if some are slightly more weighty thanothers), then wemust also accept, with each argument presented,that Socrates was describing hisview on legal obligation and itslimits and particulars. Thus the arguments thatwere used earlierto explain why the dialogues would not have been

inconsistentunder a fair play interpretation are still valid.None are incompatible withother interpretationsinsofaraswedonotsteadfastlyholdtoanabsoluteobligationview.This explanation, i.e., that Socrates would beharming the citizens of Athens by22  not practicing philosophy and that he ought not to do such harm,75is supported by49c, which states that “[o]ne must neither repayan injustice nor cause harm to anyman, no matter what one suffersbecause of him.”Socrates would be harming the citizens of Athensby not practising philoso- phy. In an equal-parts fair playinterpretation that allows for non-absolute obli-gation when thepro tantoobligation is overridden by a more significant moralimperative,this would be disallowed. The supposed inconsistencies betweentheCrito and theApologyare resolved while still preserving the integrity of much of theprevious analyses of the dialogues.6 ConclusionAs problems have been identified for all major interpretations oftheCritoand the Apology, we must examine the foundation of these interpretations. Anargumentinformed by the obligation of fair play is compatiblewith nearly all previous argu-ments that were designed to supportcivil disobedience. Moreover, it establishesthat theCritocomplements theApologyrather than contradicts it, satisfying thosewho desire congruitybetween the two dialogues. It would be too extreme, how-ever, tosay that arguments informed by fair play are the primaryarguments intheCrito; an argument informed by the idea of the obligation of fair playis oneof many arguments presented in the dialogues. The additionof this argument to previous analyses reconciles the supposedinconsistencies between the

CritoandtheApologyand presents fewer problems than the civil disobedience view,fun-damental to the obligation from gratitude interpretation.These ancient origins of the obligation of fair play bringcontinued support to the famous remark by Alfred North Whiteheadthat all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato.75This lack of practice harms both him and the citizens of Athens.By not practising philosophy,Socrates is neither participating inthe activities required of his soul nor helping others toengagein this activity.23