ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the larger issue of Socrates' position on 'civil disobedience'. The fundamental difference between the Socratic position and that of the Personified Laws of Athens (PLA) is that whereas Socrates thinks that a virtuous citizen may disobey in consistency with the two principles of 49a-e, the PLA think that he cannot. As far as they are concerned, disobedience to the state cannot fail to treat the state either 'unjustly' or 'badly', and, hence, the virtuous citizen cannot disobey without violating one or the other of the moral principles which supposedly circumscribe his life of virtue. In his valuable study on Socrates, Richard Kraut argues against understanding the speech of the PLA as enjoining blind obedience to the state. He contends that the speech may be interpreted as allowing room for justified disobedience under certain circumstances. As Kraut might put it more generally, the blind-obedience interpretation is inconsistent with the Socratic recognition of the need for disobedience.