PHILOSOPHY 100 Ted Stolze

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PHILOSOPHY 100 (Ted Stolze)
Notes on James Rachels, Problems from Philosophy
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Chapter One The Legacy of Socrates
470 B.C.E. 399 B.C.E.
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Some Preliminary Questions

• Who was Socrates?
• What were the official charges against him?
• What were possible unofficial charges against
  him?
• What happened to him?

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Why did Socrates Believe He had to Die?

• The argument about destroying the state
• The analogy between the state and ones parents
• The social contract argument

He offers three basic arguments in the Crito
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The Argument about Destroying the State
(1) If we do not as a general rule obey the law
(allowing only rare exceptions), the state
cannot exist. (2) It would be disastrous if the
state did not exist, because we would all be
very much worse off without it. (3) Therefore,
we should as a general rule obey the law
(allowing only rare exceptions).
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Objections to the Destroying the State Argument

• Would Socrates disobedience really have resulted
  in social chaos?
• Would we be better off without the state?

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The Parent/State Analogy
(1) We should always obey our parents. (2) The
state is like our parents. (3) Therefore, we
should always obey the state..
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Objections to the Parent/Ruler Analogy

• Does the analogy work?
• Should we always obey our parents?
• Is the state really like our parents?
• The analogy is precisely wrong democracy
  requires instead that we think of the people
  themselves as the parents, and the rulers as the
  children

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The Social Contract Argument
(1) If you enjoy the benefits of citizenship,
then you have implicitly promised to obey the
laws of your society. (2) Socrates had enjoyed
the benefits of Athenian citizenship. (3) Therefo
re, he had promised to obey the Athenian laws.
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Objections to the Social Contract Argument

• Does the idea of an implicit promise make sense?
• Does such an implicit promise require citizens
  always to obey the law?
• What if Socrates had not been an Athenian citizen
  but instead a slave, resident alien, or woman?

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Martin Luther King. Jr. on Socratic Tension
You may well ask Why direct action? Why
sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isnt negotiation a
better path? You are exactly right in your call
for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of
direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to
create such a crisis and establish such creative
tension that a community that has constantly
refused to negotiate is forced to confront the
issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that
it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to
the creation of tension as part of the work of
the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather
shocking. But I must confess that I am not
afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly
worked and preached against violent tension, but
there is a type of constructive nonviolent
tension that is necessary for growth. Just as
Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a
tension in the mind so that individuals could
rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to
the unfettered realm of creative analysis and
objective appraisal, we must see the need of
having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of
tension in society that will help men to rise
from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to
the majestic heights of understanding and
brotherhood. So the purpose of the direct action
is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it
will inevitably open the door to negotiation.
We, therefore, concur with you in your call for
negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland
been bogged down in the tragic effort to live in
monologue rather than dialogue. (Excerpted from
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, in I Have a
Dream Writings and Speeches that Changed the
World, edited by James M. Washington NY
HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, pp. 86-87.)