Truth and Public Opinion Theme Analysis

For Crito, public dishonor is a great evil. He suggests that one can only maintain good moral standing in one’s community by acting in accordance with their values, and that acting in any other way is “shameful.” Crito’s argument is therefore premised on his belief that the community is the ultimate judge of right and wrong action. Socrates, on the other hand, insists that the truth is fully independent from public opinion. For this reason, there’s no reason to worry about how others perceive one’s actions, so long as they’re undertaken in accordance with the greater good.

A major component of Crito’s argument is the question of how others perceive Socrates’ execution. He finds this question concerning not only for Socrates himself, but also for his friends, worrying that the people of Athens will think he was executed because no one went to the trouble of helping him escape. He fears for the damage his own reputation will suffer as a result: “there can be no worse reputation,” he says, “than to be though to value money more highly than one’s friends, for the majority will not believe that you yourself were not willing to leave prison while we were eager for you to do so.” By arguing that Socrates should prioritize counteracting this perception over his own belief in what’s right, Crito implies that it is both morally acceptable and occasionally necessary to compromise one’s principles to accommodate public perception. In this sense, Crito argues that the truth ultimately matters less than what others think. Telling lies, acting hypocritically, and even breaking the law are more acceptable than allowing oneself and the people one cares about to face the dangers that come with a bad reputation.

Crito justifies his conviction by reminding Socrates that he himself was condemned only because the public misunderstood him. He cites Socrates’ own case back to him: “your present situation makes clear that the majority can inflict not the least but pretty well the greatest evils if one is slandered among them.” He thinks this experience proves the power of majority opinion: public perception matters because the public has power over life and death. This argument relies on the premise that death, and other punishments the public can inflict, are the greatest possible evils—all moral questions pale in comparison to the imperative of staving these things off from oneself and one’s loved ones. In that sense, public opinion doesn’t deserve a person’s attention because it’s important per se that others agree with that person’s action. Rather, it matters because the public has immense power to inflict evil. This power demands a respect rooted in fear.

Socrates responds by questioning the premise of Crito’s argument, countering that the evils the public can inflict are far less threatening than the prospect of betraying the truth. He rebukes Crito immediately: “would that the majority could inflict the greatest evils, for they would then be capable of the greatest good, and that would be fine, but they cannot do either. They cannot make a man either wise or foolish, but they inflict things haphazardly.” This quote aligns wisdom and foolishness with great good and great evil, respectively, thereby challenging Crito’s assumption that death is the greatest evil of all. Because of this different conception of good and evil, Socrates argues that the majority does not deserve one’s attention. Rather, one should care only for the opinions of “wise men”––that minority of the population which shares what Socrates takes to be correct views on the nature of the good. He compares a wise man’s opinion on the good to a doctor’s opinion on the body: it is credible because it is rooted in a specialized expertise. Respecting the opinions of the unwise majority, on the other hand, would be as dangerous as taking medical advice from a layman. Moral questions, from this point of view, have nothing to do with common opinion; they are matters for a qualified, learned, philosophical elite. Public dishonor, on the other hand, counts for nothing.