Exploring Ethics
An Introductory Anthology
FIFTH EDITION
Edited by
STEVEN M. CAHN
The City University of New York Graduate Center
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cahn, Steven M., editor.
Title: Exploring ethics: an introductory anthology / [edited by] Steven M. Cahn.
Description: Fifth Edition. | New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Identifiers: LCCN 2019013957 (print) | LCCN 2019018897 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190887933 (epub) | ISBN 9780190887902 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Ethics.
Classification: LCC BJ1012 (ebook) | LCC BJ1012 E97 2019 (print) | DDC 170 dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019013957
Printing number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To my wife, Marilyn
Ross, M.D.
Contents
Preface
INTRODUCTION
1. Morality and Moral Philosophy William K. Frankena
2. Crito Plato
3. Phaedo Plato
PART I: CHALLENGES TO MORALITY
4. Subjectivism Julia Driver
5. God and Morality Steven M. Cahn
6. The Challenge of Cultural Relativism James Rachels
7. Right and Wrong Thomas Nagel
8. Egoism and Moral Skepticism James Rachels
9. Happiness and Immorality Steven M. Cahn and Jeffrie G. Murphy
10. The Nature of Ethical Disagreement Charles L. Stevenson
11. The Rationality of Moral Action Philippa Foot
PART II: MORAL THEORIES
12. The Categorical Imperative Immanuel Kant
13. A Simplified Account of Kant’s Ethics Onora O’Neill
14. Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill
15. Strengths and Weaknesses of Utilitarianism Louis P. Pojman
16. The Nature of Virtue Aristotle
17. Virtue Ethics Julia Driver
18. The Ethics of Care Virginia Held
19. The Social Contract Thomas Hobbes
20. A Theory of Justice John Rawls
21. Gender Bias Cheshire Calhoun
PART III: MORAL PROBLEMS
A. WORLD HUNGER
22. Famine, Affluence, and Morality Peter Singer
23. A Reply to Singer Travis Timmerman
B. IMMIGRATION
24. Immigration: The Case for Limits David Miller
25. Is There a Right to Immigrate? Michael Huemer
C. INJUSTICE
26. Racisms Kwame Anthony Appiah
27. Sexism Ann E. Cudd and Leslie E. Jones
D. PROSTITUTION
28. Value and the Gift of Sexuality Elizabeth Anderson
29. Taking Money for Bodily Services Martha C. Nussbaum
30. Markets in Women’s Sexual Labor Debra Satz
E. PORNOGRAPHY
31. Pornography, Oppression, and Freedom Helen E. Longino
32. The Case Against Pornography: An Assessment Joel Feinberg
F. ANIMALS
33. Equality for Animals? Peter Singer
34. Speciesism and the Idea of Equality Bonnie Steinbock
35. Getting Animals in View Christine Korsgaard
36. Speaking of Animal Rights Mary Anne Warren
G. THE ENVIRONMENT
37. Philosophical Problems for Environmentalism Elliott Sober
38. Ethics and Global Change Dale Jamieson
H. ABORTION
39. A Defense of Abortion Judith Jarvis Thomson
40. On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion Mary Anne Warren
41. Why Abortion Is Immoral Don Marquis
42. Virtue Theory and Abortion Rosalind Hursthouse
I. EUTHANASIA
43. Active and Passive Euthanasia James Rachels
44. The Intentional Termination of Life Bonnie Steinbock
J. DEATH
45. Death Thomas Nagel
46. The Badness of Death Shelly Kagan
K. THE MEANING OF
LIFE
47. The Meaning of Life Richard Taylor
48. Meaning in Life Susan Wolf
49. Meaningful Lives Christine Vitrano
L. CONCLUSION
50. The Trolley Problem Judith Jarvis Thomson
51. Turning the Trolley Judith Jarvis Thomson
52. Moral Saints Susan Wolf
Glossary Index
Preface
Most anthologies in ethics contain far more material than can be covered in one course, and the readings are often daunting in their complexity. The few simpler and more concise collections usually stress moral problems while deemphasizing discussion of the concepts and methods of ethics.
This book can be completed in a single semester, and the readings have been edited, wherever appropriate, to enhance their accessibility. Moral theory is given its due alongside a selection of contemporary moral issues.
The first part, Challenges to Morality, considers questionable assumptions sometimes brought to the study of ethics. The second part, Moral Theories, focuses on competing explanations of why certain actions are right and others wrong. The third part, Moral Problems, features opposing readings on a variety of controversial issues, such as world hunger, immigration, and the environment.
Those who wish to learn more about any particular subject can consult the Encyclopedia of Ethics, second edition (Routledge, 2001), edited by Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker. It contains detailed entries with bibliographies on every significant topic in the field.
New to This Edition
Sections have been added on immigration, injustice, and prostitution. Other articles have been added on subjectivism, the treatment of animals, and global change.
The selections by Kant, Mill, Pojman, Longino, Feinberg, Sober, Thomson (39), Warren (40), Steinbock (44), and Vitrano have been reedited.
A glossary has been added.
Nearly half of the readings are authored by women.
Some selections found in the previous edition have been omitted, including those by Walter Berns, Carl Cohen, Karen Hanson, Daniel J. Hill, Lionel K. McPherson, Stephen Nathanson, Henry Shue, Laurence Thomas, Michael Walzer, three by Tom Regan, and one by the editor. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which appeared in every previous edition, could not be included here due to the rights holder imposing a prohibitive permissions fee.
Readings Added to This Edition
Julia Driver, “Subjectivism”
David Miller, “Immigration: The Case for Limits”
Michael Huemer, “Is There a Right to Immigrate?”
Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Racisms”
Ann E. Cudd and Leslie E. Jones, “Sexism”
Elizabeth Anderson, “Value and the Gift of Sexuality”
Martha Nussbaum, “Taking Money for Bodily Services”
Debra Satz, “Markets in Women’s Sexual Labor”
Peter Singer, “Equality for Animals”
Bonnie Steinbock, “Speciesism and the Idea of Equality”
Christine Korsgaard, “Getting Animals in View”
Dale Jamieson, “Ethics and Global Change”
Instructor and Student Resources
The Oxford University Press Ancillary Resource Center (ARC) at http://www.oup.com/us/cahn houses an Instructor’s Manual with Test Bank and PowerPoint Lecture Outlines for instructor use. Student Resources are available on the Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/cahn and include brief overviews, flashcards that highlight key terms, and essay questions that reaffirm the main ideas and arguments.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Robert Miller, executive editor at Oxford University Press, for his encouragement and guidance; to associate editor Alyssa Palazzo and assistant editor Sydney Keen, who helped in so many ways; to manuscript editor Marianne Paul for her conscientiousness; and to the staff at Oxford University Press for generous assistance throughout production.
I would also like to express my appreciation to those reviewers, chosen by the publisher, who offered valuable suggestions for the Fifth Edition:
Heath Allen, Oklahoma State University
Daniel Gluch, California State University-Sacramento
Jeremy Morris, Ohio University
Max Pensky, Binghamton University
Dr. Elizabeth Scarbrough, Florida International University
Susanne Sreedhar, Boston University
Nathan Stout, Tulane University
Harvey Whitney, Miami Dade College-Wolfson
Elaine Yoshikawa, Arizona State University
Note
Some of the selections were written when the custom was to use the noun “man” and the pronoun “he” to refer to all persons regardless of gender, and I have retained the authors’ original wording. With this proviso, we begin our readings.
Morality and Moral Philosophy
William K. Frankena
The terms “ethics” and “moral philosophy” may be used interchangeably. “Ethics” is derived from the Greek word ethos meaning “character”; “moral” is from the Latin moralis, relating to “custom ” But what is the nature of the subject referred to as “ethics” or “moral philosophy”? That question is addressed here by William K. Frankena (1908–1994), who was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan.
Suppose that all your life you have been trying to be a good person, doing your duty as you see it and seeking to do what is for the good of your fellowmen. Suppose, also, that many of your fellowmen dislike you and what you are doing and even regard you as a danger to society, although they cannot really show this to be true. Suppose, further, that you are indicted, tried, and condemned to death by a jury of your peers, all in a manner which you correctly consider to be quite unjust. Suppose, finally, that while you are in prison awaiting execution, your friends arrange an opportunity for you to escape and go into exile with your family. They argue that they can afford the necessary bribes and will not be endangered by your escaping; that if you escape, you will enjoy a longer life; that your wife and children will be better off; that your friends will still be able to see you; and that people generally will think that you should escape. Should you take the opportunity?
This is the situation Socrates, the patron saint of moral philosophy, is in at the opening of Plato’s dialogue, the Crito. The dialogue gives us his answer to our question and a full account of his reasoning in arriving at it. It will, therefore, make a good beginning for our study. Socrates first lays down some points about the approach to be taken. To begin with, we must not let our decision be determined by our emotions, but must examine the question and follow the best reasoning. We must try to get our facts straight and to
keep our minds clear. Questions like this can and should be settled by reason. Secondly, we cannot answer such questions by appealing to what people generally think. They may be wrong. We must try to find an answer we ourselves can regard as correct. We must think for ourselves. Finally, we ought never to do what is morally wrong. The only question we need to answer is whether what is proposed is right or wrong, not what will happen to us, what people will think of us, or how we feel about what has happened.
Having said this, Socrates goes on to give, in effect, a threefold argument to show that he ought not to break the laws by escaping. First: we ought never to harm anyone. Socrates’ escaping would harm the state, since it would violate and show disregard for the state’s laws. Second: if one remains living in a state when one could leave it, one tacitly agrees to obey its laws; hence, if Socrates were to escape he would be breaking an agreement, which is something one should not do. Third: one’s society or state is virtually one’s parent and teacher, and one ought to obey one’s parents and teachers.
In each of these arguments Socrates appeals to a general moral rule or principle which, upon reflection, he and his friend Crito accept as valid: (1) that we ought never to harm anyone, (2) that we ought to keep our promises, and (3) that we ought to obey or respect our parents and teachers. In each case he also uses another premise which involves a statement of fact and applies the rule or principle to the case in hand: (1a) if I escape I will do harm to society, (2a) if I escape I will be breaking a promise, and (3a) if I escape I will be disobeying my parent and teacher. Then he draws a conclusion about what he should do in his particular situation. This is a typical pattern of reasoning in moral matters.…
At some point you … will almost inevitably raise the question of how ethical judgments and principles … are to be justified … ; and this is likely to lead to the further question of what is meant by saying that something is right, good, virtuous, just, and the like.…
When this happens the discussion has developed into a full-fledged philosophical one. Ethics is a branch of philosophy; it is moral philosophy or philosophical thinking about morality, moral problems, and moral judgments. What this involves is illustrated by the sort of thinking Socrates was doing in the Crito.…
Moral philosophy arises when, like Socrates, we pass beyond the stage in which we are directed by traditional rules and even beyond the stage in which
these rules are so internalized that we can be said to be inner-directed, to the stage in which we think for ourselves… . We may … distinguish three kinds of thinking that relate to morality in one way or another.
1. There is descriptive empirical inquiry, historical or scientific, such as is done by anthropologists, historians, psychologists, and sociologists. Here, the goal is to describe or explain the phenomena of morality or to work out a theory of human nature which bears on ethical questions.
2. There is normative thinking of the sort that Socrates was doing in the Crito or that anyone does who asks what is right, good, or obligatory. This may take the form of asserting a normative judgment like “I ought not to try to escape from prison,”
“Knowledge is good,” or
“It is always wrong to harm someone,” and giving or being ready to give reasons for this judgment. Or it may take the form of debating with oneself or with someone else about what is good or right in a particular case or as a general principle, and then forming some such normative judgment as a conclusion.
3. There is also “analytical,” “critical,” or “meta-ethical” thinking. This is the sort of thinking we imagined that Socrates would have come to if he had been challenged to the limit in the justification of his normative judgments.… It does not consist of empirical or historical inquiries and theories, nor does it involve making or defending any normative or value judgments. It does not try to answer either particular or general questions about what is good, right, or obligatory. It asks and tries to answer … questions like the following: What is the meaning or use of the expressions “(morally) right” or “good”? How can ethical and value judgments be established or justified? Can they be justified at all? …
We shall take ethics to include meta-ethics as just described, but as also including normative ethics or thinking of the second kind.… In fact, we shall take ethics to be primarily concerned with … answering problems about what is right or ought to be done, and as being interested in meta-ethical questions mainly because it seems necessary to answer such questions before one can be entirely satisfied with one’s normative theory (although ethics is also interested in meta-ethical questions for their own sakes). However, since
certain psychological and anthropological theories are considered to have a bearing on the answers to normative and meta-ethical questions, as we shall see in discussing egoism … and relativism, we shall also include some descriptive or empirical thinking of the first kind.
Study Questions
What is a typical pattern of reasoning in moral matters?
In answering moral questions, do we need factual knowledge?
What are the differences among descriptive morality, normative ethics, and meta-ethics?
How does moral reasoning differ from mathematical reasoning?
CHAPTER 2
Crito
Plato
Here is the Crito, discussed in the previous selection. Plato (c. 428–347 B.C.E.), the famed Athenian philosopher, authored a series of such dialogues, most of which feature his teacher Socrates (469–399 B C E ), who himself wrote nothing but in conversation was able to befuddle the most powerful minds of his day.
SOCRATES: Why have you come at this hour, Crito? It’s still very early, isn’t it?
CRITO: Yes, very.
SOCRATES: About what time?
CRITO: Just before daybreak.
SOCRATES: I’m surprised the prison-warder was willing to answer the door.
CRITO: He knows me by now, Socrates, because I come and go here so often; and besides, I’ve done him a small favour.
SOCRATES: Have you just arrived, or have you been here for a while?
CRITO: For quite a while.
SOCRATES: Then why didn’t you wake me up right away instead of sitting by me in silence?
CRITO: Well of course I didn’t wake you, Socrates! I only wish I weren’t so sleepless and wretched myself. I’ve been marvelling all this time as I saw how peacefully you were sleeping, and I deliberately kept from waking you, so that you could pass the time as peacefully as possible. I’ve often admired your disposition in the past, in fact all your life; but more than ever in your present plight, you bear it so easily and patiently.
SOCRATES: Well, Crito, it really would be tiresome for a man of my age to
get upset if the time has come when he must end his life.
CRITO: And yet others of your age, Socrates, are overtaken by similar troubles, but their age brings them no relief from being upset at the fate which faces them.
SOCRATES: That’s true. But tell me, why have you come so early?
CRITO: I bring painful news, Socrates not painful for you, I suppose, but painful and hard for me and all your friends and hardest of all for me to bear, I think.
SOCRATES: What news is that? Is it that the ship has come back from Delos,1 the one on whose return I must die?
CRITO: Well no, it hasn’t arrived yet, but I think it will get here today, judging from reports of people who’ve come from Sunium,2 where they disembarked. That makes it obvious that it will get here today; and so tomorrow, Socrates, you will have to end your life.
SOCRATES: Well, may that be for the best, Crito. If it so please the gods, so be it. All the same, I don’t think it will get here today.
CRITO: What makes you think that?
SOCRATES: I’ll tell you. You see, I am to die on the day after the ship arrives, am I not?
CRITO: At least that’s what the authorities say.
SOCRATES: Then I don’t think it will get here on the day that is just dawning, but on the next one. I infer that from a certain dream I had in the night a short time ago, so it may be just as well that you didn’t wake me.
CRITO: And what was your dream?
SOCRATES: I dreamt that a lovely, handsome woman approached me, robed in white. She called me and said, “Socrates, Thou shalt reach fertile Phthia upon the third day.”3
CRITO: What a curious dream, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Yet its meaning is clear, I think, Crito.
CRITO: All too clear, it would seem. But please, Socrates, my dear friend, there is still time to take my advice, and make your escape because if you die, I shall suffer more than one misfortune: not only shall I lose such a friend as I’ll never find again, but it will look to many people, who
hardly know you or me, as if I’d abandoned you—since I could have rescued you if I’d been willing to put up the money. And yet what could be more shameful than a reputation for valuing money more highly than friends? Most people won’t believe that it was you who refused to leave this place yourself, despite our urging you to do so.
SOCRATES: But why should we care so much, my good Crito, about what most people believe? All the most capable people, whom we should take more seriously, will think the matter has been handled exactly as it has been.
CRITO: Yet surely, Socrates, you can see that one must heed popular opinion too. Your present plight shows by itself that the populace can inflict not the least of evils, but just about the worst, if someone has been slandered in their presence.
SOCRATES: Ah Crito, if only the populace could inflict the worst of evils! Then they would also be capable of providing the greatest of goods, and a fine thing that would be. But the fact is that they can do neither: they are unable to give anyone understanding or lack of it, no matter what they do.
CRITO: Well, if you say so. But tell me this, Socrates: can it be that you are worried for me and your other friends, in case the blackmailers4 give us trouble, if you escape, for having smuggled you out of here? Are you worried that we might be forced to forfeit all our property as well, or pay heavy fines, or even incur some further penalty? If you’re afraid of anything like that, put it out of your mind. In rescuing you we are surely justified in taking that risk, or even worse if need be. Come on, listen to me and do as I say.
SOCRATES: Yes, those risks do worry me, Crito amongst many others.
CRITO: Then put those fears aside because no great sum is needed to pay people who are willing to rescue you and get you out of here. Besides, you can surely see that those blackmailers are cheap, and it wouldn’t take much to buy them off. My own means are available to you and would be ample, I’m sure. Then again, even if out of concern on my behalf you think you shouldn’t be spending my money, there are visitors here who are ready to spend theirs. One of them, Simmias from Thebes, has actually brought enough money for this very purpose, while Cebes and quite a number of others are also prepared to contribute. So, as I say, you
shouldn’t hesitate to save yourself on account of those fears.
And don’t let it trouble you, as you were saying in court, that you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you went into exile. There will be people to welcome you anywhere else you may go: if you want to go to Thessaly,5 I have friends there who will make much of you and give you safe refuge, so that no one from anywhere in Thessaly will trouble you.
Next, Socrates, I don’t think that what you propose—giving yourself up, when you could be rescued is even just. You are actually hastening to bring upon yourself just the sort of thing which your enemies would hasten to bring upon you indeed, they have done so in their wish to destroy you.
What’s more, I think you’re betraying those sons of yours. You will be deserting them, if you go off when you could be raising and educating them: as far as you’re concerned, they will fare as best they may. In all likelihood, they’ll meet the sort of fate which usually befalls orphans once they’ve lost their parents. Surely, one should either not have children at all, or else see the toil and trouble of their upbringing and education through to the end; yet you seem to me to prefer the easiest path. One should rather choose the path that a good and resolute man would choose, particularly if one professes to cultivate goodness all one’s life. Frankly, I’m ashamed for you and for us, your friends: it may appear that this whole predicament of yours has been handled with a certain feebleness on our part. What with the bringing of your case to court when that could have been avoided, the actual conduct of the trial, and now, to crown it all, this absurd outcome of the business, it may seem that the problem has eluded us through some fault or feebleness on our part in that we failed to save you, and you failed to save yourself, when that was quite possible and feasible, if we had been any use at all.
Make sure, Socrates, that all this doesn’t turn out badly, and a disgrace to you as well as us. Come now, form a plan or rather, don’t even plan, because the time for that is past, and only a single plan remains. Everything needs to be carried out during the coming night; and if we go on waiting around, it won’t be possible or feasible any longer. Come on, Socrates, do all you can to take my advice, and do exactly what I say.
SOCRATES: My dear Crito, your zeal will be invaluable if it should have right on its side; but otherwise, the greater it is, the harder it makes matters. We
must therefore consider whether or not the course you urge should be followed because it is in my nature, not just now for the first time but always, to follow nothing within me but the principle which appears to me, upon reflection, to be best.
I cannot now reject the very principles that I previously adopted, just because this fate has overtaken me; rather, they appear to me much the same as ever, and I respect and honour the same ones that I did before. If we cannot find better ones to maintain in the present situation, you can be sure that I won’t agree with you not even if the power of the populace threatens us, like children, with more bogeymen than it does now, by visiting us with imprisonment, execution, or confiscation of property.
What, then, is the most reasonable way to consider the matter? Suppose we first take up the point you make about what people will think. Was it always an acceptable principle that one should pay heed to some opinions but not to others, or was it not? Or was it acceptable before I had to die, while now it is exposed as an idle assertion made for the sake of talk, when it is really childish nonsense? For my part, Crito, I’m eager to look into this together with you, to see whether the principle is to be viewed any differently, or in the same way, now that I’m in this position, and whether we should disregard or follow it.
As I recall, the following principle always used to be affirmed by people who thought they were talking sense: the principle, as I was just saying, that one should have a high regard for some opinions held by human beings, but not for others. Come now, Crito: don’t you think that was a good principle? I ask because you are not, in all foreseeable likelihood, going to die tomorrow, and my present trouble shouldn’t impair your judgement. Consider, then: don’t you think it a good principle, that one shouldn’t respect all human opinions, but only some and not others; or, again, that one shouldn’t respect everyone’s opinions, but those of some people, and not those of others? What do you say? Isn’t that a good principle?
CRITO: It is.
SOCRATES: And one should respect the good ones, but not the bad ones?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And good ones are those of people with understanding, whereas
bad ones are those of people without it?
CRITO: Of course.
SOCRATES: Now then, once again, how were such points established? When a man is in training, and concentrating upon that, does he pay heed to the praise or censure or opinion of each and every man, or only to those of the individual who happens to be his doctor or trainer?
CRITO: Only to that individual’s.
SOCRATES: Then he should fear the censures, and welcome the praises of that individual, but not those of most people.
CRITO: Obviously.
SOCRATES: So he must base his actions and exercises, his eating and drinking, upon the opinion of the individual, the expert supervisor, rather than upon everyone else’s.
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: Very well. If he disobeys that individual and disregards his opinion, and his praises, but respects those of most people, who are ignorant, he’ll suffer harm, won’t he?
CRITO: Of course.
SOCRATES: And what is that harm? What does it affect? What element within the disobedient man?
CRITO: Obviously, it affects his body, because that’s what it spoils.
SOCRATES: A good answer. And in other fields too, Crito we needn’t go through them all, but they surely include matters of just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, good and bad, the subjects of our present deliberation is it the opinion of most people that we should follow and fear, or is it that of the individual authority assuming that some expert exists who should be respected and feared above all others? If we don’t follow that person, won’t we corrupt and impair the element which (as we agreed) is made better by what is just, but is spoilt by what is unjust? Or is there nothing in all that?
CRITO: I accept it myself, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Well now, if we spoil the part of us that is improved by what is healthy but corrupted by what is unhealthy, because it is not expert opinion
that we are following, are our lives worth living once it has been corrupted? The part in question is, of course, the body, isn’t it?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And are our lives worth living with a poor or corrupted body?
CRITO: Definitely not.
SOCRATES: Well then, are they worth living if the element which is impaired by what is unjust and benefited by what is just has been corrupted? Or do we consider the element to which justice or injustice belongs, whichever part of us it is, to be of less value than the body?
CRITO: By no means.
SOCRATES: On the contrary, it is more precious?
CRITO: Far more.
SOCRATES: Then, my good friend, we shouldn’t care all that much about what the populace will say of us, but about what the expert on matters of justice and injustice will say, the individual authority, or Truth. In the first place, then, your proposal that we should care about popular opinion regarding just, honourable, or good actions, and their opposites, is mistaken.
“Even so,” someone might say, “the populace has the power to put us to death.”
CRITO: That’s certainly clear enough; one might say that, Socrates.
SOCRATES: You’re right. But the principle we’ve rehearsed, my dear friend, still remains as true as it was before for me at any rate. And now consider this further one, to see whether or not it still holds good for us. We should attach the highest value, shouldn’t we, not to living, but to living well?
CRITO: Why yes, that still holds.
SOCRATES: And living well is the same as living honourably or justly? Does that still hold or not?
CRITO: Yes, it does.
SOCRATES: Then in the light of those admissions, we must ask the following question: is it just, or is it not, for me to try to get out of here, when Athenian authorities are unwilling to release me? Then, if it does seem
just, let us attempt it; but if it doesn’t, let us abandon the idea.
As for the questions you raise about expenses and reputation and bringing up children, I suspect they are the concerns of those who cheerfully put people to death, and would bring them back to life if they could, without any intelligence, namely, the populace. For us, however, because our principle so demands, there is no other question to ask except the one we just raised: shall we be acting justly we who are rescued as well as the rescuers themselves if we pay money and do favours to those who would get me out of here? Or shall we in truth be acting unjustly if we do all those things? And if it is clear that we shall be acting unjustly in taking that course, then the question whether we shall have to die through standing firm and holding our peace, or suffer in any other way, ought not to weigh with us in comparison with acting unjustly.
CRITO: I think that’s finely said, Socrates; but do please consider what we should do.
SOCRATES: Let’s examine that question together, dear friend; and if you have objections to anything I say, please raise them, and I’ll listen to you otherwise, good fellow, it’s time to stop telling me, again and again, that I should leave here against the will of Athens. You see, I set great store upon persuading you as to my course of action, and not acting against your will. Come now, just consider whether you find the starting point of our inquiry acceptable, and try to answer my questions according to your real beliefs.
CRITO: All right, I’ll try.
SOCRATES: Do we maintain that people should on no account whatever do injustice willingly? Or may it be done in some circumstances but not in others? Is acting unjustly in no way good or honourable, as we frequently agreed in the past? Or have all those former agreements been jettisoned during these last few days? Can it be, Crito, that men of our age have long failed to notice, as we earnestly conversed with each other, that we ourselves were no better than children? Or is what we then used to say true above all else? Whether most people say so or not, and whether we must be treated more harshly or more leniently than at present, isn’t it a fact, all the same, that acting unjustly is utterly bad and shameful for the agent? Yes or no?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: So one must not act unjustly at all.
CRITO: Absolutely not.
SOCRATES: Then, even if one is unjustly treated, one should not return injustice, as most people believe given that one should act not unjustly at all.
CRITO: Apparently not.
SOCRATES: Well now, Crito, should one ever ill-treat anybody or not?
CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And again, when one suffers ill-treatment, is it just to return it, as most people maintain, or isn’t it?
CRITO: It is not just at all.
SOCRATES: Because there’s no difference, I take it, between ill-treating people and treating them unjustly.
CRITO: Correct.
SOCRATES: Then one shouldn’t return injustice or ill-treatment to any human being, no matter how one may be treated by that person. And in making those admissions, Crito, watch out that you’re not agreeing to anything contrary to your real beliefs. I say that because I realize that the belief is held by few people, and always will be. Those who hold it share no common counsel with those who don’t; but each group is bound to regard the other with contempt when they observe one another’s decisions. You too, therefore, should consider very carefully whether you share that belief with me, and whether we may begin our deliberations from the following premise: neither doing nor returning injustice is ever right, nor should one who is ill-treated defend himself by retaliation. Do you agree? Or do you dissent and not share my belief in that premise? I’ve long been of that opinion myself, and I still am now; but if you’ve formed any different view, say so, and explain it. If you stand by our former view, however, then listen to my next point.
CRITO: Well, I do stand by it and share that view, so go ahead.
SOCRATES: All right, I’ll make my next point or rather, ask a question. Should the things one agrees with someone else be done, provided they are just, or should one cheat?
