Free Will, Morality, and Human Law

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the idea of morality and human law is effectively dealt with in three classic works from different periods and very different circumstances. It looks at how, in "Crito", Plato describes the death of Socrates, who was convicted and imprisoned for corruption and impiety. It also examines how Henry David Thoreau?s "Civil Disobedience" was composed in the America of the 19th century, when Thoreau was imprisoned for not paying a tax he believes is unjustified. In "Letter From a Birmingham Jail", Martin Luther King follows Thoreau?s example of civil disobedience, having been arrested for a technical violation of an anti-parading ordinance.

From the Paper:

"The Crito is Plato's dramatization of the final hours in the life of Socrates. Socrates (Plato's instructor) was convicted by an Athenian jury of 500 in 399 BC for charges of corrupting the youth and impiety. While in prison, Socrates is visited by an old friend, Crito, who tells him that they have arranged to break Socrates out of prison. Socrates has been sentenced to death. If he does not go along with Crito, he will be forced to drink the hemlock that will kill him. The Crito is a dialogue between Socrates and Crito, where Socrates explains the dilemma that is facing him. Although he may not believe that he was justly convicted, Socrates believes in the laws that were used to justify this conviction. He is forced with the moral decision of breaking from prison (and thereby disobeying the law) or accepting his fate, and dying."

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