Socrates asks his friend if he still holds that living well is more important than merely living. He does. And to live well means to live nobly and justly? Yes. “Therefore, on the basis of these agreements we must examine whether it’s just for me to escape from here without the consent of the Athenian people or not. And if it seems just, we’ll make the attempt; if not, we’ll refuse. The questions you mention about spending money and what people think and the raising of children, these are really the worries, Crito, of those who would casually put someone to death and revive him again without a second thought, namely the many.
“But since the argument demands it, we for our part must take into account nothing but what we just now talked about: whether we shall be doing right in paying money and giving thanks to those who help me break out of here, and whether we ourselves will be doing right in arranging and participating in the escape—or whether in truth we’ll be doing wrong in this action. And if it becomes clear that we’re committing injustice, it will not be right to weigh in the balance whether we’ll die if we stay and behave ourselves, or whether we’ll suffer any other fate whatsoever, against the cost of committing injustice.”[20]
Here Socrates asserts, as he did in his defense speech, the sovereignty of moral considerations. No tally of benefits or harms for the persons concerned can measure up to the importance of questions concerning justice and injustice, right and wrong, good and evil. Moral goods always outweigh non-moral goods. If it comes to a conflict between the two types of consideration, non-moral goods must be dismissed from consideration and only the moral costs and benefits considered.
The question of what Socrates’ personal fate will be, the damage to his friends’ reputations, even the education and welfare of his children, are strictly irrelevant to the moral question, ‘What is it right for me to do in this situation?’ Socrates will deliberate on this question, but only in light of moral principles, not under the pressure of personal advantages and disadvantages or a ledger tallying profits and losses. The question before Crito and Socrates is a moral question that must be handled on moral grounds.
The practical question, ‘How can I save my life?’ can arise only after the moral question, ‘What is it right for me to do in this situation?’ is answered in a certain way that allows me to save myself.
[20].Plato Crito 47d-48d.