What Makes a Society Just?: An Argument for Socrates’s Obligation to the State Against Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Civil Disobedience
In answering the question for Chapter Five of Voices of Wisdom, “What makes society just?” two opposing viewpoints will be considered. The first is from section five of Chapter five which is Plato’s Crito. in Plato’s Crito, Socrates argues why it is more just to obey the state. Socrates accepts his punishment of death rather than flee the state’s condemnation of him that he corrupted the young people of Athens. The second is section six of Chapter five which is from Martin Luther King, Jr. King argues for civil disobedience in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The aim of this paper, thus, is to argue that Socrates’ position for obligation to state authority is a more rational and believable position than Martin Luther King, Jr.’s argument for civil disobedience.
In Crito Socrates justifies to his friend, named Crito, that it is more just for him to accept the punishment of the state than to flee. Socrates’s premises are that justice can only be defended as an abstract concept. Even when the state goes against the law, or even when people do not act justly, it is no excuse to fight against justice as a way one lives one’s life. Socrates’s conclusion is that if justice is truly something worth living for then it must also be something worth dying for!
Crito reminds Socrates that the prison guards would let him escape prison as long as he never returned to Athens. The gist of Socrates’ argument is that the philosopher’s job is to discovers the universal truth about justice. Socrates says to Crito that it has been his project to search for the answer to what makes society just. It is Socrates’ contention that “it seems reasonable to say that other things equal one conception of justice is to be preferred to another ” (qtd in Kessler, 2013, p. 164). What Socrates is saying is that he cannot equivocate justice. If in court he had argued that a person should live an examined life, it meant to him that the search for justice has to be authentic. To run away from his sentence, even if it is unjust, would be a contradiction for Socrates. So he chooses to die rather than flee.
King argues in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that black Americans have waited too long in waiting for justice. His premise is that justice has not been won for black americans, and if justice is not won, then justice will never be won. If people do not band together and act now! justice can be defended. Even if not everyone is on board, King argues that time is of the essence. King’s conclusion is that justice has to be fought at the moment injustice strikes. King argues it is time for justice to be won. King does not want to wait for his other collaborators, namely the religious groups who are hemming on their decision to join the non-violent demonstrations against the state. King argues that “We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied" (qtd. in Kessler, 2013, p. 176). He argues further that for too long the Black man and woman in the united States has “passively accepted his unjust plight.” He says that those who think he has acted “unwisely and untimely” are wrong. King argues that since injustices have been acted out by the state, it is time for all the groups that resist segregation to stand up and act out in civil disobedience. So he chooses to rebel rather than wait.
Socrates’ position is the better argument not because the state is right in both cases. In fact, Socrates knows that the State is wrong in putting him to death, just as King knows that segregation of people in society based on race is wrong. However, the key difference between Socrates and King is that King thinks he can seek out justice as a lone warrior, while Socrates understands that the search for justice is more complicated. King is impatient and will not wait for the other groups in the fight to end segregation to join him. In this way, he relies too much on his personal feelings rather than on a rational search for justice.
The challenge in both of these thinkers’ argument is that they are very similar. It is obvious that both King and Socrates are champions of justice. The main difference is how they think about justice and what spurs them to action (or non-action). Both King and Socrates speak from jail. Both King and Socrates speak as accused individuals. Both King and Socrates have been ostracized by the state. But as this paper has shown, Socrates presents a better argument for what makes a more just society for he argues better how Injustices will always happen -- but one cannot contradict one’s convictions in the name of a false justice.
References
Kessler, G. E. (2013). Voices of wisdom: A multicultural philosophy reader. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
