Holding True to Your Beliefs, Essay Example

One of the best arguments ever given about holding true to your beliefs, no matter what the consequences, is the conversation which takes places between Socrates and his friend Crito the day before Socrates is about to be put to death by the government of Athens.  Crito tries to persuade Socrates to run away from Athens before he can be killed and he makes it clear that there are many people who are willing to help him escape and who have enough money to do so. Socrates, however, argues with Crito against running away, and chooses to stay in Athens to take his punishment. He makes the very persuasive argument that the “opinions of the many” should not count in making moral decisions, and that one should hold true to one’s beliefs even in the face of violence, because the consequences of going back on these beliefs would make life not worth living.

The Opinions of the Many

The first argument that Crito uses to try to persuade Socrates is “besides it will seem to many who do not know you and me closely that I could have saved you” (Plato, 3) and he worries that he will be disgraced.  But Socrates makes the very good point that listening to the opinions of many, foolish persons instead of a few or even one wise person would be an unwise thing to do, and that the opinions of wise men should be the ones that are valued.  He gives the great example of the athlete who is in training: “does the athletic man practicing this pay attention to the praise and blame and opinion or every man, or to the of only one who happens to be his physician or trainer?” (7). Socrates rightly maintains that it is more important to listen to the opinions of people with knowledge and experience, rather than people who are foolish.  In the face of the opinions of foolish people, he is not about to change his course of action or give up on his beliefs and run away from a bad situation.  He says bluntly of listening to “the many” that “for they are able to make one neither wise nor unwise, but they do whatever happens by chance” (3).

Relevance of Socrates’s Argument: The concerns of Socrates, and his argument against letting public opinion control your actions is something that someone even nowadays can relate to. Here in school, or in life in general, it can be really easy to go along with the crowd, to do what seems popular with people at any given moment; it is a lot harder to think for yourself and to hold your own convictions, whether they go along with the crowd or not.

The Threat of Violence

Socrates sees that another argument Crito will use about listening to the opinions of the many is “really, some might say, the many can kill us” (8), meaning that the opinions of the many count because, if someone loses their good opinion, there is always the threat of violence against the offender.  In this case, the threat of violence is very real: Socrates is under sentence of death, but even in this situation, Socrates will not betray his beliefs and comes to what is the most important conclusion of all “that it is not living that is best but living well” (8).  In other words, Socrates believes that it is more important to lead a moral life and to hold true to your beliefs – even if it means that you are killed for your beliefs – than to act against those beliefs to save yourself.

Man and the State: Socrates thinks that, since the state helped his parents to marry and to raise him and to educate him, that the state is something like a father to him and that it would be morally wrong for him to go against it now.  He says that if he had moral objections to the state of Athens, he could have left at any time once he reached adulthood, but he stayed and gave his consent for Athens to govern him. He feels it would be immoral to back out of that now, that the state could justifiably say to him, “Come on, what fault do you find with us and the state that you are attempting to destroy us?” (12). In other words, acting morally is more important than even considerations like personal safety.  A more modern example of this would be people in Nazi Germany who hid Jewish refugees even though they could have been arrested and thrown into a concentration camp, because they know that hiding the Jews was the right thing to do.

Consequences of Going against Your Beliefs

Socrates, in the final part of his conversation with Crito, makes some very good points about the consequences of going against your beliefs.  He realizes that if he turns his back on his beliefs now, if he flees from Athens rather than face his punishment, he will have lost his moral authority and will confirm in the minds of the judges who condemned him that he did, in fact, deserve to be condemned.  He sees that is would be hypocritical of him to try and teach people about morality when he himself has violated his own moral code, that he would have no way in which to help instruct people on how to live a virtuous life.  He does not wish to “avoid the states with good laws and the most civilized men” (15) and does not think that “in doing this, will life be worthwhile to you?” (15). In other words, as he stated earlier in the conversation, life itself is not to be valued, but a good life, one which is lived on one’s own moral terms.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Socrates offers one of the best known arguments for living by your principles and beliefs even when it is uncomfortable or even dangerous to do so.  It is, in fact, when your beliefs are tested in situations where those beliefs could make you unpopular that you truly find out what you do believe.  The “opinions of the many”, of foolish people, should not factor greatly into moral actions and those opinions should not be held in very high regard. Even if there are risks involved in living by your code of morality, the risks of not doing so could far outweigh them: the risk of losing yourself, of not being true to the principles you hold dear.  Socrates’s decision to remain in Athens was thus one of great courage and heroism.

Works Cited

Plato. Crito.  Trans. Sanderson Beck. The Wisdom Bible. World Peace Communications. Web.  3 March 2014.