Steven Powell PAR-302 Schmid 02/06/13 Socrates vs. Dr. King At first glance, Socrates and Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. seem to have wildly different ideals on the subject of justice. Dr. King would maintain that certain laws must be broken, while Socrates would submit to the will of the law, even at the cost of life. However, the critical distinction between the two cases seems to be the different governments in which these two individuals pledge. Socrates and Dr. King have fundamentally identical perceptions of justice and would agree to the merit and rationality of each others actions. Dr. King adheres to the Socratic ideology of a social contract through an interpretation that requires implication toward a more contemporary government. During his dialogue with Crito, Socrates makes the claim that life is not worth living if the soul is corrupt (Crito 48d). The soul is corrupted when one does wrong, therefore one should never do wrong (Crito 49b). It would be wrong to unjustly disobey the law. This was his explanation for accepting the Athenian judgment of punishment. Socrates argues his ideal of a citizens obligation to abide to a social contract. One receives the benefits of a society only by submitting to its laws (Crito 51a-5e). By accepting Critos help to escape his punishment, Socrates would break the social contract he has with the city of Athens.

The question remains, did Dr. King break his social contract with the community of the United States by refusing to obey its laws? To answer this question one must examine the different judicial structures in which both individuals resided. The democracy in which Socrates was contracted left no discretion to oppose the law of the government. Socrates fate was to be determined by the majority of the people. He had performed acts that were determined by his court case to be unjust and therefore morally obligated to realize the punishment. Juxtaposed to Socrates government is the United States government that Dr. King concedes to. More specifically, Dr. King is socially contracted to abide by the law of the United States constitution, considered to be the supreme law of the land. The constitution exists as a more evolved perception of laws and how a country should be governed than could be conceived by Athens. Most of all, it is designed to protect the unalienable rights of the people. It is a document scripted with the intention that it be amended in order to best entail the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Dr. King makes the distinction, In his letter from the Birmingham Jail, that laws enacted by the government which oppose these unalienable rights are to be considered unjust. Therefore, Dr. King is morally obligated, by that of his social contract, to act out upon injustice. In the Gorgias, Socrates explains that an unjust retaliation is not the appropriate response to an unjust action (Gorgias 475e). One might then suspect that Dr. King was unethical by willingly opposing the law. However, in the Apology, Socrates argues that the unexamined life is not worth living (Apology 38a). The unexamined life may be interpreted as one that is lived without inquiry onto the true light of rationality.

According to Socrates, the soul is corrupted by irrational behavior (Crito 49b). In reference to the constitutions primary influence, the preservation of humanities basic rights, one must pursue the actualization of these proclamations in order to obtain purity of the soul and live a worthy life. According to Socratic morality applied to the United States constitution, irrational laws must be opposed. In this sense, Dr. King was ethically right in his actions and method. One might claim that Socrates did not truly deserve to be put to death for the transgressions in which he was convicted. Yet his social contract required him to accept his fate in order to maintain a civilized structure in pursuit of the good life. His social contract permitted the Athenian people to cast final judgment and determine a verdict. If one is to be socially contracted to the United States, then one must abide by the Constitutions chief claim to preserve a civilians basic human rights. Thus Dr. King must oppose unjust laws in order to maintain his social contract as dictated by the Constitution. In conclusion, it has become apparent that Socrates ideology of a social contract among citizens remains as a pervading influence throughout history. Due to the variance of technical law between the Athens and America, different actions were warranted although adhering to the same rationale. In this way it can be said that Dr. King adheres to the Socratic ideology of a social contract through a necessarily contemporary interpretation, according to an alternate society.