Suzanne asked:

In the Crito, it looks as though Plato and King disagree (Martin Luther King From Birmingham Jail). I
would like to know if there is a theory that explains the root cause of their disagreement. What basic
principle do they differ upon? Any insight you can offer will be of great help.

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I certainly agree that Plato (or Socrates, for Plato is supposed to be reporting Socrates' view) and
Martin Luther King disagree. Socrates is offered the chance to escape from the death sentence — a
sentence that he and his friends all think has been legally passed but is morally wrong. Socrates
argues that respect for the law and for the good of society requires that we obey the law even if it is
morally wrong. Martin Luther King, on the other hand, argues that it is our moral duty to disobey the
law if it is morally wrong.

For Socrates/Plato, the law is binding on all those in a society. We can argue against it, but we
cannot (morally) break it. The clergymen to whom Martin Luther King is writing from Birmingham Jail
have also argued in an identical manner. King however says that there is a higher law — for him, the
moral law of god — which we must obey first.

This is certainly an important philosophical point, for on it rests the legitimacy of civil disobedience
and resistance. If, like Plato and King, you believe that there is an objective morality (the Form of the
Good, and God's Law respectively), then the possibility of disobeying the law for a higher good is
obviously open to you. If you don't believe in an objective morality, this becomes much harder to
argue (although not impossible). It is, in fact, related to the questions about the status of human rights
that Vangelis and Cleo ask elsewhere on this page.

Tim Sprod