The Greatest Harms and the Weakness of the Majority

Описание: In Plato’s Crito Socrates’ friend Crito admonishes Socrates for refusing to evade his death sentence by escaping prison. In the course of Crito’s argument he repeatedly appeals to the majority. He makes the case that the majority would believe Socrates is fully justified in taking advantage of the opportunity to escape punishment.

Socrates responds that majority opinion is entirely irrelevant to this question. In fact, not only does majority opinion not carry with it any special authority, neither should the power the majority can wield against its opponents receive any consideration.

Crito pleads, to the contrary, that the majority is capable of perpetuating the “greatest harms” – the majority could rob Socrates of his property, force him into exile, or (as in the present case) even kill him.

On the surface, none of the claims Crito makes here seem very controversial – majorities can harm, and have harmed, those who oppose them in myriad ways. Yet, Socrates denies this claim – or, at least, he denies the claim that any majority can do him the “greatest” harm.

In this video we will explore and scrutinize this idea. Why does Socrates believe he has nothing to fear from the majority? What, exactly, does the “majority” lack which renders them incapable of perpetrating the greatest harm? What, in the first place, qualifies some harm as the “greatest”? As we will see, the way Socrates answers this question reveals a great deal about the nature of moral expertise (and perhaps other kinds of expertise as well).

For the pdf document used in this video see: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Blbs...