So far indeed Sokrates goes in this dialogue, to affirm a positive analogy. That Just and Honourable are, to the mind, what health and strength are to the body:—Unjust and Base, what distemper and weakness are to the body. And he follows this up by saying, that the general public are incompetent to determine what is just or honourable — as they are incompetent to decide what is wholesome or unwholesome. Respecting both one and the other, you must consult some one among the professional Experts, who alone are competent to advise.[18]
[18] Plato, Kriton, c. 7, p. 47 D. τοῦ ἑνὸς, εἴ τίς ἐστιν ἐπαΐων, &c.
Incompetence of the general public or ἰδιῶται — appeal to the professional Expert.
Both these two doctrines will be found recurring often, in our survey of the dialogues. The first of the two is an obscure and imperfect reply to the great Sokratic problem — What is Justice? What is Injustice? but it is an analogy useful to keep in mind, as a help to the exposition of many passages in which Plato is yet more obscure. The second of the two will also recur frequently. It sets out an antithesis of great moment in the Platonic dialogues — “The one specially instructed, professional, theorizing, Expert — versus (the ἰδιῶται of the time and place, or) common sense, common sentiment, intuition, instinct, prejudice,” &c. (all these names meaning the same objective reality, but diversified according as the speaker may happen to regard the particular case to which he is alluding). This antithesis appears as an answer when we put the question — What is the ultimate authority? where does the right of final decision reside, on problems and disputes ethical, political, æsthetical? It resides (Sokrates here answers) with some one among a few professional Experts. They are the only persons competent.
Procedure of Sokrates after this comparison has been declared — he does not name who the trustworthy Expert is.
I shall go more fully into this question elsewhere. Here I shall merely notice the application which Sokrates makes (in the Kriton) of the general doctrine. We might anticipate that after having declared that none was fit to pronounce upon the Just and the Unjust, except a professional Expert, — he would have proceeded to name some person corresponding to that designation — to justify the title of that person to confidence by such evidences as Plato requires in other dialogues — and then to cite the decision of the judge named, on the case in hand. This is what Sokrates would have done, if the case had been one of health or sickness. He would have said “I appeal to Hippokrates, Akumenus, &c., as professional Experts on medicine: they have given proof of competence by special study, successful practice, writing, teaching, &c.: they pronounce so and so”. He would not have considered himself competent to form a judgment or announce a decision of his own.
Sokrates acts as the Expert himself: he finds authority in his own reason and conscience.
But here, when the case in hand is that of Just and Unjust, the conduct of Sokrates is altogether different. He specifies no professional Expert, and he proceeds to lay down a dogma of his own; in which he tells us that few or none will agree, though it is fundamental, so that dissenters on the point must despise each other as heretics. We thus see that it is he alone who steps in to act himself the part of professional Expert, though he does not openly assume the title. The ultimate authority is proclaimed in words to reside with some unnamed Expert: in fact and reality, he finds it in his own reason and conscience. You are not competent to judge for yourself: you must consult the professional Expert: but your own reason and conscience must signify to you who the Expert is.
The analogy here produced by Plato of questions about health and sickness — is followed out only in its negative operation; as it serves to scare away the multitude, and discredit the Vox Populi. But when this has been done, no oracular man can be produced or authenticated. In other dialogues, we shall find Sokrates regretting the absence of such an oracular man, but professing inability to proceed without him. In the Kriton, he undertakes the duty himself; unmindful of the many emphatic speeches in which he had proclaimed his own ignorance, and taken credit for confessing it without reserve.