And will no one comment on the fact that an old man of your age, probably with only a short time to live, should dare to cling so greedily to life, at the price of violating the most stringent laws?
Plato, Critias, 53d
Plato’s dialogue between Critas and Socrates on the eve of his death, a sentence handed down by the Senate of Athens for the crime of hubris is an account of Socrates’ reasons why he will not act to save his own life. The main thrust of his argument being that he has consented to live according to the rules and principles of Athens, not Sparta or Crete, out of his love for Athens, and that he will not break with the Senate’s law simply because he can. Thus Socrates is saying he must die because the law compels him to die.
In the reasoning of Socrates, what would a law that compels him to live when he wanted to die be? Is it the Good to compel life when there is only suffering? Is it the Good to take from a man the surest freedom – that of dying by his own hand?