political philosophy a lall course by jan narveson autumn 2009

Political Philosophy

A LALL course by Jan Narveson

Autumn 2009

Some preliminaries: What is political philosophy, anyway?

In general: trying to understand political institutions and their activities A distinction: (1) political science(2) political philosophyThe second is understood to be normative: we want to know what the State ought to

be doing, what a good constitution would be, etc.- A vexed question in the history of the subject is, what is the relation between

(1) and (2)?This second enterprise is what we are embarked on.

- Can we “prove” normative (ethical/moral) claims?- The philosophers we look at think they can, somehow. - We can at least look at their arguments and see whether they get us anywhere.- That is our main business - to evaluate political arguments

Session 1: Great Greeks

SocratesPlatoAristotle

Socrates defends the State

[image by an unknown who did not know

Socrates]

Socrates (469-399 B.C.)

Socrates defends the State- to the death!

Death of Socrates by Jacques Louis David

Socrates defends the State - to the death!

• Socrates’ views as we know them are as depicted in some of Plato’s dialogues

• We look only at Crito

• Plato’s Republic, which is next, is presumed to be mostly Plato, not Socrates, who is only his mouthpiece

• Background: Socrates has been sentence to death by the Athenian court (a democratic one - a vote of all the citizens)

• We and Socrates both think the charges were false, trumped-up, and wrong.

• His friends propose to transport him out of prison to safety, in exile

• - which was the standard procedure at the time

• Socrates agrees to go only if he can be satisfied that it would be just

Socrates defends the State - to the death! slide # 7

• Socrates’ Arguments in the Crito: he argues in favor of keeping his “appointment” with the executioner

• Is he right?

• Distinguish: the personal issue from the general issue• The personal issue is for Socrates: what will he do?• The latter is for us all: what are we to do in a situation where the law calls on us to

do something we’d rather not do?(a) where we can “get away with it”;(b) where we can’t (we’ll get punished)

• - [Question: Is there a difference between (a) and (b)??• Note that we are looking for the morally right thing to do - not just “what we’ll

do” ... - but how are those related?? - That’s a very large question....• [Socrates’ case, oddly enough, combines (a) and (b) since he’s voluntarily administering

his own punishment when he could have just gone off with his friends]


• The issue is: what is the status of the laws and institutions under which we live? Do we owe them absolute loyalty? Or some loyalty? Or none at all?

• Assumption: being in prison is, other things equal, not a good thing! (same with death ...)

• Question: what’s relevant to this more general issue, and what isn’t?

• General answer (and Socrates’ answer): moral requirements are relevant (he talks of “justice” which is close enough to synonymous); only if they permit us to act on other reasons may we do so....

• [But of course, then the question is: OK, what are those requirements?

• - - That’s where we come in!


Socrates’ main claim:

“We have “made an agreement with the Laws” - which he would violate by “taking the law into his own hands” and escaping• Two Questions about “Keeping our Agreements”• (1) - Is disobeying the law unjust because it is a violation of an agreement?

- in other words, Does justice require that we “keep our agreements”? [plausible answer: Not always] Re (1): Distinguish these two:(a) Justice requires that we “keep our agreements.”(b) Justice requires that we “keep our just agreements.”

Obviously (b) is true. But is (a)?- If I make an agreement with you to blow up Hagey Hall, is it then just for me to do

so?- I don’t think so!- So: if we did “make an agreement with the State,” then was it a just agreement? Or

not?


(2) In any case: Did we “agree” to obey the laws?

This brings up an important subject: The “Social Contract” (“contractarian”) theory of government.-> Probably the most important idea in the history of political philosophy

[There are three views on how to understand the “agreement” invoked in this view:- (a) literal; (b) implicit; (c) hypothetical(a) We literally promised - signed something, said something ...

(b) We implicitly promised - did what amounts to promising, without literally doing so

(c) it would have been a good idea to promise - didn’t do either of above, but should have or would have [--- if what??]

[that is, it would have been rational, from our own point of view, to agree]Variants attach various conditions to (c) - as you’ll see next term!]


Questions/comments about these three theories:(a) First theory: We literally promised - Comment: But we didn’t (usually)

(b) Second theory: We implicitly promisedComment: how do we tell??does living in the area do the trick? (Socrates invokes that one)Or paying your taxes?Or … ?[note: Would an intended rebel not be the first to obey the laws??]

(c) Third theory: it would have been a good idea to agree [discussion, next slide ....]


(c) Third theory: it would have been a good idea to agree [that is, it would have been rational, from our own point of view, to agree]

[- this is by far the most important of the three versions, historically]

Comments:(i) Would hypothetical agreement obligate??

-- Plausible answer: not obviously…. [this is a major problem for such theories]

(ii) How do we establish rationality for this purpose? [Presumed general answer: all things considered, you would be better off if

you agreed, even if you keep the agreement. Are there other good answers?]

(iii) Would it be rational to agree to obey all the laws?? …. [see next slide]


How much obedience is rational?Would we agree to this:

ii(a): “I will obey all the Laws of our State -- whatever those Laws may be!”Or only this:

ii(b): I agree to obey all of the Just Laws of the State

-- Surely ii(b) is much more plausible.

Argument: it isn’t merely “more plausible” when we consider the next point:iii. What if a particular law is unjust?Can this happen?-- Well, can’t it??


Now the question is: What is a "just law"? We’ll get back to that one! But even without answering it precisely, we can make

adistinction regarding unjust laws:

--> two kinds of possibly unjust laws:(1) laws requiring us to do what is unjust.(2) laws requiring us to do what the laws ought not to require us to do.

If (1) applies, then, clearly Socrates cannot think that would be just(For remember his starting point: No injustice!]If we are never to do injustice, then we must not do it by obeying a law requiring

us to do it(like the Nazi laws...)


Does anybody (including Socrates) think that all laws are just in either way? .......

unjust in way (1) A law requiring us to kill some innocent person

unjust in way (2) Is there anything that laws may not require us to do even though just doing it, apart from its relation to the law, is OK?

- Example: require everyone to wear green shoes, for no reason... - (There’s nothing inherently wrong with wearing green shoes- But mightn’t it be unjust for the laws to require that??]- [more significant example: what is the laws require us to be Seventh-Day

Adventists?]- Jay-walking when there’s no traffic coming… isn’t that OK??

[The big question, of course, is: what is just and unjust?]

- Socrates has said that we are not to injure anyone at all.- [more about that in The Republic…]

Which we’ll be turning to next….

Plato’s Republic slide # 16

Plato - 427-347 B.C.


We’ll look at just three things in this celebrated work:

(1) The exchange with the character Thrasymachus(2) The story about the Ring of Gyges(3) The analogy between the State and the Soul(4) How Plato thinks the State ought to be organized - that is, his

picture of “The Republic”

1. ThrasymachusRepublic opens with a general discussion on the topic: What is Justice? The most interesting answer is provided by the character

Thrasymachus, who says:“ Justice is nothing but the interest of the stronger party.”

Discussion


Discussion of Thrasmachus’ idea• This sounds odd if it’s seriously advanced as a “theory of justice”,

doesn’t it? The claim that justice is nothing but the will of the strong sounds simply weird:

• whatever justice is, it is surely intended to overrule the “strong” (as well as, perhaps, the weak)

• The more plausible construction is that Thrasymachus is saying that justice is a delusion, something to be ignored by the intelligently strong.

• Thrasymachus has an argument, designed to lend plausibility to his idea:

1. justice is the law2. but the law is made by the (politically) strong - and3. they make the law on the basis of their interests

4. Therefore, Justice is the “will of the strong” after all.

- Is he right? That’s a serious question.


- Of some importance: nobody is “strong” enough to make all the rules. Only groups, in political structures, can do that.

- The question is whether those groups, when they get their way, are necessarily right.

- And the obvious answer is that they are not.

- Why is that obvious? - an important question... But after all, as we say, nobody’s perfect. (Much more to say about this .. later)

Plato points out to Thrasymachus that even a band of thieves needs justice among themselves.

If thief A can’t trust thief B to be at the appointed place and time during the robbery by the band, it will fail. (etc.)

That’s really important, to be sure. But of course, it raises the question how justice is possible among

non-thieves in a useful way...


- Thrasymachus’ theory doesn’t look good as a theory of justice- - but it looks uncomfortably plausible as a theory of government

(Political Science, if you will, rather than political philosophy)

- How does government differ from a gang of thieves? On this theory, it doesn’t. Government simply is a gang of thieves -

- Some classier, more civilized, more polite, and perhaps more warmhearted than others, but thieves nevertheless. We’ll be returning to that theme!

- Meanwhile, what about Plato himself?


- [2] The Ring of Gyges [p. 9]- The Lydian shepherd Gyges finds a ring that makes him

invisible.- Now he can get away with practically anything.- Should he?- Would the (normally) just person, possessed of such a ring, use it

to line his own pockets or promote his own power? Or not?- Glaucon thinks he would.

- He thinks justice is just a means - Socrates claims that justice is good in itself:- Just action is good for the just person, regardless of what else it

does for him. .... Is he right??- How much difference would it make if we all had such a ring??- [we’ll return to that!]- Meanwhile, what about Plato himself?

Plato’s Republic slide # 22[3] Plato: The famous Analogy between the State and the Soul.1

State: Consists of three “classes”: 1. Producers (= Ordinary people: The Economic class: produce

what people are interested in - Marx’s distinction: Producing classes would include both

workers and “capitalists” - all who participate in the production of the society

- their main virtue will be temperance - order - obedience....

2. Soldiers [should we now say, also, Administrators?] - they do what their masters tell them ... - to be like bulldogs - its main virtue is courage is their virtue

3. The rulers, or “guardians”- which is a specialist class of intelligentsia- - Their main virtue is Wisdom

And Justice? - it’s the Harmony of the whole


Plato: The famous Analogy between the State and the Soul .2

Soul: Consists of three “parts” (distinguished by “function”): 1. Appetites2. “Spirited Element”3. Reason

Each part has an associated Virtue:1. appetites: Temperance [self-control]2. Spirit: Courage3. Reason: Wisdom

Now, the Greeks held that there were four “cardinal virtues”- those three plus Justice - So, what is justice?- His answer: the harmony of the soul!


State Soul Virtue

Workers Appetites Self-control

Soldiers Passions Courage

Rulers

(guardians)

Reason Wisdom

Plato’s Republic slide #25

Several questions about this scheme:(1) what really is this “harmony”?(2) Does it actually give a good account of justice?[for example: is murder wrong because the soul of the

murderer is “non-harmonious”?[another example: might the harmonious person be a

terrible despot?](3) The image of “reason ruling over the soul” is attractive-

but what makes it tick? [Plato tends to dump on the passions. But does it make

sense to say that Reason wants anything without “passion”?]

(4) What are the political implications?


Political implications -- just as Reason should rule the soul, so the Guardians

should rule the state --- Does this really follow? Is society like the soul in that

way?- Note that each individual person has passion, spirit, and

reason - it’s not that some class of individuals in the state has a monopoly on Reason ...

- And, of course: how would one identify these super-rational types?

- Plato wants them to be trained from infancy - even genetically selected


The “Guardians”:Fierce with enemies, gentle with citizens- Discerning- Well-trained “from a tender age”- Educated in music and mathematics, athletics and poetry- Devoted to the “freedom of the city”- “a philosopher. He must understand the true nature of courage,

temperance, generosity, and the other good things- “prescribe the kind of medicine and law to be used”- “they will instead take their greatest delight in the performance of

public duty, and will do it to the best of their ability.”The Guardians will be told that they are born different from other

people- a “soul with divine gold”- [maybe this isn’t even a myth!(?)]


- Guardianship (continued)- Note that they are self-selected - since the ordinary

people over whom they rule are, of course, incapable of doing the selecting themselves!

- This is a formula for Aristocracy.- Plato’s account of the decline of the state:- Timocracy -> Oligarchy -> Democracy -> Tyranny[rule by: the military -- the rich -- everybody -- a dictator

Big question: what is to keep the “guardians” from degenerating into dictators?

- and given Plato’s premises, ideological dictators at that...


Question: how do we prevent this decline?Plato seems pessimistic here. He allows that maybe The Republic exists only in heaven, or only in

our imaginations ...Not too helpful!How would that “help”? - As an ideal to look up to?- And perhaps as an excuse for not coming very close to modelling it in

practice ...Or is there something more sinister at work?

Is Plato just a high-brow version of Thrasymachus? He wants to rule over us, not in order to take our money (though he does that anyway!), but in order to take over our souls

- So we move to Aristotle .....

Aristotle’s Ethics slide #30

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)


Aristotle’s Ethics is greatly admired, and hugely influentialIt is about how to live - deducing this from man’s essence [which is that he is a Rational Animal]

Its main claim: man has (by nature) a supreme general end, viz., one’s happiness - or something [“eudaimonia” in Greek - whether it’s mistranslated as ‘happiness’ is a matter of scholarly debate ...]

This general end is: to become as all-round virtuous as possible

Like Plato he divides the soul into three: (1) the vegetative/appetitive part, which he does not address;(2) the passionate part - which is the domain of moral virtue.(3) the Rational part, aiming at truthHe has a catalogue of the intellectual virtues for this last: art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, and intuitive reason . (We won’t go into those here.)


He is most famous for his discussion of

moral virtueThe general idea of moral virtue is, again following Plato, for reason to rule over the passions. A’s contribution here is the theory that Moral Virtue is the “disposition to aim at the mean” between “excess” and “deficiency” in respect of our “passions”.

It’s a very famous view, and rather puzzling.


One puzzle is: what’s a “mean”? - Is it a mid-point or halfway point between the minimum and the maximum of some emotion? -That would be bizarre: is it virtuous to be half-angry all the time?- Shouldn’t we sometimes really blow our tops? And at others, be absolutely pacific??- There turns out to be quite a bit more to it, for reasons that are not explained.(“to the right person, at the right time, in the right way” -- but what accounts for all those further variables?)Anyway, the mean turns out to be neither too much nor too little - but with no real way of identifying how much would be too much or too little. That leaves us with very scanty advice here, if any at all.His discussion of justice is of interest: justice is a sort of equality, but the equality is like this: A’s share is to B’s share as A is to B....That is: the share should reflect the merit or desert of the persons to whom the shares are due. But what makes them due? What constitutes merit in the relevant sense? Aristotle is not helpful here.


“But we look not only for what is just without qualification but also political justice, which exists only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law, -which exists for men between whom there is sometimes injustice: -- legal justice is the discrimination of the just and the unjust. - So we do not allow a man to rule, but rational principle -- for a man behaves thus in his own interest and becomes a tyrant; but the magistrate is the guardian of justice, and thus of equality.[Terrific! ... but what does it all mean?

Transition to Politics: Having laid down how men should be living, he notes that lots of them won’t manage very well, and so we will need laws and punishments to steer them down the right path. “That is why legislators ought to stimulate men to virtue and urge them forward by the motive of the noble; and that punishments and penalties should be imposed on those who disobey and are of inferior nature, and the incurably bad should be banished. ... Must we not, then, next examine when or how one can learn how to legislate?”

Is he right? Is it the proper office of political arrangements to compel men to be virtuous??

Aristotle’s Politics slide #35

2. General origin of the state-The family comes first- then a bunch of families- then a bunch of villages get together - eventually we have the state (in Aristotle’s view, the city-state, not the monster state of the present day) - Claim: “man is by nature a political animal” - - so, the state is “natural”- but what did he mean by this?-(After all, states don’t grow on trees!)

- Of course, he also thinks that in the family it is “natural” for man (meaning, males) to do the ruling... - with various interesting discussions about what virtue might be for, say, women, or slaves.- Slaves??


3. Slavery

Aristotle is famous for his support of slavery. Exactly what was the institution in his day, which is what he is supporting, is not so easy to say. But still, slavery involves the entire subordination of one person to another, against the will of the first.

Aristotle claims that slaves have a lower kind of soul than us high-brow types. -> They deserve to be ruled over by us.- And he claims that they’re better off for being ruled (!)

-A crucial distinction artificial slavery vs natural slavery-“Artificial” is where one bunch of people simply compels some people into slavery, whether they deserve it or not. - (Aristotle’s example: nobles captured in war and enslaved. He deplores this.)- “Natural”is where the slave-types are the only ones enslaved.-Question: and how do we know who’s a natural slave and who not??


3. Slavery (continued)Is there anything to be said for his view?Note that when he claims that the slave is better off as a slave -- he doesn’t ask the slave’s view of the matter. - Shouldn’t he?

But then, of course, once you’ve dismissed the slave as a “lower” type of person, why bother to ask his opinion?? For he must be incompetent to say!

Suggestion (on the “plus” side): Aristotle’s emphasis is on the distinction between working under one’s own directions and working under somebody else’s. -This makes sense. Some do better under other’s direction, and some on their own- If we make labor voluntary, then people themselves get to make the distinction.

But wage work is not slavery (in particular, “wage slavery” is a deliberately provocative way to describe work).

Perhaps Aristotle needs re-translating on this topic ...


4. Democracy and the Best State

Democracy, or close: Plato thought democracy was awful: “giving out a strange kind of equality to equals and unequals alike”!)

Aristotle is much less dismissive.

His main worry about democracy: it tends to degenerate - just as Plato says it will - into rule by the incompetent- especially into a sort of class war between the multitudinous poor and the bealeaguered handful of wealthy people.

-Ideally rule by one super-virtuous person would be best of all - but he sensibly doesn’t think that such a man is about to appear, and meanwhile, what do we do?

Aristotle’s Politics slide # 39

Big problem with democracy -

Pure democracies are unstableThe universal and chief cause of this revolutionary feeling: the desire of

equality, when men think that they are equal to others who have morealso insolence, fear, contempt, carelessness, neglect... its defenders say, “any who are equal in any respect are equal in all

respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”

- which is rubbish, of course.

His main preferred answer is: rule by the middle class. That, after all, is pretty much what we have today in the major

democracies....


Main reasons for preferring the “middle class”:

Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy- “oligarchs are always falling out among themselves and also with the people”- A government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to

democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.

it is manifest that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class,

and that those states are likely to be well-administered in which the middle class is large, and stronger if possible than both the other classes [or at least, than either taken singly]

“The mean condition of states is clearly best, for no other is free from faction; and where the middle class is large, there are least likely to be factions and dissensions”

Aristotle is a political scientist in that he has recommendations and analyses of all the forms of government, good or bad. His recommendation of middle-class democracy is based on realism.


5. Aristotle on Education

• “the legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth’

• reason: its neglect “does harm to the constitution”

• “since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, not private

• - not, as at present, when everyone looks after his own children separately and gives them separate instruction of the sort which he thinks best...”

• But people disagree about what is to be taught

• is it about intellectual virtue? or

• moral virtue? -- or

• the “useful in life”? -


• A’s answer: “those useful things that are really necessary, but not all useful things”

• occupations that “make the body or mind of the freeman less fit for virtue are vulgar”

• customary curriculum: reading & writing; gymnastic; music; drawing

- Why music??- Not for amusement - the category is training for leisure - “clearly we ought not to be amusing ourselves, for then amusement

would be the end of life”

• amusements should be “medicines” (relaxation)

• “The pleasure of the best man is best”

• intellectual activity is to be valued for its own sake

• [Large philosophical question: how is it that some pleasures are “better” than others?]


Music admitted not for necessity or utility• but for intellectual enjoyment in leisure• it is “liberal and noble”• [some subjects should be taught because other knowledge is

acquired through them (e.g. reading, writings [and computers...]• [Gymnastic: Olympic level is overdoing it (and “impedes the mind”)• Back to music: is it for amusement? • [mostly not: “learning is accompanied by pain...”] • conduciveness to virtue? [yes; it has “power of forming character”] • enjoyment of leisure and mental cultivation? [yes, especially]• it “shares in the nature of all of these”• But the third [mental cultivation ] is the main thing..


Summing up:• Constitutionalism is the Trick• Government of Laws (and of reasonably good men)• So, how do we attain this? --

– Mix oligarchy and democracy in the right ways– [so, moderate property qualification;– put workers who are capable in responsible positions– Rotate around– Don’t let jealousies and petty quarrels get out of hand– Avoid extremes: the Middle-class state is the (practicable) best

• Good Education - a mainstay of a good state• It should be liberal, not just practical: gymnastic, reading and writing,

yes; but also music!

• - not bad!

political philosophy a lall course by jan narveson autumn 2009

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