Views: 1071

The Laws is a post-Republic work where the central character is called the Athenian who uses the Socratic method in his dialogue with Cleinias the Cretan and Megillus the Spartan. The threesome appear to be engaged on the project of discussing a utopian polis called Magnesia situated on Crete and ruled by a council of rulers Plato calls the “Nocturnal Council” who attempt to rule in accordance with Philosophical Principles, constitutional laws and an Educational system that is formed by both Philosophy and the Law. The conversation takes pace whilst the three interlocutors are journeying on the road Minos took to seek the advice of Zeus every nine years.

The Athenian certainly resembles Socrates in his uses of argument to arrive at the truth about a matter. Apart from the use of elenchus he also appears to believe in the important relation between a man and his polis in which the latter embodies the life (psuché) of the individual writ large and the former provides the essential “elements” of the polis. Cleinias the Cretan and Megillus the Spartan present the laws of their respective cities with reverence claiming for them divine origins reaching back to Zeus and Apollo. Both insist upon the importance of the laws being war-oriented which the Athenian politely dismisses on the grounds that “the greatest good” must be related to peace. War at best for the Athenian is only necessary if its primary purpose is to bring about peace between men of the same city(civil war) or men of different cities. Instead of an appeal to the Gods the Athenian appeals instead to the ideal of a judge who understands the law and passes laws whose primary purpose is to ensure that the city is united and not the harbour of different conflicting interests. A distinction is drawn between, “total war” that occurs if these conflicting interests result in internecine war and the less terrible form of war where a foreign enemy is the target of the conflict. “Total war” requires more of the “soldier” than just the virtue of courage. Indeed, the Athenian claims that such a form of conflict requires of those involved in the strife a whole range of virtues which include self-control, good judgement and a sense of justice. War against a foreign enemy, it is claimed, requires merely the will to fight courageously which could even be done by mercenaries who fight and are prepared to die for the money involved. Socrates, we know, consistently maintained a critical attitude toward activities conducted solely for economic benefit (oikonomos). In discussing areté (doing the right thing at the right time in the right way) in relation to a doctors attempts to cure a patient who may not be able to pay for the treatment, Socrates dismisses economic calculation as irrelevant to what the doctor regards as “the greatest good”. Just as a doctor will be”loyal to the cause of treating his patients, so the citizen who possesses the range of virtues needed in a civil internecine war can be counted on to be loyal in a crisis. The Athenian, however, is at pains to point out that:

“The greatest good, however, is neither war nor civil war(God forbid we should need to resort to either of them), but peace and goodwill among men” (Plato, the Laws, Translated by Saunders T., J., Harmondsworth, Penguin books, 1970, Book 1, P.51)

The Athenian then proceeds to outline a categorical framework for a legal system which refers to the telos of peace and the “range of virtues” required of the citizens who live under “The Laws”. He lists the benefits that would flow from the presence of “good laws”, e.g. Health, Beauty, strength, and wealth which are the more obvious human benefits but he also then refers to the “divine” benefits of self-control, courage, good judgement and justice. The law-giver envisaged by the Athenian is not, however a God but rather a judge who:

” should supervise his people and confer suitable modes of honour or disgrace. Whenever they associate with one another, he should observe their pain, pleasures and desires, and watch their passions in all their intensity: he must use the laws themselves as instruments for the proper distribution of praise and blame….In all these instances the lawgivers duty is to isolate and and explain what is good and what is bad in the way each individual reacts.”(P.55)

Aristotle too would place his faith in the judge/lawgiver who uses his knowledge of the world and human life (psuché) to nurture and regulate the life of the community. This great-souled man or “Phronimos” loves the wisdom needed to prevent the city heading for the ruin and destruction predicted by the oracle. The city for Aristotle has an organic nature that lies behind an actualising developmental process in which principles lie behind the forms the institutions and the activities of the citizens take. The process, for Aristotle begins with the first community namely, the family, which, without a relation to a number of other families constituting a village would not be self-sufficient. Villages themselves can provide only a certain level of self-sufficiency which is better provided by the polis that comprises several villages. These actualising processes require the operation of the range of virtues that Socrates refers to above. The educational system of the polis, that is, praises virtuous behaviour and establishes the expectation that all citizens ought to engage in such behaviour but it also establishes the fear of the consequences of engaging in behaviour motivated by the vices. This fear is related to the blame that the community directs at what in their view ought not to be done. Legal institutions and processes support this moral structure which in the view of the Athenian has a therapeutic rather than a penal intention. We should recall here that Aristotle spent most of his life in Athens. He too, like Socrates became a potential victim of a failing justice system when he was accused of impiety. (an accusation that definitely had little therapeutic intention and had more to do with the reigning anti-Macedonian feeling that had been growing in Athens).

The Athenian also suggests that the laws ought to regulate the way citizens acquire money and spend it, honouring those that comply with the law and penalising those that do not.He qualifies this judgement, however by stipulating that it is the ideas of justice and self restraint rather than wealth and ambition which ought to to characterise the “spirit” of the law. The Athenian here echoes the Socratic argument in the Republic that it is the duty of the doctor to treat a patient in a crisis situation even if that patient has no resources to pay for his treatment. This argument clearly favours a humanistic therapeutic spirit rather than a secondary concern with the art of making money.

Various activities and institutions are thereafter discussed which appear to be connected with preparing the polis for war and developing institutions such as communal meals, gymnastic exercises and hunting which nurture the virtue of courage via the principles of avoidance of pain and control of surfeit pleasures. The Athenian also points to the dangers of such institutions/activities insofar as encouraging revolutions were concerned. The virtue of good judgement is, it is claimed, necessary in relation to the speech, action and feelings associated with them: areté or doing the right thing in the right way at the right time is an important aspect of developing the virtue of good judgement. In the context of this discussion the Athenian introduces the fact that Spartans regard drunkenness and drinking parties as anathema and illegal, thus truncating the virtue of courage envisaged by the Athenian. Learning to control fear and pain and not doing the same with respect to the temptations of pleasures is an important omission, the Athenian argues. The drinking parties of course have to be regulated to ensure the pleasures and pains are distributed appropriately and the proceedings ought not interrupted by unacceptable behaviour.** This reminds us of the Aristotelian standard of the Golden Mean and its role in developing virtues such as courage. The golden mean in relation to courage lies in avoiding the pain and suffering related to cowardice and the hubris and mania related to over-zealous fighting on the field of battle. The golden mean distributes the pleasures and pains, emotions, passions, feelings etc appropriately and this manifests itself openly in areté (doing and saying the right thing t the right time in the right way).

At this point in the dialogue the Athenian emphasises the importance of education to both the lawgivers and the citizens of the Callipolis Magnesia. Returning to the supervised drinking parties he claims that such events contribute to the complete education of the good man. Cleinias the Cretan, however, like Glaucon in the Republic, in relation to the arguments Socrates, demands a justification from the Athenian. The Athenian responds with a lecture on the nature and purpose of Education. His account begins by highlighting the importance of habit and the practicing of virtuous activities which ought to begin already with the activities of children’s games:

“If you control the way children play and the same children always play the same games under the same rules and in the same conditions, and get pleasure from the same toys, you will find that the conventions of adult life too are left in peace without alteration….Change, we shall find, except in something evil, is extremely dangerous.”(Laws, 797)

This echoes Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory of change where the philosopher is at pains to outline as systematically as he can the kinds of change, principles of change, causes of change and the media of change. Activities connected to war and economic activities are excluded from the Athenians account. What follows in Plato’s account is an argument related to how the law “calculates” in this judgement of the merits of pleasure and pain and the the manifesting of appropriate fears, expectations and confidence. Calculation is depicted by Plato as a divine power that has been transmitted to us humans and it is this power that is incorporated in the law, thus clarifying for a community the difference between vice and virtue. The educational activities, which include children’s games will be guided by the laws and the citizens will be trained to both obey and respect the law but they will also be trained to admire the power of legal “calculation”.

Returning to the supervised events of drinking parties the Athenian points out that pleasures, pains, anger and love are all made more intense under the influence of alcohol, whilst sensations, memories, opinions and thoughts become in general less influential. The subject regresses to a stage of early childhood and it is clear that self-control is lacking in such a subject. Nevertheless, it is argued, there is a positive aspect related to this state of drunkenness, namely, that ones inhibitions are neutralised and this manifests itself in a disposition toward boldness and fearlessness. If, in such a state one engages in shameful behaviour, this, is, the Athenian argues, the perfect training ground to confront ones vices. It is also pointed out in this context that one can also become drunk with the pleasure of being wealthy, beautiful and strong and such states ought to be recognised as inappropriate.

Aristotles view of the practical “calculation” involved in practical reasoning relating to law governed activity is that it is Reason which is being used in the use of the “golden-mean-standard”in the use of the power of calculation referred to by the Athenian. He would also claim that free choice is exercised in all activity that aims at the good, whether it be goods related to the external world, goods related to the body, or goods related to the soul. The question raised by both Aristotle and Kant in the context of this discussion is whether the type of reasoning or calculation involved is only means-ends reasoning or whether a more complex form of reasoning is involved which has the character of both what is good-in-its-consequences and what is good-in-itself.(Glaucons criteria for full justification of the idea of justice).

Instrumental reasoning is used of course in economic calculations which have become so unstable in modern times that written legal documents in the form of contracts need to be drafted and signed to ensure that any promises made are kept. This fact of course also testifies to the importance of the law to facilitate relations when morality fails to regulate our desires and actions

*Kant in his work “Anthropology” also adopted the above Platonic-Aristotelian view when he claimed that states of drunkenness where one has lost control of ones speech and actions reduce us to animals, but mild intoxication is morally acceptable because of the facilitation of relations between the participants at a dinner/drinking party. Virtues ought, he argues, to be controlling the discourse.

*Freud, as he so often does, adds an important dimension to this discussion in his diagnosis of the possible relations of alcoholism to paranoia, jealousy and obsessive compulsive disorders. He also points to the more general use of alcohol as an anaesthetic that is used to mitigate everyday suffering.