B3: The Communities of Plato’s Laws

1. A New Conception of Political Community?

T1: The producers “must be the slave of that best person, since the latter has the divine ruler within
him. And when we say that he needs to be ruled, we do not mean any harm to the slave, as
Thrasymachus believed that the ruled would be. But it is better for everyone to be ruled by what is
divine and wise, ideally with the divine and wise element in himself, but if not so it will be imposed
on him from outside, so that as far as possible we may all be equal, and all friends, since we are all
under the guidance of the same commander” (Republic, 590c8-d6).

Karl Popper (1962, p120-21): the fundamental question of politics is not, as Plato thought, ‘who
should rule?’ but rather, ‘how should political institutions be designed to minimize the possibility of
abuse against individuals?’ But note the Laws here:

T2: “There does not exist a mortal soul whose nature will ever be able to cope with the greatest ruling
position to be attained among humans, when young and unaccountable, without being filled in his
thinking with that greatest of diseases, folly, and earning the hatred of his closest friends. And when
this happens, it quickly ruins the soul and annihilates its entire power. To take precautions against this
by discerning the due measure is the task of great lawgivers” (Laws, 691c-d; compare 713c-714a;
875a-d).

Law is the supreme authority in the community (712a-715d); law, nomos, is the embodiment of
reason, nous (713e-714a).

(i) No individual is above the law; all are equally subject to it.
(ii) The laws are willingly accepted by a free citizenry.

T3: “What the lawgiver…any lawgiver who is good for anything at all, will always have particularly
in view, as he prescribes his laws, is human goodness of the highest order” (630c2-5; trans. Griffith;
see also 688a1-b4; 705e1-706a4; 770b4-771a4; 853b4-c3; 963a1-4; for making the citizens happy by
making them virtuous, see 631b3-632d7, 718a3-b5; 828d5-829b2).

The idealising program of the Republic is still in view. Schofield (2010) on the Laws’ “two projects”.

T4: “We are human beings, legislating in the world today for the children of human beings” (853c-d).

2. Politics and Moral Psychology

T5: “People are in a state of public war of every man against every man and private war of every man
against himself” (626d-e).

Institutional arrangements will not be effective if individuals are at war within themselves. Moral
psychology is central to legislation. How is (ii) achieved? What is the nature of a true law and a true
citizen?

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T6: “…Nor are they proper laws if they were not made for the common good of the city as a whole.
Where laws are made for the benefit of one group only, we call these people partisans, not citizens”
(715b; 743c; 832c).

How will the citizens come to accept the laws? Education in pleasure and pains is central to
legislation (636d-e; 637d). Individuals possess within themselves two counsellors, pleasure and pain
(644c), and the capacity to form judgments about these:

T7: “When such judgment takes the form of a public decision of a political community (dogma
poleos koinon), it is called law (nomos)” (644d).

T8: Education leads children “to the rule that has been pronounced correct by the law” (659d).

Education in music and dance, especially choral practice (664a, 665c), as well as “practices, eulogies,
and arguments” (663c); “songs, stories and discourses” (664a), which all citizens will repeat in many
variations as a kind of spell to inculcate virtue (665c).

T9: “Education which is directed, from childhood, towards human goodness, producing a desire and a
passion (eros) to become the perfect citizen, one who knows how to rule and be ruled, in accordance
with justice (archein te kai archesthai epistamenon meta dikes)” (643e).

Habit is important, but it is not the whole story; we do not want blind obedience to the dictates of
others, but willing acceptance of law (Annas, 2010).

3. Constitution and Law

What is Magnesia like? Who should govern? The mixed constitution (693d-701e): a democratic
element guarantees freedom to citizens, and a monarchical element provides the basis for social
harmony (693c-e; 697d-698b) and embodies wisdom. The democratic element is seen in a popular
assembly and the election of officials through a general vote, in such a way that freedom will be
embodied. And a governing council, as well as arrangements designed “to confer high recognition on
virtue, but less on those weaker in virtue and education” (757c) will preserve wisdom. The Nocturnal
Council will review and preserve the city’s laws (960b-969d). Alongside this a third element – philia,
friendship, will blend both elements into a harmonious whole. We have a triad of values: wisdom,
freedom and friendship.

T10: “A city should be free and wise and a friend to itself and the lawgiver should give his laws with
a view to these things” (639b2-5).

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 4. Legislation and Doctoring

T11: “It’s like doctors…[doctors] may be free born or slaves, but either way they acquire their skill
by heeding their master’s instructions, by watching them, and by trial and error, rather than by study
of the natural order, which for the free born doctors is both the way they came by their own
knowledge and the way they teach their sons….[slave doctors don’t give] any explanation of the
particular disease of the particular slave – or listens to one; all they do is prescribe the treatment they
see fit, on the basis of trial and error, but with all the arrogance of a tyrant, as if they had exact
knowledge. …The free born doctor spends most of his time treating and keeping an eye on the
diseases of the free-born. He investigates the origin of the disease, in the light of his study of the
natural order, taking the patient himself and his friends into partnership. This allows him both to learn
from those who are sick, and at the same time to teach the invalid himself, to the best of his ability;
and he prescribes no treatment without first getting the patient’s consent” (719e-720e)

T12: “…Conversing with the patient and using arguments that come close to philosophising, starting
from the source of the disease and mounting to the whole nature of bodies” (857d).

To which the slave doctor would respond:

T13: “You idiot! You are not doctoring your patient, you are to all intents and purposes giving him an
education, as if what he wanted was to become a doctor, rather than simply get well” (857d).

What does this suggest about the preambles to the laws? Comparison with the doctor analogy from
the Gorgias. An example of a preamble: Marriage.

5. Distributive Justice and Freedom

Legislation must produce justice in distribution, defined as preventing excesses of wealth or poverty
(744D- E). Such arrangements will never be fully realized because:

T14: "…There is one thing we need to keep in mind, come what may: all these suggestions we’ve
been making are never going to hit upon precisely the conditions in which the whole plan can be put
into effect exactly as we’ve described – men who will not object to this manner of living together,
who will tolerate a whole lifetime of defined and modest limits to property, and an approach to having
children which is in every case such as we have described, and doing without gold and the other
things which the lawgiver, on the basis of our argument so far, is obviously going to have to add to his
list….it all sounds pretty much like a dream, or like someone making little wax models of a city and
its citizens” (745e-746a; trans. Griffith).

T15: “The person demonstrating the model (paradeigma) on which the proposed undertaking must be
based is not to settle for anything less than what is most fine and most true. However, if anyone finds
some particular details of these unattainable, then that is something he is to avoid, and not implement,
but instead implement whichever of the alternatives comes closest to it, whichever is most nearly
related to the ideal, and contrive ways of bringing that very thing about. He is to allow his lawgiver to
complete his extended plan, and only when that has been done is he to join with him in asking which
of his suggestions is likely to work, and what part of his lawgiving is too difficult. Anybody making
anything, however mundane, needs to make sure, if he is going to be taken seriously, that it is in every
way consistent with itself” (746b-d; trans. Griffith).

What does this tell us about the legislative enterprise of the Laws?

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 6. The Relationship between Law and Citizens

(i) The law-code comes into effect when approved by the citizens who live under it. The
acceptance of the code by those who become the original citizens of Magnesia is crucial
(745e-746c; 752c-d; 832c).
(ii) Citizens may play a role in determining the rules under which they live. Any actual
lawgiver will have to modify the enactments of the “ideal” constitution, satisfying himself
with a “second-best” or “third-best” approximation (746a-c; 807b; 858a).

T14: “Now, if we were looking for things to be exactly so, in the minutest detail, then it probably
wouldn’t ever happen – certainly not while women and children and houses are in private hands,
and all arrangements of that kind, in our respective cities are made on a private basis. But the
second best set of arrangements we are talking about now, if that could be brought about in our
city, well that would be no mean achievement” (807b; trans. Griffith).

(iii) The realization of a legislative "dream" like the Laws depends upon the existence of
circumstances under which a community is willing to adopt and live by the principles set
out there (746a-c; 752b-c).

Annas, J. ‘Virtue and Law in Plato’ in (ed.) Bobonich, C. Plato’s Laws: A Critical Guide (Cambridge,
2010): 71-92

Schofield, M. ‘The Laws’ Two Projects’ in (ed.) Bobonich, C. Plato’s Laws: A Critical Guide,
(Cambridge, 2010): 12-29

Prauscello, L., Performing Citizenship in Plato’s Laws, (Cambridge, 2014)

Bartels, M 2017, Plato's Pragmatic Project: a reading of Plato's Laws, (Stuttgart, 2017)