Plato as Anti-Political Thinker

Author(s): F. E. Sparshott
Source: Ethics, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Apr., 1967), pp. 214-219
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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 PLATO AS ANTI-POLITICAL THINKER
F. E. SPARSHOTT
PROFESSOR LEYS stigmatizes Plato's
thought as nonpolitical, even antipoliti-
cal.1 He defines as political "any activity,
institution, or issue that pertains to a di-
vision of opinion and aspiration within a
population that has some dealings with
one another despite that division." The
context suggests that what he means is
as follows: Within any community or as-
sociation there will be groups or individ-
uals whose interests conflict or who have
incompatible opinions about what the
whole community or association should be
doing. Such issues are to be thought of as
political insofar as they do not disrupt the
community or association into smaller in-
dependent units, and a method of han-
dling such issues is political insofar as it
respects the divergent interests and opin-
ions as legitimate and devises means where-
by those who continue to hold them may
remain members of the same community
or association. Non-political methods
would be those which do not presume that
divergent opinions and interests are equal-
ly legitimate or which treat such diver-
gence as incompatible with joint member-
ship of a single group. In that sense Plato,
who is notoriously impatient of such con-
tinuing divisions, is plainly non-political
in the general tendency of his thought. It
remains only to supplement Leys' char-
acterization by clarifying the nature,
ground, and extent of Plato's abstention
from political solutions. What follows is a
sketch for such a clarification.
In what situations are political solutions
called for? Leys's own reference to "di-
vision of opinion and aspiration" suggests
the following analysis. Such situations oc-
cur (1) when different groups have incom-
patible aims ("aspirations") and (2) when
they have different opinions about how
agreed aims are to be achieved-or, to
put the same thing the other way around,
214
when they differ as to what the actual
results of a given proposed action will be.
Differences in aspiration may be either
(1.1) reflections of different ideals, differ-
ent ideas as to what form the institutions
of a society as a whole should take, or
(1.2) expressions of the different interests
of different groups. The latter differences
may arise out of either (1.21) false or
(1.22) true readings by the various groups
of their own interests and those of others.
If a reading is false, the obvious remedy
is to correct it rather than accommodate
it; if it is true, the resulting difference
may be either (1.221) capable or (1.222)
incapable of resolution. If it is irresoluble,
the resulting division may be handled by
(1.2221) persuasion or (1.2222) compro-
mise or (1.2223) conflict. So much for dif-
ferences about ends. Differences of the
other kind, differences about what means
will actually bring about an admittedly de-
sirable result, may be either (2.1) resolved
or (2.2) left unresolved. If the former,they
may be resolved either by (2.11) substituting
knowledge for opinion or by (2.12) agree-
ing on whose opinion shall be accepted; if
the latter, the resulting division may be
handled by (2.21) persuasion or (2.22)
some sort of compromise or bet-hedging
or (2.23) force. However, the use of force
here seems inappropriate (as opposed to
its appropriate use in differences about
ends), and we shall not consider it further.
For all these differences a "(political"so-
lution in Leys's terms is one that allows
the differenceto continue: a 'non-political"
solution is one that prevents or terminates
it. Let us now see which of the foregoing
possibilities Plato recognizes and how he
addresses himself to each.
1.1 Different ideals.-The requirements
of political constitutions are determined
by the various needs and interests of dif-
ferent types of human being (cf. States-
 DISCUSSION
man 306a-3 1lc). A valid political ideal
must thus rest on a valid comparativepsy-
chology (Republic II-IV). But Plato no-
toriously tends to think that mutually in-
compatible ideals cannot both be valid,
since valid ideals are determined by eter-
nal "Forms" (e.g., Phaedo 75, 100; Re-
public 494, 497, 499); it is thus supposed
that such a comparative psychology will
uniquely determine a social organization.
Rival ideals are represented as mere pro-
jections of personal weaknesses, reflecting
the unhappy experiencesof those who hold
them (Republic VIII-IX). On the objec-
tive side, only two political ideals other
than that schematically determined by
Plato's theoretical assumptions are rep-
resented as more than mere expressions of
sectional interests: the militaristic Spartan
type and the democratic. Of these, the
former rests on a mere respect for public
order without any regard to the rational
ends that such an order might subserve
(Republic 547-49); the latter rests on an
immature preference for immediate grati-
fications over long-term interests, for the
gaudy over the substantial (Republic 557-
62; cf. Gorgias 521-22). These are both
merely familiar forms of stupidity and thus
fall under the rubric of 2.1 below. Conclu-
sion: Plato holds that all political ideals ex-
cept one are, in principle, demonstrably
mistaken.
1.21. Interests wrongly thought to di-
verge.-False ideas about differences of
interest may be put right by explanation
and experience: people may have wrong
ideas about what they will like, but not
about what they are actually enjoying now
(Philebus 32-40), except that (a) they
might enjoy something else even more if
they tried it and (b) they may not like
the consequences of what they like (Phile-
bus 40-42). The commonest sort of error
about one's interests is represented by
greed (pleonexia, more literally, "wanting
more"), the supposition that appetites are
best satisfied by unrestricted gratification.
That is false: experienceshows that moder-
ation yields more satisfaction (Republic
586-87). To want "more," as such, is a
2 15
sign of folly: since there is always "more"
to be desired, such a desire actually pre-
cludes its own satisfaction (Gorgias 491-
94). Members of a community may all be
able to "keep up with" each other but can-
not all "get ahead of" each other. Conclu-
sion: Plato thinks that many apparent di-
vergences of interests rest on simple mis-
takes and that such mistakes are in principle
quite readily corrigible.
1.221. Real but resoluble divergences of
interests.-Interests of different groups
may be renderedreally incompatibleby the
social order to which they belong. In such
cases the obviously best solution is to mod-
ify the social order so that the incompati-
bility is removed. Such solutions are called
non-political by Leys, but are favored by
Plato, and it is fair to note that constitu-
tional arrangements are treated by Aris-
totle as one of the two fundamental kinds
of political question (Nicomachean Ethics
1141b25). But such constitutional accom-
modations may seldom be possible.
The commonest type of divergence of
interest, and that least amenable to consti-
tutional engineering, is the competition
among groups for goods and services. Such
competition can only express itself in at-
tempts at exploitation, and Plato thinks
such attempts incompatible with the idea
of a single community (Republic 351c-d).
The community can be saved only if the
competing parties unite against a richer ad-
versary to increase the available supplies
(Republic 422) and thus make competition
unnecessary. But Plato's preferred solution
is to modify the desires rather than to ar-
range for their joint gratification, by pro-
viding a social system that educates against
greed. Conclusion: Plato thinks that many
actual divergences of interests can be re-
moved by social engineering, by consumer
education, or by foreign wars.
1.2221. Handling divisions by persua-
sion.-Plato assumes that no one in his
sane senses ever prefers another's interest
to his own (cf. Gorgias 468); such prefer-
ences can only be induced by the hypno-
tism of oratory (cf. Gorgias 456 and pas-
sim), never by reasoned argument. And
216 ETHICS
although persons or groups may be in-
veigled into embracing a policy, they can-
not be thus hoodwinkedinto liking what its
consequences actually turn out to be (see
1.21 above and Theaetetus 177c ff.). Con-
clusion: Plato thinks that such persuasion
cannot be lastingly effective.
1.2222. Handling divisions by compro-
mise.-Law-abiding behavior is commonly
representedas a compromise among selfish
people: one escapes fraud and violence at
the price of abstention from fraud and vio-
lence (Republic 358-59). But such com-
promises are unstable, since it is obviously
more advantageous to secure the escape
without the abstention, if one can get away
with it (ibid.). It would thus be pointless
to establish elaborate mechanisms for arbi-
trating conflicting interests, since neither
party would abide by the terms of such
arbitration any longer than it found it ex-
pedient to do so.
It is interesting to see how Plato recon-
ciles his rejection of self-sacrifice as a psy-
chological possibility with his requirement
that the Guardians of his imaginary soci-
ety shall absent themselves from the re-
searches which they enjoy and engage in
administration, which they do not enjoy.
He cannot represent this requirement (as
we might represent it) as demanding that
they sacrifice their own good to that of oth-
ers. Instead, he says three different things.
First, the good that their administration
serves is not representedas that of "others"
but as that of the whole community of
which they themselves form one part (Re-
public 519-20); nothing is said of "serv-
ice" in this context. Second, the compro-
mise that they make is not one of those
that can be evaded by stealth: the only
alternative to really governing themselves
is to be really governedby others (Republic
347c-d-the key word anagkaion at 347dl
reappears in almost the same phrase at
520e2). Third, and most significantly, the
case is taken out of the realm of conflicting
interests altogether and presented in terms
of "justice": since their taste for scholar-
ship is no chance growthbut was inculcated
by the state as a means of providing itself
with dispassionate and wise officials, the
very dispassionate wisdom thus inculcated
will make them accept as "just" the re-
quirement that they perform this task for
which they are uniquely fitted by training
and temperament (Republic 520a-e). The
justice of this requirement lies essentially
in the fact that their taking office is objec-
tively the best solution to the problem of
how good administration is to be secured;
and their training is designed precisely to
make them seek and favor the objectively
best solutions to problems.2 Conclusion:
Plato thinks it psychologically impossible
to acquiesce in a compromise conceived as
such.
1.2223. Handling divisions by force.-
Plato clearly takes the normal condition of
Greek politics to be one in which conflicts
of interest are settled by force (Republic
VIII-IX, Laws 714d-715b). And the his-
tories of Thucydides and Xenophon do
suggest that the Greek cities of the fifth
and fourth centuries had been at best in-
termittently successful at handling diver-
gent aspirations through constitutional
means. It follows from what was said in
1.2221 and 1.2222 that, so long as different
social groups are truly or incorrigibly con-
vinced that their interests diverge, rational
political solutions are ruled out by Plato
as impossible and irrational solutions as
unstable. This mistrust of politics, for
which Leys castigates Plato, seems at least
defensible. One can certainly argue that
the essential political problem, even in
Leys's terms, is not one of devising institu-
tions to work out compromises but rather,
always one of getting people to accept com-
promises and to abide by the compromises
they have formally acquiesced in. On the
international level, one reading of Thucyd-
ides would suggest that the chief weakness
in "political" relations between Greek cit-
ies of the time was not that no machinery
existed for entering into treaties, or even
that treaties were not made, for treaties
were indeed often entered into and the req-
uisite formulas were well understood: the
difficultywas that treaties, once made, were
not kept. Insofar as this is the case, the po-
 DISCUSSION
litical problem is one of education, one of
producinga frame of mind in which shared
interests bulk larger than divisive interests.
That is, of course, precisely how Plato sees
the political problem: political machinery
is converted into educational machinery
(Republic 423e-425e). The fact that he
applies this machinery to an ideally non-
divisive situation does not lessen the im-
portance of his thesis.
If education is neglected violence must
be accepted, and one can only hope to miti-
gate the effects of such violence. And Plato
does indeed offer reasoned recommenda-
tions on the conduct of civil wars-"politi-
cal" recommendationsof precisely the kind
that Leys praises Locke for making and
upbraids Plato for not making (Republic
469-71). Leys has presumably failed to
notice them because he has not noticed the
importance of violence both in Plato's
thought and in the political life of his day.
And it is possible that he has not noticed
that the limitation of conflict is among the
leading political concerns of our own "one-
world" era. Conclusion: Plato thought that
if divergent interests are not reconciled the
divergence must issue in conflict and that
the political activities of his own place and
time were forms of conflict.
2.11. Knowledge as resolving differences
about means.-Notoriously, a key point in
Plato's antipolitics is that most supposed
differences in interests are really only dif-
ferences of opinion: what is taken for a
difference in ends is in fact a difference
about means. We have touched on this
theme under 1.21. Everyone, it is argued,
really wants "what is best" for himself, and
what he concretely seeks is sought always
under the guise of "what is best" or as a
means thereto (Gorgias 467b ff.). The
theme is still familiar to us in a religious
context, though not in a political one: a
prudent man petitioning a supposedly om-
niscient and benevolent being will hedge
his requests with the proviso, "if that shall
be best for me." Many political disagree-
ments arise and persist because even where
there is no significant divergence of inter-
est or ideal it is not clear what policies will
2 17
in fact secure the common welfare; and,
more concretely, there is often no agree-
ment about what the actual consequences
of adopting a given policy will be and how
to achieve a given objective.
Where knowledge is known to be possi-
ble, no one is content with opinion: even
political assemblies defer to expert testi-
mony on obviously technical questions
(Protagoras 319b). Normal political proce-
dures rest on the assumption (ibid.) that
questions of policy are non-technical. Pla-
to's thesis is that such questions are, in
principle, technical: if it were possible to
determinewith certainty and precisionwhat
the outcome of a given line of action would
be (through knowledge of causal laws of
economics, etc.) and what would prove ac-
ceptable to what social groups (through
knowledge of sociological and psychologi-
cal laws), there would be no point in argu-
ing about what to do. The Republic is a
sustained exploration of the hypothesis
that such knowledge is in principle accessi-
ble: and the hypothesis is explicitly that
administrators endowed with this knowl-
edge are beings on a quite differentintellec-
tual plane from those whose affairs they
run (Statesman 274e-75c, Laws 713c-e).
Conclusion: Plato thinks that most if not
all differencesin politics are ultimately dif-
ferences about means rather than ends and
that such differences can always in princi-
ple (though seldom in practice) be resolved
by ascertainingthe truth about the relevant
matters of present and future fact.
2.12. Accepted authority as resolving
differencesabout means.-Existing practice
shows that the authority of knowledge ex-
tends to its possessors when it and they are
recognized (Protagoras319c). Beyond that,
Plato recognizes that agreement on who
shall take decisions is the basis of social
harmony (Republic 431d-432a); but the
Republic, being devoted to exploring the
implications of certainty, shows little inter-
est in how such agreement is to be reached
in that absence of certain knowledge that
is normally taken to be the condition of
political life (Republic 488b-c, Protagoras
319a-320d). This apparent lack of interest
218 ETHICS
is among the things that make Plato seem
an antipolitical philosopher. He does, how-
ever, remark that opinions in general ac-
quire authority only from intelligence or
from argumentor from experience (Repub-
lic 582a); the proposal of the Republic is
that the opinions of those pre-eminent in
these respects should be allowed to prevail,
although the issue is obscured in that dia-
logue by the complicating hypothesis that
their pre-eminence should amount to cer-
tainty. In the later Laws, however, that
additional supposition is not made, and we
have there a most elaborate set of provi-
sions for the selection of authorities. All
offices are to be elective, with the more im-
portant offices filled by a complex system
of successive ballots (Laws 753c-d, 945e-
946c), the principle apparently being, as
Professor Morrow points out,3 that even
men of no particularmerit tend to be sound
judges of merit in others (Laws 950b). The
claims of experience to authority are met
by making the legality of the proceedings
of the lesser magistracies subject to review
by boards (themselves elective) whose
membersenjoy mature years and long ten-
ure. Similar boards are charged with intro-
ducing constitutional reforms (769e-771a)
and are to appoint roving commissionersto
visit foreign lands from whose practice le-
gal and educational reforms might be de-
rived (951a-952a). The chief task of the
popular assembly is apparently to conduct
the elections of these officials and boards.
These proposals seem designed to accom-
modate two apparently irreconcilableprin-
ciples, that authority must rest on consent
and that opinions must be given the author-
ity they objectively deserve. The arrange-
ments by which Plato proposes to meet
these requirementscome closer to the prac-
tice of modern representative government
than to that of Plato's own place and time,
and perhaps for that reason are somewhat
neglected in modern accounts of his politi-
cal thought. Whatever their merits, the pro-
posals are thoroughly political in Leys's
sense. The fundamentally non-political na-
ture of Plato's thinking is doubtless shown
in his failure to say anything at all about
how these boards themselves might reach
agreement or what forms of persuasion
might lead to the nomination and election
of one set of officials rather than another.
The constitutional proposals are elaborate,
but Plato shows no interest in the actual
dynamics of the politicking within the con-
stitutional framework. If it be said that
this is unsurprisingin a work whose explicit
aim is the formulation of constitutional
proposals, the reply must be that Plato's
non-political mind shows itself in his fail-
ure to devote any work to the decision-
making procedure.It is not easy to see how
the deficiency could be supplied, since a
practice once formalizedbecomes itself part
of the frameworkand hence apparently in
Leys's terms non-political. But perhaps the
situation is covered by the remark made in
another context (Republic 425d-e) to the
general effect that if you get a watchdog
you need not bark yourself, that if you ap-
point competent men you need not pre-
scribe their procedures.And it is surely on
this point that Plato would join issue with
Leys: if there is one place where the phi-
losopher as such has nothing to contribute
it is to the actual wheeling and dealing
in smoke-filled rooms. Conclusion: Plato
thinks that, though there can be no direct
criteria of the merits of opinions where cer-
tainty is unobtainable, objective and read-
ily applicableindirect criteria may be found
in the qualifications of those who hold the
opinions; and similar considerations apply
to the selection of decision-making proce-
dures.
2.21. Settling differences of opinion by
persuasion.-Plato frankly regards as sin-
ister the use of non-rational means of per-
suasion to support policies whose merits are
objectively uncertain: to use them is neces-
sarily to give opinions more weight than
they are known to deserve (Gorgias 455a-
456c, 458e-459c). Two palliative consider-
ations may be noted, however. One is that
non-rational support is as available to a
sound opinion as to an unsound one (Gor-
gias, 456c-457c, Statesman 303e-304e);
in fact, since not everyone can appreciate
the true merits of all opinions, a sound
 DISCUSSION
opinion (even a demonstrable truth) needs
such backing no less than an unsound one
(cf. Republic 402a, 414b-415d). The other
palliative is that the very same knowledge
of human psychology that is necessary to
form a sound opinion on what policy will
produce most happiness will also enable the
persuader to make his persuasion effective
(Phaedrus 270a-272b). Thus knowledge
has an advantage over ignorance even in
the use of non-rational means, and the
soundest statesman should also be the most
effective politician. It is this dual function
of psychological knowledge that forms the
essential basis of Plato's dream of a "sci-
entific" politics. Conclusion: Plato recog-
nizes the need for winning people over to
the support of policies whose advantages
are not at once apparent but condemns the
use of such means without relation to the
merits of the policies for which support is
canvassed.
2.22. Settling differences of opinion by
compromise.-The art of practical politics
is no doubt in large measure to minimize
the consequences of unavoidable error.
Modern multiparty democracies with their
provision for periodic reversals of contro-
versial policy make provision for this:
Plato knows no such devices and does not
recognize a need for them. He would not
have his officials "bethink them that they
may be mistaken." It is this neglect to keep
the way open for overridden views, togeth-
er with the deep pessimism about the possi-
bilities of abnegation noted under 1.2223,
that is the measure of his failure as a po-
litical philosopher in Leys's sense. Conclu-
sion: Plato makes no provision for minority
rights as such.
Generalconclusion.-Philosophy, for Pla-
tois exclusively concernedwith knowledge
and its applications (Republic 475-87).
The philosopheras such can therefore have
nothing to contribute to situations where
NOTES
1. Wayne A. R. Leys, "Was Plato Non-Politi-
cal?" Ethics, LXXV (1965), 272-76.
2. The implications of the concept of justice in
this connection are explored at length in my
219
knowledge is not available: specifically, he
can make no useful contribution to practi-
cal politics (Republic 592 and passim;
Gorgias 462-63, 521-22). Practical poli-
tics is based exclusively on memory of what
in the past has proved effective and accept-
able (Republic 516c-d, Gorgias 462-65)
and thus neither needs nor can use the phi-
losopher's special skills.
Our examination of the various possibili-
ties has shown, however, that knowledge
may potentially eliminate all disputes ex-
cept those based on a real conflict of inter-
ests; and Plato tries to show that in a prop-
erly organized society no such conflicts are
real. What are taken to be such arise from
the unwise indulgence of appetites as op-
posed to their rational gratification-that
is, from failure to recognize one's own best
interests. This is as true of international as
of interpersonal conflicts (Republic 373e).
We have seen that Plato does in fact
make suggestions that are political in Leys's
sense, some of them of considerablehistor-
ical importance. But he believes that such
proposals are rendered ultimately unwork-
able by the very social context of continu-
ing antagonism that makes them necessary.
His preferredsolutions to political problems
are therefore directed rather toward chang-
ing the social context itself; and, converse-
ly, his preference for such solutions doubt-
less leads him to a quite unrealistic pessi-
mism about the workability of ordinarypo-
litical devices. In this sense his thought is
certainly antipolitical. But the systematic
elaborationwith which he develops his anti-
politics itself constitutes a major, even if a
formally negative, contribution to political
philosophy. Certainly his arguments do not
earn him the name that Leys calls him,
"the saint of those who see only evil in
their opponents."
VICTORIACOLLEGE,TORONTO
"Socrates and Thrasymachus," Monist, Vol. L,
No. 3 (July, 1966).
3. Glenn R. Morrow, Plato's Cretan City
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960),
p. 162.