Socrates and the Moral Life

1. Socrates and the Moral Life What are our political obligations as citizens?

2. What would you do if you had been lawfully sentenced to death on false charges and were offered an opportunity to escape? Why do people obey or disobey that which demands allegiance (government, law, state) Bigger question is: what makes government legitimate?

3. Socrates’ Choice • Accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and of not believing in gods • Believes his mission was ordained by God • Believes that he is morally obligated to teach virtue and justice for their own sakes, rather than for the sake of money and cannot stop speaking out because it would disobey a divine command • Condemned to death (drinking hemlock)

4. “Men of Athens, I honor and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.”

5. Crito • Socrates’ student/disciple offers chance to escape • Does not want to lose his friend and mentor • Does not want Socrates to play into his enemies’ hands • Thinks Socrates should try to get banishment instead, as people would still respect him • Thinks Socrates should not abandon his own children who need him for their education

6. Socrates’ Response • He cannot intentionally injure others / “render evil for evil” • Other cities he might go to while in exile would view him as a ‘subverter of laws’ • He cannot be justified in escape as it would weaken the laws and government • Athens could not endure if its lawful decisions could be set aside by individuals at will

7. Socrates’ Response, cont. • He would find no happiness in fleeing from “well-ordered cities and virtuous men • If he escaped and turned his back on his own principles, he could not then talk of “virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men”

8. What Makes Government Legitimate? Socrates believed that we are each indebted to our “polis” (political community) for birth, for nurture, for education, for fulfillment in citizenship. By our lives and growth, we undertake a contractual agreement to abide by the commands of the polis, even when we believe they are wrong. ANSWER: WE GIVE IT LEGITIMACY

9. Other Options • Civil Disobedience (non-violent, aimed at moral issue) • Thoreau • MLK, Jr. • Ghandi • 1776 • When govt violates the trust of that brought it into being (no longer legitimate), the people have a right to revolt and overthrow it and establish a new one

10. Political Philosophy Leading to the U.S. Constitution Ancient Greek Philosophy through Social Contract Theory

11. Ancient Greek Origins Plato’s Republic • Key question: What is justice? • Answer: the harmonious ordering of the functional classes in the polis • People are NOT all equal • Three levels of individuals: • Philosophers (who should rule) • Guardians (who should defend) • Masses (who provide for daily needs)

12. Plato con’t. • Gov’t forms serving common good: • Monarchy (virtuous ruler) • Aristocracy (virtuous few) • Polity (constitutional) • Gov’t forms motivated by self-interest: • Tyranny (one lawless person) • Oligarchy (rich & noble) • Democracy (poor & free)

13. Ancient Greek Origins Aristotle - The Politics • "From these things it is evident, that the city belongs among the things that exist by nature, and that man is by nature a political animal” • The formation of cities is natural • Man is by his own nature a political being

14. Political Philosophy Leading to the U.S. Constitution • Social Contract Theorists: • Thomas Hobbes: The Leviathan (1651) • John Locke: 2nd Treatise on Gov’t (1681) • Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Social Contract (1763) • Three fundamental ideals: • Natural rights • Classical Republicanism • Constitutionalism

15. Social Contract Theory • A social contract is an act by which individuals agree to form a government • According to social contract theory, governments are established by the people who combine to achieve some goal • Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were social contract theorists • They hypothesized the existence of a state of nature prior to any government

16. Hobbes’ Leviathan • Life is nasty, brutish, and short / Human beings are selfish, self-seeking, materialistic • State of nature is war • For Hobbes, civil war was the ultimate terror, the definition of fear. He wanted to reform philosophy in order to reform the nation and thereby vanquish fear. • Security is most important

17. Hobbes’ Leviathan • Civil peace and social unity are best achieved by the establishment of a commonwealth through social contract • Ideal commonwealth is ruled by a sovereign power responsible for protecting the security of the commonwealth and granted absolute authority to ensure the common defense.

18. Hobbes’ Leviathan • The good political life calls for a sovereign power: a “Mortall God” and only that can ensure a civilization of agriculture, arts, etc • This person (“God”) is not limited by: • Divine law • Natural law • Civil law • Common law

19. Hobbes’ Leviathan • Describes commonwealth as an "artificial person" and as a body politic that mimics the human body • The frontispiece to the first edition of Leviathan, which Hobbes helped design, portrays the commonwealth as a gigantic human form built out of the bodies of its citizens, the sovereign as its head • The image constitutes the definitive metaphor for Hobbes's perfect government • His text attempts to prove the necessity of the Leviathan for preserving peace and preventing civil war

20. Locke: Second Treatise on Gov’t • Governing principle: liberty • Places sovereignty in hands of the people • People are equal and invested with natural rights (life, liberty, property) in a state of nature in which they live free from outside rule • Natural law governs behavior, and each person has license to execute that law against someone who wrongs them by infringing on their rights • This person puts himself in state of war with you

21. Locke: Second Treatise on Gov’t • People take what they need from the earth, but hoard just enough to cover their needs • Eventually, people begin to trade their excess goods with each other, until they develop a common currency for barter, or money • Money eliminates limits on the amount of property they can obtain (unlike food, money does not spoil), and they begin to gather estates around themselves and their families.

22. Locke: Second Treatise on Gov’t SOCIAL CONTRACT: • People exchange some of their natural rights to enter into society with other people, and be protected by common laws and a common executive power to enforce the laws • People need executive power to protect their property and defend their liberty • The civil state has power over the people only insofar as it exists to protect and preserve their welfare

23. Locke: Second Treatise on Gov’t • Locke describes a state with a separate judicial, legislative, and executive branch--the legislative branch being the most important of the three, since it determines the laws that govern civil society • People have the right to dissolve their government, if that government ceases to work solely in their best interest. The government has no sovereignty of its own--it exists to serve the people

24. Locke - Why enter social contract? • "If man in the state of nature be so free as has been said, if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest and subject to nobody, why will he part with his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain and constantly exposed to the invasion of others; for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure."

25. Locke: Summary • Locke's model consists of a civil state • Built upon the natural rights common to a people who need and welcome an executive power to protect their property and liberties • Government exists for the people's benefit and can be replaced or overthrown if it ceases to function toward that primary end • Consent of the governed – enter into social contract to protect property and ensure liberty

26. Ancient Greece vs. Locke • ***Athenian notion of citizen participant in lawmaking • ***Lockean notion of citizen bearer of rights • American notion of citizen?? • This question is at the center of the debate over political participation in this country

27. Rousseau • “Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains” • “Will of all” vs. “General will” • The general will is never wrong, as it is always aimed at the public good • People are sovereign under the direction of the General Will, and the people control their govt’s form, policy, and personnel • Sovereignty is inalienable and indivisible, and cannot be represented

28. Rousseau, con’t • Purpose of political community = create a society where there is unanimous consent to associate under the General Will • “Men must be forced to be free” (i.e., required by law to do what is right) • By nature, men are unequal • Making everyone a citizen in society makes them equal under the law

29. Conclusions: • People cannot survive on their own without the presence of government • Man truly is a political animal • To get what is most important (security, liberty, property), people must give their consent to be governed and enter into a social contract

30. What Kind of Government is Best?

31. Representative Democracy • In the United States, we do NOT participate directly in government (with a few exceptions: initiatives, referendum) • Instead, we elect representatives who will act on our behalf • Two kinds of representative: • Delegate • Trustee

32. What Kind of Representative Democracy is Best? • Geographic representation • Descriptive representation • Substantive representation

33. Descriptive Representation:How Representative is Congress? 106th Congress Nationally: Male: 49.1% Female: 50.9% Senate House