![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In Plato's Laws, the Athenian Visitor says that the best constitution is a mixture of monarchy and democracy. This is the theoretical basis for the institutions of Magnesia, and it helps the citizens to become virtuous. But what is meant by ‘monarchy’ and ‘democracy’, and how are they mixed? I argue that the fundamental relations in Plato's discussion of constitutions are those of authority (represented by monarchical institutions) and equality (represented by democratic institutions). These principles are centrally about the extent to which citizens submit to the judgment of an authority and the extent to which they decide for themselves respectively—the extent to which they are ruled by themselves or ruled by another. The institutions of Magnesia reflect these principles in practice and provide a more nuanced way to understand Plato’s assessment of democratic institutions.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 ‘Constitution’ translates politeia and refers to the arrangement of political offices and institutions. I assume that the Athenian Visitor presents Plato’s views; readers who do not share this assumption should substitute ‘The Athenian’ for ‘Plato’ throughout.
2 See Morrow [Citation1993: ch. 10], Annas [Citation2017: ch. 3], and Schofield [Citation2006: 74–89]. Morrow follows Aristotle in analysing the mixture in terms of combining oligarchic and democratic institutions, but recognises that this approach has limited application; he then adopts a looser conception of what could be ‘mixed’ about the constitution, but at the cost of conceptual unity (see [Citation1993: 535] for just how many things can count as mixed). Annas reads monarchy as authority and democracy as freedom, but her central understanding of the mixed constitution in Magnesia is a combination of Spartan and Athenian institutions. It is unclear why Sparta should be paradigmatic of the monarchical principle, and although Annas is right that Magnesia uses Spartan institutions extensively, this seems to be the result of the theory of the mixed constitution and not its theoretical basis. Schofield identifies the ‘moderate freedom’ in Athens as being a combination of (a) ‘voluntary acceptance of the rule of law’ and (b) ‘freedom of participation in the political system that citizens must enjoy if they are to be proper citizens, and not simply the slaves of their rulers’ [Citation2006: 80]. These claims are correct, but they fail to explain the logic of Book III—in particular, how monarchy and democracy form a single continuum (the importance of which Schöpsdau [Citation1994: 452] emphasises). Stalley [Citation1983: 78] and Lane [Citation2018, Citationms.] emphasise willing subjection in their accounts of freedom. This is a crucial feature of a lawful city, but the reading fails to make sense of the continuum requirement, as monarchy cannot understood in terms of unwilling subjection; rather, willing subjection results from a good constitution and education system. Klosko understands the mixed constitution as ‘a mean between the extremes of arbitrary rulers and an unbridled, tyrannical mob’ [Citation2006: 239–41], but Cyrus had just as much power for arbitrary rule as Cambyses. If Klosko’s point is that Cyrus ruled for the benefit of the ruled and Cambyses didn’t, then Plato should have used, not a continuum, but instead a discrete analysis of constitutions, as in Aristotle’s Politics III. Schöpsdau takes the continuum to be between slavery and freedom, but leaves unclear how we are to understand these concepts [Citation1994: 452]. He claims that freedom is doing what you want or ‘free right of disposal [freie Verfügungsgewalt]’ [ibid.: 448], but he does not explain how this analysis illuminates the difficult passage about Athens.
3 The non-quantitative readings of Aristotle are defended by, e.g., Annas [Citation1993: 59–61] and Hursthouse [Citation2006].
4 This shares the core of Meyer’s [Citationms.] proposal that the continuum concerns the concentration or dispersal of rule and authority.
5 Translations are from Bury [Citation1926], with modifications. I use the Greek texts of Des Places [Citation1951] and Diès [Citation1956].
6 Aristotle reports the saying, ‘friendship is equality [ἰσότης ϕιλότης]’ [EN VIII.8, 1168b8]. This is not to say that friendship cannot exist between unequals, but rather that inequality works against the bonds of friendship. Note, though, that Plato in the Laws [757a–c] does not think that equality needs to be arithmetic. See Sheffield [forthcoming] for further discussion.
7 Bury [Citation1926] reads αἱρετῶν rather than the transmitted ἑτέρῶν. On my reading, the emendation is unnecessary.
8 Schöpsdau [Citation1994: 513] worries that freedom is both a cause and an effect. But Plato’s point is that freedom pushes itself to excesses when it is not limited. The small freedom with respect to music started a process whereby people thought that they ought to be free in other areas too.
9 See Meyer [Citationms.] for a robust defence of ‘servitude’ as the best translation of douleia here. See also Lane [Citation2018: 714–15].
10 England suggests a similar conception of freedom [Citation1921 (2013): 391–392]. There is not space to show how my understanding of freedom here engages with other conceptions, although I would note that it differs both from freedom as non-interference and from freedom as non-domination. Cf. Miller [Citation2018], who argues that in the Laws, as in the Republic, to be free is to be virtuous, and Lane [Citation2018, Citationms.] who argues that freedom is a kind of voluntariness. See also Stalley [Citation1998] and Young [Citation2018].
11 Aristotle has a point, though: it’s unhelpful to say that a good constitution should mix monarchy and democracy when no obvious monarchical institutions end up being in the mixture.
12 Schöpsdau [Citation1994: 450] claims that, of the modern states, Sparta is the best example of the well-mixed constitution, but it is how Sparta shows the mixing of monarchy and democracy, as that is why the Athenian introduced the examples of Persia and Athens. Schöpsdau also recognises that Sparta was mixed differently (through checks and balances) to how Persia and early Athens were [ibid.: 452].
13 Aristotle reports three ways of mixing a constitution: (1) having a combination of oligarchic and democratic laws, (2) having a combination of oligarchic and democratic institutions, and (3) having institutions that are the mean between oligarchic and democratic institutions [Politics, IV.9].
14 See, e.g., Bobonich [Citation2002: 105], Schofield [Citation2006: 84–8], and Greene [Citationms.]; cf. Klosko [Citation2006: 242–4]. Whether the preambles persuade by rational, or by non-rational, means is controversial, but what is important here is that they are to be persuaded first and commanded second.
15 The exceptions are all relatively minor magistracies: the offices of temple treasurer and city warden are limited to the top property class [760a1, 763d4–e3]; the market wardens are limited to the top two property classes [763e4–764a2]; officers of the athletic competitions are chosen from the middle two property classes [765c1–d3].
16 Note that slaves and foreigners are also excluded.
17 Cf. [832c9–d6] for the claim that Magnesia is free in so far as the citizens enjoy great leisure and are free from the domination of others, and are thus the least likely to be money-lovers.
18 For the appeals process in historical Athens, see Hansen [Citation1991: 189–91].
19 The exception is the high court, but presumably this is to stop an infinite regress of appeals.
20 For the audit as a democratic institution, see Robinson [Citation1997: 50, 63, 126].
21 Klosko [Citation2006: 242] emphasises the use of lottery as a democratic institution, but he incorrectly claims that it is used in ‘selecting virtually all officials’.
22 In the Statesman, Plato claims that it is difficult to find a group of people who are experts of checkers, let alone experts of politics [292e–293a]. There might be an implication in the Laws, then, that nobody can make an uncontested claim to rule on the basis of expertise in Magnesia. Magnesian office-holders pool their collective experience in ruling, instead of dictating directly from the politikê technê.
23 Thanks to Julia Annas, Jerry Gaus, Emily Hulme Kozey Rachana Kamtekar, David Keyt, Melissa Lane, Susan Sauvé Meyer, Fred Miller, René de Nicolay John Proios, Eric Solis, Danny Shahar, Rachel Singpurwalla, and the anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.