PLATO’s
LAWS
Prometheus Books, New York 2000 translated by Benjamin Jowett
BOOK ONE
10 Peace is war by another name.
12 We are now speaking of principle rather than custom. Is it better
to conquer, eliminate or educate your worst among us? Civil unity must be
considered before foreign efforts.
15 Dealing with policies is less than with complete virtue.
16 Perhaps saying the laws will be explained.
18 We must be able to endure pleasure as well as pain. Only the old
may question (what of Socrates' charges of corrupting the youth?)
19 We must be ale to persist in pleasure and pain
or be a slave.
20 License is okay when balanced
24 Sober men should lead revelries.
24 Therefore, we need
education? Informal meetings are educational. 26 To be good at something
you must start young. But broad education is for the virtues with which
he can practice citizenship and how to rule and obey.
27 Education is the greatest thing you can have. Pleasure and pain
pull us like puppet strings
and herein lies the difference between virtue and
vice. But we ought to pull "the chain of reason.",
the law of the state.
28 What if the puppet gets drunk? The pleasure and pain are
amplified. Alcohol makes us worse, but exercise and medicine might
temporarily debilitate us. Alcohol makes us trained in scary
situations. In drink you may test others and they themselves.
BOOK TWO
33 If trained in virtue before the age of reason then seem natural.
This harmony is virtue. The process education.
Culturist training via ritual and song are advocated.
35 But this must all be good morally. Our dance and art reveal our
character as men. Men praise the art which reflects their character.
36 It is the same bad affect as hanging out with bad people. So music
cannot be allowed to be made without reference to virtue or vice. And
like
39 If betters judge art
it will improve. If the crowd, art will pander. This getting youth
to esteem that of their betters/ elders is education
41If you have all but are unjust, you cannot be happy. The view that
conflates justice and happiness is salutary moral influences even if you don't
believe it, it should be pushed. And age groups should sing of this
truth. And the songs should vary t o avoid boredom.
45
Real drinking will be the prerogative of the old only.
47 Music should not be judged by pleasure, but truth.
49 The best artists and muses are not surrealists, but accurate depicters.
When we have no standards, we're ignorant of what we are doing.
50 The elders will model the best as they drink and sing. The drink
is to loosen up the old men. If drink is not to be on these terms he is
against it.
BOOK THREE
The flood myth and origin
of civilization are good because that made society basic and equal following
fathers and elders as they are the original source of rule.
58 "And every man surely like his own laws best, and the laws of
others not so well.
58 Here starts legislation, soul by rational agreement.
61 Three Dorian kingdoms just with little property. Two were
corrupted. Why?
63 They kicked butt on Assyrians and so were sure they could not fall.
64All hope the world will accord with their desires.
65 But this desire may not be in accord with virtue. Hope for wisdom.
ANd Beautiful quote, men love what they know they
should hate and vice versa is the gist.
64 A very Confucian hierarchy is presented (it includes "the
lot"??)68 Ten kings must have limited power only. As
in the Spartan
constitution.
70 All governments combine monarchy (
72 With Persians kings every other one in the dynastic succession is spoiled and it
degenerates due to the life of the rich. Wealth surpasses honor.
Would you want a courageous roommate who was a rogue? Temperance and virtue must go together.
74 The Persian attack on the Hellenes made them more united and
virtuous. And when 1000 vessels stared them down.
Their collective memory of prior victory created comradely and got them another
victory.
76 But
in good times poets introduced vulgarity. From aristocracy to
"Theatrocracy" till all felt omnipotent and defied all a life and led
a life of constant evil.
So despotism and freedom
are due to corruption. The legislator need to look at freedom
, unity and understanding if not despotism or license destroy it turns
out the two companions are building a city extension and can make the
rules.
BOOK FOUR
79 A is glad to hear the Place is far enough
from the sea to not have too many merchants.
It is self-sufficient and isolated from attack. Ship warfare is cowardly.
82 Colonization is easier if only one race is
involved due to a sense of community and language. But they are also inflexible from force of
habit. Men nearly never legislate, but
accidents of all sorts do. That and
chance. Art is better. Colonies allow a conscious fresh start (with
God’s guidance). Tyrants establish
colonies fastest. But the government
must be temperant and have virtue.
86 But Sparta
Etc. is not
easily classified because more than anything, more than a settlement, it is a
polity, not a mere aggregation of men. Chronos of legendary was perfect but men are not.
87 Success requires we think of law as the “distribution
of mind.” But if an oligarchy or
democracy has a soul eager after pleasure laws are trammeled underfoot. Law is then of the stronger and evil gets
in. Then you have neither polity nor
laws, but faction. God is justice not
men, must be the measure of all things.
Heroes will also work and living parents work for values too.
91 Nemesis is the messenger of justice. For the masses must be persuaded to virtue
and this should be the aim of all laws!!!!!!
92 Hesiod said,
“But
before virtue the immortals Gods have placed the sweat of
labor, and long and steep is the way thither, and rugged at first; but
when you have reached the top, although difficult before, it is then easy.”
The legislator must
explain laws as a doctor should explain a diagnosis and course of treatment to
a patient. Ex a man should marry between
30 and 35. All laws need preambles.
BOOK FIVE is to be about amusement and education.
Of all we have, our
soul is most important and most truly ours.
All men have two parts. The
better superior rules and should be honored.
If you don’t do your work you dishonor her (the soul). If you prefer beauty (the body stuff) to the
soul, you dishonor her. And anyone who
thinks otherwise under values their own soul.
98 To sell your foul
for gold incurs the penalty of becoming a bad man. Our glory is to follow the better and improve
the inferior. The old, particularly, should
not do anything shameful. Don’t admonish
the young, be an example. T. his fellow
citizens, he is best who (doesn’t win the Olympics) but follows laws. Temperate wise life has more pleasure and
less pain.
104 Herdsmen separate
out the bad animals. When the poor try
to attack the rich they should be asked to “found a colony”
105 We will only let good
folk into our city. Rich creditors
should be lenient and share. Freedom from
avarice and justice is our grounding. We
shall have 5040 citizens.
107 Keep the religion
and tradition but give area its own gods or heroes to live up to. The greatest good is that citizens of the
area should know each other (social capital).
He wants family and
property held in common, but not possible.
Perhaps you get to only keep one child.
But we must keep the population at 5040 homes. No rich.
Soul and body are top interests.
So education and gymnasium are important. But wealth and poverty will be limited. The land is divided into 12 sectors. One plot near center and
one far away to each person. But
if not possible, approximate. And no one
should lose sight of numerical order.
Math shows us this is a big balanced equation.
BOOK SIX
Six ex-military will
vote n a
120 The counsel will
have 30 * 12 = 360 members. Punishments
for not voting vary by class. 1/12 will
rule for a month each. This selection
deals with appointments of officials.
Overseers will have 2 year terms and eat together. This is according to
the universal rule that he who is not a good servant will not be a good
master. A man should take more pride in
serving well.
128 Directions of music and gymnastics and
judges of every
type of arts. Elections run through
all. Both sexes to be
educated.
130 A 2nd for those who have
wronged the public. There is no court
for those who feel wronged by the public.
In suits of damage to the public everyone can participate by lots in
front of magistrates.
133 These laws will be amended over
time. Every city has a divine principle
that guides it. The 5040 is a calendar
of religious festivals. 12 times a year. So
that people will know each other. Youth
can also choose marriage partners here.
They will be naked, but modest! At 25 people can marry. After the first hear a speech about why they
should walk. The rich should not marry
the rich and smart not the smart.
Equality should be the goal, not faction. So consider the State and not just your own
desires. All should marry and have
children or face fines and disrespect.
Don’t marry or make babies when drunk or your children will not be trustworthy.
139 Be very just with
your slaves (but not overly familiar) and have them come from separate places. Thus you avoid slave revolts.
140 Defensive walls breed
a false sense of security and effeminacy.
141 He who thinks he
can just leave the people’s private lives alone and have a successful state is
mistaken. So bridegrooms should still
eat at common tables. The world is very
old and new plants have come into existence and some still do human sacrifice
and some are vegetarian. The three
disorders are eating, drinking and lust.
Females should oversee marriages.
If you won’t reform the women write you up and you lose privileges of
citizenship. Women marry from 16 to 20
and after children are grown can be in the military.
BOOK SEVEN
146 People’s
distinctions make them break laws here and there. Then bit by bit they become
ungovernable. Pregnant women, infants
and toddlers should always keep moving.
Infants should always be comfortable without too much pleasure or pain. But these are customs, not laws. But these must be mentioned as they bond the
community.
151 Children are now
punished as slaves, not to disgrace, but not to be self-willed (ages 3-6). Past this boys and girls are to learn
horsemanship and javelin throwing and bows and slings ambidexterity. The young should also have the same sport for
continuity in culture and manners mustn’t change for we need traditions.
156 Like the Egyptians,
control dance by making all a part of religious festivals. All music imitating good
and evil characters in men. Let
us affirm that strains of music are our laws.
158 All music and
poetry is to be censored (but have pleasure).
Only honor the dead
161
People are puppets, he says and gets accused of having a low opinion of
mankind. He denies it.
162
School is to be
compulsory. And students belong to the
state, not their parents. Boys and girls
do the same education. Such a life is
not like the
life of a fatted cattle. There is a lot
of work to be done in such a state.
No one who is asleep is
good for anything, anymore than if he were dead. The boy is the least manageable beast. Teachers and all freemen have the power to
punish the boys.
They will learn till
they hit a ceiling of ability and then are to be let alone.
Those who can must
learn poems by heart. Ultimately, it
would be good if they could recite this very book by heart.
Noble dances teach
control and savage ones can be used as preparation for war. But Bacchic dances
have no place at all. We will have
comedies, but acted by the lowly as we must take ourselves seriously.
173 Foreign poets who
want to entertain must first perform for magistrates. They should not be allowed to harangue our
people and slander our institutions in our state.
Logical categorization
is a good pastime for the old.
BOOK 8
Page 180 There are twelve feasts for the twelve cities. Every month will be tournaments that are
practice for battles. Just like boxers
practice. The reason that this doesn’t
happen more is that wealth corrupts folks so they only think of their private
affairs.
The other reason is
that bad governments are not collective.
They rule by fear.
Contests of music and other arts as well. But if there is
just festivals and no privations folks will succumb to lusts. People must be encouraged to think of the
desire of the body as a secondary matter. Wealth corrupts to. Moderation is a goal. Such lusts must be denounced as animalistic. Chastity
is macho. Those who cannot battle their own impulses
will be called weak.
Also succumbing will be
considered offensive to the gods.
They will fight
temptation to win in competition.
Victory of pleasure will create happily or fail and be unhappy.
192 Piety and the love
of honor are the noblest of aspirations
193 Zeus is the god of
boundaries and this between countries and neighbors. Separation is good because any man can easily
do harm to another, few can do good.
Take care of the water,
it is easily polluted.
Each person only have one job.
You cannot export
anything needed in the country. Also let
there be no retail trade for moneymaking.
One third of what you make you can sell.
Only foreigners will
deal in retail and all can sell to strangers.
Foreigners (metics) are allowed, but they must practice an art and can
only stay twenty years. He will pay no
tax, beyond his retail tax. And at the
end of 20 years if he has been good he can try to persuade the council that he
is worthy of staying.
BOOK NINE
201 He will give laws,
first about robbing the temples. People
who do such things will be told how to resist the urge in the future. But if he doesn’t repent, Shall have the evil
deed engraven on his face and hands and shall be
beaten and be cast naked beyond the borders.
This will probably improve him, for no law should make a person
worse.
Most crimes warrant
death, because after an excellent education if you don’t know better, you will
never.
Anyone who insights sedition or tries to change the government illegally
shall be considered the greatest enemy. Send them away with all their
possessions to the city and country of their ancestors.
For a thief, the
punishment will be the same no matter how much they steal. This is giving the citizens education and not
laws. Having all theft being classified
as the same teaches this.
The characters of the
state should be like the laws of loving and wise parents, not like
tyrants.
208 All bad men are
involuntarily bad. So he is bad against
his will. There is voluntary and
involuntary crime. And when a crime is
involuntary and restitution is paid there should be no animosity. True punishment should try to reform. Those who are incurable should be killed as
that would benefit the remainder of mankind.
Children and old men
are easily overrun with passion.
Injustice is when
passions tyrannize over the soul.
Actions done in day can
be inferred to be done via passion, those at night deceit.
If you kill another’s
slave you should pay double the value.
If he kills his own slave or another man unintentionally he needs to
undergo purifications. Same if you kill
a stranger. If a stranger kills a
stranger they must be exiled for a year and do purifications.
If a man kills his wife
he gets three years of exile. If a slave
kills a citizen the relative can do what ever they like to him (provided they
don’t spare his life!)
All killing in self-defense
is forgiven.
Lust is the greatest
cause of crime. People
who want everything due to bad education or disposition. Ambition is the second source.
After someone has been
killed for a crime, magistrates will throw rocks at his head so that the city
will be delivered from pollution. Suiciders will be
buried alone.
221 “Mankind must have
laws, and conform to them, or their life would be as bad as that of the most
savage beast.”
Strangers that attack
citizens will get the same number of blows back.
Smiting laws vary by
the age of the smiter and the smitee
and their citizenship.
227 Laws are partly
framed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on
friendly terms with one another.
The legislator
legislates in the hopes that there may be no need of his laws someday.
Death is not as bad as
what happens in the afterlife, but the afterlife doesn’t work for
prevention.
If a slave helps
someone being assaulted let him go free.
BOOK TEN
All summed, no one shall carry away any of his
neighbors goods without consent.
Atheists are to be
condemned, but will demand proof of the gods existence
before they can be rightfully punished.
The proofs by one of
the Athenian stranger’s interlocutors are that the whole universe works and
that both Athenians and barbarians believe in gods.
Athenian Stranger says
I like it but you don’t get their complaint. Philosophers teach that we are
only stone. It is hard to keep your rage
down when you hear such arguments.
232 Tell the youth who
hold such views that they will change when they get older. Everyone does.
They will say that
nature is crude and that the finer things are made by men. They will say the gods do not exist by
nature, but by art. They will say that gods are conventional and that the
highest right is might. So they become
bad and impious.
Thus are the laws
undermined.
These people do not
know about the nature of the soul. The
soul is older than the body. And so
things kindred to soul are older as well.
And so art is before that which has physical form. Things in motion had to have a push. Inanimate objects don’t push. The unmoved mover must be the beginning. Therefore, demiurge.
Soul is the moving
power of all.
240 The soul creates
good and bad, just and unjust. The soul uses the material to her happiness or
her folly. The best soul takes care of
the world and guides it to good.
Regular and predictable
is the sun. And the sun has a soul which
propels sunbeams regularly. And our
souls have excellences. All souls are
god.
The disbeliever must
break this argument or submit to being good and seeing their affinity to the
gods.
Those who do not see
this are not happy but look it and are celebrated as such by poets and prose
writers.
Courage is virtuous and
therefore honorable. Carelessness,
idleness and luxury are vices. Surely
God didn’t make a universe that he hates.
And god would not
neglect small things, like those who say he doesn’t care about this earth
say. Good managers take care of details. And it takes more skill to take care of
details. Don’t say he ain’t got no skills.
All physicians and
skilled artists do what they do for the sake of the whole, not for the
part. The plan of the world is the best
strategy to defeat evil. Justice sees
the bad have their rewards coming. And
they are not appeased by the gifts of the wicked. They would not betray justice for a pittance.
252 Those that deny the
gods and do bad are worse than they who do not believe and are good. Much less injury is done by one than the
others. The first sort needs severe
punishment, the second isolation for five years other than night time
philosophizing.
All religious rites
should be public.
BOOK ELEVEN
The simple rule between
man and man is don’t
touch what is not yours. 254 “And do to
others as I would that they should do to me.”
If men heap up money
they are bad. If a slave tells on them
they shall be freed.
If a slave is freed he
should go three times a month to thank the freer and never have more money than
the one who liberated him.
Perjury is
hateful. You should reverence those in
authority. If you sell something you
should only have one price for it. If
you sell adulterated goods you should be punished.
Retail trade in a city
is not by nature intended to do any harm.
Let tavern keepers seek
to satisfy our needs and equalize our possessions.
But men are greedy and
try to amass with no limit. Retailers
must be of good character and metics.
We must watch all men
who follow pursuits that tend to make men bad and guardians will regulate the
percentage of profit allowed [like Lester Frank Ward said].
Crafts persons too
should only get paid what they are worth and let no one make a contract and not
pay it.
The state will dispose
of dead people’s wealth. They may give
it to the family. Dying men say bad
things. He would make the kinsmen of the
dead man marry their cousins, for example.
Those involved may
protest. But it is sometimes necessary
for the state to ignore the individual wants for the betterment of the state.
The guardians are the
fathers of orphans. And penalties for
crimes against orphans shall be doubled.
The orphan shall have a
superintendent too. And if someone wants
to adopt this is good. Young men need
care.
If a man and wife are incompatible,
and the ten women who regulate marriage agree, let them find other
partners.
If slave owners have
sex with a slave the baby goes to the female slave.
Parents are to have big
control and be honored second only to ancestors as is ordered by nature.
We must keep people
away from those who do sorcery as it scares the multitudes.
275 Let folks not speak
ill of each other. This gratifies your
anger which is an ungracious element in your soul. There is no one in the habit of laughing at
others that does not miss virtue.
Poets should not
ridicule others either.
Kick out all beggars so
we may be cleared of this sort of animal.
Women can give evidence
if 40 and without husband, slaves can give witness in cases of murder.
Justice, which has been
the civilizer of humanity is noble. But those who work in the courts (lawyers)
have a bad name. They should not act
from contentiousness. They should not
act from love of money. Strangers who do
so must leave the country, locals be disbarred.
BOOK TWELVE
If a man steals much or
little from the public, he shall have the same punishment.
If a slave or stranger
steals, that may be curable due to bad education. But if they are a citizen, it is incurable
and they shall die.
Men should be in the
habit of commanding and being commanded.
For anarchy should have no place in the life of man or
of the beasts who are subject to them.
If anyone runs from
battle out of cowardice, the soldiers shall judge him.
Leaders should give prizes for valor.
Three men should be
elected as examiners by vote. Then
proclaim to the entire world their excellence.
They shall choose magistrates in a number divisible by 12.
The examiners will have
great honors as befits their excellence.
286 The intercourse of
cities is apt to create a confusion of manners.
The strangers will bring disorder.
But we must travel a bit. We
should be thought well of by the rest of the world.
You can, therefore,
only travel after you’re forty. And you
can only go on a mission. Some will just
be spectators of the world. If you have
no intercourse with bad men and states you cannot be truly good.
Official foreign
examiners must be fifty and report to the assembly which does laws, upon their
return, what they saw good and bad. Amongst
them the superintendent of education. And let him take young men (thirty to
forty). When they return they can
explain what good they saw. But if they
appear, upon return, to be corrupted, let them have no discourse with
anyone.
There are various types
of strangers. Those who are only passing
through will have access to the harbor.
Tourists should be attended to by guides. Those on public business receive honors. Then there are observers from other states
who shall be at least 50 years of age.
290 The searching of a
house requires a warrant. If you knowingly receive stolen goods you get the
punishment of the thief.
If you take a bribe you
die.
Moderate folks only
make moderate offers to the gods.
Bottom courts are done
by elected judges who study the writings of the legislators.
If you do not accept
the verdict you are to be killed as a subverter of the whole state. Thus you grow old under the protection of the
law.
These are the things in
a state which give not only health and salvation to the body, but law, or
rather preservation of the law, in the soul.
The ultimate guardians
will be a city council made of guardians who have received prizes for virtue
and those that have traveled to foreign lands.
298 And there needs to
be an institution that explains the reason for the state and the laws to the
people. Otherwise all her actions will
proceed by chance. Without reason no one
can be a wise and understanding soul.
The legislator who is excellent has courage, temperance, wisdom and
justice.
Younger guardians will
watch all and report to the elders who are the mind of the city.
And the guardian needs
more training towards a special end – know and knowing, order all things with a
view to it.
They must see that
courage, temperance, wisdom and justice are all one virtue. And they must know their power. Many men can be lazy in reasoning, just
follow the law and be excused. Not the
guardian.
Men believe in the gods
because it is the first moving thing and they also do so from the movement of
the stars. Astronomers do not see
intelligence in the stars, they see them as not having
souls. Such studies give rise to atheism
and poets are abusive to philosophers.
No man can worship the
gods who does not know the soul is the oldest thing and that it rules over
bodies.
Finally, the nocturnal
assembly of the magistrates, which has also shared in the whole scheme of
education shall be a guard set according to law for the salvation of the State.
We must find those
suited to study and let them go at their own pace as we cannot know what is
valuable until it has taken a place in our soul. Then we will hand over the city to the divine
legislature. Thus will virtue on earth
be instated.
Meg. We must give up
this vision or detain the stranger.
Cle. Very well, then join me in detaining him.
Meg. I will.