SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

[PLEASE NOTE: There are 45 study questions interspersed throughout this chapter (not including the questions for reflection at the opening of each section. Of the 45 study questions, please select 20 of your choosing and write the answers in your blue book.]

#A. ANARCHISM

For reflection:

(1) What are some major abuses by governments that might incline you to think that we should abolish political institutions entirely?

(2) Are people capable of getting along well enough with each other so that governments would be unnecessary?

(3) If we did abolish all governments, what other institutions might rise up in their place?

Throughout the world, when the government of a country is overthrown, it is invariably replaced with a new and hopefully better one. The American colonies, for example, threw off British rule and instituted a new and independent government. Diverse theories of political philosophy typically share an important presumption: the existence of governments is justified and their authority is legitimate. Most ordinary citizens feel this way too. If left on our own without governmental oversight, society as we know it would collapse and we’d all end up battling it out for survival. However, some political philosophers have argued that the existence of governments is completely unjustified. This is the position called anarchism, which literally means no rule. The term “anarchy,” as we often use it, conjures up notions of chaos, confusion, or disorder. But this is far from its meaning in political philosophy, where it refers to the idea of a peaceful society without the existence of governments.

            Systematic defenses of anarchy have three key themes. First, there is some explanation of why governments are illegitimate – such as that they rob us of our freedom or they create more misery than happiness. Second, there is some description of what a truly anarchical society would be like – such as one directed by natural benevolence and common interests. Third, there is some explanation of how to achieve anarchy. Moderate anarchists accept the idea of provisional governments, which would ultimately dissolve and make way for a society free of political authority. More radical anarchists, though, feel that revolutionary activity is needed to wipe out the disease of government completely and permit people to be free once and for all.

1. GOVERNMENTS CONTRARY TO THE WAY OF NATURE: CHUANG-TZU

Although systematic expressions of anarchism appeared only within the last few hundred years, we find anarchist notions in the philosophical school of Daoism, which originated in China 2,500 years ago. At the time, China was embroiled in bitter social conflict, with regular bloody feuds occurring between local warlords. Daoism offered a solution to China’s civil unrest: people should resist rigidly organized governmental institutions and instead follow the Dao – that is, the “way” or “path.” To follow the Dao means that our actions should be effortless, in harmony with things around us, spontaneous, and uncontrived. In a word, we should flow with what is natural, and avoid what is artificial. The political message of Daoism, then, is to steer clear of political systems that require structure and conformity, and instead let people act naturally. This intuition appears vividly in the Daoist classic Chuang-tzu, which tradition ascribes to a Daoist teacher by that name. The Chuang-tzu work stands out for its lively literary technique of story telling. The story below describes how craftspeople disfigure nature by forcing an artificial structure on things. The first horse-tamer did this with horses; the first potter did this with clay, the first carpenter did this with wood.

With their hoofs horses can tread on ice and snow, and with their hair withstand the wind and cold; they feed on the grass and drink water; they prance with their legs and leap. This is the true nature of horses. Even if grand towers and large dormitories were made for them, they would prefer not to use them. One day Poh Loh [i.e., the original mythical tamer of horses] said, “I know well how to manage horses.” Accordingly, he clipped them, pared their hoofs, haltered their heads, bridled them and shackled their legs, and confined them in stables and corrals. [With this treatment] two or three in every ten of them died. Still, he subjected them to hunger and thirst; he galloped them and raced them, and made them prance in regular order. In front of the horses were the evils of the bit and ornamented breast bands, and behind were the terrors of the whip and switch. With this treatment more than half of them died.

            The [original mythical] potter said, “I know well how to deal with clay. I can mold it into circles as exact as if made by the compass, and into squares as exact as if formed by the measuring square.” The [original mythical] carpenter said, “I know well how to deal with wood. I can make it bent if I use a curve, and I can make it straight if I use a plumb-line.” But does the nature of clay and wood require the application of the compass and square, of a curve and line? And yet age after age people have praised Poh Loh saying, “He knew well how to manage horses,” and also the [original mythical] potter and carpenter, saying, “They knew well how to deal with clay and wood.” This is the same error committed by those who govern the world.

(1) What are some of the ways that artisans impose their design on their materials?

Chuang-tzu is probably not suggesting that people should never domesticate animals, make pots, or fashion things out of wood. Rather, he is attempting to illustrate a general point: bad things happen when we force our own design on the natural order of things. Similarly, the ruler should not impose a rigid structure on society. Chuang-tzu continues by describing how people lived in accord with nature before societies imposed rules and structures.

            According to my idea, those who know how to properly govern humankind would not act so. People had their regular and constant nature. They originally wove and made themselves clothes; they tilled the ground for food. These are common to humanity. They all agreed on this, and did not form themselves into separate classes. In this way they were constituted and left to their natural tendencies. Therefore in the age of perfect virtue people walked along quietly, steadily looking forward. At that time, on the hills there were no footpaths or excavated passages. On the lakes there were no boats or dams. All creatures lived in groups, and the places of their settlement were made close to one another. Birds and beasts multiplied to flocks and herds. The grass and trees grew luxuriant and long. In this condition the birds and beasts could be led about without feeling the constrained. One could climb up to the nest of the raven and peep into it. Yes, in the age of perfect virtue, people lived in common with birds and beasts, and were on equal terms with all creatures, forming one family. How could they have distinctions between superior and inferior people? As they were all without knowledge, they did not leave their condition of natural virtue. Equally free from evil desires, they were in the state of natural integrity. In that state of natural integrity, the nature of the people was what it ought to be.

(2) In the ideal natural state of things, why would we not form distinctions between superior and inferior people?

We typically think that we keep society at peace when we advocate moral duties and attempt to instill these notions in the minds of all people. According to Chuang-tzu, though, this actually has the effect of fracturing society because it keeps us from following the natural harmonious course of things.

            But when sages appeared, tripping people up with charity and constraining people with the duty to one’s neighbor, then people universally began to be perplexed. The sages went to excess in performing music and fussed over the practice of ceremonies. Then people began to be separated from each other. If raw materials were not cut and hacked, who could have made a sacrificial vase from them? If natural jade was not broken, who could have made the handles for the ceremonial drinking cups? If the Dao was not abandoned, who could have introduced charity and duty to one’s neighbor? If they did not depart from natural instincts, how could ceremonies and music have come into use? If the five colors were not confused, who would practice decoration? If the five notes were not confused, who would adopt the six pitched-pipes? The cutting and hacking of the raw materials to form vessels was the crime of the artisans. The injury done to the Dao in order to practice charity and duty to one’s neighbor was the error of the sages.

(3) What kind of social customs lead to the division of a country?

Who is at fault for this social fragmentation? Chuang-tzu places it squarely on the shoulders of the sages – that is, philosophers, teachers and politicians who devise their own artificial schemes of order. Under these conditions, the function of governments is to enforce these unnatural rules.

            Horses, when living in the open country, eat the grass, and drink water. When pleased, they intertwine their necks and rub one another. When enraged, they turn back to back and kick one another. This is all that they know to do. But if we put a yoke on their necks with metal plates on their foreheads, then they know to look mean, to curve their necks to bite, to rush viciously, trying to get the bit out of their mouths, and to snatch the reins [from their driver]. This knowledge of the horse and its ability thus to act depraved is the crime of Poh Loh. In the time of Ho Hsu people did nothing in particular when at rest. They went no were in particular when out walking. They ate food and were glad. They slapped their stomachs to express their satisfaction. This was all the ability that they possessed. When the sages appeared they worried people with ceremonies and music; they instituted governments, they dangled charity and duty to one’s neighbor in order to comfort their minds. Then people developed a taste for knowledge and struggled with each other in their pursuit of gain, and there was no stopping them. This was the error of those sages.

(4) What kind of life does Chuang-tzu recommend?

Technically speaking, Chuang-tzu is not a full-fledged anarchist since he accepts that there should be some kind of government. However, to the extent that governments exist at all, they should be very minimal and even invisible. Another Daoist classic, the Dao De Ching, states that “the sage manages affairs without doing anything, and conveys his instructions without the use of speech.” Thus, the ruler’s task is to allow people to act naturally, and this is a very passive job description.

2. AN ARGUMENT FOR ANARCHY: ERRICO MALATESTA

One of the great twentieth-century advocates of anarchism was Errico Malatesta (1853-1932), who spent much of his life as a political activist. Born in Italy, he continually fled from one European country to another, escaping arrest for his anti-government demonstrations and writings. His brief pamphlet Anarchy, published during one of his stays in London, graphically expresses the main philosophical themes of anarchism. He argues that people wrongly assume that we need governments to overcome personal antagonism towards each other. We then sacrifice our liberties to governmental authorities, which then brutally oppress us. The alternative to government, Malatesta believes, is organized cooperation without governmental oversight.

Typical Justifications of Governmental Authority. Malatesta believes that the very notion of government is based on a metaphysical illusion. We arrive at an abstract concept of government, and then assume that this abstract thing has real properties.

            We have said that anarchy is society without government. But is the suppression of government possible, desirable, or wise? Let us see.

            What is the government? There is a disease of the human mind, called the metaphysical tendency, that causes man, after he has by a logical process abstracted the quality from an object, to be subject to a kind of hallucination that makes him take the abstraction for the real thing. This metaphysical tendency, in spite of the blows of positive science, has still strong root in the minds of the majority of our contemporary fellowmen. It has such influence that many consider government an actual entity, with certain given attributes of reason, justice, equity, independent of the people who compose the government. ...

(5) What are the real properties that we ascribe to our abstract conception of government?

            For us, the government is the aggregate of the governors, and the governors – kings, presidents, ministers, members of parliament, and what not – are those who have the power to make laws regulating the relations between men, and to force obedience to these laws. They are those who decide upon and claim the taxes, enforce military service, judge and punish transgressors of the laws. They subject men to regulations, and supervise and sanction private contracts. They monopolize certain branches of production and public services, or, if they wish, all production and public service. They promote or hinder the exchange of goods. They make war or peace with governments of other countries. They concede or withhold free trade and many things else. In short, the governors are those who have the power, in a greater or lesser degree, to make use of the collective force of society, that is, of the physical, intellectual, and economic force of all, to oblige each to their (the governors’) wish. And this power constitutes, in our opinion, the very principle of government and authority.

(6) What, according to Malatesta, are the kinds of powers that governments exercise over us?

The principal assumption justifying governmental authority is that people are naturally antagonistic to each other, and we need governments to mediate our private conflicts. Malatesta argues, though, that when we hand this task over to governing officials we also give up our liberty.

            But what reason is there for the existence of government?

            Why abdicate one’s own liberty, one’s own initiative in favor of other individuals? Why give them the power to be the masters, with or against the wish of each, to dispose of the forces of all in their own way? Are the governors such exceptionally gifted men as to enable them, with some show of reason, to represent the masses and act in the interests of all men better than all men would be able to act for themselves? Are they so infallible and incorruptible that one can confide to them, with any semblance of prudence, the fate of each and all, trusting to their knowledge and goodness? ...

            Many and various are the theories by which men have sought to justify the existence of government. All, however, are founded, confessedly or not, on the assumption that the individuals of a society have contrary interests, and that an external superior power is necessary to oblige some to respect the interests of others, by prescribing and imposing a rule of conduct, according to which each may obtain the maximum of satisfaction with the minimum of sacrifice. If, say the theorists of the authoritarian school, the interests, tendencies, and desires of an individual are in opposition to those of another individual, or perhaps all society, who will have the right and the power to oblige the one to respect the interests of the other or others? Who will be able to prevent the individual citizen from offending the general will? The liberty of each, they say, has for its limit the liberty of others: but who will establish those limits, and who will cause them to be respected? The natural antagonism of interests and passions creates the necessity for government, and justifies authority. Authority intervenes as moderator of the social strife and defines the limits of the rights and duties of each.

            This is the theory; but to be sound the theory should be based upon an explanation of facts. We know well how in social economy theories are too often invented to justify facts, that is, to defend privilege and cause it to be accepted tranquilly by those who are its victims. Let us here look at the facts themselves.

(7) All justifications of government, according to Malatesta, are based on the assumption that people are naturally antagonistic. Think of an example of antagonism between individuals that seems to require governmental mediation.

What is Wrong with Governments. A common theme in anarchist literature is that governments should be abolished since they are ineffective, and society could be much better advanced through non-governmental arrangements. Malatesta argues that there are two principal problems with governments: they brutally oppress people and they decrease society’s production by restricting initiative to a few people.

            In all the course of history, as in the present epoch, government is either brutal, violent, arbitrary domination of the few over the many, or it is an instrument devised to secure domination and privilege to those who, by force, or cunning, or inheritance, have taken to themselves all the means of life, first and foremost the soil, whereby they hold the people in servitude, making them work for their advantage.

            Governments oppress mankind in two ways, either directly, by brute force, that is physical violence, or indirectly, by depriving them of the means of subsistence and thus reducing them to helplessness. Political power originated in the first method; economic privilege arose from the second. Governments can also oppress man by acting on his emotional nature, and in this way constitute religious authority. There is no reason for the propagation of religious superstitions but that they defend and consolidate political and economic privileges. ...

(8) What are the two ways that governments oppress people?

            Thus, in the contest of centuries between liberty and authority, or, in other words, between social equality and social castes, the question at issue has not really been the relations between society and the individual, or the increase of individual independence at the cost of social control, or vice versa. Rather it has had to do with preventing any one individual from oppressing the others; with giving to everyone the same rights and the same means of action. It has had to do with substituting the initiative of all, which must naturally result in the advantage of all, for the initiative of the few, which necessarily results in the suppression of all the others. It is always, in short, the question of putting an end to the domination and exploitation of man by man in such a way that all are interested in the common welfare, and that the individual force of each, instead of oppressing, combating, or suppressing others, will find the possibility of complete development, and everyone will seek to associate with others for the greater advantage of all.

            From what we have said, it follows that the existence of a government, even upon the hypothesis that the ideal government of authoritarian socialists were possible, far from producing an increase of productive force, would immensely diminish it, because the government would restrict initiative to the few. It would give these few the right to do all things, without being able, of course, to endow them with the knowledge or understanding of all things.

            In fact, if you divest legislation and all the operations of government of what is intended to protect the privileged, and what represents the wishes of the privileged classes alone, nothing remains but the aggregate of individual governors. “The State,” says Sismondi, “is always a conservative power which authorizes, regulates, and organizes the conquests of progress (and history testifies that it applies them to the profit of its own and the other privileged classes) but never does it inaugurate them. New ideas always originate from beneath, are conceived in the foundations of society, and then, when divulged, they become opinion and grow. But they must always meet on their path, and combat the constituted powers of tradition, custom, privilege and error.”

(9) Why, according to Malatesta, does governmental authority decrease society’s productive force?

            The Alternative to Government. What, though, is the alternative to government? Malatesta argues that in many facets of our lives we operate quite well without assistance from government. Some things we can do privately. But other components of our lives may often require cooperation with those around us, for example the provision of such things as roads, water and electricity. Even these, though, are best handled through voluntary associations of individual people, rather than through government. Malatesta resists the contention that capitalism is the principal force that drives people to cooperate. Instead, cooperation is best motivated by the love of humanity, the desire for knowledge, and the passion for amusement. These motivations, he believes, result in less strife. All large-scale collective undertakings require some division of labor, but we do not need governments to force those divisions upon people.

            In order to understand how society could exist without a government, it is sufficient to turn our attention for a short space to what actually goes on in our present society. We shall see that in reality the most important functions are fulfilled even nowadays outside the intervention of government. Also that government only interferes to exploit the masses, or defend the privileged, or, lastly, to sanction, most unnecessarily, all that has been done without its aid, often in spite of and opposition to it. Men work, exchange, study, travel, follow as they choose the current rules of morality or hygiene; they profit by the progress of science and art, have numberless mutual interests without ever feeling the need of ant one to direct them how to conduct themselves in regard to these matters. On the contrary, it is just those things in which no governmental interference that prosper best and give rise to the least contention, being unconsciously adapted to the wish of all in the way found most useful and agreeable.

            Nor is government more necessary for large undertakings, or for those public services which require the constant cooperation of many people of different conditions and countries. Thousands of these undertakings are even now the work of voluntarily formed associations. And these are, by the acknowledgment of everyone, the undertakings that succeed the best. We do not refer to the associations of capitalists, organized by means of exploitation, although even they show capabilities and powers of free association, which may extended until it embraces all the people of all lands and includes the widest and most varying interests. We speak rather of those associations inspired by the love of humanity, or by the passion for knowledge, or even simply by the desire for amusement and love of applause, as these represent better such groupings as will exist in a society where, private property and internal strife between men being abolished, each will find his interests compatible with the interest of everyone else and his greatest satisfaction in doing good and pleasing others. Scientific societies and congresses, international lifeboat and Red Cross associations, laborers’ unions, peace societies, volunteers who hasten to the rescue at times of great public calamity, are all examples, among thousands, of that power of the spirit of association which always shows itself when a need arises or an enthusiasm takes hold, and the means do not fail. That voluntary associations do not cover the world and do not embrace every branch of material and moral activity is the fault of the obstacles placed in their way by governments, of the antagonisms created by the possession of private property, and of the impotence and degradation to which the monopolizing of wealth on the part of the few reduces the majority of mankind.

(10) Give some of Malatesta’s examples of successful cooperative projects that we have today that are not supervised by the government.

3. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN AUTHORITY AND AUTONOMY: ROBERT PAUL WOLFF

A key intuition behind anarchism resides in a notion of human freedom as the ability to exercise choice without unjustified constraints from governments. American philosopher and renowned Kant scholar Robert Paul Wolff explains the conflict between human freedom and governmental authority. In the chapter on ethics earlier in this book, we presented Immanuel Kant’s view that human beings have dignity precisely because of their freedom to make choices. Kant argues that we are at our best when choosing to follow reason, which guides us to do the morally right thing. Nevertheless, whether our choices are good or bad ones, we are entitled to respect because of our unique ability to create our own worlds amidst the array of options that we face. Freedom, Kant thinks, is crucial to our human identity. Wolff agrees with Kant on the importance of rational choice and human autonomy – that is, self-rule. According to Wolff, moral responsibility arises from both our capacity to make free choices and our ability to reason. For example, insane people lack moral responsibility because they have no free choice, and children lack moral responsibility because their reasoning is only partially developed. Human autonomy, then, is our ability to make free rational choices, and as Kant suggested, we should value this more than virtually anything else. A problem arises, though, when we consider that the principal role of government is to restrict our autonomy. It doesn’t matter if such restrictions are imposed on us in the name of keeping the peace. All governmental authority is fundamentally in conflict with human autonomy. Preserving human autonomy, then, means rejecting governmental authority.

            The defining mark of the state is authority, the right to rule. The primary obligation of man is autonomy, the refusal to be ruled. It would seem, then, that there can be no resolution of the conflict between the autonomy of the individual and the putative authority of the state. Insofar as a man fulfills his obligation to make himself the author of his decisions, he will resist the state's claim to have authority over him. That is to say, he will deny that he has a duty to obey the laws of the state simply because they are the laws. In that sense, it would seem that anarchism is the only political doctrine consistent with the virtue of autonomy.

(11) According to Wolff, how does the anarchist view his duty to obey the laws?

            Wolff is not advocating the extreme anarchist position that governmental institutions should be toppled. In fact, he concedes that the anarchist may have no prospect of eradicating governments. Nevertheless, the anarchist would still hold that governmental authority is illegitimate.

            Now, of course, an anarchist may grant the necessity of complying with the law under certain circumstances or for the time being. He may even doubt that there is any real prospect of eliminating the state as a human institution. But he will never view the commands of the state as legitimate, as having a binding moral force. In a sense, we might characterize the anarchist as a man without a country, for despite the ties which bind him to the land of his childhood, he stands in precisely the same moral relationship to "his" government as he does to the government of any other country in which he might happen to be staying for a time.

We thus may have no choice but to live under the governmental rule of any country in which we happen to reside. But isn’t there any genuine sense of bonding we may have with our homeland government? Wolff thinks not.

When I take a vacation in Great Britain, I obey its laws, both because of prudential self-interest and because of the obvious moral considerations concerning the value of order, the general good consequences of preserving a system of property, and so forth. On my return to the United States, I have a sense of reentering my country, and if I think about the matter at all, I imagine myself to stand in a different and more intimate relation to American laws. They have been promulgated by my government, and I therefore have a special obligation to obey them. But the anarchist tells me that my feeling is purely sentimental and has no objective moral basis. All authority is equally illegitimate, although of course not therefore equally worthy or unworthy of support, and my obedience to American laws, if I am to be morally autonomous, must proceed from the same considerations which determine me abroad. [From Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (1970)]

(12) What does the anarchist tell me about any special obligation I might feel towards the government of my native land?

#B. LIMITS OF POLITICAL COERCION

For reflection:

(1) The majority of people in the U.S. today believe that capital punishment is justified. What would be an argument against capital punishment?

(2) Should the government restrict the use of recreational drugs such as marijuana?

(3) Racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan burn crosses as a means of intimidating black Americans. Should racist groups be allowed to burn crosses as a matter of free speech?

From almost the moment we’re born, people boss us around. Our parents mold our behavior under threat of punishment. Our school teachers direct us to perform academic tasks, again under threat of punishment. As we get older we see that governments force us to follow the laws, yet again under threat of punishment. We can justify at least some coercion of children in the name of child-rearing. But once we’re adults, what justification is there for governments ordering us about almost as though we were still children? It’s not just that we feel bothered when governments encroach on our private space. Rather, the kind of coercion that governments impose on us might rise to the level of enslavement. For the sake of argument, let’s grant that governments are justly empowered to exercise authority over us to preserve the peace, protect citizens’ rights, to bring about a better society, or for some similar reason. This does not mean that governments can do whatever they want. They can’t, for example, hang us by our thumbs and horsewhip us for skipping church on Sunday. As powerful as governments are, there are at least some restrictions to their coercive authority. Political philosophers examine the possible grounds and limits of governmental coercion.

            There are six common justifications behind governmental restrictions. First is the harm principle, which aims to prevent us from harming other citizens. If I assault, rob, or harm you in some similar way, the government can justly step in and restrain me. A second justification for coercion is the offense principle, which seeks to prevent us from offending other people. We don’t ordinarily let people run around naked down town, or let couples get too hot and heavy when publicly showing affection towards each other. This is also the justification behind laws restricting obscene photographs or literature. Thirdly there is the principal of legal paternalism, according to which people should be prevented from harming themselves. Governments restrict us from many self-destructive activities, such as playing exceptionally dangerous sports or taking harmful recreational drugs. Fourthly the principle of legal moralism expresses the conviction that sinful or immoral conduct should be prohibited. Examples of such conduct might include making blasphemous statements or engaging in certain kinds of sexual activities – even in private among consenting adults. Fifthly, the principle of extreme paternalism involves coercing individuals in ways that benefit themselves – such as forcing them to become more educated and cultured. Sixthly, the welfare principle aims to have us act in ways that benefit others by, for example, devoting tax money to provide food or housing for the poor.

            Although governments typically coerce us for all six of these reasons, some of these justifications are more questionable than others. For example, most people would agree that government should restrict our conduct when it harms others – although what counts as “harm” may be up for debate. By contrast, there is much opposition to the principle of legal moralism, specifically concerning laws regarding sexual activities between consenting adults. Thus, not all six of the above justifications are necessarily good ones, and governments may be overstepping their bounds when they rely on some of them.

1. OFFENCE TO OTHERS: JOEL FEINBERG

Mill’s principle of harm is one of the more extreme positions that one can take on the issue of governmental coercion. Other political philosophers, though, feel that governmental restraint is justified in more situations than those that simply involve harming others. In his book Offense to Others, University of Arizona philosophy professor Joel Feinberg argues that governments can justifiably prevent us from engaging in seriously offensive behavior. Not every offensive action that people perform rises to this level of gravity, and he believes it is important to uncover the features that distinguish the serious from the trivial. He opens this work by contrasting the notion of offence with that of harm, and setting forth the offense principle that he defends.

            Passing annoyance, disappointment, disgust, embarrassment, and various other disliked conditions such as fear, anxiety, and minor (“harmless”) aches and pains, are not in themselves necessarily harmful. Consequently, no matter how the harm principle is mediated, it will not certify as legitimate those interferences with the liberty of some citizens that are made for the sole purpose of preventing such unpleasant states in others. For convenience I will use the word “offense” to cover the whole miscellany of universally disliked mental states and not merely that species of the wider genus that are offensive in a strict and proper sense. If the law is justified, then, in using its coercive methods to protect people from mere offense, it must be by virtue of a separate and distinct legitimizing principle, which we can label “the offense principle” and formulate as follows: It is always a good reason in support of a proposed criminal prohibition that it would probably be an effective way of preventing serious offense (as opposed to injury or harm) to persons other than the actor, and that it is probably a necessary means to that end (i.e., there is probably no other means that is equally effective at no greater cost to other values). The principle asserts, in effect, that the prevention of offensive conduct is properly the state’s business.

(13) What are some of the unpleasant conditions that are more properly classified as “offense” rather than “harm”?

            Examples of Offensive Conduct. Feinberg feels that the best way to understand the nature and scope of offensive conduct is to consider possible scenarios that range from mildly bothersome to severely disturbing. The more we try to imagine ourselves in these situations, he argues, the more we will understand why at least some of these behaviors should be restricted by the government. Be warned: some of his illustrations are not for the squeamish!

            There is a limit to the power of abstract reasoning to settle questions of moral legitimacy. The question raised by this chapter is whether there are any human experiences that are harmless in themselves yet so unpleasant that we can rightly demand legal protection from them even at the cost of other persons’ liberties. The best way to deal with that question at the start is to engage our imaginations in the inquiry, consider hypothetically the most offensive experiences we can imagine, and then sort them into groups in an effort to isolate the kernel of the offense in each category. Accordingly, this section will consist of a number of vividly sketched imaginary tales, and the reader is asked to project himself into each story and determine as best he can what his reaction would be. In each story the reader should think of himself as a passenger on a normally crowded public bus on his way to work or to some important appointment in circumstances such that if he is forced to leave the bus prematurely, he will not only have to pay another fare to get where he is going, but he will probably be late, to his own disadvantage. If he is not exactly a captive on the bus, then, he would nevertheless be greatly inconvenienced if he had to leave the bus before it reached his destination. In each story, another passenger, or group of passengers, gets on the bus, and proceeds to cause, by their characteristics or their conduct, great offense to you. The stories form six clusters corresponding to the kind of offense caused.

A. Affronts to the senses

            Story 1. A passenger who obviously hasn’t bathed in more than a month sits down next to you. He reeks of a barely tolerable stench. There is hardly room to stand elsewhere on the bus and all other seats are occupied.

            Story 2. A passenger wearing a shirt of violently clashing orange and crimson sits down directly in your forward line of vision. You must keep your eyes down to avoid looking at him.

            Story 3. A passenger sits down next to you, pulls a slate tablet from his brief case, and proceeds to scratch his finger’ nails loudly across the slate, sending a chill up your spine and making your teeth clench. You politely ask him to stop, but he refuses.

            Story 4. A passenger elsewhere in the bus turns on a portable radio to maximum volume. The sounds it emits are mostly screeches, whistles, and static, but occasionally some electronically amplified rock and roll music blares through.

(14) Feinberg’s first category of offensive behavior focuses on basic senses. Which of these examples do you think is the least offensive, and why?

B. Disgust and revulsion

            Story 5. This is much like story 1 except that the malodorous passenger in the neighboring seat continually scratches, drools, coughs, farts, and belches.

            Story 6. A group of passengers enters the bus and shares a seating compartment with you. They spread a tablecloth over their laps and proceed to eat a picnic lunch that consists of live insects, fish heads, and pickled sex organs of lamb, veal, and pork, smothered in garlic and onions. Their table manners leave almost everything to be desired.

            Story 7. Things get worse and worse. The itinerant picnickers practice gluttony in the ancient Roman manner, gorging until satiation and then vomiting on to their table cloth. Their practice, however, is a novel departure from the ancient custom in that they eat their own and one another’s vomit along with the remaining food.

            Story 8. A coprophagic sequel to story 7.

            Story 9. At some point during the trip the passenger at one’s side quite openly and nonchalantly changes her sanitary napkin and drops the old one into the aisle.

(15) Which if any of the offenses on this second list do you think should be legally prohibited?

C. Shock to moral, religious, or patriotic sensibilities

            Story 10. A group of mourners carrying a coffin enter the bus and share a seating compartment with you. Although they are all dressed in black their demeanor is by no means funereal. In fact they seem more angry than sorrowful, and refer to the deceased as “the old bastard,” and “the bloody corpse.” At one point they rip open the coffin with hammers and proceed to smash the corpse’s face with a series of hard hammer blows.

            Story 11. A strapping youth enters the bus and takes a seat directly in your line of vision. He is wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon across his chest of Christ on the cross. Underneath the picture appear the words “Hang in there, baby!”

            Story 12. After taking the seat next to you a passenger produces a bundle wrapped in a large American flag. The bundle contains, among other things, his lunch, which he proceeds to eat. Then he spits into the star-spangled corner of the flag and uses it first to clean his mouth and then to blow his nose. Then he uses the main striped part of the flag to shine his shoes.

(16) Think of your own example of a behavior that would shock moral, religious, or patriotic sensibilities.

D. Shame, embarrassment (including vicarious embarrassment), and anxiety

            Story 13. The passenger who takes the seat directly across from you is entirely naked. On one version of the story, he or she is the same sex as you; on the other version of the story, he or she is the opposite sex.

            Story 14. The passenger in the previous story proceeds to masturbate quietly in his or her seat.

            Story 15. A man and woman, more or less fully clothed to start, take two seats directly in front of you, and then begin to kiss, hug, pet, and fondle one another to the accompaniment of loud sighs and groans of pleasure. They continue these activities throughout the trip.

            Story 16. The couple of the previous story, shortly before the bus reaches their destination, engage in acts of mutual masturbation, with quite audible instructions to each other and other sound effects.

            Story 17. A variant of the previous story which climaxes in an act of coitus, somewhat acrobatically performed as required by the crowded circumstances.

            Story 18. The seat directly in front of you is occupied by a youth (of either sex) wearing a T-shirt with a lurid picture of a copulating couple across his or her chest.

            Story 19. A variant of the previous story in which the couple depicted is recognizable (in virtue of conventional representations) as Jesus and Mary.

            Story 20. The couple in stories 15-17 perform a variety of sadomasochistic sex acts with appropriate verbal communications (“Oh, that hurts so sweet! Hit me again! Scratch me! Publicly humiliate me!”).

            Story 21. The two seats in front of you are occupied by male homosexuals. They flirt and tease at first, then kiss and hug, and finally perform mutual fellatio to climax.

            Story 22. This time the homosexuals are both female and they perform cunnilingus.

            Story 23. A passenger with a dog takes an aisle seat at your side. He or she keeps the dog calm at first by petting it in a familiar and normal way, but then petting gives way to hugging, and gradually goes beyond the merely affectionate to the unmistakably erotic, culminating finally with oral contact with the canine genitals.

(17) Are there any behaviors on this list that you think should be legally permitted?

E. Annoyance, boredom, frustration

            Story 24. A neighboring passenger keeps a portable radio at a reasonably low volume, and the sounds it emits are by no means offensive to the senses. Nor is the content of the program offensive to the sensibilities. It is, however, a low quality “talk show” which you find intensely boring, and there is no possible way for you to disengage your attention.

            Story 25. The two seats to your left are occupied by two persons who put on a boring “talk show” of their own. There is no way you can avoid hearing every animated word of their inane conversation, no way your mind can roam to its own thoughts, problems, and reveries.

            Story 26. The passenger at your side is a friendly bloke, garrulous and officious. You quickly tire of his conversation and beg leave to read your newspaper, but he persists in his chatter despite repeated requests to desist. The bus is crowded and there are no other empty seats.

F. Fear, resentment, humiliation, anger (from empty threats, insults, mockery, flaunting, or taunting).

            Story 27. A passenger seated next to you reaches into a military kit and pulls out a “hand grenade” (actually only a realistic toy), and fondles and juggles it throughout the trip to the accompaniment of menacing leers and snorts. Then he pulls out a (rubber) knife and “stabs” himself and others repeatedly to peals of maniacal laughter. He turns out to be harmless enough. His whole intent was to put others in apprehension of harm.

            Story 28. A passenger sits next to you wearing a black arm band with a large white swastika on it.

            Story 29. A passenger enters the bus straight from a dispersed street rally. He carries a banner with a large and abusive caricature of the Pope and an anti-Catholic slogan. (You are a loyal and pious Catholic.)

            Story 30. Variants of the above. The banner displays a picture of a black according to some standard offensive stereotype (Step ‘n Fetchit, Uncle Tom, etc.) with an insulting caption, or a picture of a sneering, sniveling, hook-nosed Fagin or Shylock, with a scurrilous anti-Jewish caption, or a similar offensive denunciation or lampooning of groups called “Spicks,” “Dagos,” “Polacks”, etc.

            Story 31. Still another variant. A counter-demonstrator leaves a feminist rally to enter the bus. He carries a banner with an offensive caricature of a female and the message, in large red letters: “Keep the bitches barefoot and pregnant.”

(18) Which of stories 24-31 is the least offensive to you, and which is the most offensive?

            Difference between Offensive Nuisances and Profound Offense. Not all of the offenses above are of the same seriousness. The more tame ones Feinberg calls nuisances, and he suggests that four factors distinguish these from the more serious ones.

1. The magnitude of the offense, which is a function of its intensity, duration, and extent.

a. Intensity. The more intense a typical offense taken at the type of conduct in question, the more serious is an actual instance of such an offense.

b. Duration. The more durable a typical offense taken at the type of conduct in question, the more serious is an actual instance of such offense.

c. Extent. The more widespread the susceptibility to a given kind of offense, the more serious is a given instance of that kind of offense.

2. The standard of reasonable avoidability. The more difficult it is to avoid a given offense without serious inconvenience to oneself the more serious is that offense.

3. The Volenti maxim. Offended states that were voluntarily incurred, or the risk of which was voluntarily assumed by the person who experienced them, are not to count as “offenses” at all in the application of a legislative “offense principle.”

4. The discounting of abnormal susceptibilities. (This can be thought of as a kind of corollary of 1.) Insofar as offended states occur because of a person’s abnormal susceptibility to offense, their seriousness is to be discounted in the application of a legislative “offense principle.”

(19) According to the fourth factor above, offensive conduct which bothers only a minority with exceptional susceptibility to that offense should be discounted. What might be an example of this?

In view of the above four factors, several distinguishing features of merely offensive nuisances emerge.

These experiences are, first of all, relatively trivial or shallow, not only compared to harms but also compared to some other mental states, for example those that result from offense to higher-order sensibilities. Second, the wrong in mere offensive nuisance coincides with the perceptual experience that is imposed on the victim and its caused aftereffects, and is inseparable from those experiences. Without the direct perception of the offending conduct, there would be no offense, even if the person learned secondhand that the offending conduct would occur or had occurred. It is experiencing the conduct, not merely knowing about it, that offends. In respect to a mere offensive nuisance, its esse est percipii (its being consists in its being perceived). Third, the offense in ordinary offensive nuisance is experienced in all cases as at least partly personal, and in most cases as wholly personal. The offended party thinks of himself as the wronged victim of the conduct that causes him to have certain unpleasant and inescapable states of mind. Being disgusted, revolted, shocked, frightened, angered, bored, embarrassed, shamed, or made anxious, are like being hurt in that one has a grievance in one’s own name, on one’s own behalf, against the offender for making one undergo the experience. And if one had not been present, one could have had no such complaint. Fourth, it is generally characteristic of the wrong in mere offensive nuisances that it derives from an affront to one’s senses, or to one’s lower order sensibilities. One does not think of the offending conduct as the sort that would be wrong (in contravention of one’s own standards) wherever it might occur, but wrong only because it occurs here and now, thus victimizing its reluctant witnesses. In language suggested by Kurt Baier, the conduct affronts our sensibility without necessarily violating any of our standards of sensibility or propriety. It can therefore “offend our senses” (or lower order sensibilities) without offending us. Fifth and finally, in ordinary offensive nuisances the offending behavior is thought wrong (and hence resented, and hence an “offense” in the strict and narrow sense) because it produces unpleasant states in the captive witnesses, not the other way around. It does not produce unpleasant states because it is thought wrong on independent grounds.

(20) Feinberg’s first group of stories presented earlier involve affronts to our senses. Do these qualify as mere offensive nuisances?

In contrast with the five distinguishing features of offensive nuisances, there are five features of profound offence. It is only the more serious offenses, Feinberg argues, that justify governmental coercion.

            The characteristics of profound offense contrast with those of the ordinary nuisances in all five respects. First, they have an inexpressibly different felt “tone”, best approximated by saying that they are deep, profound, shattering, serious, even more likely to cause harm by their obsessiveness to those who experience them. That is why the word “nuisance”, with its unavoidable suggestions of triviality, is inadequate. Second, even when one does not perceive the offending conduct directly, one can be offended “at the very idea” of that sort of thing happening even in private. A nude person on the public bus may be an offense in my sight, but I am not offended at the very idea of that person being nude in the privacy of his or her own rooms, which is to say that my offense is not of the profound kind. Some of the examples of disgusting conduct (mere offensive nuisance) may seem different in this respect. I am disgusted by the sight of the bus passengers eating vomit, and at first it might seem that I am almost as offended by the very thought of them doing so in the privacy of their own dining rooms. But in fact my offense at what is not present seems to grow only as I succeed in forming a precise image – visual, auditory, and olfactory – in my imagination, in which case it is not that a standard of propriety is violated by the very idea of certain conduct; rather an offense is produced by my own energetic image-making. I am the party in that case who produces an offensive experience in myself, and I can have a grievance only against myself. It is as if by intense concentration I form a precise image of the bus passenger naked in his or her own bedroom, focus all of my attention on it, and then complain that that person “profoundly offends” me by his or her habitual unwitnessed nudity. My offense at the very idea of certain conduct is not profound because I would be offended by that conduct if I were to witness it; rather it is profound because I am offended by its taking place at all whether I witness it or not. On the other hand, if it were possible for a person to have the strange basic moral conviction that even private nudity is sinful because (say) it is an embarrassment to God,” then the offense such a person feels at others being naked in their own homes every night would indeed be of the “profound” variety.

(21) According to Feinberg, why is seeing a nude person on a bus not a profound offence?

            Third, in the case of profound offense, even when the evil is in the perceiving, something offends us and not merely our senses or lower order sensibilities. Our reaction is not like that of the man in the proverbial tale who, unable to bear the sight of a lady standing in the bus, always averted his eyes (rather than offer his seat) when confronted with the prospect. Profound offense cannot be avoided by averting one’s eyes. Fourth, because profound offense results from an affront to the standards of propriety that determine one’s higher-order sensibilities, it offends because it is believed wrong, not the other way round. It is not believed to be wrong simply and entirely because it causes offense.

            Finally, profound offenses in all cases are experienced as at least partly impersonal, and in most cases as entirely impersonal. The offended party does not think of himself as the victim in unwitnessed flag defacings, corpse mutilations, religious icon desecrations, or abortions, and he does not therefore feel aggrieved (wronged) on his own behalf. The peeping-Tom and racial insult cases are, of course, exceptions to this. Here we should say that there is a merging of the two kinds of offense. The victim’s outrage is profound because it is caused by a shocking affront to his or her deepest moral sensibilities, but he or she also happens to be the violated or threatened victim of the affronting behavior. In contrast, in the flag, icon, dead body, and abortion cases, there is no person at all in whose name to voice a complaint, except the profoundly offended party, and the only thing he could complain about in his own behalf is his offended state of mind. But that is not what he is offended at.

(22) In story 10 presented earlier, funeral mourners “smash the corpse’s face with a series of hard hammer blows.” Feinberg believes that this constitutes profound offence because the experience is impersonal. What does it mean to say that this experience is “impersonal”?

Feinberg believes that profound offence – which is fundamentally impersonal – should remain impersonal, and offended parties weaken their case when attempting to make it simply an issue of how they personally are offended.

            Still, in the confusion of strong feelings of different kinds, people are likely to mistake what it is they are indignant about. Mill reminds us that there are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for [witnessed or not], and resent it as an outrage to their feelings . . . .” These people might be those whose profound offense at the reported private conduct of others is taken on behalf of an impersonal principle, or sacred symbol, or the like. Then coming to resent their own unpleasant state of mind as a nuisance (even though its character as felt annoyance was originally an insignificant component in what was experienced), they refocus their grievance, putting themselves in the forefront as “injured” parties. When they take this further step, however, their grievance originally impersonal but now voiced in their own behalf loses almost all its moral force. Mill’s response to them is devastating:

... a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it, no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And a person’s taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse.

Takers of profound offense at unwitnessed conduct are better advised to rest their claim for “protection” on impersonal grounds.

(23) According to Feinberg, when we personalize our negative reaction to a serious offense, we thereby reduce the issue to a battle over personal preferences. Do you agree that personalizing our reactions always has this effect?

#C. CIVIL OBEDIENCE, DISOBEDIENCE, AND REVOLUTION

For reflection:

(1) Can you think of some laws (either real laws or imaginary ones) that you would willingly violate on moral grounds?

(2) Are there any moral or political beliefs which are so important to you that you would actively protest against governmental laws or policies which violated those beliefs?

(3) What kinds of governmental misconduct do you think would justify the launching of a full-scale revolution?

We’d like to think that the laws of our community are decent ones, founded on some concept of fairness, and not excessively coercive. That, though, is not always the case. Laws in many countries around the world discriminate against their citizens on the basis of race, gender, or religion. Other laws permit the roundup and incarceration of their government’s critics without fair procedures. Still other laws permit the exploitation of children in labor. Less dramatically, even in the world’s most developed countries, citizens frequently complain about excessive taxation, overly coercive police tactics, or restrictions on some private recreational activities. Imagine that you lived in a country where the law permitted the police to arrest and interrogate you on no other grounds than the color of your skin. Imagine that the laws also prohibited you from voicing any opposition to these prejudicial policies. Would you grin and bear it? Would you go against the system?

            These are questions concerning civil obedience and disobedience, and wrestling with them brings us to the heart of political philosophy’s subject matter. If we believe that our obligation is to comply with unjust laws, then we must explain how political institutions get that kind of absolute authority over us. If on the other hand we feel justified in opposing such laws, then we must explain the authority that we as individuals have to undermine and potentially destroy political systems. The notion of “civil disobedience” as we use the term today is restricted to non-violent infringements of the law that aim to prompt change in some law or policy and thereby improve society. In the United States, for example, black Americans violated segregation laws by attempting to attend white-only schools. The person engaged in civil disobedience must also be willing to accept punishment for the violation. Civil disobedience is a comparatively moderate kind of rebellious behavior. A step up from this is an attempted coup de etat, a forcible change of a regime or political system initiated by some organized group within a society. Then there is a rebellion, which opposes one element of a political system. A step up from that is an all out revolution, which seeks to completely transform a political system. Each of these challenges to political authority require distinct justifications, and we will look at some of them here.

1. OBEDIENCE TO THE STATE: PLATO

One of the great works of political philosophy is the Crito by Plato – which describes the death of his teacher Socrates, who at age 70 was tried and executed for atheism and corrupting the youth. Many leaders in the city of Athens felt that Socrates’ freewheeling method of philosophical inquiry badly influenced younger Athenians and risked undermining the government. Socrates’ attitude towards civil obedience is paradoxical. On the one hand, he appears to be a model of civil disobedience to the degree that he was a vocal social critic and bluntly spoke the truth, in spite of the unpopularity of his views. On the other hand, the Crito presents Socrates as an advocate of civil obedience insofar as he insists that he must follow the laws of Athens and comply with the judgment brought against him by the court, rather than escape. As the dialogue opens, we find Socrates in prison the day before his execution. In a last ditch effort to save Socrates’ life, his student Crito tries to convince Socrates to escape.

            Only the Good and Just Life is Worth Having. Crito begins by giving Socrates two reasons why he should escape. Crito argues selfishly that he and other friends of Socrates will be scorned by “the many” if they allow their friend and teacher to be executed. But Socrates insists that none of that is important. All that matters is that one act justly.

            [Socrates:] And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be depraved, which is improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body?

            [Crito:] Certainly not.

            [Socrates:] More honored, then?

            [Crito:] Far more honored.

            [Socrates:] Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you suggest that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable. Well, someone will say, “But the many can kill us.”

(24) Why according to Socrates should we not listen to the opinions of the many regarding justice?

            [Crito:] Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.

            [Socrates:] That is true; but still I find with surprise that the old argument is, as I conceive, unshaken as ever. And I should like to know Whether I may say the same of another proposition- that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued?

            [Crito:] Yes, that also remains.

            [Socrates:] And a good life is equivalent to a just and honorable one- that holds also?

            [Crito:] Yes, that holds.

            [Socrates:] From these premises I proceed to argue the question whether I ought or ought not to try to escape without the consent of the Athenians: and if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt; but if not, I will abstain. The other considerations which you mention, of money and loss of character, and the duty of educating children, are, I fear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who would be as ready to call people to life, if they were able, as they are to put them to death- and with as little reason. But now, since the argument has thus far prevailed, the only question which remains to be considered is, whether we shall do rightly either in escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape and paying them in money and thanks, or whether we shall not do rightly; and if the latter, then death or any other calamity which may ensue on my remaining here must not be allowed to enter into the calculation.

            [Crito:] I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we proceed?

            [Socrates:] Let us consider the matter together, and do you either refute me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my dear friend, from repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of the Athenians: for I am extremely desirous to be persuaded by you, but not against my own better judgment. And now please to consider my first position, and do your best to answer me.

            [Crito:] I will do my best.

(25) What argument does Socrates give against Crito’s proposal that he escape?

It is implied in this dialogue that Socrates and Crito have had a continuing discussion on wrong-doing. Their conclusion was that wrong actions are never justified by good consequences. By re-emphasizing this conclusion, Socrates makes clear that what is at issue in his escaping is whether it is right for him to escape, and not whether his remaining would result in bad consequences.

            [Socrates:] Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonorable, as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by us? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown away? And have we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover that we are no better than children? Or are we to rest assured, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, of the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonor to him who acts unjustly? Shall we affirm that?

            [Crito:] Yes.

            [Socrates:] Then we must do no wrong?

            [Crito:] Certainly not.

            [Socrates:] Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we must injure no one at all?

            [Crito:] Clearly not.

            [Socrates:] Again, Crito, may we do evil?

            [Crito:] Surely not, Socrates.

            [Socrates:] And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many-is that just or not?

            [Crito:] Not just.

            [Socrates:] For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?

            [Crito:] Very true.

            [Socrates:] Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another, when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premise of our agreement? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For this has been of old and is still my opinion; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.

            [Crito:] You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.

            [Socrates:] Then I will proceed to the next step, which may be put in the form of a question: Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or ought he to betray the right?

            [Crito:] He ought to do what he thinks right.

            [Socrates:] But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the principles which were acknowledged by us to be just? What do you say?

            [Crito:] I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.

(26) In the above exchange between Crito and Socrates, what is Socrates’ argument for his claim that one should not render evil for evil?

            Gratitude and Civil Obedience. In an imaginary conversation Socrates has with the Laws, Socrates gives a number of reasons for obeyling the decision of the court. Two of his reasons are general moral arguments for civil obedience, the first of which is a debt of gratitude argument.

            [Socrates:] Then consider the matter in this way: Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: “Tell us, Socrates,” they say; “what are you about? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us- the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals?” What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to be carried out; and we might reply, “Yes; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence.” Suppose I say that?

            [Crito:] Very good, Socrates.

            [Socrates:] “And was that our agreement with you?” the law would say, “or were you to abide by the sentence of the State?” And if I were to express astonishment at their saying this, the law would probably add: “Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes: you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us what complaint you have to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the State? In the first place did we not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and gave birth to you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage?” None, I should reply. “Or against those of us who regulate the system of nurture and education of children in which you were trained? Were not the laws, who have the charge of this, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?” Right, I should reply. “Well, then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or to your master, if you had one, when you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands?- you would not say this? And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? And will you, O professor of true virtue, say that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and if not persuaded, obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.” What answer shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?

            [Crito:] I think that they do.

The debt of gratitude argument states that Socrates owes the city of Athens a debt of gratitude, and should obey the city’s decisions. The argument is based on an analogy between parental rearing and civil rearing: (a) Athens has been like a parent to Socrates insofar as Athens has raised him and seen to his education; (b) Socrates owes his real parents a debt of gratitude and should thus obey them. (c) Therefore, Socrates owes Athens a debt of gratitude and should obey its laws.

(26) State the “gratitude” argument in your own words.

            The Social Contract and Civil Obedience. The second argument is based on a social contract that Socrates has made with Athens.

            [Socrates:] Then the laws will say: “Consider, Socrates, if this is true, that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For, after having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good that we had to give, we further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him; and none of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, and take his goods with him. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are wrong; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us; that is what we offer and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all other Athenians.” Suppose I ask, why is this? they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. “There is clear proof,” they will say, “Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love. For you never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other States or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our State; we were your especial favorites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and this is the State in which you gave birth to your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you might, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment in the course of the trial-the State which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not grieved at death. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us, the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or not?” How shall we answer that, Crito? Must we not agree?

            [Crito:] There is no help, Socrates.

            [Socrates:] Then will they not say: “You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but having had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, which you often praise for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign State. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the State, or, in other words, of us her laws (for who would like a State that has no laws?), that you never stirred out of her: the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.

The social contract argument is this: (a) If one chooses to take up residence in a particular area, then one is thereby agreeing to obey the laws and decisions of the lawmakers; (b) Socrates chose to reside in Athens; (c) Therefore, Socrates has agreed to follow the decisions of the lawmakers (regarding his execution).

(28) State the “contract” argument in your own words.

Additional Arguments for Compliance. In addition to the above two moral arguments for obedience to the laws in general, the Laws (personified here) give five or so pragmatic arguments for why Socrates should obey the specific decisions of the court regarding his execution.

            [Socrates:] “For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what good will you do, either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the neighboring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well-governed cities, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be corrupter of the young and foolish portion of humankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates? And what will you say to them? What you say here about virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed States to Crito’s friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and license, they will be charmed to have the tale of your escape from prison, set off with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the fashion of runaways is- that is very likely; but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you violated the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things; you will live, but how?- as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men; and doing what?- eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be your fine sentiments about justice and virtue then? Say that you wish to live for the sake of your children, that you may bring them up and educate them- will you take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is that the benefit which you would confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive, although absent from them; for that your friends will take care of them? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world they will not take care of them? Nay; but if they who call themselves friends are truly friends, they surely will.

            “Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.”

            [Socrates:] This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you will say will be in vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.

            [Crito:] I have nothing to say, Socrates.

            [Socrates:] Then let me follow the intimations of the will of God.

(29) In the above two paragraphs what are the various pragmatic reasons that the Laws give for why Socrates should not try to escape?

2. CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: MARTIN LUTHER KING

The Civil Rights movement in the United States during the 1960s involved dramatic acts of civil disobedience. The gross unjustness of racist policies throughout the country – but especially in Southern states – prompted thousands of African-Americans to engage in nonviolent protest. Racial segregation, which prohibited African-Americans from frequenting “white-only” establishments, such as restaurants, hotels, and schools, was the key issue. The turning point in the campaign against desegregation occurred in the spring of 1963 with a major public demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama. The event drew national attention when city policemen released dogs and turned fire hoses on participants. The famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was jailed for his role in the demonstration – along with many of his supporters, including several hundred children. He spent 11 days in jail, during which time he wrote a letter of response to eight fellow clergymen who criticized his tactics. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is not only a great political document in U.S. history, but also a clear philosophical treatise on the subject of nonviolent demonstrations and civil disobedience. The essence of his message is that nonviolent civil disobedience is justified when lawful attempts at ending unjust policies have failed, and the oppressed group is left with no other alternative to bring about change. Nonviolent protest, he argues, creates tension within an oppressive community and forces the issue. “It seeks so to dramatize the issue so that it can no longer be ignored.” King looks to Socrates’ life activity as a model for tension-producing civil disobedience:

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

King argues that academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

            The issue of civil disobedience, according to King, rests on a distinction between just and unjust laws:

One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.” Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

(30) What is Augustine’s view about unjust laws?

(31) According to Aquinas, what is the difference between just and unjust laws?

            The principal danger of civil disobedience – no matter how peaceful – is that it undermines the authority of political institutions and risks throwing a society into anarchy. King recognizes this risk and says that the solution is for the protestor to retain a sense of respect for the law even during demonstrations:

             In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law as the rabid segregationist would do. This would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly ... and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law. [From Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)]

(32) According to King, when the protestor accepts the penalty of jail time, what effect will this have on the community?

#D. VIRTUOUS LEADERSHIP

For reflection:

(1) Although former U.S. President Bill Clinton had a notorious reputation for marital infidelity, many Americans felt that this didn’t necessarily make him a bad leader. Is marital fidelity an important virtue for political leadership?

(2) Political leaders are often caught lying. Are there situations in which lying might be a sign of strong leadership?

(3) Politicians, like athletes, are often looked up to as role models who influence the behavior of others. Even if politicians are morally upstanding, does this mean that their good behavior will be emulated by others?

We routinely hear about politicians accepting bribes, lying to the public, and being involved in sex scandals, and, more generally, being incapable of standing up for what is right. When gross moral corruption is exposed, political careers quickly come to an end. We entrust leaders with the most important social tasks, and our confidence in them is often irreparably broken when we spot immoral behavior. Our officials should not only be effective administrators, but moral leaders as well. There is, though, another side to the issue. Different factions of society place conflicting demands on our political leaders. One group favors nationalized health care, another wants it privatized. One group wants abortion outlawed, another wants it permitted. One group favors the death penalty, another is against it. Aside from internal disputes like these among citizens, surrounding countries engage in power struggles that often entangle one’s own country – forcing complex alliances with foreign rulers. Part of political survival is a degree of craftiness when dealing with volatile issues. It seems unrealistic, then, to expect our leaders to be openly honest or completely free from the influence of special interests. One task of political philosophy is to understand the nature of virtuous leadership; should we expect our politicians to be perfectly virtuous or more like scheming snakes whose only virtue is craftiness?

3. POLITICAL SURVIVAL: MACHIAVELLI

Plato’s conception of the philosopher king loomed large over European political philosophy for some time, offering an ideal of moral perfection that every ruler should strive to attain. Almost two-thousand years later, though, Renaissance philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) presented a quite different view of the successful leader’s moral character. His famous treatise, The Prince, is an expression of realpolitik, that is, governmental policy based on retaining power rather than pursuing moral ideals. Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy at a time when the country was in political upheaval. Italy was divided between four dominant city-states, and each of these was continually at the mercy of stronger foreign governments in Europe. Since 1434 the wealthy Medici family ruled Florence. Their rule was temporarily interrupted by a reform movement, begun in 1494, in which the young Machiavelli became an important diplomat. When the Medici family regained power in 1512 with the help of Spanish troops, Machiavelli was tortured and removed from public life. For the next 10 years he devoted his time to writing history, political philosophy, and even plays. He ultimately gained favor with the Medici family and was called back to public duty for the last two years of his life. Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513, but it remained unpublished until after his death in 1532. The work immediately provoked controversy and was soon condemned by Pope Clement VIII. Its main theme is that princes should retain absolute control of their territories, and they should use any means of accomplishing this end, including deceit. In several sections Machiavelli praises Caesar Borgia, a Spanish aristocrat who became a notorious and much despised tyrant of the Romagna region of northern Italy. During Machiavelli’s early years as a diplomat, he was in contact with Borgia and witnessed Borgia’s rule first hand. Some readers initially saw The Prince as a satire on absolute rulers such as Borgia, which showed the repugnance of arbitrary power – thereby implying the importance of liberty. However, this interpretation fell apart when, in 1810, a letter by Machiavelli was discovered in which he reveals that he wrote The Prince to endear himself to the ruling Medici family in Florence. To liberate Italy from the influence of foreign governments, Machiavelli explains, strong indigenous governments are important even if they are absolutist.

Alleged Qualities of a Good Monarch. Machiavelli makes clear his intention to describe the truth about surviving as a monarch, rather than recommending lofty moral ideals.

            It remains now to see what should be the rules of conduct for a prince towards subject and friends. And as I know that many have written on this point, I expect I will be considered presumptuous in mentioning it again, especially since my discussion will depart from the methods of other people. But, since it is my intention to write something which will be useful to those who grasp it, it appears to me more appropriate to follow up with the real truth of a matter rather than the imagination of it. For many describe republics and monarchies which in fact have never been known or seen. This is because how one actually lives is so far removed from how one ought to live. Thus, he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, more quickly causes his destruction rather than his preservation. For a person who wishes to act entirely according to his declarations of virtue soon meets with an array of evils which destroy him.

(33) For Machiavelli, what happens to a monarch who is guided only by “what ought to be done” (i.e., lofty moral ideals)?

Machiavelli continues describing those virtues that, on face value, we think a ruler should possess. He concludes that some “virtues” will lead to a ruler’s destruction, whereas some “vices” allow him to survive.

            Thus, if a prince wishes to keep his position, it is necessary that he knows how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity. Therefore, let us set aside imaginary things concerning a prince, and discuss those which are real. Accordingly, I say that when all people are spoken of (and especially princes since they are more visible) they are distinguished based on specific qualities which bring them either blame or praise. Because of this one person is said to be generous, another miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an avaricious person in our language is still he who desires to own things through theft, whereas we call one miserly who deprives himself too much of the use of what he owns). One is reputed to be generous, another greedy; one cruel, one compassionate; one dishonest, another honest; one weak and cowardly, another bold and brave; one friendly, another arrogant; one lustful, another chaste; one sincere, another cunning; one hard, another easy; one solemn, another frivolous; one religious, another unbelieving, and the like. And I know that everyone will acknowledge that it would be most admirable for a prince to exhibit all the above qualities that are considered good. But these good qualities can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, since human conditions do not permit it. It is then necessary for a prince to be sufficiently careful so that he may know how to avoid the negative effects of those vices which would make him lose his state. If possible, he must also take care to keep himself from those which would not lose him it; and if this is not possible, he may give himself to them with less hesitation. And again, he need not worry about subjecting himself to criticism for those vices which, if he lacked, would make saving his state difficult. For considering everything carefully, we see that something which looks like virtue would lead to his destruction if followed; alternatively, something else, which looks like vice, will bring him security and prosperity if followed.

(34) What are the virtues which we commonly praise in people, but which might lead to the downfall of a prince?

            Concerning Generosity and Stinginess. We commonly think that it is best for a ruler to have a reputation of being generous. However, if his generosity is done in secret, no one will know about it and he will be thought to be greedy. If it is done openly, then he risks going broke to maintain his reputation. He will then extort more money from his subjects and thus be hated. For Machiavelli, it is best for a prince to have a reputation for being stingy.

            Starting then with the first of the above-named characteristics, [suppose] I say that it is best if one is thought to be generous. However, generosity injures you when exercised in a way that does not bring you the reputation for it. For if one exercises it honestly, as it should be exercised, people will not know about it, and you will not avoid the criticism of its opposite. Therefore, [it seems that] if anyone wishes to maintain a reputation of generosity among people, one should not avoid the attribute of lavishness. However, by doing so a prince will consume all his property in such acts and, if he wishes to keep the reputation of generosity, he will unjustly burden his people, and tax them, and do everything he can to get money. This will soon make him despised by is subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued by anyone. Thus, having offended many and rewarded few with his generosity, he is affected by every trouble and threaten by every danger. Recognizing this himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs immediately into criticism for being miserly.

(35) What unfortunate chain of events occurs if a prince wants to openly maintain a reputation of being generous?

            Therefore, a prince is not able to visibly exercise this virtue of generosity, except at great cost. If he is wise, then, he should not worry about having a reputation of being stingy. For in time he will be considered generous when people see that, with his economizing, his income is sufficient to defend himself against all attacks, and he is able to engage in enterprises without burdening his people. In this way he shows generosity towards the numberless people from whom he does not take, and stinginess only towards the few people to whom he does not give.

            We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered stingy. The rest have failed. Pope Julius the Second was assisted in reaching the papacy by a reputation for generosity, yet he did not try afterwards to keep it up when he made war on the King of France. And he made many wars without imposing any extraordinary tax on his subjects, for he supplied his additional expenses out of his long thriftiness. The present King of Spain would not have undertaken or succeeded in so many efforts if he had a generous reputation. Thus, a prince should not worry about having a reputation for being stingy, provided that does not have to rob his subjects, that he can defend himself, that he does not become poor and abject, that he is not forced to become greedy. For it is one of those vices which will enable him to govern.

(36) How can a prince eventually gain a reputation for showing generosity, even though he is stingy?

Machiavelli anticipates examples one might give of generous monarchs who have been successful. He concludes that generosity should only be shown to soldiers with goods taken from a pillaged enemy city.

            Suppose someone says that Caesar obtained his empire though generosity, and many others have reached the highest positions by having been generous, and by being considered so. To this I answer that either you are currently a prince, or are in the process of becoming one. In the first case this generosity is dangerous, in the second it is very necessary to be considered generous. And Caesar was one of those who wished to become pre-eminent in Rome. But if he had survived after becoming so, and had not moderated his expenses, he would have destroyed his government. Suppose someone replies that there have been many princes who have done great things with armies, and yet have been considered very generous. To this I reply that either a prince spends that which is his own or his subjects’, or else that of others. In the first case he should be sparing, and in the second case he should not neglect any opportunity for generosity. And to the prince who advances with his army, supporting it by pillage, destruction, and extortion, handling that which belongs to others, this generosity is necessary, otherwise he would not be followed by soldiers. You can be a willing giver of that which is neither yours nor your subjects’ (as Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander were) because it does not take away your reputation if you squander that of others, but adds to it. It is only squandering your own that injures you.

(37) Machiavelli concedes that a prince should be generous with his soldiers when pillaging a conquered city. Why?

            And there is nothing that dissipates so rapidly as generosity. For even while you exercise it, you lose the power to do so, and become either poor or despised. Alternatively, in avoiding poverty you become greedy and hated. Above everything else, a prince should guard himself against being despised and hated, and generosity leads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for stinginess which brings reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a reputation for generosity to incur a reputation for greed which results in disapproval with hatred.

            Concerning Severity and Mercy. Machiavelli argues that it is better to be severe when punishing people than to be merciful. Severity through death sentences affects only a few, but it deters crimes that affect many.

            Turning now to the other qualities mentioned above, [suppose] I say that every prince should desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. Nevertheless he should try not to misuse this mercy. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel. In spite of his cruelty, he reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this is properly considered, we will see that he was much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia [a city in northern Italy] to be destroyed. Therefore, so long as a prince keeps his subjects united and loyal, he should not mind the criticism of cruelty. With a few examples of cruelty he will be more merciful than princes who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which result murders or robberies. For these typically injure the whole people, whereas those executions which originate with a prince harm the individual only.

            And of all princes, it is impossible for a new prince to avoid the accusation of cruelty, since new states are full of dangers. Hence Virgil, through the mouth of Dido, excuses the inhumanity of her reign because of its newness, saying,

            Against my will, my fate,

            A throne unsettled, and an infant state,

            Bid me defend my realms with all my powers,

            And guard with these severities my shores.

(38) Why must princes of new kingdoms be particularly severe in punishment?

            Nevertheless he should be slow to believe and to act. He should also not display fear, but act calmly with thought and humanity so that too much confidence does not make him incautious and too much distrust make him intolerable.

Better to be Feared than Loved. Machiavelli argues that it is better for rulers to be feared than to be loved. However, the prince should avoid being hated, which he can easily accomplish by not confiscating the property of his subjects.

            From this issue another question arises: is it be better to be loved than feared, or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when one of the two must be dispensed with. For we can generally say of people that they are ungrateful, fickle, deceitful, cowardly, and selfish. But as long as you benefit them, they are yours entirely. They will offer you their blood, property, life and children (as I noted above) when the need is far off.

            But when the need approaches, they turn against you. And the prince is ruined who relies only on their promises and has neglected other precautions. This is because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be counted on. And people have less scruple in offending someone who is beloved rather than someone who is feared. For love is preserved by the link of obligation which, because of the corruption of people, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage. But fear preserves you by a fear of punishment which never fails.

            Nevertheless a prince should create fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred. For, he can survive very well being feared so long as he is not hated. And he will not be hated as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to take someone’s life, he must do it on proper justification and for clear cause. Above all, though, he must keep his hands off the property of others, because people more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance. Besides, excuses about for taking away property. For he who begins to live by robbery will always find excuses for seizing others’ possessions. But reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. When a prince is with his army and in control of a large number of soldiers, then it is absolutely necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never keep his army united or willing to follow their duties.

(39) Machiavelli says that “people more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance.” What is his point?

The Severity of Hannibal. Machiavelli illustrates his point with the story of Hannibal (the third century CE general from Carthage) who was severe yet militarily successful. Scipio, by contrast, was humane, but a failure militarily.

            Among the wonderful deeds of Hannibal, one is particularly noteworty. Hannibal led an enormous army, composed of various races of people, to fight in foreign lands and whether in his bad or in his good fortune, no conflict arose either among the soldiers or against the prince. This arose from nothing other than his inhuman cruelty, which, with his boundless courage, made him revered and frightening in the sight of his soldiers. But without that cruelty, his other virtues would not be sufficient to produce this effect. And shortsighted writers admire his deeds from one point of view, yet from another condemn the principal cause of them. To prove that his other virtues would not have been sufficient for him, we may consider the case of Scipio, that most excellent person both within his own times and withing the memory of humankind. Nevertheless, his army rebelled against him in Spain. This arose from nothing but his too great tolerance, which gave his soldiers more license than is consistent with military discipline. For this he was condemned in the Senate by Fabius Maximus, and called the corrupter of the Roman army. The Locrians were destroyed by an officer of Scipio, yet they were not avenged by him, nor was the insult of the legate punished, owing entirely to his easy nature. Insomuch that someone in the Senate, wishing to excuse him, said there were many people who knew much better how not to err than to correct the errors of others. This disposition, if he had been continued in the command, would have destroyed in time the fame and glory of Scipio; but, he being under the control of the Senate, this injurious characteristic not only concealed itself, but contributed to his glory.

            Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, people loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavor only to avoid hatred, as is noted.

(40) According to Machiavelli, what was the key to Hannibal’s success and the cause of Scipio’s failure?

Honesty: Emulate both the Fox and the Lion. In perhaps the most controversial part of The Prince, Machiavelli argues that the prince should know how to be deceitful when it suits his purpose. In this way, the prince should have the qualities of both the fox and the lion when it comes to ruling by force – as opposed to ruling by reason.

            Everyone admits how good it is in a prince be honest, and to live with integrity and not with deceit. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have had little regard for honesty, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of people by deceit, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word. You must know that there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force. The first method is proper to humans, the second to beasts. But because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. Therefore it is essential for a prince to understand how to make use of both the beast and the human. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers. It is described how Achilles and many other past princes were given to Chiron, the Centaur, to nurse and be raised in his discipline. The meaning of this story is that, just as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half human, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other cannot survive. Since a prince is therefore compelled to consciously adopt the persona of beast, he should choose both the fox and the lion. This is because the lion cannot defend himself against snares, and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Thus, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares, and a lion to terrify the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about. Accordingly, a wise ruler cannot nor should he be honest when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it no longer exist. If people were entirely good, this precept would not hold. But because they are bad, and will not be honest with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them. Nor will a prince ever be lacking good reasons to excuse this nonobservance. Endless modern examples of this could be given, showing how many treaties and engagements have been made void and ineffective because of the dishonesty of princes. And he who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best.

(41) To be successful rulers, what two animal personas should rulers adopt and why?

Appearance of Virtue. Machiavelli contends that when a ruler needs to be deceitful, he must not appear that way. Indeed rulers must always at least appear to have five virtues in particular: mercy, honesty, humaneness, uprightness, and religiousness.

            But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and deceiver. People are so simple and so subject to present needs, that anyone who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. There is one recent example which I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander VI did nothing but deceive people, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he always found victims. For there never was a person who had greater ability in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm something, yet would observe it less. Nevertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of humankind.

            Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the virtuous qualities I have enumerated. But it is very necessary for him to appear to have them. And I will dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful. Thus one should appear merciful, honest, humane, religious, upright, and also be that way. But your mind should framed so that if you are required not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

(42) What virtues should the prince appear to have (although in reality doing the opposite where circumstances dictate)?

            And you have to understand that a prince, especially a new one, cannot follow all those things for which people are respected. For, in order to maintain the state, he is often forced to act contrary to honesty, friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself with the winds and changes of fortune force it. Yet, as I have said above, he should not diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if compelled to go against the good, he should know how to set about it.

            For this reason a prince should take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not overflowing with the above-named five qualities, so that he may appear to those who see and hear him altogether merciful, honest, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality. For, people generally judge more by the eye than by the hand, and everybody is capable of seeing you, and few can come in touch with you. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them. And in the actions of all people, and especially of princes which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.

(43) How is it that people typically judge our religious attitudes?

            For that reason, let a prince aim at conquering and keeping his state, and the means of attaining it will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody. This is because the common people are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it. And in the world there are only common people. For the few who are not common people find a place in the world only when the many have no ground on which to.

            One prince of the present time, whom it is not best to name [i.e., Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor], never preaches anything else but peace and honesty, and to both he is most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived him many times of reputation and kingdom.

            Avoiding being Despised and Hated. According to Machiavelli, the prince must avoid doing things that will cause him to be hated. This is accomplished by not confiscating property, and not appearing greedy or wishy-washy.

            Now, concerning the characteristics of which mention is made above, I have spoken of the more important ones. The others I wish to discuss briefly under this generality, that the prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things that will make him hated or contemptible. And as often as he succeeds he will have fulfilled his part, and he won’t need to fear any danger in other condemnations.

            To be greedy, as I have said, makes him hated above everything, and he must abstain from violating both his subjects’ property and women. And when neither their property nor honor is touched, the majority of people live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.

            It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, weak, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock. In his actions he should try to show greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude. In his private dealings with his subjects, let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him.

            That prince is highly respected who conveys this impression of himself, and he who is highly respected is not easily conspired against. For, provided it is well known that he is an excellent person and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty. For this reason a prince should have two fears, one from within, on account of his subjects, the other from without, on account of external powers. From the latter he is defended by being well armed and having good allies, and if he is well armed he will have good friends, and affairs will always remain quiet within when they are quiet without, unless they should have been already disturbed by conspiracy; and even should affairs outside be disturbed, if he has carried out his preparations and has lived as I have said, as long as he does not despair, he will resist every attack, as I said Nabis the Spartan did.

(44) What is the best way for the prince to defend himself against outside attack?

            The Best way to Avoid being Overthrown. For Machiavelli, the best way to avoid being overthrown is to avoid being hated.

            But concerning his subjects, when affairs outside are disturbed he has only to fear that they will conspire secretly, from which a prince can easily secure himself by avoiding being hated and despised, and by keeping the people satisfied with him, which it is most necessary for him to accomplish, as I said above at length. And one of the most effective remedies that a prince can have against conspiracies is not to be hated and despised by the people. For those who conspire against a prince always expects to please people by his removal. But when the conspirator can only look forward to offending people, he will not have the courage to take such a course, for the difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite. And as experience shows, many have been the conspiracies, but few have been successful. This is because he who conspires cannot act alone, nor can he take a companion except from those whom he believes to be malcontents, and as soon as you have opened your mind to a malcontent you have given him the material with which to content himself, for by denouncing you he can look for every advantage; so that, seeing the gain from this course to be assured, and seeing the other to be doubtful and full of dangers, he must be a very rare friend, or a thoroughly obstinate enemy of the prince, to keep faith with you.

            And, to reduce the matter into a small compass, I say that, on the side of the conspirator, there is nothing but fear, jealousy, and prospect of punishment to terrify him. But on the side of the prince there is the majesty of the monarchy, the laws, the protection of friends and the state to defend him. Adding to all these things the popular goodwill, it is impossible that anyone should be so rash as to conspire. For whereas in general the conspirator has to fear before the execution of his plot, in this case he has also to fear the what will occur after his crime. Because of this he has the people for an enemy, and thus cannot hope for any escape.

(45) Why are few conspiracies successful when a monarch is well liked by the masses?