Copyright by Laura Rabinowitz 2014
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Copyright by Laura Rabinowitz 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Laura Rabinowitz Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Harmony of City and Soul: Plato and the Classical Virtue of Moderation Committee: _________________________________ Lorraine Pangle, Co-Supervisor _________________________________ Devin Stauffer, Co-Supervisor _________________________________ Thomas Pangle _________________________________ Gary Jacobsohn _________________________________ Sharon Krause Harmony of City and Soul: Plato and the Classical Virtue of Moderation by Laura Rabinowitz, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2014 Harmony of City and Soul: Plato and the Classical Virtue of Moderation Laura Rabinowitz, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisors: Lorraine Pangle and Devin Stauffer This study examines and defends moderation as a moral, political, and philosophic virtue. I argue that modern political theory, despite its success in curbing certain excesses, is unable to account fully for our contemporary struggles with immoderation because it fails to treat moderation as a holistic virtue. To address this theoretical deficit, and to recover the unity of a virtue that has become fragmented and neglected in our age, I turn to the treatment of moderation found in Plato’s Charmides and Republic—the two dialogues in which Socrates asks and answers the question: what is moderation? I argue that Plato’s Charmides is not an early dialogue to be left behind as we move on to the Republic. Rather, it is through the interplay between the two dialogues that a full picture of moderation as a harmony of the city and soul emerges. Lessons learned from the Charmides must be remembered in order to temper the utopian ambitions inspired by Plato’s Republic. Moderating our own hopes for a world in which reason reigns, we see the need for cultivating both self and civic restraint in the absence of a perfectly harmonious whole. Nevertheless, moderation in the form of a genuine harmony orchestrated by reason remains a model of excellence, best embodied by Socrates himself. Understanding moderation in this light, we can see most clearly the sources in human nature of what Plato’s Socrates calls the “many limbs” of immoderation, from hedonism to tyranny. More important, in understanding Socratic moderation we recover a compelling vision of the virtue. iv Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: CHARMIDES 32 CHAPTER 2: CRITIAS 76 CHAPTER 3: MODERATION IN PLATO’S REPUBLIC 138 CHAPTER 4: HARMONY OF CITY AND SOUL 187 CONCLUSION 213 BIBLIOGRAPHY 221 v INTRODUCTION A Contemporary Case for Recovering the Classical Account of Moderation The primary aim of this dissertation is to recover an understanding of moderation, or sōphrosunē, as a classical virtue in all its complexity. Although moderation does not always play a prominent role in contemporary moral and political discourse, it is still a virtue necessary for citizens of a liberal democracy. Moreover, since moderation does not spring naturally from the soil of humanity, but requires careful cultivation, it is especially in need of our attention. As one of the central virtues of classical thought, moderation receives sustained consideration by the greatest political philosophers of antiquity. But above all, it was Plato who canonized moderation’s place in the tetrad of cardinal virtues—wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation—and it is in his writings that we find the most developed presentation of the virtue.1 As will be discussed further below, sōphrosunē has a breadth and depth of meaning that our contemporary use of “moderation” or “temperance” fails to capture. Edith Hamilton describes the matter well when she says, “The truth is that this quality, 1 As classicist Helen North argues, “Plato contributed more generously to the development of sophrosyne than did any other writer of any period.” Helen North, Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 35 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press): 151. 1 this sōphrosunē, which to the Greeks was an ideal second to none in importance, is not among our ideals. We have lost the conception of it.”2 While a full account of how we have moved from the classical concept of sōphrosunē to today’s understanding of moderation is beyond the scope of this study, my limited purpose in this introduction is to highlight a pivotal transformation that can be seen in the meaning of moderation from the ancient to the early modern period. This transformation has emphasized a part of what the ancients understood by moderation—but only a part. Seeing the change moderation undergoes in modern political thought will help explain how we have arrived at the strange position we find ourselves in today, having achieved one sense of moderation at the expense of another. Moderation’s Place in Modernity One important sense of immoderation is religious and political extremism. Many prominent early modern political philosophers saw this as the most dangerous form of the vice, and so were most concerned with the form of the virtue that would resist it. Measured by the standard of preventing religious and political extremism, it cannot be denied that the modern project has been in large part a success. At least today within the United States, where that movement has exercised so much of its influence, the poles of 2 Quoted in W. Thomas Schmid, Plato’s Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 20. 2 our political and religious divisions exist within a relatively circumscribed and peaceful sphere.3 The theoretical foundations of this conception of moderation can be seen in the writings of some of the most influential early modern political philosophers. Both Thomas Hobbes and Montesquieu attempted to cultivate moderation in individuals largely as a means to achieving this kind of widespread political and religious moderation, the ending of civil and religious strife for the sake of security and prosperity. The success of their attempts depended in large part upon the ability to redirect much of human passion and competition away from the factious and violent realm of political and religious struggle and toward more sober and mundane goods and goals. This redirection was achieved in large part through an emphasis placed upon the ameliorative effects of commerce. Nevertheless, while a large degree of moderation on this grand political and religious scale has been achieved, especially as capitalism and acquisitiveness have taken on a life of their own, we find ourselves facing a problematic increase of immoderation within the private realm. Human desire being a many-headed Hydra, the attempt of the moderns to lop off what may be its most dangerous heads has lead to the growth of others. But what place, exactly, was moderation intended to have in modern life? Modern liberalism differs radically from the classical tradition insofar as it rejects the exercise of 3 See, for example, Stephen Macedo, “Transformative Constitutionalism and the Case of Religion: Defending the Moderate Hegemony of Liberalism,” Political Theory 26 (1998). 3 virtue as the proper end of a polity. But it still requires that its citizens possess certain virtues as the means to the ends that the state rightfully pursues: security, comfort, and freedom. Thus one can find even within the work of Hobbes, the great debunker of classical virtue and the philosophic precursor of liberalism, a recognition of the importance of certain virtues and an attempt to inculcate them.4 Hobbes’ teaching on the need for a new morality is most evident in his articulation of the laws of nature. Although the first of Hobbes’ laws of nature are fairly straightforward (first, seek peace; second, be willing to form contracts toward that end), they become more didactic as the list proceeds. And while all the laws of nature derive their legitimacy from the single aim that Hobbes regards as legitimate, namely the need for self-preservation, one begins to see that many more natural laws are needed to channel and tame the less peaceful passions so as to make them accord with this end. We find, for example, that the laws of nature exhort us to be grateful, complaisant, and forgiving, as well as to avoid contumely, pride, 4 For all his infamously illiberal theories, such as the absolute right of the sovereign, Hobbes can be credited with paving the way toward liberalism insofar as we find within his thought the emergence and defense of the primacy of individual rights, a development crucial to the political and moral outlook that welcomes the liberal view of the state. The basis of the Hobbesian state is, after all, the consent of individuals. Its purpose is to protect their rights and ensure, above all, their security, while allowing as much freedom as possible. For a more thorough discussion of Hobbes’ liberalism, see J. Judd Owen, “The Tolerant Leviathan: Hobbes and the Paradox of Liberalism,” Polity 73, 1 (2005): 130-148. 4 and arrogance. Indeed, they even forbid drunkenness and other forms of intemperance that might lead to our destruction.5 Thus, on Hobbes’ account, moderation includes a form of private temperance. But even the other natural laws mentioned above could be seen as falling under the umbrella of a new kind of moderation. As Peter Hayes argues, Hobbes, with his “bourgeois moderation,” aims to create a “new social order…that depends upon the mutual observance of moderate behavior.”6 To this end, Hobbes’ natural laws “provide precepts of behavior in civil society that form the social equivalent of private temperance.”7 Hayes does not go so far as to say that private temperance is actually achieved, for, as he explains, Hobbes’ concern is not so much how we feel as how we act.