The great Greek philosopher Plato is said to be the father of western philosophy. He is certainly a household name and a person of interest to historians, philosophers, and political scientists alike. But his ideas have flaws, specifically regarding the obligations of citizen and state. In his dialogue Crito, Plato (Crawford, 2007) argues that citizens are bound by social contract to the state. He asserts it is one’s moral obligation to obey the law unequivocally even to the point of death, and he concludes there is no higher authority to whom citizens owe their lives than the law (p. 33). In other words, the state is the primary lender to whom we owe repayment. This essay confronts Plato’s assertions and contends that his arguments are contradictory and incomplete. Furthermore, this analysis concludes that our social contract is not governed by the law but by civic duty to improve the law.
Plato’s core argument claims the state has shaped the citizenry and therefore the citizenry owes the state a debt of gratitude in the form of service and obedience to the law (Crawford, 2007). This argument is premised on equating the influence of the state to that of a parent, teacher, or trainer and dismissing our more distant relationship to the general citizenry (pp. 26-27). It is from these intimate relationships that the state derives authority and from this authority, or influence, arises the debt of servitude (p. 30). Plato’s logic, however, is contradictory. If we consider that the state and the laws that govern it are abstractions of a distant majority (whether of lawmakers or citizens), then the state is necessarily distant. Plato ignores this conclusion and sees the state as being much closer to the citizen. Yet the state cannot be both distant and intimate simultaneously. This point of contention causes friction throughout Plato’s arguments and undermines his conclusions.
To begin with, Plato’s underlying assertions rest on two basic assumptions: First, the law raised us and shaped us into who we are. As he points out in Crito, “[S]ince you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by [the state], can you deny…that you are our child and slave” (Crawford, 2007 p. 30). From Plato’s perspective, not only are citizens children of the state but they are bound to it as slaves to their masters. Plato never addresses outcomes in Crito, but the contract of servitude implies that a debt is owed in exchange for something of value. This is the essence of Plato’s second assumption: Laws are omnipresent and produce equal outcomes for all people and those outcomes are always good. This assumption implies a close relationship between the citizen and the state, but it too is flawed.
Consider for example that within any state, a variety of divergent social conditions exist. Income inequality, crime rates, school quality, and access to social services all vary widely, yet all exist under the same set of laws. At no point does Plato’s logic account for divergent circumstances. In fact, his logic presupposes that an individual could only exist under state rule and be grateful at the outcomes. He says nothing of the fact that, for example, the institution of marriage might have brought together two horribly unqualified parents.
It is in fact impossible to achieve the outcomes Plato’s logic requires. Even if we were to assume that the law is universally applied, it is impossible to ensure equality of outcome across the board. Two citizens might attend different schools with different teachers and have very different educations. One citizen might grow up in a broken home and be disillusioned about marriage or fall into criminal activity. Plato makes no allowance for the possibility that a citizen might strictly adhere to his philosophy and draw negative conclusions about the law, or that the state might create citizens who are detrimental to society. Even if the law could be evenly applied throughout the state, outcomes are far too fluid to ensure a debt is owed. Here again friction between Plato’s arguments of intimacy and distance manifests. It is impossible to stipulate that a debt is always owed when value isn’t always delivered.
It’s clear in Crito that Plato holds the law in high esteem, though he questions whether it is ever permissible to break the law (Crawford, 2007 p. 29). He suggests rhetorically that perhaps the concepts of justice, right, wrong, good, and evil exist outside the law. He illustrates this by posing the following hypothetical: “If I am clearly right in escaping [without the consent of the Athenians], then I will make the attempt. If not, I will abstain” (p. 29). Here Plato expresses contention between Athenian law (under which he’s being held), and a personal interpretation of justice. Plato does not indicate by what manner he will conclude whether he is right or wrong, but interpretation is a fundamental aspect of the law. It is, in fact, what allows the law to evolve with society as much as it allows for variability in its application. Plato’s analysis never directly acknowledges the fluidity of law. He reconciles the question by concluding that a hierarchy of obligations exist between who ought to be wronged least. At the top of the hierarchy is the rule of law itself (pp. 29, 33).
Had Plato dived more deeply into the concept that right and wrong exist outside of the boundaries of the law, he might have realized laws are not always just. Almost fifteen-hundred years later, Henry David Thoreau (1849) would arrive at exactly this conclusion:
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil (para 17).
Thoreau famously argued the merits of breaking the law as he points out in the previous passage. The state itself is responsible for authoring unjust laws and it is the role of the citizen to change those laws. In fact, Plato seems to circle this conclusion, extolling citizens who commit no injustice even when an injustice has been committed against them (Crawford, 2007 p. 29). This suggests that Plato knew laws could be misapplied or poorly written, but he concluded that it is the duty of the citizen to follow these laws regardless of the circumstances under which they’ve been applied. Plato’s reasoning fails to consider the need to constantly improve the law and the role individuals have in that process. Our social contract is not to blindly follow the state but to constantly seek to improve it.
In summary, social contracts do exist, but laws and outcomes under laws are far too fluid to ensure an outcome that is worth repaying. Instead, the obligation of the citizen is to continuously improve upon the institutions that govern us, including as Thoreau pointed out, through civil disobedience. Said differently, our contract is not to state institutions, but to the act of continually improving those institutions for the benefit of future generations.
References:
Crawford, T. (Ed.). (2007). Plato. Tudor publishing company.
Thoreau, H.D. (1849). Civil disobedience. https://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper2/thoreau/civil.html