Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato's "Laws"

Four—Divine Law and Moral Education

C h a p t e r F o u r DiviNe Law aND MoraL eDucatioN In the Minos, Socrates asks his Athenian companion what law is and how we come to know or recognize that it is authoritative. In the course of their conversation, Socrates points to the inherent limits of law, showing that even though law presents itself as just and therefore good for everyone , law’s breadth and rigidity prevent it from supplying the needs of each individual who is subject to it. This deficiency would seem to make it impossible to recognize that any particular political command is truly lawful and authoritative. Yet Socrates also indicates that the examination of law cannot be complete until he takes up the examination of divine law. It is only by examining how divine law is understood by those who live under and believe in it that the Socratic philosopher can learn what divine law is, how it is known, and whether it can overcome the apparent limitations of law. In the first three books of the Laws, the Athenian Stranger has examined how Kleinias and Megillus understand the origins and purposes of divine law. In the subsequent books of the Laws, the Athenian Stranger will try to lay out a correct and complete code of law. This code will show us whether or to what extent divine law can provide the soul with the goods that it needs and that divine law is expected to provide. In Book IV of the Laws, the Athenian Stranger prefaces his elaboration of the laws by discussing some of the preconditions of legislation for the new colony of Crete. It is while he is discussing these preconditions that he sheds light on what his conversation with Kleinias and Megillus has taught or confirmed for him about what divine law is. The first of these preconditions is the location of the new colony. We might have thought that it is very important to select a site that provides the colony with the greatest safety and military prowess. But the Athenian Stranger insists that it is more important to select a location that will promote virtue; bearing this in mind, he says that founders should always choose a site that is far from the sea, so that the city will not succumb to the political and moral vices associated with commerce and the possession of a powerful navy (Laws 705d–e, 706a–c, 707d). In calling for an inland site that will be defended DiviNe Law aND MoraL eDucatioN 91 by a hoplite army, the Athenian Stranger and Kleinias implicitly agree that neither the laws of Minos nor those of Athens are suitable for a city that is under divine law (Pangle 1988, 438–39). The Athenian Stranger’s remarks about the preconditions of legislation include a discussion of the best kind of population and the best kind of political founder for a new colony. Yet, as the Athenian knows, the location , population, and founders of the new Cretan colony have already been selected. The disparity between the best possible setting for a colony and that of the actual, new colony leads the Athenian Stranger to reflect on the role that chance plays in legislation. He claims that no human being ever truly legislates, for chance usually determines whether regimes and laws succeed or fail (Laws 708). Yet he qualifies this statement by saying that both god and art, which is gentler than either god or chance, also play a role in determining how regimes and laws fare (Laws 709a–c). The precise roles that divine providence and human art play in bringing about divine law remain to be clarified. As the three interlocutors turn to their task of legislating for the new colony, the Athenian Stranger calls upon a god to join them in setting up the city and its laws (Laws 712b). By making this invocation, the Athenian Stranger signals that he aims to elaborate a code of divine law. But what sort of assistance does he hope to gain from the god whom he invokes? The fact that he invokes the god at the start of Book IV underscores how he has relied on his own reasoning to this point in the dialogue. And since what was said in the first three books is to be the basis on which the laws are established (Laws 702a–b), the invocation indirectly reminds us that the Athenian Stranger has not needed divine assistance to...