Democracy in ancient Greek philosophy: Pericles, Plato, and Aristotle compared

Democracy

The classical features of Greek democratic tradition was an emphasis on disbursing political power among all citizens, and the participation of all citizens was seen as essential both to the well-being of the state and the citizen himself. This tradition is embodied in aspects of the political philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, as will be indicated in an exploration of certain of the themes that recur in Greek political philosophy, such as the question of justice and the nature and meaning of citizenship. Democracy was more immediate and direct in the Greek context, with the relatively smaller population better able to meet to debate and decide issues and so to have a clearer tie to the democratic process. As Lakoff (1996) writes,

The Athenians, who brought democracy to its highest early development, understood it to mean the self-government or autonomy of the community or polis. Although they also came to appreciate the need to respect the autonomy of the individual, they restricted this form of autonomy to male citizens, and generally believed that the autonomy of the polis took precedence over that of the individual (Lakoff, 1996, p. 37).

Pericles was the leader of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War. Plutarch wrote about the Greek political leader and compares him to Fabius Maximus, who fought against Hannibal, saying that they are "men alike, as in their other virtues and good parts, so especially in their mild and upright temper and demeanor," and further notes that each was "most useful and serviceable to the interests of their countries" (Plutarch, 1909, p. 37). Another historian who wrote about Pericles was Thucydides. Thucydides lived c.460?c.400 BC and was an Athenian. He is considered by many to be the greatest of the ancient Greek historians, and his work had a profound influence on the development of historical writing. Although he was a relative of the great soldier and statesman Cimon, Thucydides was also an admirer of Cimon's political opponent, Pericles, even though the two had been in opposition and Pericles had been key in the younger man's ostracism (Stockton, 1990, p. 39). He returned from exile after the war ended in 404. Thucydides began writing his History of the Peloponnesian War in 431 when the great war broke out. In some ways, he was as much a journalist as a historian. He believed that the war would prove epochal and that his account would possess permanent value because such significant conflicts were bound to occur in future epochs "so long as human nature remained the same," and he was clearly correct in these assessments. The speeches he inserted into his history, brilliantly conceived and written, probe deeply into human motivation and explain the policy of states in terms of human psychology. Thucydides was the first Greek to write contemporary history but was deeply indebted to Herodotus for his conception of the fundamental importance of historical writing. Unlike Herodotus, however, who considered it his duty to repeat what people said without necessarily subscribing to it, Thucydides made every effort to authenticate the facts he reported, and he shows unusual sophistication in his awareness of the way that witnesses often misremember what they have seen. Although an admirer of Periclean democracy, Thucydides was not a democratic ideologue. He approved of the curtailment of the democracy in 411, for instance, and he even found the oligarchic constitution of Chios admirable.

In statesmen he valued above all intelligence and foresight, qualities possessed by his heroes Themistocles and Pericles. Generally, his History is remarkable for its objectivity, although his treatment of Sparta and Athens shows that he greatly admired the qualities attributed to the Athenians?

inventiveness, daring, and aggressiveness. The History is incomplete as far as the war is concerned because it ends abruptly with the narrative of the events of 411 BC. It is more important as an example of what a history can be.

The democracy of the time is marked by the fact that it is administered by people who are "not permanent career officials, but ordinary citizens giving up their time to the service of the state" (Burn, 1949, p. 50). Thucydides indicated something of the nature of democracy when he wrote of the funeral oration by Pericles for the dead from the war, in which it was stated,

Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit (Thucydides, 1900, 2.37).

Service in the military for the protection of the homeland was part of democracy, and the dead are being praised here for their service, expected of and given by those of all ranks and social status.

Kimball (2000) states that this speech indicates the two major themes of Athenian democracy:

It outlines the advantages of Athenian democracy, a bold new system of government that was not simply a political arrangement but a way of life. There were two keynotes to that way of life: freedom and tolerance, on the one hand; responsible behavior and attention to duty on the other. The two, Pericles insisted, go together: We Athenians are "free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law" -- including, he added in an important proviso, "those unwritten laws" -- the lawlike commands of taste, manners and morals -- "which it is an acknowledged shame to break." Freedom and tolerance, Pericles suggested, are blossoms supported by roots that reach deep into the soil of duty (Kimball, 2000, p. 83).

Athenian democracy was much praised and would also be emulated, contributing to the later development of democracy in the United States, though further shaped by ideas about how to govern through a republic rather than direct democracy because Periclean democracy is also seen as an example of tyranny by the majority. The element of tolerance, though, would temper that idea, depending on how it was achieved and how assiduously it was protected.

Plato would consider the elements of democracy and would reject much of what he saw in that form of government because he also saw dangers in it because he gave more power to the idea of a degree of oligarchy based on ability. Much of Plato's theory of politics is found in the Republic, and the city referred to there by Socrates can be seen as any state. The primary subject of the Republic is justice, examined in broad terms:

The Republic is probably the most elaborate monograph on justice ever written. It examines a variety of views about justice, and it does this in a way which leads us to believe that Plato omitted none of the more important theories known to him. In fact, Plato clearly implies that because of his vain attempts to track it down among the current views, a new search for justice is necessary (Popper, 1963, p. 49).

Socrates indicates that the reason human beings come together to form a state in the first place is because human beings have certain needs which can only be fulfilled by the presence of other people, and in the properly administered state the individual is enabled to fulfill his or her needs:

The healthy city satisfies the primary needs, the needs of the body. The proper satisfaction requires that each man exercise only one art. This means that everyone does almost all his work for others but also that the others work for him (Strauss, 1987, p. 43).

In the Republic, Socrates speaks of the relationship between the individual human soul and the society of which the individual is a part. The dialogue in this instance is designed to make a moral statement about the nature of the state and its relationship to the individual. Socrates finds from the first that there is a relationship between the individual and the state which can be analyzed and which can illuminate other concepts:

propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them (Plato, 1982, p. 9).

For Socrates, the maintenance of harmony requires that the individual fulfill his or her moral duty by obeying all of the laws of the state, and the individual owes the state this allegiance because there is an implicit agreement between the individual and the state -- the individual enjoys the benefits of being part of the state and in turn has an absolute duty to live up to the laws of the state. This is made especially clear in the Apology and Crito as Socrates shows that he will obey the laws of Athens even as he is condemned to death by political enemies:

Plato's dialogue Crito shows Socrates's friend of that name trying to persuade him to grasp the chance of life; Socrates firmly refuses, determined to remain obedient to the laws of his city, though he was himself the innocent victim of their unjust operation (Kelly, 1992, p. 15).

He argues that there is a duty resting on convention, which he considers in a deep and morally weighty sense, based on an implied but nonetheless binding contract between the individual and the state:

It is a fact, then," they would say, "that you are breaking covenants and undertakings made with us, although you mad them under no compulsion of misunderstanding, and were not compelled to decide in a limited time; you had seventy years in which you could have left the country, if you were not satisfied with us of felt that the agreements were unjust (Plato, 1993, p. 89).

In other words, Socrates has enjoyed the benefit of the laws all his life and cannot now break them without breaking an implicit agreement he has made with the state based on his acceptance of the law over his lifetime.

Plato's ideal state is not a democracy, and indeed Plato sees democracy as a state too subject to the passions of the masses. Capitalism as well would not fare well in Plato's state, which bears some surface similarities to a socialist state. The state that Plato would create would have a different relationship between the individual and society because Plato would abolish private property in service of an easing of tensions and a reduction in strife. For Socrates, the state will replace the family, and the community as a whole will become the family. The abolition of private property is part of this effort to bring the people together rather than to drive them apart, for Plato sees private property as creating rivalries and inequalities which have become the governing factors in social intercourse. Socrates describes what society will be like without the guardian class having this dedication to acquiring goods, noting that the Guardians will not tear the community apart by demanding that some property be designated as theirs. This also means that people will not separate themselves from the community, designating a certain territory as "theirs" and separating the family from the community. Always Socrates is dedicated to the idea that the community is the basic unit of society, not the individual and not even the family. Instead, he sees the community as existing together as a unit, as sharing polity in its broadest sense.

Plato also feels that the introduction of private property into the Ideal State would lead to civil strife. This could come about with the develop of two factions or parties in the state, and the resulting civil strife would lead to an agreement that would destroy the harmony of the Ideal State. Thus his decision to eliminate private property is a means of assuring that the state itself remains unified, and he sees private property as creating a climate that could lead to violence, first among individuals, then families, then larger factions, then war within the state as a whole.

Plato is attempting to eliminate all strife from society, while we have developed a system that accommodates strife because we recognize that in some degree it is a product of human nature and cannot be eliminated. We have developed a system in which strife between adversaries can lead to change, and this is one of the problems with Plato's society. That is, it would tend to be stagnant over time, reducing the possibilities for change and development.

Aristotle was a student of Plato's but developed his own approach to philosophy. His works are often a compendium of knowledge on a given subject as much as they are philosophical speculation about their meaning. Aristotle, like Pericles and Plato, considers politics at the city level, the city-state of the Greek era. Aristotle's description of the state as an association of free men aligns him with democratic theory, though he expresses a distaste for democracy at a certain level and finds that there are certain classes in society that should not be given the right to participate because they are not worthy. For Aristotle, indeed, democracy is often best when fewer people participate rather than when more do. He says that democracy in rural communities is preferable because farmers are too busy to attend meetings and involve themselves in government, thus leaving matters to the more capable and educated. In urban regions, however, craftsmen and shopkeepers manage to attend meetings and participate, and for Aristotle these are not the best sort of people. At the same time, Aristotle finds that the state itself and the association of free men in a state implies citizen participation. Aristotle states,

Whenever authority in the state is constituted on a basis of equality and similarly between citizens, they expect to take turns in exercising it. This principle is very old but in earlier times it was applied in a natural and proper manner; men expected each to take a turn at public service, and during tenure of office to look after the interests of someone else, who then did the same for him (Saunders, 1981, p. 188).

Aristotle calls his version of democracy by the name "polity" and describes its constitution as assuring political control to be exercised by the mass of the populace in the common interest. Participation is determined according to a specific need of the body politic:

And that is why in this constitution the defensive element is the most sovereign body, and those who share in the constitution are those who bear arms (Saunders, 1988, p. 190).

Aristotle does not see all men as equal and emphasizes the ways in which they are in fact different for the purposes of making a claim to office and privilege. He concludes finally that it is less what the person has than what he contributes that should be the determining factor. He says that the purpose of the association which is a state is not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions:

Those who contribute most to this kind of association are for that very reason entitled to a larger share in the state than those who, though they may be equal or even superior in free birth and in family, are inferior in the virtue that belongs to a citizen. Similarly they are entitled to a larger share than those who are superior in riches but inferior in virtue (Saunders, 1981, p. 198).

Aristotle believes that every art and inquiry is aimed at some good, that everything has as its goal some good. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies political science as the discipline that has as its goal the study of what is good for mankind. Ethics are actually a branch of political science, and personal ethical science is at one level while political ethical science is at a higher level of inquiry. For Aristotle, statecraft holds a primary position because it employs all the other sciences. It must therefore embrace as its aims the aims of all the others. The purpose of political science is to secure the good. This is on a higher level for the state than it is for the individual because while the securing of the good for the individual is itself a good, the securing of the good for an entire nation of people is of a higher order (Wheelwright, 1951, pp. 157-159).