Plato’s Rhetoric of Law- the prooimia and moral psychology-

Abstract

Perhaps surprisingly for a work that is all about creating the best possible sort of people, there is very little by way of explicit moral psychology in the Laws. The article argues that Plato still maintains the tripartite structure of the soul in the Laws. Instead of dwelling primarily on the passages that are commonly discussed with regard to this topic, however, the present arguments focus on the prooimia or preambles to particular laws. They suggest a psychology with three broad sorts of motivational structure: reason, taking in and responding to arguments and truth; appetite, reacting to mere pleasures and pains; and thumoeidetic motivation, concerned with self-esteem and as such responsive to pride, shame, and the noble and beautiful. Before turning to the prooimia, let us note that there are also at least five other relevant indications of tripartition. (1) For one thing, there is separate mention and treatment of mere pleasure and pain on the one hand, and of phenomena having to do with spiritedness on the other (863bc). (2) The indication most often adduced is outside the text proper, and that is the contention that the Laws is a late work, contemporaneous with the Timeaus, which does have an explicit tripartition of the soul (70b-71b, 77bc). (3) If we return to Book II of the Laws, the Athenian's comment at 653b clearly distinguishes between mere pleasure and pain, initial virtue, and understanding or reason. (4) A further indication that there is room for thumos is that two main instances of soul-shaping, drinking and dancing, are social activities. (5) Finally, a rather striking indication of a division even along the lines of the Republic is found at I.631c-d, according to which the divine good consists of the same four virtues that we encounter in the Republic. But the preamble to each law can also provide us with indications of psychological tripartition. I classify the ten acknowledged preambles in the Laws into four main categories. (I) Laws that apply to every character: this is the least revealing set of preambles, since each caters to such a broad group. The law on wills (923a-c) by its nature must address everyone; the ways in which to fail in relation to orphans (927a-c) are equally manifold; and the laws on care and respect for parents (930e-931a, 931e-932a) and on assault (879b-c) too apply to everyone of a certain age group. (II) Laws directed at appetite (epithumia): such addresses evoke rather basic pleasures and pains, or the hope or fear of such pleasures and pains. As for the preface on temple robbery (854a-c), through an entirely vague and mythical account of some sort of original sin, “crimes of long ago” (854b3-4), superstitious fear of destruction and pain is instilled in those to whom the warning applies. Voluntary murder (869e-870d) is similar to temple robbery in that it applies mainly to people on whom appeals to what is kalon is generally lost; accordingly, the prooimion addresses only the appetitive aspects of the individuals. The law on selling adulterated goods (916d-917d) similarly will be relevant only to people who are sufficiently decrepit to hold financial gain as a main motivation, a fact mirrored by the law itself specifying punishment in the form of physical pain: beating and whipping. (III) A law directed at thumos: the marriage preface in Book VI (773a-e) exemplifies a focus on tempering pride and possibly misunderstood self-esteem with the calm voice of simple arguments. The appeal, then, is to what is elsewhere in Plato, as well as in Aristotle, now recognized as the realm of a well-shaped thumos directed towards to kalon. (IV) A law directed at reason: The atheism preface (888a-907d) is the most striking instance of a preface mainly directed straight at the reasoning capacity of the recipient. The intellectualist response to atheist tendencies is clear also from the idea of a course in cosmology to cure them, as presented right after the prooimion (908e-909a; cf X.967d-968a). I tentatively conclude that the prooimia lend themselves quite willingly to an exposition in terms of a rough and ready tripartition into reason, thumoeidetic qualities possessing a taste for the noble, and appetites. In the Laws, the city consists of persons instantiating a broad vista from total vice to perfect virtue. And this means that there must be different means of persuading different people. To Plato just as to Aristotle, laws have a form and an authority perfect for all stages of development after the very first ones, from that of an extraneous authority capable of inflicting pain and destruction on the non-complier, through that of an ideal advisor to the one who in her heart wants to do the right thing, to that of constituting reason itself as the individual should paradigmatically possess it. No wonder, then, that there is no simple answer to the question whether the preambles in the Laws constitute rational persuasion or mere manipulation: in catering to three such widely differing psychological instances, what is the correct reply will depend on the specific law and its intended audience.