Symposium - Plato

The narrative framing for this dialogue is really something else.  The story is told fourth or fifth hand; someone heard someone else telling about this and he heard it from someone.  This allows Plato to generously put words in people's mouths.  Who knows, it may bear some resemblance to an actual event?
In any case, 'Symposium' tells the story of a party.  The party goers partied too hard the night before and don't have a head for strong drink two nights in a row.  Instead, it is decided that they will each speak about 'love'.  They will take turns and go around the table and say something about it.
The speeches are interesting, though not world shaking.  They mostly range from 'love is the source of all good things' to 'some loves are more pure than others'.  My favorite is from Aristophanes (yes, that Aristophanes) where he suggests that in prehistory, all humans were joined together as a pair.  Each pair was split apart and 'love' is a strong desire to return to that earlier paired condition.  He also explains that some number of the pairs included men with men and women with women.
Socrates is the last to go (natch) and he explains that he was taught quite a bit about love by a woman who trained him in the arts of love.  He was primarily taught that love is a thing that, even when a man has it, he wants more of it.  In this, it is different than health or happiness in which people become content.  He also believes that love is a process in which the person perfects themselves as a person and (eventually) through pursuit of philosophy.
After Socrates ends, a latecomer, Alcibiades, enters.  He decides to also speak of love, though his is scorned love.  At an earlier time, he tried to let Socrates seduce him but Socrates didn't do so.  Alcibiades decided to pursue Socrates instead and ended up doing so by trying to become a better man.  This is where we get the term 'Platonic love'.

This work is rightfully praised as a look at what life must have been like in ancient Athens.  We learn a lot about how loving relationships worked, including older men with younger men.  The form here is much less conversational than the other Platonic dialogues I've read and more like an extended scene from a novel.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.

While reading this, I was constantly reminded of one of my favorite books, 'Time Enough For Love' by Robert Heinlein.  That book also features long stretches of people talking to each other about philosophical matters, including 'love'.  Heinlein has his main character, Lazarus Long, divide love into two categories, eros and agape.  He also gives an exact definition of agape love, 'the condition in which someone else's happiness is essential to your own happiness'.
I couldn't help but wonder if Heinlein had read 'Symposium' at some earlier time.

Who Decides? - Aristotle

There is something about Aristotle that makes my mind wander back to the works of Robert Heinlein.  In this case the discussion of various ways of governing brought me to a couple of Heinlein quotes that I'll share here. 
The quotes are from a book called 'Time Enough for Love'.  In the book, an incredibly long lived man named Lazarus Long is kept from death by his ancestors who want to find out what wisdom he has acquired in his life.  He scoffs at the idea but relents and keeps a journal in a section simply titled 'The Notebooks of Lazarus Long'.  In that section, these two quotes are back to back:

"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something."
"Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?"

Of course in any million people, the amount of people what will have the expertise to decide any kind of technical question will be overwhelmed by the ignorant majority.  This sometimes leads to wistful, late night discussions of having a benevolent dictator or some such.  "We need someone who can cut through the politics and do the common sense things that need doing."  That kind of thing.
But of course, how would you pick such a person?  You'd need to know what their thoughts were on budgets and defense and the environment and health care and so on.  You'd need to know what they thought of tax policy and abortion and gay marriage and so on and so on.  In other words, you could only pick such a person after they had gone through the political process. 
And then you'd risk the movement to tyranny.
This is why we go with democracy.  We'd rather have the messiness and uncertainty.  We'd rather be able to correct course if we go badly off track.  (One could argue that every major election in the US since 2006 have been course corrections.)  We want the legitimacy that majority rule brings.  And if the ignorant majority sometimes swallows up the wise few, well, that's an ok price to pay.

Pascal's Wager

I wrote a bit on Pascal's famous wager here.  The gist of it is that the upside of beliving in God is so much better than the downside that it should be an easy choice to make.  The argument is brilliant.  Live a Christian life and you either go to heaven or find out that you were wrong and there is no afterlife.  Live a faithless life and either have no afterlife or go to hell.  Given those choices, who could do other than believe in God, right?
Well, not so fast.  There is one rather large flaw in Pascal's reasoning here.  Faith is not a volitional thing.  One can't simply flip a switch and believe anything.  Faith requires some deeper conviction.  On some deep level you must be convinced of the things that you truly believe in.
Pascal does answer this:

Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possesions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.

This isn't bad advice but it's not as certain as Pascal says it is.  Otherwise we would never see long time church goers lose faith and fall away.  We would never see frauds in the church because over time their frauds would be converted by the proximity and totality of their actions.  Even worse, according to Pascal's own life story, he went back and forth from faith to doubt until he got what he felt was an unanswerable sign from God.
I'm sure that many would be converted if they had a visit from the divine in a dream.  It's easy to have faith in angels when you actually meet them.  It's much harder to simply say that if you try to believe in them, eventually you will.
In my middle teens I first read Heinlein's 'Time Enough for Love'.  The story is an attempt to pry loose 'nuggets of wisdom' from a man who has lived for nearly 3000 years.  In one of the 'notebook' sections he writes this:

There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?

Pascal would have hated that thought.  Heinlein is saying that we really don't know one way or the other what happens after you die.  Elsewhere he makes the point that competing religions make promises of an afterlife but they differ on the route to get there.  If we don't have any concrete knowledge, how can we even begin to know which way to bet?  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and Pascal is openly saying that the proof isn't the way, only faith is.
My logical mind agrees with the Heinlein approach but not completely.  We don't know, we can't know.  That doesn't mean that the question isn't important.  It certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't fret about it.
But it sure would be easier with a visit in a dream.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Other Methods

One of my favorite Heinlein novels is 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'.  The book concerns a penal colony (circa 2176AD) on the moon and their attempt to revolt and set up their own government.  I highly recommend it.  There is a passage deep in the book (Chap 22, page 241 of my paperback), in which one of the deep thinkers of the book addresses a Constitutional Convention.  It's a long passage, and worthwhile.  I found it online here, which saved me the trouble of typing the whole bit. 

“Comrade Members, like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. You now have freedom — if you can keep it. But do remember that you can lose this freedom more quickly to yourselves than to any other tyrant. Move slowly, be hesitant, puzzle out the consequences of every word. I would not be unhappy if this convention sat for ten years before reporting — but I would be frightened if you took less than a year.

“Distrust the obvious, suspect the traditional...for in the past mankind has not done well when saddling itself with governments. For example, I note in one draft report a proposal for setting up a commission to divide Luna into congressional districts and to reapportion them from time to time according to population.“This is the traditional way; therefore it should be suspect, considered guilty until proved innocent. Perhaps you feel that this is the only way. May I suggest others? Surely where a man lives is the least important thing about him. Constituencies might be formed by dividing people by occupation...or by age...or even alphabetically. Or they might not be divided, every member elected at large — and do not object that this would make it impossible for any man not widely known throughout Luna to be elected; that might be the best possible thing for Luna.“You might even consider installing the candidates who receive the least number of votes; unpopular men may be just the sort to save you from a new tyranny. Don’t reject the idea merely because it seems preposterous — think about it!

In past history popularly elected governments have been no better and sometimes far worse than overt tyrannies.“But if representative government turns out to be your intention there still may be ways to achieve it better than the territorial district.

For example you each represent about ten thousand human beings, perhaps seven thousand of voting age — and some of you were elected by slim majorities. Suppose instead of election a man were qualified for office by petition signed by four thousand citizens. He would then represent those four thousand affirmatively, with no disgruntled minority, for what would have been a minority in a territorial constituency would all be free to start other petitions or join in them. All would then be represented by men of their choice.

Or a man with eight thousand supporters might have two votes in this body. Difficulties, objections, practical points to be worked out — many of them! But you could work them out...and thereby avoid the chronic sickness of representative government, the disgruntled minority which feels — correctly! — that it has been disenfranchised.“But, whatever you do, do not let the past be a straightjacket!

“I note one proposal to make this Congress a two-house body. Excellent — the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house of legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. Let the legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority...while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third minority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two-thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it would make a poor law? And if a law is disliked by as many as one-third, is it not likely that you would be better off without it?“But in writing your constitution let me invite attention to the wonderful virtue of the negative! Accentuate the negative! Let your document be studded with things the government is forever forbidden to do. No conscript armies...no interference however slight with freedom of press, or speech, or travel, or assembly, or of religion, or of instruction, or communication, or occupation...no involuntary taxation. Comrades, if you were to spend five years in a study of history while thinking of more and more things that your government should promise never to do and then let your constitution be nothing but those negatives, I would not fear the outcome.“What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well-intentioned men, granting to government powers to do something that appears to need doing. Please remember always that the Lunar Authority was created for the noblest of purposes by just such sober and well-intentioned men, all popularly elected. And with that thought I leave you to your labors. Thank you.”“Gospodin President! Question of information! You said ‘no involuntary taxation’ — Then how do you expect us to pay for things? Tanstaafl!” [There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch! — Ed.]“Goodness me, sir, that’s your problem.

I can think of several ways. Voluntary contributions just as churches support themselves…government-sponsored lotteries to which no one need subscribe…or perhaps you Congressmen should dig down into your own pouches and pay for whatever is needed; that would be one way to keep government down in size to its indispensable functions whatever they may be. If indeed there are any. I would be satisfied to have the Golden Rule be the only law; I see no need for any other, nor for any method of enforcing it. But if you really believe that your neighbors must have laws for their own good, why shouldn’t you pay for it? Comrades, I beg you — do not resort to compulsory taxation. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”

There is a lot to digest there, but I'd like to focus on the proposed methods of picking representatives.  The speaker, Professor Bernardo de la Paz, suggests that 'where a man lives is the least important thing about him'.  I first read this book more than twenty years ago and have thought about this passage many times since then.  I've come to agree with the good Professor on this point. 
It made sense in the 18th century to group people by area.  Communications were greatly limited by distance.  It was much harder for people to organize in order to advance their policy goals.  This isn't true today. 
I especially like the idea of electing members at large.  And also the idea of allowing a sufficiently popular representative to have more than one vote.  I currently live in a large city and have virtually no chance of electing a representative that reflects my values.  As Prof de la Paz points out, my minority viewpoint has no chance of being fairly represented here.  Millions of other people are in the same place.  These methods would also be harder to game and gerrymander.  Unfortunately, our modern parties have become expert at cheating the commonly recognized intentions of our democratic representations.

Collective Rights

Way back in February, I posted one of my favorite Heinlein passages, this one from 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'.  Here it is again:

"Dear lady, I must come to Manuel's defense. He has a correct evaluation even though he may not be able to state it. May I ask this? Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?"
"Uh . . . that's a trick question."
"It is the key question, my dear Wyoming. A radical question that strikes to the root of the whole dilemma of government. Anyone who answers honestly and abides by all consequences knows where he stands - and what he will die for."

 This is an easy one for Locke.  He says that a group of people have no more rights than each one would have individually.  The mere act of grouping themselves does not confer rights.  This makes sense to me but it's not easy to think of our modern governments along this line.

• Would the state still have the right to tax?  No private citizen does.
• Does this invalidate transfer payments (i.e. the welfare state)?  Again, as a private citizen, I can't force working people to give money to someone who isn't working.  
• What about regulations?  I can't go into a factory and tell them owner that he needs to change things.  (Well, I can tell him but I certainly can't force him.)

Again, I see the sense of what Locke is saying.  Which means that in regard to the Heinlein question, my answer is that there are very few things (if any) that groups can do morally that an individual can't.  On the other hand, I shudder at the real world consequences of suddenly changing the modern state.  The deceleration shock would be enormous!  Still, the ideal should be kept in sight as we move forward.

What Should Government Do?

One of my personal philosophical guides is Robert Heinlein. As I work through the Great Books, various elements remind me of questions and passages from his works. I thought I'd share them here.
This first one is from 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'. The story is about the revolution of a lunar colony that is loosely based on convict colonies like Australia. The scene takes place as the three main characters are feeling out the political leanings of each other.

"Dear lady, I must come to Manuel's defense. He has a correct evaluation even though he may not be able to state it. May I ask this? Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?"
"Uh . . . that's a trick question."
"It is the key question, my dear Wyoming. A radical question that strikes to the root of the whole dilemma of government. Anyone who answers honestly and abides by all consequences knows where he stands - and what he will die for."

'Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?' I've been working on this question for more than twenty years and I still don't feel like I have a good handle on it.