Assignment
Write a 5-6 page paper on ONE of the following topics.
Advice: Read the question you choose very carefully, and make sure you are answering it. What you write must be clearly relevant to answering the question as asked. (The reader should never have to ask themselves "Why am I being told this?")
1. (i) State briefly the arguments that the Laws give as to why it would be unjust for Socrates to escape. (ii) What criticisms would you level at them? (iii) Can you reply to any of them? Are you persuaded in the end?
2. "Plato's account of justice in the Republic treats it as though it were an intra-relation and not, as it really is, an inter-relation". What truth, if any, is there in this objection? After all, Plato treats justice as a matter of the relation between different parts of the State, and between different parts of the individual's psyche.
3. Why in the Statesman does Plato say that in the ideal constitution the `divine' king would be above the law? Even if such an expert could exist, do you agree that it would indeed be best for him to be above the law? If so, why? If not, why not?
4. Both in the Republic (Bk 2-3) and in the Statesman, Plato is very concerned that two aspects of the human character-its aggression and its gentleness and love of learning-point in opposite directions and need to be bound or woven together. What aspects more exactly does he have in mind, and do you think the problem has the seriousness he evidently thinks it has?
5. Plato clearly thinks that virtue and politike as knowledge of what is just and good are hard things to attain, out of the reach of the many. Give some evidence of his thinking this way from our readings and his reasons for thinking it. Is he correct that knowledge of human good and bad is out of the reach of the common run of us? What might be said both for and against his position, and where do you end up standing and why?