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Lecture notes History of Political Thought
Lecture notes Hopt from 2024
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HOPT collegesLecture 1
Who Should Rule?
• Some answers (not exhaustive) with justifications:
– ‘The People’
• They constitute the state (sovereign), nobody needs to revolt, fair, (etc.)
– ‘The Elderly’
• Experienced, safe-guard tradition, thought risk averse (etc.)
– ‘The King/Queen’
• Constitutes the state (sovereign), decisive, birth-right -- luck sanctified by
God/tradition --, simple mechanism, (etc.)
– ‘The Elect(ed)’ [president/cabinet]
• Excludes the incompetent/impopulair, gives a choice to the people or
religious, minimizes coordination costs (etc.)
– ‘The Party’
• On the side of history, decisive, organized around common aim, etc.
– ‘the Algorithm’
• Impartial, efficient, programmable, etc.
Here’s another Option
• Expert(s)-rule or Epistemocracy
– ἐπιστήμη (Episteme) = knowledge
– κρατέω (krateo) = to rule
• Presupposes that ruling is a craft/skill or requires knowledge (or competence)
Plato
• 428(?)-347 BC, Athens
• Mostly wrote Dialogues
– Most of which feature his teacher, Socrates, as lead character
– Socrates was put to death by Athenian jury
• Founded The Academy
– Lasted 300 years
• Would be teacher of the ruler/tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius II
Brief Interlude on Athens.
• It was a so-called direct or popular democracy, that is, the people rule (through
majorities/consensus) without representatives.
– Limited to free male citizens (about 30,000 people)
• Excluding women, children, slaves, and resident foreigners
– Met in a regular assembly (ekklēsia).
• All men could participate, vote (by raising hand), and speak freely (isegoria)
• The poor subsidized to do so from imperial income (see next slide)
– For important/urgent matters (e.g., war) there was the boulē or council, which was
composed of 500 citizens who were chosen by lot (sortition) and who served for one
year
• Many magistrates were also chosen by lot.
– The council (a) set the agenda for the assembly and (b) oversaw the Athenian
bureaucracy; (c) it was the main jury/judges in trials. unitary state
• cf. Separation of powers (Polybius [200 –118 BC]; Montesquieu [1689-1755]
De L'esprit Des Lois, (and Locke!))
,Fifth and Fourth Century Athens
• 492-449: Leading part of coalition (with Sparta) in the wars that defeated Persians
• 478ff: Athens became leader of
Delian league (Pericles)
– Voluntary, but it became a de facto Athenian empire
– Athens controled the navy
– The junior partners paid tribute to Athens →
– Used for navy, to subsidize poor & build temples
• 431–404: Peloponnesian War
– Plague & defeat
– Do read Thucydides
• 404/3: Thirty Tyrants
– Led by Critias (a student of Socrates)
• 399 Socrates trial and execution after return of democracy
• 338: Athens defeated by Philip 1
The Ship of State (Analogy)
“[1] The sailors are quarreling among themselves over captaincy of the ship, [2] each one thinking that
he ought to be captain, [3] though he has never learned that skill…[4] On top of which they say it
cannot be taught. In fact, [5] they’re prepared to cut to pieces anyone who says it can….[6] They beg
him [the ship-owner] and do everything they can to make him hand over the tiller to them. [6*]
Sometimes, if other people can persuade him and they cannot, they kill those others or throw them
overboard. [7] Then they immobilize their worthy [stronger, but not too clever] ship-owner with drugs
or drinks or by some other means, and take control of the ship, helping themselves to what it is
carrying. [8] Drinking and feasting they sail … [9] If someone is good at finding them ways of
persuading or compelling the ship-owner to let them take control, [10] they call him a real seaman, a
real captain, and say he really knows about ships.”—Plato, Republic, 488b-d, Translated by G. Ferrari
(Cambridge University Press), p. 192 [numbers added—ES]
Some Interpretive Decisions
• In a democracy the ship-owner = the people
• So, the unruly sailors are ambitious politicians (generally drawn from upper-classes [elites]—
Machiavelli calls these the ‘grandi’)
– luckily, Socrates says this explicitly at 489c
At least ten Platonic criticisms of popular democracy
[1] Democracy → dissensus
[2] Self-rule generates overconfidence
[3] Most ambitious would-be-rulers lack expertise/skill
[4] And deny the very existence of political expertise/skill
[5] They threaten or kill anybody who claims intellectual superiority
[6] The desire of the ambitious to rule →
[6*] murderous conflict →
[7] The elites incite (oligarchic) revolutions and steal property
[8] with demagogues in control there is much rudderless pleasure
[9] The people are susceptible to flattery and demagogues
[10] The masses/elites call demagogues ‘skilled’
Some Evaluative Comments
• On [1]: direct democracy generates dissensus because everybody can have a say and [1&6]
the ambitious, who hope to rule, will use flattery of the people in order to enrich themselves.
– That everyone wants to be in control is implausible.
– Even so, all Socrates needs for the analogy to work is that (some) rich people want to
be in control (seems plausible).
, • As an aside: Plato seems to have thought that the practice of direct democracy revealed the
(undesirable) fact of value-pluralism.
– Value pluralism: existence of conflicting & incompatible values.
– Consequence of (i) the product of the diversity and inconstancy of human
desires/appetites [see 8]; and (ii) the lack of regulation of these in a commercial
democracy such as Athens [Republic, Books 2-3/10].
– Cf. Max Weber (1864-1920), by contrast, thinks value-pluralism is a product/effect of
modernity, especially advanced division of labor which generates conflicting interests
and perspectives
• On [2] that self-rule always generates overconfidence in all the would be rulers, is probably
too strong. There are risk averse people.
– But that rich and successful people when ruling, without external constraint (other
states' power, etc.) are overconfident is not altogether implausible. Plato would have
been able to point to the disastrous expedition of Athenians to Syracuse as evidence.
• On [[5] ‘They threaten/kill anybody who claims there is intellectual superiority’)] Plato could
point to the trial and execution of his mentor, Socrates.
– Friends of direct democracy might argue that the case of Socrates was the exception
rather than the rule.
• On [6* & 7] much of the history of Greece, as relayed by Herodotus and Thucydides, suggests
an eternal return of local civil wars among the rich and poor.
– Athens seems to have been the relatively stable exception (because the poor
subsidized by income from imperial tributes).
On Demagogues and direct Democracy
[4]: The rich who shape public opinion deny the very existence of political expertise [see also 3]
[10]: The masses (or elites) call demagogues ‘skilled’
• Demagogue = leader of the demos/people
– From the start: also unprincipled, flatterer, etc.
• A demagogue can persuade the masses that his ersatz/fake-political craft is, in fact, the real
thing.
• The rejection of political expertise [3-4] is bad enough, but the embrace of the demagogue’s
fake-skill as the real thing corrupts -- presumably by undermining trust and by generating
confusion about what it is -- the very idea of political expertise.
• The true skill of a demagogue consists in overturning pre-existing opinions. →
• The demagogue's true danger: by making everybody complicit in a reign of falsity, he
undermines the habits of thought and reasonable expectations
Notice something about this list
• [1] Democracy = dissensus [disorder]
• [2] It generates overconfidence [reign of false]
• [3] lack of expertise [reign of false]
• [4] deny the very existence of political expertise [reign of false]
• [5] They threaten or kill anybody who claims intellectual superiority [disorder/anarchy]
• [6] competition for power [disorder] →
• [6*] conflict [disunity]
• [7] would be powerful incite revolutions and steal property [disorder]
• [8] there is much rudderless pleasure [disorder]
• [9] the masses are susceptible to flattery and demagogues [reign of false]
• [10] the masses call demagogues ‘skilled’ [reign of false]
• Disorder/Disunity: [1] & [5-8]
• Reign of False: [2-4] & [9-10]
• In Plato: the true/truth is harmonious
– This commitment is questioned by Machiavelli
, So if we abstract away from details, Plato’s critique of popular democracy
• Relies on some empirical facts & predictions about how direct democracy and its social
leaders behave (or would behave)
– He explains these psychological commitments in Republic (discuss a bit on Thursday)
– He explains these political consequences in Republic and can rely on readers’
knowledge of (then recent) Athenian history
• Presupposes some important normative commitments:
– A. Politically we should aim at order/unity
– B. Politically we ought to pursue truthful politics
• In politics we should pursue the good [that is, order/unity and truth], which can be known by
those with expertise. Defends this in Republic. →
• Experts should rule [philosopher-kings]
• Terminological note: normative claims are value judgments (living up to a standard). Often
signaled by use of words like ‘should’/ ‘should not,’ ‘better’ or ‘worse.’
Four theoretical problems for Epistemocracy
• 1. On what (objective) grounds is somebody thought qualified to lead?
– What skills/competencies/knowledge are required?
– Much of the Republic devoted to explaining education of philosopher-kings
• 2. a) who gets to decide (1) and b) who monitors the admission?
– In Republic, experts self-select (cooptation)
• This requires a strong public ethos and ability to select [and breed!] for
competence
• 3. Even if 1-2 can be met, why think the ruling experts will be accepted by the rest?
– (Legitimacy/authority problem)
• 4. Will the experts rule fairly in public interest?
2. Aristotle 384–322 BC
• Student of Plato (and critic)
• Mentor of Alexander the Great
• Founded the Lyceum
– Lasted about 275 years
• Became the most important European thinker in Middle Ages (thanks to Church &
scholastics)
• The phrase ‘politics’ as in ‘political theory' is derived historically from the book-title of
Aristotle's Politics (Πολιτικά) which can be translated as "affairs of the cities,"
Sortition/Lottery
“Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal absolutely
(for they suppose that because they are all alike free they are equal absolutely)…and then the
democrats claim as being equal to participate in all things in equal shares…it is thought to be
democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot…and democratic for them not to have a property-
qualification.”—Aristotle, Politics, Books IV-V (re-ordered)
• Associates elections with olicharchies/aristocracies (who have limited franchise based on
property/wealth)
– Only much later are elections thought ‘democratic’
• Basic democratic idea: [since when it comes to politics], nobody is better than anybody else
→ everybody has equal right to participate and rule politically
• But that’s impractical as state grows
– (notice it’s about offices, that is, positions)
• → Lottery is fairest way to go
Challenges to Sortition (today)
• Inexperienced legislators, magistrates, judges
– Suboptimal performance
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