The Beautiful as the Ethical

The Beautiful as the Ethical

By

Martin L. Cowen III

Years ago with indignation, after a forgotten philosophical claim, I protested to my teacher that he was confusing ethics with aesthetics. Now, after years of study, I believe that ethics and aesthetics are closely related. The goal of ethical action is, in fact, the Beautiful. This idea is new to us and it will require some unpacking. The idea, though, is as old as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We have recently rediscovered the Beautiful and its relationship to the ethical thanks to a new translation of Aristotle's great work by Joe Sachs, formerly of St. Johns College, Annapolis, Maryland.

Those of you who have been attending FOR Sunday school will be familiar with my excitement about the Beautiful as an ethical concept. We look forward exploring the Beautiful in the months and years to come. Let us begin today.

The word being translated from the Greek is kalon. In prior, authoritative translations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics the word has been rendered as “noble.” The translation is incorrect and misleading. Aristotle means “beautiful,” as we presently understand that word, when he says kalon.

Aristotle says that "it is up to us to act when it is a beautiful thing... and to refrain from acting when this would be an ugly thing." 1113b8.

A common reaction to the concept of beauty as some kind of standard is that the beautiful is subjective. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," they say. Not so. The judgment that an object of perception is beautiful is not arbitrary or viewer dependent. The judgment of the beauty of an object of perception belongs to the serious person schooled and widely experienced in the domain of the object to be judged. The judgment that a painting is beautiful or not belongs to the serious person schooled and experienced in the subject of art history. In other words, aesthetic judgments are the domain of experts. So, too, are ethical judgments.

Not to say that most of us are not experts or at least qualified amateurs in many aesthetic and ethical domains. Most serious adults are experts in many things. It is true that no expert can tell us what we like. In fact, we do like or do not like a particular painting upon which we gaze. We assert here only that the judgment that a thing is “beautiful” or not is not an arbitrary judgment or viewer dependent. “Beautiful” is an aesthetic term. “Like” merely labels an emotion.

Once, an acquaintance of mine with whom I was having a philosophical conversation said: "Who is to say whether this coffee cup in my hand is or is not a hammer?" His position was that of the extreme relativist. No meaningful conversation can be had with the extreme relativist for whom the referents and meanings of words can change at will. Our conversation, therefore, ended abruptly. A similar consequence befell Cleitophon in Plato's Republic (340a), who, after asserting the extreme relativist position, is never heard from again in the dialogue. Admittedly, denying identity to the referents of "coffee cup" is more extreme than denying identity to the referents of the Beautiful. The point here is that philosophers do not deny identity to the referents of the words we use. Sophists and extreme relativists do that.

Our opinions about what we like are subject to philosophical exploration. A great current example is FOR's study of James Joyce's Ulysses. The work is not one that some of us "like." We have questioned our judgment, though, by entering into the study of Ulysses. Some of us who are studying the work are trying to learn whether the novel ought to be "liked". We are wondering, "Is it beautiful?" A different issue. We shall see.

So, what is the beautiful? The beautiful has three aspects: wholeness, harmony, and radiance. In our informal discussions about the Beautiful we have discovered that context is very important to the Beautiful. Context and wholeness are related. Is the object under consideration whole, meaning: is the object being understood in its full context?

A rose floating tranquilly in clear, clean water in a small oyster-white ceramic bowl in a spot of sunshine might be thought beautiful. But what judgment would we make if the bowl itself was floating in a septic tank? Not so beautiful, then. Context matters.

Consider a sexually charged encounter with a beautiful Other. The act of sexual union might be thought beautiful. But what judgment would we make if the full context is that the actor is married, the beautiful Other has AIDS, the disease is transmitted to the actor, the spouse of the actor discovers the infidelity, they divorce, and the children are ruined for life. Not so beautiful, then. Context matters.

Some examples now will be helpful in understanding the relationship of the Beautiful to ethical action.

Vivid, dramatic examples are useful for understanding. So, we begin with the subject of a beautiful death.

Clint Eastwood's film Gran Torino concludes with a great example of a beautiful death. Because it is beautiful, we conclude that his actions were the right thing to do. Eastwood's character was drawn to the beautiful and that is why he acts as he does.

Clint's character, Walt Kowalski, is an old, widowed curmudgeon. He befriends a teenaged neighbor who is threatened with gang violence. Walt himself has little life left. He is coughing up blood suggesting some terrible disease with a long period of unpleasant treatment and ultimate death. Walt's family is useless to him, involved as they are in their own lives. After a crisis of gang violence, Walt conceives a plan to permanently solve his young friend’s problem. Walt lures the gang into gunning him down in public. Walt dies in a hail of bullets. The gang is arrested. The young boy inherits Walt's Gran Torino and lives happily ever after. Walt enjoys a beautiful death. Purposeful, bold, and quick. On another level, too, the scene is beautiful. Clint Eastwood, the actor, is actually old now. He is 81 at this writing. Clint Eastwood's characters are mostly tough men who tolerate no foolishness and meet out justice brutally. Fans (this fan at least) cannot picture Clint Eastwood plugged up to IVs living in a nursing home waiting years to die of natural causes. Clint Eastwood's characters ought to die in a hail of bullets.

Like Patton says in the movie, "There is only one proper way for a professional soldier to die: the last bullet of the last battle of the last war." The same is true of a professional tough guy like the characters Clint Eastwood has portrayed.

The most famous beautiful death is the death of Socrates as told in Plato's dialogues: Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and Phaedo. Socrates is charged by the City of Athens with impiety and corrupting the young. During his trial he defends himself with courage and equanimity. He is tried and convicted. After conviction, offered the chance to escape, he declines. Socrates goes serenely to his death, much to the consternation of his less philosophical friends.

A final example of a beautiful death is provided by the movie Man on Fire starring Denzel Washington. Denzel’s character, Creasy, is a burned out professional soldier/assassin. He is an alcoholic and cannot hold a job. He goes to visit a former colleague in Mexico and gets a job as bodyguard for a young child, Pita, played by Dakota Fanning. Pita is kidnapped and, apparently, killed. After killing most of the bad guys in revenge, Creasy gets a chance to get Pita back alive at the cost of his own life. Creasy gladly exchanges his own life for Pita's. Creasy enjoys a beautiful death. He is redeemed.

Familiarity (by having seen them) with these examples will greatly assist the appreciation of the claim that these deaths are beautiful. As Aristotle says, "the judgment is in the perceiving." 1126b4

Referring back to “context matters,” consider the incident of the death of Clint Eastwood’s character in a hail of bullets alongside the rose floating in a ceramic bowl. Walt’s death by gunfire taken narrowly from the point-of-view of the 20 seconds of gunfire is not a beautiful thing. The rose and bowl considered narrowly are a beautiful thing. Only in the whole context of the movie is Walt’s death beautiful. In the full context of the sewer, the rose and bowl are not beautiful. So we see that a thing considered narrowly—the rose in the bowl or the 20 seconds of gunfire—can be beautiful or ugly. Only when considered in the full context—Walt’s brutal death by gunfire in the context of the whole movie or the rose floating in a bowl which is floating in a septic tank—can the judgment Beautiful or not be made.

Regarding ethical action as related to the Beautiful solves a long enduring philosophical problem. Some philosophers and lay people object to the very common analysis of an ethical action in terms of payment. Some ethical theories hold that people are ethical in order to receive some reward or to avoid punishment. Ethics under this theory is venal (mercenary, subject to bribes, or subject to purchase). Good people sense that ethical action ought, somehow, to be an end in itself. Even Christian ethics is subject to the charge of venality. One complies with God’s commands in order to avoid Hell or to gain Heaven.

This problem is solved, though, if the goal and motive of ethical action is the Beautiful. The Beautiful is an end in itself. One enjoys a beautiful sunset as an end in itself. One listens to a great symphony as an end in itself. One smells a rose as an end in itself. One tastes a great wine as an end in itself. One caresses the body of the Other as an end in itself.

Walt, Socrates, and Creasy perform their beautiful deaths as ends in themselves, because the actions are beautiful.

Under this theory ethical action is completely self-contained. The motive is within the actor. While there may be an incidental reward or avoidance of punishment, the reward and the punishment are not the motive of the ethical action. The actor seeks the Beautiful for the sake of the Beautiful. Ethical action is an end in itself.

The three components of the Beautiful are wholeness, harmony, and radiance. We have considered wholeness. Let us now consider harmony.

We have already recited an instance of lack of harmony: the rose in clear, clean water in a bowl in a septic tank. Clear, clean water and sewage water together are inharmonious. A giant, ugly wart on the face of an otherwise beautiful woman in a painting is inharmonious and might deny the judgment “beautiful” to the work. In fact, such a work is likely to be classified as vicious, if the artist’s intention is to deny the Beautiful.

Harmony in music is often regarded as beautiful. Dissonance, while often used in musical composition, is usually followed by resolution into harmony.

In general terms, harmony means that all of the parts of the whole are related in some intentional pattern and are used together by the artist to achieve a unified purpose. So when a novelist writes there is no element in his story that is not related to his purpose. For example, while modern human characters in novels are presumed to brush their teeth in the morning, the recounting of the morning “necessaries” is not often a part of the novel, unless the poison intended to kill the character is to be delivered via the toothpaste.

Harmony will be a fruitful concept in considering what ethical behavior is. If we think of our lives as stories or paintings of which we are the author or painter, we can see that attending to our own work, or “minding our own business,” is an important concept. A fellow painter beside whom we are painting is not likely to tolerate our reaching over and painting a happy face in the middle of his Mona Lisa. Our intrusion will disturb the harmony of his work. “Minding your own business” is an important ethical lesson from Plato’s Republic and can be elaborated using Aristotle’s conception of the Beautiful in ethical behavior. More on this in later essays.

The final component of the Beautiful is radiance. What a glorious conception is radiance. Some months ago members of the Fellowship of Reason were discussing various artists who seemed to have a mysterious quality that we called “IT.” Heather Morris, a dancer who plays Brittany S. Pearce on Glee, was my example. There are people who can adequately perform the motions required of the dance and there are true dancers. When an ensemble of people is performing choreography it is not uncommon that one of the performers will stand out especially. She is often the true dancer. One can “just see” that she is great. This is true of Heather Morris. I saw this during the Atlanta Opera’s presentation of Porgy and Bess. The ensemble cast was dancing, but one performer stood out. A review of the pictures in the program revealed that the standout dancer was, in fact, the choreographer. She had “IT.”

Our FOR members did not think of it at the time but the quality “IT” is radiance. The emotional response to radiance is an experience of the sublime, an aesthetic term. Radiance arrests the soul of the viewer and she is transfixed by the object of perception.

When we see a great work of art, a beautiful work of art, we are stopped in our tracks, our souls are arrested, and we can only stop and take the experience in for as long as circumstances and the duration of the emotion permit. There is peace in the feeling. Neither desire nor loathing is evoked. The emotion is not kinetic. No action is demanded by the experience. The experience is an end in itself.

The realization of Walt’s intention is arresting when perceived. His actions are Beautiful. Watching Heather Morris dance (on the rare occasions when the producers of Glee permit it) is arresting. Listening to opera singer Renee Fleming perform is often arresting. Listening to Leila Josefowicz play the violin is often arresting. Ernest Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is arresting. All of these Beautiful objects of perception have “IT,” that is, they have radiance.

Aristotle lists courage as the first virtue in his list of about thirteen virtues (or excellences) in the Nicomachean Ethics. Courageous acts resulting in death of the actor are often invested with radiance. The sacrifice by a soldier of his life to shield his comrades from the explosion of a hand grenade thrown into their midst is an example. Consider the contrary, the ugly scenario. The soldier sees the grenade and runs over his comrades to escape the blast. They die and he dies with shrapnel in the back of his head. That is an ugly scene. This reminds one of the rule of the ancient Spartans: Come back with your shield or on it. To come back home without one’s shield means that one jettisoned his weapons and armor and ran from the battle. The ultimate shame for a Spartan.

Plato says that the purpose of philosophy is to learn how to die. Perhaps an updated statement would be that the purpose of philosophy is to learn how to live beautifully.

The discovery of the relationship between the Beautiful and ethical action is empowering. We now understand how it is that ethical action is an end in itself, a long sought after philosophical goal. We have a tool for analyzing ethical action and we will be able to specify ethical behavior in various hypothetical situations in future essays. Our new power is a Beautiful thing.

To be continued.

The Political Copernican Revolution

The general belief is that the national legislature acts in the best interests of the people. The meaning of “the people” usually means those who are thought to be the “meek” or those in particular need or helpless. This idea is rooted in our Christian tradition. We are programmed from birth to approve “helping the poor.” “Helping the poor” is the core of Christianity, our national religion. In this note, I propose to overturn this common belief about the intention of legislation. Recall that Copernicus corrected the mistaken belief that the Earth was the center of the solar system. I will argue that “helping the poor” is merely a plausible cover story. The true beneficiaries of most government programs are powerful constituencies with good lobbyists and effective communications systems.

As a preliminary matter, let us distinguish between a totalitarian system and a free society. A totalitarian system, as the name implies, concerns itself with the totality, with the entire domain of human action. In a totalitarian system there is no realm of human action that is exempt from government intrusion. In a free society, areas of privacy are reserved to individuals. There are two domains of human action in a free society, the public and the private. The government of a free society concerns itself with the public domain and leaves individuals free to act within the private domain. Obviously, the private domain can be small or large. The general tendency of government is a slow encroachment over time of the zone of privacy culminating in a totalitarian system. Please note that a totalitarian system can have benign face or a malicious one. The American, mostly totalitarian, system has a benign face in the eyes of most Americans.

In the zones of privacy, individuals are free to choose and act in accordance with their choices. When the individual makes mistakes, he bears the consequences for his actions. An indication of a growing totalitarian system is the unwillingness of the government to allow the individual to suffer the consequences of his free choice. The cost of government interference with the negative consequence (think of this as a “bail out”) is used to justify eliminating the zone of privacy. For example, the freedom to ride a motorcycle without a helmet is said to cause public expenditures because the head-damaged rider is a burden on the public health system. Therefore, the totalitarian argument goes, the rider must be denied the freedom to choose not to wear a helmet. States are divided on this issue. Given the progressive nature of totalitarianism, though, soon all states will require helmets.

This example brings us to an important point: the analysis of a government regulation in the context of public or private does not depend on the wisdom of the regulation. Many people would agree that it is wise to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle. But that is not the question if the area of action is in a zone of privacy. Privacy means not merely the right to choose the wise action, but the right to choose the unwise action and to suffer the consequences. This is the primary meaning of freedom.

So when evaluating a law, the first consideration is not whether it is wise or unwise. The first question is: is the zone of human action sought to be controlled a zone of privacy or a public zone?

Obviously, as the totalitarian state progresses, more and more zones of privacy affect public matters and there is a natural acceleration to complete totalitarianism. In the motorcycle helmet law case, the existence of free government health care permits the unwise motorcyclist to escape one of the possible consequences of his foolishness: catastrophic injury without government provided health care. Of course, in a free society, the helmetless rider would be free to purchase (or not) insurance to cover catastrophic injuries.

How are the public / private zones of human action defined? The current method is democracy. Individuals of diverse backgrounds and education are elected to public office as legislators. They are not elected because they are good legislators, usually, but because they are good liars. They are able to convince broad constituencies that the legislator is very interested in the special interests of all his groups, even when those special interests are in direct conflict. When in office, the legislators propose legislation based upon their own interests and those of their constituencies without regard to philosophical considerations such as totalitarianism versus free society or public versus private zones of action.

The question "how are the public / private zones of human action defined?" is perhaps thepolitical question. My answer is “mind your own business.” This is Plato’s answer. A brief defense of the answer is this: Each of us is most interested in his own survival and flourishing. We are closest to the particular circumstances that are relevant to all of our life choices and thus best able to make the right choice to insure our survival and flourishing. Thus, if the goal is life, I should mind my own business and you yours. My business is my personal flourishing. Your business is your own personal flourishing. We come together in the interest of personal flourishing to trade the product of our individual effort. We form governments to protect our property and resolve disputes that arise in our trading. Our governments defend us from foreign attacks. The functions of government are the police, the courts, and the army. Period. This is the Libertarian position. The other extreme would be the various totalitarian systems in which the government controls all property and all human action down to the smallest detail.

With that background, let us return to my political Copernican Revolution. Our present system, on the road to serfdom, is a system of crony capitalism. People with access to the legislature influence the legislature to serve their monetary interests.

Every profession participates in this system of crony capitalism: doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, accountants, and on down the chain of professions to beauticians in some states. Large industries participate: agriculture, the airlines, the rail roads, the oil industry, the banks, pharmaceutical companies, the medical industry at large, universities, climatologists, the so-called military industrial complex, etc. Of course, unions are major players in the game of crony capitalism. Everybody with money is a potential participant in crony capitalism.

Even onion farmers in Georgia participate. It is a felony to label the wrong onion a “Vidalia” onion in Georgia. Do not misunderstand. I am not criticizing trademark protection in general. I am criticizing a special industry specific law that protects a favored South Georgia constituency with a unique law. The reason for the special law is not to protect consumers. There are many other general consumer protection laws that do that, including other trademark laws. The reason for the law is to protect a special, preferred group to maintain their monopoly in hope that their profits will be protected. (Note that there is no special law making it a felony to label a “Pepsi” a “Coke” in Georgia.) This exemplifies the political Copernican Revolution being explained in this note. The consumer is not the center of the universe in this example. The onion farmer is the center of the universe.

Lawyers are protected in their profession by laws prohibiting the unlicensed practice of law. The requirements to become a lawyer are quite onerous. The practice of law is well protected. The stated reason is the protection of clients from incompetent non-lawyers. Again, the center of this universe is not really the client, but the lawyer. The consequence is the very high cost of legal services. Is anybody really worth $600 per hour?

Most laws, beyond those laws that have been on the books for centuries (murder, rape, armed robbery, theft), are for the benefit of a moneyed constituency. The national legislature is in session all year round solely for the purpose of crafting legislation to benefit, not “the people,” but to benefit various moneyed constituencies. The consequence to “the people” for endless legislation is higher costs on every front.

Let me provide examples.

The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) was created in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The goal stated goal was to stop terrorists from capturing airplanes and turning them into airborne missiles. The reason now is alleged to be the protection of passengers on each flight from death by terrorist. But why not protect passengers on buses or trains or ships from this low risk event. (No doubt our totalitarian system would do this if they had the money.) The real motive of the TSA is to remove a cost from the income/expense statement of the airlines. The Government takeover of airline security is a substantial benefit to the bottom line of the airline industry. (The TSA is funded by taxpayers, by a fee collected on round trip tickets, and by a fee paid by the airlines based upon year 2000 domestic screening costs.) Recall that the airlines received a financial bailout after 9-11. In a free society, the airlines would have paid for that failure, fair or not.

The political Copernican Revolution suggests that the TSA is about a crony capitalism benefit to the airline industry more than it is about passenger security.

Another example: we all know that medical costs are through the roof. Have you ever considered that this is an intended result of government regulation of health care? Medicare and Medicaid are alleged to be altruistic systems to help the poor and elderly pay their medical costs. What they actually are is payment mechanisms for the medical industry.

My theory is that almost all legislation is intended to benefit some point on the balance sheet or income/expense statement of a moneyed constituency. The government programs Medicaid and Medicare impact the gross income line of doctors and hospitals. The medical system is almost completely totalitarian at present, so it is difficult for some to imagine what it would look like in a free society. First of all, doctors (like lawyers) would not have a monopoly on providing medical services. Most parents, by the time their children are 10-years-old are fully trained in childhood diseases and could safely treat most of them. In a free society, as in many third-world countries today, a parent could to walk into a grocery store without a prescription and by "the pink stuff" (amoxicillin) to treat his child’s earache. All routine pediatric care would be reduced to the cost of a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

Certainly, highly trained, and therefore expensive, professionals would continue to be needed. But they too would face enormous price pressure by competing former physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and competent lay persons.

Consider this example. You may be aware that the purchase of high dollar diagnostic equipment is controlled by the government. An entrepreneur cannot just go buy a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine without a certificate of need from the Georgia Department of Community Health. The sole reason for this law is to protect the price that a particular provider can charge for a procedure on a patient by holding down the supply of the service. In the absence of this law, entrepreneurs would purchase MRI machines like pharmacies purchased photo developing machines for their stores decades ago. Of course, very few of us use these photo services now because the technology has moved beyond them. But in the MRI case, the cost per procedure would fall from $3,000 per procedure to $10 probably. And like the photo machines, new technology would come along and the MRI would be history, too. Because the government forbids this normal process of market development, we still pay a fortune for diagnostic MRI tests.

The medical industry is a complete mess. The mess is the product of crony capitalism. I think it is probably impossible to fix because these service providers are held in such high esteem. No legislator or voter would move to fix the system. The only solution is the unique geographic circumstance that created freedom in America in the first instance. People moved to the East coast from Europe in our early centuries seeking freedom. As government regulations increased on the East coast people moved westward toward more freedom. Further movement is not possible. It is no longer possible to move away from totalitarian systems and into areas of freedom. We are doomed to achieve full totalitarianism.

I would rather not end with a medical example because I have (or had?) many doctor friends.

Consider the minimum wage law, a law whose stated purpose is to increase the wages of the poor. The unemployment rate for teenagers is over 40 percent at this writing. Teenagers have been priced out of the employment by this “well-intended” law. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Is it better to have no job, than to have a job under the minimum wage? No one in his right mind can claim that the minimum wage law benefits teenagers. The law simply makes it illegal to employ people in work that is worth less than $7.25 to perform. Stated again another way, it is illegal for two people to trade one hour of labor for less than $7.25 even if the transaction is completely voluntary, sorely needed, and urgently sought by both parties. The true beneficiary of this law is the unions that benefit from a reduction in the work force. The union members eliminate thousands of competitors from the work force. A more vicious law is not on the books.

Finally, consider the War on Drugs. The political Copernican Revolution explanation for this law escaped me for some time. While it is undeniably wise to avoid habitual intoxication, in what way is it my business that a person chooses habitual intoxication? Common answers are physical danger (e.g. driving under the influence) and the burden on the public health care system. These problems are easily solved by providing harsh penalties for people who hurt or kill others while intoxicated and by eliminating all public health care. A consideration of the consequences of the American experiment with Prohibition in the 1930s ought to be enough to do away with the War on Drugs. So what sustains this terrible policy? Who are the beneficiaries? Criminal defense attorneys? I do this work, yet I advocate full repeal of all drug laws. None of my colleagues would say that they like the War on Drugs becausethey make a living by it. Some might have sympathy of the War on Drugs for the standard reasons that any citizen might give. Judges, prosecutors, police, prison guards, and the prison system all are provided with “product” (“product” means the people who violate the drug laws and are caught to be processed by the system) and therefore their living as a consequence of the War on Drugs. I do not think that any of these would articulate job security as a factor in their support of the War on Drugs. I think the real beneficiaries of the War on Drugs are pharmaceutical companies. Can you imagine the loss of revenue if a person could legally self-medicate for bi-polar disease, depression, cancer, or whatever, by using very cheap and unregulated drugs, like medical marijuana? Billions of dollars in profit for the pharmaceutical companies are at stake. These companies can hirer all the professional and degreed apologists they need to keep a gullible public and greedy legislatures fooled as to the real reason for the War on Drugs.

This problem, too, is unlikely to be solved in our lifetimes. People love to meddle in the lives of others. “Mind your own business” is not a widely held virtue in America.

The political Copernican Revolution teaches that we should not believe legislators when they tell us that their new law is “for the children,” “for grandma,” “for the needy,” “to save the planet,” or “to save the consumer.” Without exception, new laws are designed to provide an economic benefit for a moneyed constituency. The named beneficiary is merely a cover story to provide a plausible excuse for fleecing the public or a competitor.

Lessons from Plato's Republic

The Republic of Plato is a sacred text. For anyone interested in political philosophy or philosophy in general there is no more important text for study. As Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) said: “Western philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Plato.” Because Plato is so important to an understanding of philosophy, we are working through The Republic of Plato in a series of ten lectures over ten months in Adult Sunday School before FORum.

Each of us is born into this world tabula rasa, a blank slate. Every generation must completely relearn all the lessons of history. Our present educational system does not value the lessons of Plato and so, if we are to learn from this source of human wisdom—the most important—we have to choose to do so as adults. In order to persuade you to direct your soul in the direction of wisdom, I offer these few lessons from The Republic of Plato. Just a taste.

Lesson 1 (Cephalus): Cephalus (328c-331e) is an old man whose interrogation by Socrates begins the dialog with the question, what is justice? Socrates says, “I am really delighted to discuss with the very old,” a notably rude opening. Cephalus responds to Socrates inquiry about what it is like to be old by saying that he, Cephalus, is glad to be rid of “many mad masters.” The “many mad masters” are the various human desires like sex, honor, victory, money, freedom, love, and, as we shall see, wisdom. Cephalus, talking about his great wealth, observes that “the possession of money contributes a great deal to not cheating or lying.” Socrates takes this as an assertion that justice is the truth and giving back. Socrates refutes the definition (which Socrates himself imposed upon Cephalus) by counter example. “Everyone would surely say that if a man takes weapons from a friend when the latter is of sound mind, and the friend demands them back when he is mad, one shouldn’t give back such things.” Being refuted, Cephalus departs with the words, “It’s already time for me to look after the sacrifices.” Cephalus is not an erotic man. His desires (the many mad masters), being an old man, have faded. Cephalus is not suited for philosophy. The lesson is this: Philosophy is an erotic desire and requires for its pursuit erotic young men and women. Only men and women of extraordinary erotic desire are suitable for philosophy.

Lesson 2 (Cleitophon): Here is a lesson from Plato that is completely overlooked except by careful study. Cleitophon (340a–340c) is a character who appears briefly in Book I. He enters the dialog hoping to save Thrasymachus, the sophist, who has asserted that “justice is the advantage of the stronger,” from dialogic defeat by Socrates. Thrasymachus has proposed that justice is doing what the ruler commands, in other words, justice consists simply in following the law, a position known as legal positivism. Socrates gets Thrasymachus to admit that sometimes the ruler makes a bad law that does harm (an injustice in this definition) to the ruler. Thus the conclusion follows that such a law does not advantage the stronger and the justice test fails by internal contradiction. Cleitophon proposes to modify the definition of justice to state that justice, or the advantage of the stronger, is simply “what the stronger believes to be his advantage.” In other words, there is no reality (there is no real “advantage of the stronger” to which Socrates has gotten Thrasymachus to admit), just opinion. Cleitophon is a complete relativist. “If I say that this beer mug is a hammer, then it is a hammer,” says the complete relativist. Even Thrasymachus dismissed Cleitophon with four words, “Not in the least.” Cleitophon is never heard from again in the dialog. The lesson is this: complete relativists exist, but they cannot be admitted into the sacred presence of philosophy. When a relativist is identified in our midst, do not give him the time of day! There is no point talking with the complete relativist as no meeting of the minds (“What’s a mind?” he might ask) is possible, except for nihilism, the belief in nothing, but even that cannot be pinned down precisely.

Lesson 3 (justice defined): “The practice of minding one’s own business … is probably justice.” Book IV, 433b. While the entire dialog (327a-621d) must be understood to fully appreciate the definition, I find Socrates’ conclusion extremely appealing. Justice, using my own language, is the protection by government of private property by law. The business of government is to protect the rights of individuals, including the rights to life, liberty, and property. The business of the individual is to secure his own life and property under law using his reasoning mind, and the labor of his own body. The method the individual uses to secure his own life and property is productive work and trade. The lesson is this: mind your own business. Oh, happy words!

Lesson 4 (education defined): The entire work is an exercise in education. Socrates is educating, mainly Glaucon, but certainly all of his auditors and interlocutors. Plato is educating his readership. “Education is not what the professions of certain men assert it to be … that they put into the soul knowledge that isn’t in it, as though they were putting sight into blind eyes.” Rather, the capacity to learn “is in the soul of each, and that the instrument with which each learns—just as an eye is not able to turn toward the light from the dark without the whole body—must be turned around from that which is coming into being together with the whole soul until it is able to endure looking at that which is and the brightest part of that which is. And we affirm that this is the good, don’t we.” “There would … be an art of this turning around, concerned with the way in which this power can most easily and efficiently be turned around, not an art of producing sight in it. Rather, this art takes as given that sight is there, but not rightly turned nor looking at what it ought to look at, and accomplishes this object.” Book VII, 518c. This holy passage tells us that education is the art of turning around the soul of a man from the particular to the general, from instances to concepts. Plato urges us to find the principle of a thing and to act from that principle. The lesson is this: education is the art of turning around a soul from the instances of things (“that which is coming into being”) to the principle of things (“that which is”).

Lesson 5 (the art of education): “The free man ought not to learn any study slavishly. Forced labors performed by the body don’t make the body any worse, but no forced study abides in a soul.” Book VII, 536d. The Republic of Plato is a dialog. It is a play. Plato is teaching us by play. He is playing with us. Among the playful things in the work are these: (1) The suggestion that we must do away with Homer (The Iliad and The Odyssey: “We’ll beg Homer and the other poets not to be harsh if me strike out these and all similar things.” 387b) (2) The suggestion that the population must be told a noble lie (all men are brothers born of the earth with different proportions of gold, silver, iron and bronze defining the classes of rulers, guardians, and workers. 414c) (3). The suggestion that private property be abolished (“No one will possess any private property.” 416d) (4) The suggestion that women and children must be held in common (“The possession of women, marriage, and procreation of children must as far as possible be arranged according to the proverb that friends have all things in common.” 424a). (5) The suggestion that the best and brightest young people must be tricked into proper breeding by a fake lottery (“Certain subtle lots must be fabricated so that the ordinary man will blame chance rather than the rulers for each union.” 460a) (6) The suggestion that all persons over ten years old must be ejected from the City (“All those in the city who happen to be older than ten they will send out into the country.” 541a) None of these suggestions are truly intended. These outrageous ideas are whacks on the head, jabs in the gut, and slaps across the jaw designed to “turn us around” so that we will see the light of truth. The lesson is this: Education comes best through play.

Lesson 6 (Plato never wrote out his philosophy): This lesson comes from reading other dialogues, most importantly the Phaedrus. Socrates: “You know, Phaedrus, that’s the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words: they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever. And once a thing is put in writing the composition, whatever it may be, drifts all over the place, getting into the hands not only of those who understand it, but equally of those who have no business with it; it doesn’t know how to address the right people, and not address the wrong. And when it is ill-treated and unfairly abused it always needs its parent to come to its help, being unable to defend or help itself.” 275e. The lesson is this: philosophy is not for everyone.

Philosophy is not for everyone. She is not for those who have lost the eroticism of youth. She is not for those who cannot take a joke. She is not for those who do not have time for her. She is not for those who are too rigid to be “turned around.” She is not for those who do not recognize the existence of a reality beyond the present content of their own limited souls.

If philosophy is for you, She is ready, willing, and waiting; and She is beautiful.

Naked Body Scans by the TSA

Response by Martin L. Cowen III to “The TSA is Keeping the Skies Safe” by Gabriel Schoenfeld

I respectfully disagree with Mr. Schoenfeld’s defense of the TSA’s new, intrusive security measures.

Like all new legislation, the new rules are about money and power. The so-called necessity of any new rule or law is always hidden behind a rationale of the form: “Save the children (or whatever)!” The airlines get the money by transferring the cost and responsibility for passenger and property security to the Government as well as the cost of a catastrophic loss in the rare case of failure. The Government gets the power by subjecting innocent people to strip searches and full law enforcement pat downs. If the “herd” of airlines passengers will accept this, they will accept anything, thus unlimited power to the TSA. This argument will not persuade my readers, though, because the fact of legislation is so common and obvious, like the air we breathe, that it will not be noticed.

Neither will the argument from the Nazis, that is a favorite of mine, persuade many readers. I have always wondered how the Nazis got an entire population of Jews to submit to slaughter by walking into gas chambers. One answer, I imagine, is that their human dignity was degraded in a series of small humiliating abuses over many years. How much farther can the TSA go in human degradation now: rectal exams, vaginal searches? There is almost no further violation of human dignity that I can imagine that does not involve the infliction of actual pain. I am thinking of waterboarding passengers prior to takeoff. I do not think that even apologists like Mr. Schoenfeld would tolerate waterboarding to screen out potential terrorists, even though it would improve his sacred safety.

Perhaps more persuasive will be pointing out that picking the two hundred passengers (there were only 40 passengers on Flight 93) on an airplane to protect with excessively intrusive measures seems odd. Perhaps there is something in the human psyche relating to death in a small space from which there is no easy escape that strikes particular fear in the human heart. We all remember the little girl, “Baby Jessica,” rescued from a well in October 1987. Action adventure fiction provides many examples of victim rich targets for extermination by terrorists that are not airplanes. Thankfully, the mall does not do body cavity searches, yet.

And, how often is this argument heard? The passengers on Flight 93 fought back and thwarted the terrorists. The three other flights of 911 passengers did not. The passivity of the other 911 passengers, whose planes reached the terrorists’ goals, is a direct result of the policies of the Federal Government. In the absence of the “one size fits all” Government mandated “passive approach” to hijackers, there might have been Todd Beamers (one of the Flight 93 heroes who fought back against the terrorists) on the other 911 flights. The Government wants passive, obedient passengers. The Government does not like “Todd Beamers.” The passivity of passengers willing to accept any abuse by authority, legitimate or not, is precisely what is being counted on by the TSA to win the current battle to enforce its massive degradation of human dignity. The several recent victories (the underwear bomber and the shoe bomber) against airline terrorism have been the result of aggressive passenger response to suspicious behavior, not something favored by the bureaucrats at the TSA. Mr. Schoenfeld is the spokesperson for the passive. Being a bureaucrat means never having to say you are sorry and we can be sure that no bureaucrat will be sorry for having created a passive airline ridership, thus allowing 911 to be as effective as it was.

I have a dream. I dream that the escalators leading down to the passenger transportation tunnel at ATL are free from TSA employees and equipment. I dream of free people, traveling freely at the Atlanta airport, some with tickets, some without, who just enjoy the hubbub of people moving about and like watching the airplanes.

The scaredy-cats wonder, how can we ever travel safely without the TSA? The answer is this: Do not disempower the Todd Beamers among us. You scaredy-cats like Mr. Schoenfeld, who know your profound inability to provide for your own self-defense or action in defense of others, do not make up the entire population. There are a great many Todd Beamers among us. They will protect us. In fact, the only reason you scaredy-cats count at all is the fact that you have a vote. You are no use to people who want to live freely. You are of use only to politicians who want to exploit your weakness and your fear (“Save the children!”) in order to obtain your vote. You do not care about limitations upon your freedom. Only the Todd Beamers, those who are capable of independent living, care about their freedom.

My final argument is an argument from morality, which will persuade almost no one! Plato defined justice as minding your own business. The business of Government is to provide for defense against foreign invaders, to provide courts for the resolution of disputes, and to provide a police force to arrest wrongdoers. The task of emergency self-defense, in our homes and businesses, belongs to each of us as individuals. The business of protecting its passengers and its property belongs to the airlines. Front-line personal property protection is not a Government function. If these principles were applied, all airlines would be responsible for providing their own security. The extremes of action might be two different types of airlines, one called “Noble Airlines,” for the Todd Beamers of the world, and the other airline called “Sheep Airlines,” for Mr. Schoenfeld and his ilk. Those like Mr. Schoenfeld, who live in fear, could travel Sheep Airlines and be subject to body cavity searches. The Todd Beamers of the worlds, who are capable of self-defense, could travel Noble Airlines, where we could board and travel the wide world unmolested and with full human dignity. The market place would determine which airline would be successful. However, these two choices would not define the only options. Human ingenuity would provide dozens, perhaps hundreds, of innovative solutions to airline security, most of which we cannot even imagine. None of which will be realized so long as Mr. Shoenfeld’s views prevail.

The sheep of the world, like Mr. Schoenfeld, currently rule the world. Sheep have more votes. My only choice is to avoid flying all together. I was greatly offended by having to remove my belt and shoes to board the airlines. Electronic strip searches and full law enforcement pat downs exceed the limit of my toleration. A thug is still a thug, even when he is smiling, recites his TSA script well, asserts that it is for my own good, and is of the same sex during the assault. I will drive from now on, take the ship, or stay at home. Unfortunately, I am confident that the sheep will not miss me.