Some central elements of Socratic Political Theory, D. Morrison. A Review

Literature Review from the year 2016 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the Ancient World, grade: 81, Durham University, language: English, abstract: 'Some Central Elements of Socratic Political Theory' is an article which explores a controversial and sometimes neglected topic, Socratic political theory, in 'the narrow and the wider sense', which means as it started with Socrates and as Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics developed it. Published in Polis in 2001, the article was written by Donald Morrison, Professor of Philosophy and Classical Studies at Rice University, whose research interests include Socrates, ancient political philosophy and ancient philosophical method. Morrison takes part in the ongoing scholarly discussion about the topic by presenting a peculiar interpretation of the key concepts of Socratic political theory, statesmanship and the good of the city. Overall, Morrison is quite optimistic about the possibilities that Socratic political theory opens up. His main theses are that (i) the human good does not consist entirely in virtue; (ii) dialectic is needed to make people happy, yet it is not the only way of making people better (iii) political means such as punishment and nomoi can actually improve the citizens (iv) Socratic political theory implies some sort of Rational Beneficence. In the first and longest section, Morrison first reconciles Socratic Intellectualism with a political theory which acknowledges the utility of political instruments. Second, he analyses and solves the illusory clash between Socrates claims regarding his political activity in Gorgias 521d and in Apology 31e: Socrates does promote the good of the polis, but in a non-political way. In the second section, Morrison considers some aspects in which Socratic political theories differ, such as whether there is a single art of ruling and what is the appropriate field for beneficent action. In the third section, Morrison addresses the question of political motivation: why should anyone want to be a statesman? Morrison rejects Rational Egoism and argues in favour of Rational Beneficence on the grounds of the semantics of pure properties . The last section resembles a continuation of the previous one. Morrison re-interprets Rational Beneficence in the light of Aristotle s patriotic reading of human action: the good of the polis is the most important criterion of choice.