Praising the Unjust: The Moral Psychology of Patriotism in Plato’s Protagoras

The “Unwilling Praise” Passage

Socrates spends the bulk of the interpretive interlude addressing Simonides’s related claims that virtue is unstable and that moral perfection is impossible for human beings. Thus, anyone willing to praise only the fully virtuous would be left without anyone to praise at all. Simonides, then, permits himself to praise those who manage to avoid intentionally committing injustices. ^[4] Since he praises people for a living, he would be left penniless if his standards were too high. The relevant Simonides lines rendered naturally are:

But I praise and love all who do nothing shameful willingly. Necessity, not even the gods can fight (347d2-5).

πάντας δ’ ἐπαίνημι καὶ φιλέω

ἑκὼν ὅστις ἕρδῃ

μηδὲν αἰσχρόν· ἀνάγκῃ δ’ οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται·

The natural reading of the first sentence is that Simonides praises and loves anyone who does nothing wrong willingly. ^[5] Those who do wrong willingly are unsuitable objects for Simonides’s praise, since they intended their shameful action. Their purpose was in fact to kill, destroy property, or set themselves up as tyrants. On the other hand, some people do the wrong thing unwillingly, whether due to unfortunate circumstances, physical coercion, or non-culpable ignorance. People in this latter camp presumably remain possible subjects for Simonides’s praise. For example, those who comport themselves admirably when voluntarily doing something under duress that would otherwise be immoral might actually be praiseworthy. This is not, on its face, an indefensible view. ^[6]

Socrates, however, thinks the natural reading of the passage must be mistaken, since it suggests that Simonides believes people actually can do wrong willingly. Socrates famously argues that no one can do wrong willingly (Prot. 352c2-7; 358b6-c1), and in this context, he contends that anyone who possesses wisdom must agree with him. If Simonides were truly wise, then he would not distinguish between people who act unjustly willingly and unwillingly, since everyone acts unjustly unwillingly. ^[7] Simonides would be drawing a distinction without a difference. Socrates, then, explains why Simonides cannot be making such a significant error:

For Simonides was not so uneducated as to claim to praise those who do nothing wrong willingly. For I think probably none of the wise men believe that any person errs (ἐξαμαρτάνειν) willingly or does something shameful or wrong willingly, but they know well that all who do shameful or wrong things are doing them unwillingly

(345d6-e4).

Socrates’ reading, though, introduces a new interpretive hurdle. Specifically, he has to figure out what to do with the “willingly”, since it is right there in the text of the poem. Unless he erases it, he must explain its presence. He clearly does not want to apply the “willingly” to the person who acts rightly or wrongly, but he is not so brazen as to suggest excising it from the text. He decides, then, that the “willingly” must apply to Simonides himself, or any other person who chooses whom to praise. Instead of attaching the “willingly” to the object of praise, Socrates attaches it to the person doing the praising. According to Socrates, the first sentence should read:

But I willingly praise and love all those who do nothing shameful.

On this new reading, Simonides willingly praises everyone who does nothing shameful, thereby preserving his supposed commitment to the Socratic claim that no one does wrong willingly. Socrates alters the natural reading of the text by translating it as a hyperbaton. Note, however, that Socrates now seems to have turned the sentence into a relatively tame claim. Socrates could stop there.

Socrates does not stop there, however, since he decides to establish a contrast class of people Simonides does not praise. One intuitive option would be something along the lines of the following: “I refuse to praise and love those who do shameful things.” Even if people do shameful things unwillingly, we need not praise or love them. We might pity or resent them. Instead, Socrates hews unnecessarily close to the text by attributing a less intuitive inverse claim to Simonides – sometimes he unwillingly praises someone who has acted shamefully. As Socrates puts it, “there are some I praise and love unwillingly” (346e3-4). More importantly, Socrates claims that Simonides thinks there are some people we are morally obligated to praise and love unwillingly, at least in certain circumstances. Socrates discusses these circumstances at some length:

And so Simonides also does not say he praises the one who does nothing wrong willingly, but he means “the willingly” to be about himself. For he believed that a fine and good man often forces himself (αὑτὸν ἐπαναγκάζειν) to love and to praise someone; for example, a man often happens to have an utterly grotesque mother or father or country or something else of that sort. When worthless men have a relationship of this sort, it’s as if they are glad to see, and make a big display of censuring and denouncing the vice of their parents or country. In order that others will not draw attention to their own neglect of them or reproach them for it, they blame them even more and add voluntary hostility to what is necessary. Good men, on the other hand, conceal it and force themselves to offer praise (ἐπαινεῖν ἀναγκάζεσθαι), and if they’re irritated because they suffer some injustice from their father or country, they exhort themselves and reconcile (αὐτοὺς ἑαυτοὺς παραμυθεῖσθαι καὶ διαλλάττεσθαι), forcing themselves to love and praise their own (προσαναγκάζοντας ἑαυτοὺς φιλεῖν τοὺς ἑαυτῶν καὶ ἐπαινεῖν.) I think Simonides often himself believed that he praised and extolled a tyrant or someone of that sort not willingly, but from compulsion

(345e4-346b8).^[8]

Socrates’ interpretation attributes two claims to Simonides. In the remainder of the paper, I show that we have textual and philosophical reasons to think Socrates himself endorses both claims. First, Socrates’ interpretation suggests that people who have been treated unjustly by their family or country should sometimes respond, counter-intuitively, with praise. When they have suffered “injustice from their father or country,” they nevertheless “love and praise” their own. They must do more than suffer the injustice quietly; they should force themselves to praise the aggressor, and to do otherwise is wrong. ^[9] If, as I argue, Socrates endorses the view he attributes to Simonides, he should sometimes praise Athens even when it commits injustice, perhaps including putting him to death. Praising an unjust city seems sufficiently counterintuitive that one might resist thinking Socrates would ever consider it a moral obligation. However, I argue that it squares with some important instances in which Socrates appears to praise Athens, even after suffering injustice or committing injustice himself in service to the Athenian military.

Second, Socrates’ interpretation shows that the ethical burden to praise one’s unjust city is not light, even (or especially) for the virtuous person. Thus, the virtuous person must “force” himself to praise the city (αὑτὸν ἐπαναγκάζειν, 345e7; ἐπαινεῖν ἀναγκάζεσθαι, 346b2; προσαναγκάζοντας ἑαυτοὺς, 346b4-5). His psychic control requires concealing and consoling his hurt feelings in order to satisfy the requirement to offer praise. Unlike what one might call the blind, unconflicted patriot who happily praises his city despite its immorality, the virtuous person praises despite the recognition of injustice. I will argue that Socrates endorses this view as well, even though it is at odds with popular interpretations of Socratic intellectualism and moral psychology. Some advocates of Socratic intellectualism deny even the possibility of simultaneous conflict between psychic elements like beliefs and desires, and most conceptions of Socratic virtue deny psychic conflict within the virtuous person. On this ‘harmony model’ of virtue, the virtuous person recognizes the right thing to do and desires to do it. However, if Socrates agrees with the claims he attributes to Simonides, the continent person is sometimes praiseworthy, since he does the right thing while nevertheless desiring to do otherwise.

In order to avoid pinning a problematic view of political praise on Socrates and to preserve Socratic intellectualism, charitable readers might conclude that Socrates rejects both claims. Instead, Socrates could simply be calling attention to Simonides’ business of accepting money for composing praise poems for tyrants, while simultaneously demonstrating the hollowness of textual interpretation. I argue that on balance, the interpretive and philosophical payoffs of attributing these views to Socrates outweigh the significant costs of thinking he rejects them. First, the view that one should praise one’s unjust city neatly coheres with some of the interpretively vexing passages in which Socrates praises Athens, even after having suffered or been complicit in injustice. Second, it opens up an ethically nuanced reading of Socrates’ attitude towards his own ethically dubious involvement in Athens’ imperial wars and indiscriminate military tactics. If Socrates were not conflicted, he would happily accept praise for serving imperial Athens under unjust military commanders on military campaigns that targeted civilians. In the next three brief sections, then, I address how Socrates’ reading of the Simonides passage contributes to a consistent solution to puzzles involving the Crito, the Menexenus, and Socrates’ morally troubling military record.

Praising the Unjust City in the Crito

Despite his celebrated civil disobedience in the Apology, Socrates (in the voice of the “Laws”) argues in the Crito that any citizen who fails to persuade the legal authority to alter a law must obey it – citizens must “persuade or obey” (Cri. 51b1-2; 52b9-c1). Apart from the unsavory ethical ramifications of absolute obedience to the law, some readers consider Socrates’ arguments directly at odds with his own account of his resistance to following unjust laws and his commitment to philosophy over civil authority. In the Apology, he praises his failed attempts to convince Athens not to execute the generals of the Battle of Arginusae (Ap. 32a9-32c3). He also notes that he refused to bring in Leon of Salamis for prosecution by the Thirty Tyrants (Ap. 32c4-e1). ^[10] Instead of complying, he “went home.” In both cases, Socrates recognizes that he could have been put to death for resisting.

The Speech of the Laws in the Crito, then, appears to many readers to be an about face. Socrates, having met his obligation to try to convince the jury of his innocence and their injustice, claims that he would wrongfully disobey the laws of Athens if he escaped prison to save his life. Socrates’ overriding commitment to the rule of civil law is itself worrisome for ethical reasons, at least outside the ideal state. But worse, he also offers a string of what many readers consider bad arguments in support of his thesis, which raises additional concern about his philosophical acumen. Socrates generally prides himself on his dedication to rational argument without concern for anything other than justice and the truth, so it seems strange that he would offer philosophically weak arguments in the Crito that might require endorsing or actively engaging in injustice when commanded to do so by law. Either he is disingenuous or authoritarian, neither of which seems desirable.

In order to escape the charge of authoritarianism, one popular resolution to Socrates’ apparent contradiction on the matter of civil disobedience has been to deny that Socrates endorses the argument of the Laws at all. ^[11] Instead, perhaps he sets out the argument of the Laws to implicitly contrast its views with his own, despite leaving at best subtle hints that he disagrees. Socrates’ final reference to the Corybantic rites, for example, might indicate that he does not consider the speech of the Laws to reflect his own philosophical commitments. ^[12] Alternately, he might intentionally offer bad arguments to comfort Crito and anyone else who lacks the sophistication to understand or accept the real reason Socrates refuses to escape. His arguments might console his disappointed, though philosophically unsophisticated peers. Distancing Socrates from the arguments of the Laws, then, seems like a charitable account of Socrates’ poor argumentation and defense of authoritarianism.

I have no ambition to settle this dispute, but I do want to suggest an alternative resolution. On my reading, Socrates endorses his speech, but he would prefer to not make it. Consider the interesting parallels between the speech of the Laws and the Simonides passage from the Protagoras. The Laws claim that every citizen must do the city’s bidding because the city stands in as civic parent, and Socrates is the city’s “offspring and servant” (50e3-4). The Laws remind Socrates of his relationship with his biological parents: it was impermissible “to do in return what you suffered, to contradict when chastened, to strike back when struck, or many other such things” (50e9-51a2). Socrates should hold his city in even more reverence; he should “worship it, submit to it, and sooth its anger” (51b2-3). The Laws tell Socrates that he must be willing not only to accept imprisonment and beatings, but also to obey the city’s order to go to war:

[I]f it leads you into war to be wounded or killed, you must do it, and that is what is just. And one must not yield or retreat or abandon one’s post, but in war and in the courts and everywhere else, one must do whatever one’s city or country orders, or persuade it about the nature of justice

(51b4-c1).

As in the Protagoras, then, Socrates draws a direct parallel between one’s obligation not to retaliate against one’s unjust parents and one’s obligation to endure the slights and injustices of one’s country. One must even follow orders to go to war. When directed to risk wounds or death, one must follow the orders of the military commanders appointed by the city. The Laws themselves confirm Socrates’ military record and civic commitment by reminding him that the only reason he has travelled from the city is for military campaigns (52b).

Note also that Socrates is not enduring injustice silently, but with a great deal of praise of Athens and its laws, a city governed by laws that allowed his fellow citizens to sentence him to an unjust death. The Laws do not simply explain why Socrates should stay in prison, but they extol Athens as a hospitable place for marriage, childhood education, and festivities. According to the Laws, Socrates’ history of submission to civic obligations and preference for residing in Athens serves as evidence of his willingness to accept their rules and enjoy their benefits. Though Socrates agrees whole-heartedly with Crito’s judgment that the verdict and sentence were unjust, the speech of the Laws contains a long-winded ode to the city and its government.

On my reading, Socrates does not contradict himself by acknowledging that the city has treated him unjustly, while also conceding that he should submit to the verdict and even praise Athens and its laws. Rather, he satisfies the moral standard outlined in the Protagoras to praise one’s father or city, even in response to suffering significant injustice. Socrates will be put to death unjustly, yet he controls his resentment in order to praise the structure and laws of the city responsible for putting him death. Again, he clearly recognizes that he has suffered injustice, so whatever praise he offers cannot arise from a delusion that he has actually been benefitted by the city. If Socrates had failed to control his resentment, however, he would have been doing wrong. ^[13] Thus, Socrates himself accepts the speech of the Laws as part of meeting a moral obligation, while not offering his praise whole-heartedly. He masters himself for the purposes of reconciliation. While he cannot directly reconcile with the city, he can demonstrate his reconciliation to Crito and, through Crito, to anyone who asks why Socrates chose to remain in prison.

This interpretation preserves some of the advantages of denying Socrates’ full sincerity, since he escapes being a blind patriot who docilely accepts his city’s orders as moral. It also, though, preserves some measure of sincerity, since he thinks he has a moral obligation to suppress his anger and offer reluctant praise in the spirit of reconciliation. So Socrates does actually express his own views, and he is not entirely insincere or possessed by irrational spirits. While he is not unconflicted, he does think he is doing the right thing.

In this section, I have suggested that the claims Socrates attributes to Simonides are consistent with a more nuanced response to the question of whether the speech of the Laws represents Socrates’ own views. In the next section, I show that his claims likewise illuminate a bizarre passage in the Menexenus that also recommends reconciliation after civic injustice. I then address the greater challenge of why readers are better served taking all of these passages as serious, though conflicted expressions of Socrates’ views, rather than as entirely insincere or mere parody.

Praising the Unjust City in the Menexenus

The Menexenus is Socrates’ own rendition of a funeral oration celebrating the military and political history of Athens. ^[14] Socrates claims to have heard the speech from Aspasia, who herself cobbled it together partially extemporaneously and partially from spare scraps of previous speeches. As in the Crito, then, the oration is both in and not in Socrates’ voice, which might again indicate that he somewhat distances himself from what he says, while nevertheless recognizing the importance of expressing such civic sentiments. The speech recounts Athens’s military exploits and the specific history of the tomb being celebrated, and it closes with advice to the bereaved and a reflection on the importance of civic memory.

However, the speech at best whitewashes the details of Athens’s military and political history, and is at worst a delusional account of the historical record. Socrates describes some battles as victories, even though they were spectacular defeats. Any recognized losses resulted from the fact that the Athenians were divided against themselves, not from the superiority of the opposing force. Describing an impressive loss, Socrates says, “We were conquered that day by our own faction, not by others. For we are until even now undefeated by others, but we bested and defeated ourselves” (243d4-7). Setting the military record aside, I here focus on Socrates’ strange account of the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants by the democrats of the Piraeus. As Plato’s readers would likely know, Plato’s cousin Critias was one of the Thirty Tyrants, and his uncle Charmides was responsible for overseeing the Piraeus. Xenophon identifies Critias as among the most ruthless of the Thirty (Mem. 1. 2. 12), who all together managed to kill and confiscate the wealth of as many as fifteen hundred of their fellow citizens. Both Critias and Charmides were killed while trying to defend the tyranny from the rebellious and eventually victorious democrats of the Piraeus. But in his account of the tyranny, the civil strife, and the subsequent amnesty, Socrates says:

How gladly and naturally did the citizens from the Piraeus and the city join forces, and how moderately did they fight against the party at Eleusis (against the expectations of the other Greeks)! And the cause of all of this was their true kinship (ῷ ὄντι συγγένεια), a steady friendship and shared nature (φιλίαν βέβαιον καὶ ὁμόφυλον) manifested not only in word, but in deed. We should also remember those who died in that war at the hands of others and reconcile them (διαλλάττειν αὐτοὺς), as much as we are able, through prayers and sacrifices, praying to those who have dominion over them, as we are ourselves are also reconciled (διηλλάγμεθα). For they did not attack one another from vice or enmity, but because of ill-fortune (δυστυχίᾳ). We the living are witnesses to this, for we, who are kin to them, have pardoned each other (συγγνώμην ἀλλήλοις) for the things we did and the things we suffered

(243e4-244b3).

We do not know whether Plato was more sympathetic with the democratic rebels (i. e. opposed to the tyrannical involvement of his relatives) or with the Tyrants themselves (i. e. opposed to the democrats who killed his relatives). ^[15] Either way, what happened was a violent civil war that Socrates depicts as a bad bit of luck motivated by brotherhood. He claims that all parties involved, both living and dead, should reconcile, leaving the city free to collectively praise itself despite a history of mutual aggression. In line with the Simonides passage, Socrates similarly recommends moving past injustices in order to “reconcile” and give praise. In both texts, Socrates uses διαλλάσσω to argue that one must seek reconciliation about past injustices between those who are related. The best way to express that desire for reconciliation and moral progress is to praise one’s city, even when one or more agents have acted unjustly.

Note also that Socrates’ emblematic claim that no one does wrong willingly lurks behind the denial of “wickedness or enmity” in the participants of the civil war. The citizens could not have taken up arms against one another willingly because that would be impossible. Instead, it was a result of “misfortune”. If we read the Protagoras and Menexenus passages as meaningfully parallel, we have an explanation for why Socrates massages history in the process of offering a speech of praise for a collective misfortune – it expresses Socrates’ philosophical commitment to civic reconciliation. No one involved committed injustice willingly, since whatever parties were unjust suffered from ignorance. Those who were wronged should suppress their hurt feelings in order to praise the city and move past the injustice. ^[16]

At this point, one might renew the complaint that the Menexenus is merely another parody of a genre worthy of derision that contains nothing of philosophical significance. ^[17] In the Protagoras, Socrates mocks Simonides’s willingness to make money by composing poems that praise those who are not virtuous; in the Menexenus, he mocks Pericles’ overblown patriotic rhetoric. We need not think either contributes much to our understanding of Socrates’ views on moral psychology and patriotism. They would instead, if anything, show us what sort of patriotism Socrates resents and articulate an ideal of civil conduct that Athens has left woefully unsatisfied. If Socrates likewise rejects the speech of the Laws, then the three passages at best tell us something, though perhaps very little, about his negative views.

In the next section, I introduce a worry about downplaying Socrates’ commitment to the ethical and political views contained in the three speeches. Namely, it is difficult to offer an account according to which Socrates’ eagerness to accept and give praise for military service in the imperialistic Athenian army is merely ironic and playful.

Praising Socrates’ Military Service

We know from Plato’s dialogues that Socrates served in a series of military campaigns, some of them exceptionally brutal. In the Apology, Socrates mentions that he nobly served at Potidaea, Delium, and Amphipolis, and he praises his own obedience to his commander and disregard for death (28d10-29a1). The dramatic opening of the Charmides depicts Socrates as just returning from the “camp at Potidaea.” He confirms to Chaerephon that “the battle was very violent and many of our acquaintances died” (153b9-c1). In the Laches, Laches praises Socrates for fighting bravely in retreat from Delium, where he was a testament “not only to his father but also his country” (181a7-b4). In the Symposium, Alcibiades praises Socrates at length for his military prowess and recounts a story of Socrates saving his life at Potidaea (220d5-e2). Like Laches, Alcibiades praises Socrates’ steadfastness in the retreat from Delium (221e8-222c1). In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates never voices explicit disapproval of the military commanders under whom he served, and he never says a battle in which he fought was unjust. To the contrary, he praises his military service in the Apology and concludes: “wherever someone has stationed himself, believing it to be best, or has been stationed by his commander, there he must, it seems to me, remain to face danger” (28d6-8). Plato depicts Socrates, then, as an excellent soldier of imperialist Athens.

Traditional models of Just War Theory distinguish jus ad bellum (the conditions for justly entering war) from jus in bello (just tactics when conducting war), and Socrates’ military involvement raises concerns on both fronts. ^[18] First, Socrates served in non-defensive battles aimed at building or maintaining empire, which would be a jus ad bellum concern. ^[19] Second, some of the battles in which he fought involved tactics that did not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants, which would be a jus in bello concern.

Socrates clearly participated in battles for empire, and he fought on campaigns that laid waste to villages. Based on evidence of Socrates’ participation in the battle at Amphipolis in 422, Socrates likely fought under Cleon in the service of empire at Scione during 423 or the next summer. ^[20] Thucydides reports that killing the men, enslaving the women, and “laying waste” to the village was Cleon’s stated, democratically approved aim, and in that respect the campaign succeeded (4.122.5; 5.32.1). Cleon, quite possibly the most ruthless of the Athenian generals, had earlier proposed the same fate for the Mytilenians. After initially siding with Cleon, Athens later relented in response to a competing speech by Diodotus. The Melians and inhabitants of Scione were not so lucky, since they were killed and enslaved. Far from avoiding complicity in imperialism, then, Socrates seems to have fought for its maintenance. He not only served; it seems he participated in campaigns that killed indiscriminately. At the very least, he served for a military willing to announce its formal aim to kill and enslave citizens indiscriminately.

One might offer two defenses of Socrates’ military career – that he was forced to fight or that he was, unfortunately, a product of a time that lacked our conception of just war. If he had no choice but to fight, then his responsibility might be mitigated or even absolved. In fact, he might be praiseworthy insofar as he bore his fate nobly. ^[21] If, on the other hand, Athens had no proper conception of just war, then Socrates’ participation resulted from his adoption of the standard military attitudes of his society. He would not, then, have served willingly in a robust sense, either because of force or ignorance. The doctrine that “no one does wrong willingly” might explain why Socrates committed or was complicit in injustice.

With respect to the first defense, whether Socrates was conscripted is relatively inconsequential. Commentators who invest energy in showing that Socrates’ commitment to justice would override a legal or military command to act unjustly must offer some account of Socrates’ service in battles for empire that involved systematic slaughter. They must explain not only his participation, but also why he later accepted praise and praised himself for his military involvement. If Socrates always follows his private conscience (as he repeatedly insists he does), then he must either agree with the aim and tactics of the war, or he must believe that it is just to serve despite his ethical misgivings. The former indicates a clean conscience about unjust causes and tactics, while the latter has the advantage of affording Socrates a troubled conscience as a conflicted patriot. It does seem disappointing to think Socrates would serve without reservation under commanders whose express mission was to kill, destroy, and enslave indiscriminately in the service of maintaining an empire. Avoiding such a result offers one charitable point in favor of the option that he obeyed with psychic resistance.

Perhaps, though, Socrates served without believing the battles were unjust because Athenians lacked a rich conception of the conduct of just war. Worries about Socrates’ military ethics might be anachronistic. His actions were unjust, but he simply did not realize it, and neither did anyone else. One might call this the ‘product of his time’ defense. There is good reason to reject such apologist efforts. The competing speeches about whether to slaughter the Mytileans, as well as the vote concerning whether to lay waste to Scione, show that the prudence and moral acceptability of such tactics were open questions for the Athenian demos. After much dispute and wavering, the Mytileans were spared, but the inhabitants of Scione were not. People were clearly speaking out against indiscriminate tactics.

In addition, passages from the Republic suggest that Plato likely opposed war for empire and the indiscriminate killing and enslaving of fellow Greeks. Such passages also reinforce a philosophical commitment to the importance of reconciliation after violence and injustice. ^[22] In Book II, Socrates claims that Glaucon’s desires for luxury goods necessitate the introduction of a military in order to acquire and defend the resources necessary for the production of such goods. In his words, the city will have to “seize some of [its] neighbor’s land” (373d7-10). ^[23] Excessive material desires, then, require military force in defense of empire. Later in Book III, Socrates’ purge of excessive desires in the guardian class seems to lead to the result that wars will be primarily, even perhaps exclusively, defensive (399e5-6). With respect to the conduct of war, Book V explicitly rules out the use of unnecessary and indiscriminate violence against fellow Greeks. War between Greek cites should aim at eventual “reconciliation” rather than destruction (470e2, 471a4). In addition to a prohibition against stripping corpses and dedicating the armor of the vanquished to the gods, Socrates claims that it would be wrong if any army in a Hellenic war “lays waste to the land of the others and burns their houses” (470d5). He claims that conflicts among Greeks will not count as war, but as a “faction” (στάσιν, 471a2), and that the aim of such faction must be reconciliation.

S: Then they will fight with the aim of being reconciled (ὡς διαλλαγησόμενοι ἄρα διοίσονται)?...Then they’ll moderate their foes kindly, not punish them with enslavement or destruction, for they’re chastisers, not enemies…And being Greeks, they won’t ravage Greece or burn her houses, nor will they agree that in any of her cities all the inhabitants – men, women and children – are hostile to them, but always only those few who are causes of the disagreement. And because of all these things, neither will they be willing to ravage their land – since the majority are their friends – nor to destroy their houses…

(R. 5: 471a4-b2).

Note again the use of διαλλάσσω to describe the eventual aim of all disagreements. As in the speech of the Menexenus and in the Simonides passage, conflict and injustice must be followed by reconciliation. Glaucon, ready to move on in the discussion, says simply: “I agree that this is the how our citizens must treat their opponents, though they should treat the barbarians the way Greeks treat each other now” (471b6-8). Unfortunately, Glaucon and Socrates seem to deny the existence of unjust tactics when fighting barbarians, but it is clear that they both reject many of the war campaigns of imperial Athens.

Any claim, then, that no educated Greeks would have considered Athens’ battles unjust is false, since contemporaries of Socrates and the demos itself disputed the war and its tactics. In addition, Plato, at least in hindsight, considers such actions unjust. His connection between greed and the necessity for imperial warfare shows that he has some sense of the just conditions for entering war, and the prohibition against indiscriminate violence shows he thought many tactics were unjust. It is difficult to determine which is worse – that Socrates did or did not realize that the orchestrated killing and enslavement of civilians in pursuit of empire violates rules of just war.

My argument, then, presents a disjunct, both options of which might seem unappealing. One option is that Socrates had an untroubled conscience about brutal war tactics because he would never do anything he believed unjust. He simply did not think he committed any injustice. The second option is that Socrates fought from obedience, but with a troubled conscience about Athens’ unjust tactics. Plato’s dialogues and corroborating sources clearly show that Socrates fought for imperial Athens, so either he fought with a clean conscience or with a troubled conscience. If his conscience was troubled, then he forced himself to do something out of obedience, even though he believed he was harming and being harmed by his involvement. He praised himself and accepted praise for his military actions, despite the recognition that he was implicated in Athens’ injustice. If his conscience was untroubled, on the other hand, then he was a blind patriot who fought for Athens believing he was on the side of justice.

I have shown so far that casting Socrates as a troubled patriot has a great deal of interpretive power. Socrates would in some sense consider it a just action to make the speech of the Laws, to white-wash Athenian history in the Menexenus, to champion overcoming resentment against one’s city in the Simonides interlude, and to offer and accept praise for military actions he considered unjust. Socrates overcomes psychic resistance because he believes praise is sometimes the best means towards reconciliation in response to one’s city’s injustice. If, on the other hand, one reads the Crito, Menexenus, and Simonides passage as mere play or as expressions of philosophical views Socrates opposes, it is more difficult to explain why Socrates would participate in military injustice and accept praise without any psychic reservations. I think opting for a conflicted Socrates who nevertheless overcomes psychic tension in order to serve and praise his city is the better choice, even at the cost of accepting a less civilly disobedient Socrates. Otherwise, he seems like a zealous supporter of unjust military campaigns and tactics. Better a troubled conscience than a quiet mind.

In what follows, I draw out a few philosophical ramifications of the idea that Socrates believed we should sometimes reluctantly praise the unjust. First, my reading is at odds with some popular conceptions of Socratic moral psychology (perhaps even most ancient moral psychologies) according to which virtuous agents do not experience psychic conflict when they do the right thing. Second, it suggests that the possibility of psychic harmony is tied to fortune – specifically, political fortune. If virtue requires psychic harmony, and psychic harmony is not possible in an unjust political community, then the misfortune of living in an unjust city would make virtue impossible.

Implications for Socratic Moral Psychology

Some accounts of “Socratic” moral psychology completely deny the possibility of simultaneous psychic conflict altogether. Once a person decides on the best course of action, her desires simply fall in line with her belief so that psychic tension simply cannot arise. ^[24] One’s desires cannot simultaneously conflict with one’s reasons, since there are no non-rational desires to begin with. One might call this ‘austere’ intellectualism. While some interpreters continue to defend austere intellectualist interpretations, many proponents of Socratic intellectualism have retreated to a ‘reformed’ intellectualism that does recognize the possibility of psychic tension between one’s beliefs about the good and one’s non-rational desires. ^[25] Nevertheless, even these reformed intellectualists maintain that virtue is marked by a harmony between one’s beliefs and desires. Psychic conflict indicates deficient virtue. The virtuous person distinguishes herself by the conformity of her desires with her assessment of which action is right. The continent person, on the other hand, does the right thing with some resistant desire to do otherwise. For example, the continent person begrudgingly refrains from over-indulgence, gives to Oxfam while desiring to spend the money on herself, or goes into battle from fear of public shame. If virtue requires harmony, then continent individuals fail to manifest a virtuous character because they experience psychic conflict. The assumption that the virtuous person is harmonious guides most ancient accounts of moral psychology.

Devereux (1995), however, draws attention to some historical evidence that supports the idea that Socrates was willing to praise continence and self-mastery. Xenophon’s Socrates, for example, regularly encourages enkrateia. ^[26] Aristotle, at least on Devereux’s reading, also suggests that Socrates denied the necessity of psychic harmony for virtue. Since Aristotle himself agrees with Plato that the virtuous person has a harmonious soul, Devereux argues that Aristotle singles Socrates out as an opponent of their shared view. ^[27] Aristotle thinks any good virtue theorist must think virtue requires psychic harmony, so he rejects Socrates’ endorsement of enkrateia.

From a philosophical perspective, one might think that the position that self-control often deserves praise has some allure. ^[28] Self-control requires more effort, and one sometimes prefers to praise those who work harder. The need to exercise self-control might result from conditions beyond one’s control (e. g., one’s poor upbringing or natural constitution), which could make the agent working to overcome hardship seem admirable. With respect to courage, continence seems especially intuitive, since the person who fights without a preference for living seems rash rather than brave. ^[29] Bravery involves recognizing the possibility of genuine loss.

If my reading of Socrates’ views on political praise is correct, then patriotism offers an example of the occasional admirableness of psychic disharmony. Socrates acknowledges that the virtuous person might experience psychic tension when praising the city that has harmed her. His consistent use of “force” to describe the psychic condition of the virtuous person, as well as his account of how the virtuous person represses resentment through self-remonstration, show that he thinks the virtuous person experiences psychic conflict in a non-ideal city. Even more, the passage suggests that it is actually appropriate or required that the good person experience psychic conflict, since such conflict manifests a proper assessment of having been treated unjustly or having been complicit in political injustices. If the virtuous person were not conflicted, she would not recognize that she has suffered injustice or that her city has acted unjustly, either of which might indicate a failure to understand justice itself. In other words, psychic conflict seems not only permitted, but required under non-ideal political circumstances. If so, enkrateia is in this case superior to a harmonious soul.

Socrates, I have argued, consistently believes that patriotism and reconciliation after unjust action depend on psychic conflict. In the Crito, he agrees that the verdict was unjust, so he properly recognizes that he has suffered injustice from the citizens of Athens. Nevertheless, he forces himself to give praise, at least through the voice of the Laws; he fulfills an obligation to praise through force of will. In the Menexenus, Socrates might rightly judge that the reign and overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants was riddled with injustice, yet praise the city in the voice of Aspasia. In the context of his military service, Socrates might harbor grave reservations about Athens’ military tactics and his own involvement, yet praise his commanders, his city, and himself. In each of these cases, if Socrates praised his city without psychic conflict, his harmony might indicate that he has failed to properly assess the injustice committed. Instead, he rightly judges that his city has committed an injustice, but he forces himself to moderate his anger in line with an overriding moral obligation to praise. From a charitable perspective, it is better that Socrates be conflicted than blindly patriotic. If so, then he thinks at least some instances of continence are instances of virtuous activity.

The second philosophical ramification of my interpretation concerns the relationship between virtue and political good fortune. Ancient theorists commonly puzzled over the extent to which virtue is vulnerable to fortune. Though Plato’s own account of virtue’s stability has been subject to debate, the common view is that Plato’s thinks virtue is highly or entirely stable, at least once fully achieved. Scholars who take at least some sections of the Simonides interlude seriously have recognized that Socrates’ interpretation weighs in on the question of whether one can achieve full virtue and whether such virtue provides immunity against the negative effects of bad fortune. Most commentators, Adam Beresford in particular, have argued that Socrates vehemently disagrees with Simonides, since Socrates believes that virtue is attainable and that a truly virtuous person cannot be significantly affected by the loss of external goods. ^[30] Simonides, on the other hand, thinks perfect virtue is impossible and that decent people can be brought low by bad fortune. My account does not hang on this question, but it does hint at an answer: Socrates thinks that political circumstances limit our capacity for psychic harmony.

To see this, one might adopt the plausible assumption that political circumstances count as external goods. For example, the material distribution, military history, and class structure of political communities lie largely beyond the control of single individuals. Perhaps most importantly, the city’s program of early childhood education significantly affects one’s prospects for developing virtue. Barring the establishment of the ideal city, human beings are born into imperfect political cultures. One might nevertheless think that these results of fortune do not affect one’s ability to achieve and sustain virtue, so that the injustice of one’s city does not preclude the completion of one’s virtue. ^[31] Yet Socrates’ interpretation of the Simonides poem suggests otherwise, at least insofar as it maintains that sometimes the best response to civic injustice is psychic conflict. Socrates argues that in a non-ideal city, communal allegiance issues in psychic disharmony. Given that one’s political community is significantly governed by fortune, it seems that fortune likewise undercuts one’s ability to avoid psychic disharmony. ^[32] Bad fortune requires good people to suffer psychic conflict in response to their unjust political circumstances.

The relationship between virtue and psychic harmony here reasserts itself. If Socrates adopts the harmony model of virtue, according to which the virtuous person never experiences psychic conflict, then he must believe that the virtuous person cannot live in an unjust political community. Virtue would then be contingent on the good fortune of being born in an ideal city. If, on the other hand, virtue is consistent with continence in some circumstances or aspects of one’s life, then the conflicted patriot can achieve and sustain virtue under unfortunate political circumstances. In sum, proper attitudes towards one’s polis seem to require conflict under non-ideal political circumstances, so either Socrates thinks we can never be virtuous outside an ideal city, or he thinks virtue sometimes involves psychic conflict in response to one’s unjust circumstances. If I am right that Socrates endorses the views he attributes to Simonides, then it seems Socrates accepts the latter option. The former option comes at the cost of making virtue impossible for humans in non-ideal political circumstances (i. e. probably all of us).

In closing, I should acknowledge a general, and I suspect intractable, problem for my argument. My aim has been interpretive, in that I take an interesting bit of text and show that it elucidates some standing worries about Socrates’ penchant for praising the unjust and his theory of moral psychology. I have steered clear, however, of evaluative questions about patriotism and participation in war. Many readers have good reason to oppose patriotic impulses, especially patriotic impulses that lead one to participate in unjust military actions. For such readers, the upshot of my paper is that Socrates simply cannot be virtuous, since his aim of patriotic reconciliation violates impartial moral principles and bends the truth. I consider that a fair objection, since patriotism does seem to run afoul of cherished moral principles that depend on an assumption that moral demands are impartial. ^[33] One cannot always count each person equally if one privileges one’s own citizens. On my reading, Socrates is not a cosmopolitan.

Nevertheless, I think the text shows that Socrates advocates such patriotism in some circumstances, both in civic and military contexts. It seems, then, that he does not always hold to impartial moral principles that run up against allegiance to his city. This does not, however, mean that he fails to recognize that his city’s actions are unjust, or even that he has participated in an unjust action. Instead, he thinks that such actions and attitudes might be unfortunate byproducts of living under non-ideal circumstances. I leave it open whether Socrates thereby undermines his own ethical project. ^[34]