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InterpretationA JOURNAL loF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Fall 2001

Eric Buzzetti

Mark S. Cladis

Samuel Zinaich, Jr .

Michael P. Zuckert

Alexandre Kojeve and

Carl Schmitt

Alexandre Kojeve

Volume 29 Number 1

The Rhetoric of Xenophon and

the Treatment of Justice in

the Memorabilia

Rousseau and th e Redemptive

Mountain Village: The Way

of Family, Work, Community,

and Love

Discussion: Locke on Natural Law:

Two Opposing Views

The In te rnal Coherency of Locke's

Moral Views in the Questions

Concerning the Law ofNature

On the Lockean Project of a

Natural Law Theory: Reply to

Zinaich

Discussion: Kojeve-Schmitt,

Colonialism, Edited and Translated

by Erik de Vries

Correspondence

Colonialism from a European

Perspective



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E Mail: interpretation [email protected]

InterpretationA JOURNAL loF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Fall 2001 Volume 29 Number 1

Eric Buzzetti

Mark S. Cladis

Samuel Zinaich, Jr.

Michael P. Zuckert

Alexandre Kojeve and

Carl Schmitt

Alexandre Kojeve

The Rhetoric of Xenophon and the

3Treatment of Justice in th e Memorabilia

Rousseau and the Redemptive Mountain 35

Village: The Way of Family, Work,

Community, and Love

Discussion: Locke on Natural Law:

Two Opposing Views

The Internal Coherency of Locke's Moral 55

Views in th e Questions Concerning the

Law of Nature

On the Lockean Project of a Natural Law 75

Theory: Reply to Zinaich

Discussion: Kojeve-Schmitt, Colonialism,

Edited and Translated by Erik de Vries

Correspondence 91

Colonialism from a European Perspective 1 15

Copyright 2001 interpretation, All rights reserved.

ISSN 0020-9635



Editor-in-Chief

Executive Editor

General Editors

Consulting Editors

International Editors

Editors

Manuscript Editor

Subscriptions

Interpretation

Hilail Gildin, Dept. of Philosophy, Queens College

Leonard Grey

Seth G. Benardete (d . 2001) Charles E. Butterworth

Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987)

Howard B. White (d . 1974)

Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Ernest L. Fortin

John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. Jaffa

David Lowenthal Muhsin Mahdi Harvey C. Mansfield

Amaldo Momigliano (d . 1987) Michael Oakeshott

(d. 1990) Ellis Sandoz Leo Strauss (d . 1973)

Kenneth W. Thompson

Terence E. Marshall Heinrich Meier

Wayne Amb ler Maurice Auerbach Fred Baumann

Amy Bonnette Patrick CobyElizabeth C de Baca Eastman Thomas S. Engeman

Edward J. Erler Maureen Feder-Marcus

Pamela K. Jensen Ken Masugi Will MorriseySusan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin

Susan Meld Shell Bradford P. Wilson Martin D. Yaffe

Michael P. Zuckert C atherine H. Zuckert

Lucia B. Prochnow

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individuals $29


students (four-year limit) $18

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elsewhere $5.40 extra by surface mail (8 weeks

or longer) or $ 1 1 .00 by air.

Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable bya financial institution located within the U.S.A.

(or the U.S. Postal Service).

The Journal Welcomes Manuscripts in Political Philosophy as Well as Those

in

Theology, Literature,and Jurisprudence.

contributors should follow The Chicago Manua l of Style, 13th or later editions

or manuals based on them. Instead of endnotes, the journal uses the"reference-list"

(o r "author-date") system of notat ion, described in these manuals, illustrated in cur

rent numbers of th e journal, and discussed in a sheet available from the Assistant to

th e Editor (see below). Words from languages not rooted in Latin should be trans

literated to English. To ensure impartial judgment, contributors should omit mention

of their other publications and put, on the title page only, their name , any affiliation

desired, address with postal zip code in full, E-mail address, and te lephone number.

Please send four clear copies, which will not be returned, and double space the

entire text and reference list.

Composi t ion by Bytheway Publishing Services

Binghamton, NY 13901 U.S.A.

Printed by the Sheridan Press

Hanover, PA 17331 U.S.A.

Inquiries: (Ms.) Joan Walsh, Assistant to the Editor

interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, N.Y.

11367-1597, U.S.A. (718)997-5542 Fax (718) 997-5565

Mail: interpretation [email protected]



E

THE ATTENTION OF CONTRIBUTORS TO Interpretation is called to the

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Kojeve, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Transla ted byJ. H. Nichols, Jr. New York : Basic Books, Inc., 1969.

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The Rhetoric of Xenophon and the Treatment

of Justice in th e Memorabilia

Eric Buzze t t i

Concordia University, Montreal

The political philosophy of Xenophon has been the object of a significant

resurgence of interest in political theory in th e last decade, but this renewal has

generally not extended toXenophon'

s four Socratic writings, the Memorabilia

(also known as the Recollections of Socrates) Oeconomicus, Symposium and

Apology of Socrates to the Jury. The biting judgment expressed half a century

ago by Bertrand Russell "[a] stupid man's report of what a clever man says

is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into some

thing that he canunderstand"

continues to encapsulate th e dominant scholarly

view of their merits (1945, p. 83). Even th e recent attempts to rehabilitate Xeno-

phon's portrayal of Socrates, while rightly challenging this dominant view, have

not been altogether successful in showing that (o r how) it is erroneous. More

often than not, Xenophon 's Socrates remains a somewhat conventional figure

whose philosophic thought suffers by comparison to th e thought of Plato's Soc

rates. Professor Vivienne Gray's The Framing of Socrates: The Literary Inter

pretation of

Xenophon'

s Memorabilia (1998) is a case in point. Hers is the first

book-length interpretation of the Memorabilia to appear in English in over

twenty-five years; as such, it deserves an audience among political theorists and

students of philosophy. Indeed, they will discover in Professor Gray's book

what is in many ways a valuable addition to the literature on th e Memorabilia.

It contains insightful remarks about the text and well-aimed critiques of various

dogmas of the recent interpretive tradition: fo r example , it disputes the view

that the Memorabilia lacks formal unity and organizat ion, as well as the claim

that Xenophon was a vain self-promoter. Moreover, Professor Gray discusses at

length the rhetorical character or intention of the Memorabilia, a dimension

of th e work frequently neglected by other scholars. Gray treats this rhetorical

dimension, rightly in my view, as the key to a proper interpretation of th e work.

In short, Professor Gray's monograph is a positive and welcome contribution. I

want to argue, however, that despite its qualities, it ultimately fails to vindicate

Xenophon's Socrates against Russell's putdown. More specifically,although

Professor Gray sets out to disclose the rhetorical character of Xenophon's por-

The author wishes to thank Jeffrey Black, Amy L. Bonnette, Christopher Bruell, Christopher

Nadon and Devin Stauffer for their comments on th e arguments of this paper.

interpretation, Fall 2001, Vol. 29, No. 1



4 Interpretation

trayal of Socrates, she fails to bring out its theoretical richness precisely because

she remains captive to much of its rhetoric. Professor Gray's Socrates remains,

in other words, somewhat conventional or traditional. At any rate, this is th e

contention that I defend in the first section of thisarticle,

where I review Profes

sor Gray's book to introduce my t reatmen t of the Memorabilia. The main part

of the article contends that when Xenophon's rhetoric is adequately taken into

account , and when the Memorabilia is contrasted with the Education of Cyrus,

th e work provides a fruitful basis to investigate the Socratic quest ion, What is

justice? The overarching aim of th e study is to articulate Xenophon'sSocrates'

treatment of justice to encourage a revision of the prevailing view that Xeno

phon is a conventional thinker and a dull moralizer.

Professor Gray's Framing of Socrates is intended as "a literary interpreta

tion"

of th e Memorabilia, one which "does not offer a detailed commentary on

each of th e episodes of the work, but prepares the way for such acommentary"

(Foreword). Its first aim is to show tha t Xenophon, no less than the other Socrat-

ics, and especially Plato, "creates a coherent image ofSocrates"

(p . 6). Gray

emphasizes at the outset that "[t]he key to the understanding of the Memorabilia

certainly begins with th e recognition that it adopts a rhetorical process in its

presentation ofSocrates"

(p . 7). More specifically, th e Memorabilia is best un

derstood as a "literaryexperiment"

in which Xenophon "framed the newest and

best of wise men within the traditions of wisdomliterature,"

a preexisting tradi

tion "which took wisdom as its majorfocus,"

while he also made "advances on

tradition"

(pp. 8, 184ff). As a result, he created "a newgenre"

in which he used

"the processes ofrhetoric"

to build on "audienceexpectations"

(pp. 8, 176-77).

Xenophon employed certain forms of rhetoric, Gray argues, because his hero

Socrates had been executed a few years earlier on the twin charges of impiety

and corruption of the young and thus needed a public defense that would be

persuasive to th e average (i.e., generally unsympathetic) audience member (pp.

26ff., 91, 177, 192, 194). Faced with this situation, Xenophon wrote an apology

in which he emphasized certain aspects ofSocrates'

life and thought, and per

haps exaggerated their importance, while he downplayed or silenced those as

pects potentially subversive of the defense he intended: "The [conventional or

traditional] level at which [Xenophon] pitches his image [o f Socrates is] not a

product of his intellectual and other failings, but a response to th e limits of the

audience and th e possibilities that th e tradition of wisdom literatureoffered"

(p .

191). For example , Gray's argument helps explain why Socrates is generally

silent about "speculativephilosophy"

n the Memorabilia eventhough, as Xeno

phon makes clear, "Socrates himself knew about the more speculative areas ofscience"

(p . 183). This absence does not stem from Xenophon's limited knowl

edge of the subject matter or from a personal lack of interest in it. Rather, "The

gentleman [i.e., Xenophon's primary addressee in the Memorabilia] normally

had no time fo r these pursuits . . "; moreover , "The traditional instructional

helpfulness of wisdom literature could not include speculativephilosophy."

In



Xenophon 's Rhetoric and Treatment of Justice 5

a word,"Socrates'

more scientific mission . . lies beyond th e limits of th ework"

(p . 183).

Gray's emphasis on Xenophon's rhetoric helps make intelligible many of th e

enigmatic features of thework,

and I believe that it is

fundamentallysound and

fruitful. Yet a critic might object that it is ultimately premised on a hypothetical

assumption. Indeed, how does Gray know that Xenophon was a genuine So

cratic perhaps "one of the three great pupils ofSocrates"

(pp. 4; 22, 25,

95) a m an w ho u nd er st oo d the possibilities and requirements of apologetic

rhetoric, as opposed to the weak intellect reviled by Russell fo r putting his own

conventional views and concerns in the mouth of his better?

Gray's answer to th is objection is stated indirectly. She argues that when

Xenophon wrote th e Memorabilia, he employed the literary technique of "amplification,"

which involves "progressive restatement at ever higher levels of Socrates'

beliefs, practices andteachings"

in order to bring ou t gradually"Socrates'

more notoriousoriginalities"

(pp. 16, 182; 13, 17, 27, 59, 178, 194). For exam

ple,Socrates'

lifelong concern to define moral c on ce pt s s uc h as justice or cour

age is stated in th e opening chapter of the work (1.1.16).Socrates'

repeated

attempts to define these concepts are then presented in subsequent chapters in

such a way that each builds on th e previous ones (pp. 16-25). More generally,

Xenophon "built his image of Socrates over sequences of amplification which

only gradually took his audience toward those higher levels commonly associ

ated with the PlatonicSocrates"

(p . 193). One could therefore show that Xeno

phon w as no t dull and conventionally minded by demonstrating that his Socrates

develops complex theoretical views in th e later parts of th e Memorabilia. In

deed, Gray moves toward such a demonstration when she treats th e fourth and

last book of the work where Socrates reaches "a higher plane of philosophic

activity"(pp. 157, 83, 150-57, 185-91, 194). Yet by th e end of her analysis,

Gray is compelled to acknowledge that even book 4 turns out to emphasize

"traditional rather than original instruction, leading to banality"; "Xenophon's

Socrates remains . . only marginally revolutionary and only slightly strange in

th e content of his teachings. His range istraditional"

(pp. 159, 191; 15, 177,

179, 186). In particular, the dialectical definitions of justice and courage that

Socrates offers in the antepenultimate chapter o f the work "strike a modem

reader . as mere play on words": they are radically unsatisfactory (p . 182).

What justifies Gray's insistence, then, that "the Memorabilia [is] a work of

philosophic instruction posing as a work ofrhetoric"

(p . 83)?

Gray'sanalysis often succeeds in

capturingth e gracefulness an d

charming

simplicity of Xenophon's prose. Her paraphrases and extensive quotations un

cover interesting subtleties in th e text and help fulfill her intention to prepare

the way fo r a detailed commentary on the Memorabilia. Yet her attempt to offer

"a systematic examination of the r he to ri ca l p ro c es se s of theMemorabilia"

is

less successful because she takes insufficient notice of Xenophon's apologetic

rhetoric (p . 8). As a result, Gray is often blind to the unconventional side of



6 Interpretation

Socrates that this rhetoric conceals. Two examples must suffice to illustrate this

point.

In various passages of her analysis, Gray discusses Xenophon's alleged refu

tation of the charge that Socrates excelled "atturning"

(protrepein)human be

ings toward virtue, but was in fact incompetent "tolead"

(proagein) them to

virtue (1.4.1). Socrates was accused, in effect, of inspiring a desire fo r virtue

that did not produce deeds. Gray rightly notes that Xenophon does not deny this

charge directly but merely invites h is readers "to consider the evidence he will

nowpresent"

which ostensibly exonerates Socrates (pp. 64-65). Since the phi

losopher was accused of failing to teach self-control regarding bodily pleasures

(enkrateia), among other virtues or qualities, Xenophon depicts tw o Socratic

exhortations to self-control in the immediate sequel (1.5, II. 1). Following a cur

sory reading of these exhortations, one is tempted to accept Gray's assertion

thatSocrates'

teaching, fa r from being deficient, "is proven to be a perfect

combination of protreptic andproagic"

(p . 178). Indeed Socrates emphatically

urges the practice of self-control, suggesting fo r example tha t it is "a foundation

ofvirtue"

and that a human being must be equipped with self-control "first in his

soul"(1.5.4). He even goes so far as to recount the famous tale of the "Choice of

Heracles"

to lead his incontinent companion Aristippus to greater self-control.

(Socrates recounts, fo r that companion's sake, an exhortation to self-control

which Virtue, personified as an attractive woman , once addressed to Heracles

when he was only an adolescent [II. 1.2 1-34].)

A more careful reading, however, refutes Gray's contention. For one, it

would be to say th e least very odd that Xenophon should have"proven"

Socra

tes'

competence to"lead"

(rather than merely "turn") to self-control with an

exhortation to Aristippus, the man who went on to found the Cyrenaic school

of hedonistic philosophy ! That school of thought, according to Diogenes Laer-

tius, placed great importance on the bodily pleasures (1966, p. 219 and passim).

More remarkable still, we recall that Heracles was notorious in the ancient world

fo r his immense voracity and lack of self-control regarding food, drink and sex:

Virtue's exhortation to him as an adolescent, which Socrates recounts in great

detail to"educate"

Aristippus, proved then to be a resounding failure (see, e.g.,

Aristophanes, The Frogs, lines 503 ff. OnHeracles'

voracity and lack of self-

control , see generally G. Karl Galinsky [1972]. According to Galinsky, "The

earliest writer of comic Herakles plays was the Sicilian Epicharmus, who flour

ished perhaps as early as around the turn of the sixthcentury"

[p. 85]. "Prefer

ence fo r good food and drink rather than his labors was a stock characteristic

of the comicHerakles"

[p. 82]. Compare th e central reference to Epicharmus at

II . 1.20.). In other words, it is not surprising tha t Xenophon fails to comment

favorably on the effectiveness ofSocrates'

tw o exhortations to self-control: far

from exonerating him, they seem to vindicate a significant part of hiscritics'

charge (cf. 1.5.6 and II. 1.34 with, e.g., IV.3.18 and IV.4.25). Nor are we sur

prised thatSocrates'

final exhortation to self-control in th e Memorabilia is pref-



Xenophon's Rhetoric and Treatment of Justice 1

aced by what is in effect a telling admission: "when [Socrates] conversed, he

turned (protrepein, rather than proagein) his companions most of all toward

self-control"(IV. 5.1, my emphasis). To sum up: A study like Professor Gray's

should bring to light the unobtrusive features of the Memorabilia that help cor

rect or reveal th e depth beneath its apologetic surface. But by failing to observe

many of these features, Gray provides limited help in uncovering th e unconven

t ional and instructive truth aboutSocrates'

life and thought, to say nothing of

Xenophon's subtle humor and lighthearted wit.

Gray's discussion of the Socratic education provides a second illustration of

my criticism. In the last book of the Memorabilia, Xenophon describes how

Socrates approached and trained his young companion Euthydemus (IV.2-7). It

has been

rightlyobserved, however, that Euthydemus was a

very unpromisingSocratic (Strauss, 1972; Bruell, 1994; cf, however, Morrison, 1994). He will

rarely object toSocrates'

various arguments and suggestions even though many

are clearly inadequate. Indeed, Xenophon makes clear toward the beginning of

his discussion that Euthydemus was unfit to receive an education of a higher

sort. (Xenophon says that Socrates would explain to Euthydemus "in the sim

plest and clearest manner what he thought [Euthydemus] should know and was

best for him to pursue while stirring [or "confusing": diatarattein] Euthydemus

as little aspossible"

IV . 2. 40, my emphasis]. Socrates did not cause Euthyde

mus to question himself in any fundamental way.) Why, then, did he suggest

that Socrates might take a serious interest in such a youth? Was Xenophon

merely ascribing his own attraction to dullness to a more discerning man?

The truth, I believe, is otherwise. Xenophon wished to disclose certain key

features of a Socratic education but without completely undermining th e apolo

getic intention of the Memorabilia. As a result, he sketched this education with

a view to a pupil whose limitations helped cast Socrates (and the training he

provided) in a more traditional or conventional light. For Xenophon indicates

tha t Socrates as an educator "did not approach all [human beings] in the same

manner"(IV. 1.3). He especially dis tinguished between those who resisted his

various arguments and those, like Euthydemus, who simply listened and gave

their uncritical assent:

If someone should contradict [Socrates] about something without having anything

clear to say ... he would bring th e entire argument back to its hypothesis. . . [In

this way,] th e truth became visible even to th e contradictors themselves. But when

ever he went through something in argument by himself, he proceeded via what was

most agreed upon , holding this to be safety in argument. (IV.6.1315)

That is, whenever Socrates conversed with someone who objected to one of his

conclusions, Socrates endeavored to go back, by mutually agreed steps, to the

premise(s) underlying it: he argued dialectically. In this way , "the truth became



8 Interpretation

visible even to the contradictorsthemselves."

But whenever he"conversed"

with a noncontradictor like Euthydemus, his primary goal was to make his argu

ment safe, and he attained it by defending conventional or publicly respectable

opinions "what was m ost agreed

upon"opinions tha t may have fallen

short

of what he regarded as the truth. We might surmise, moreover , that Socrates

used this kind of rhetoric to guard against the anger that can be aroused when

ever an interlocutor's beliefs and opinions, especially about subjects such as

piety, justice or the noble , are questioned or challenged (Bartlett, 1996, p. 4).

According to Xenophon, these were just the kinds of subjects that Socrates wa s

constantly investigating (1.1.16). Be that as it may , Xenophon makes clear that

Socrates would not expose a youth like Euthydemus to his "more notorious

originalities,"an d the fact that th e youth's education generally reaffirms conven

t ional views is a tribute no t only to Xenophon's skillful rhetoric but to the

accuracy of his depiction as well.

Gray n ev er s ee ms to realize tha t the sketch of the Socratic e d uc at io n p ro ve s

her contention that Xenophon emphasized or exaggerated the conventionality of

his hero. While she sometimes notes the traditional character ofEuthydemus'

educat ion, she nevertheless insists that he is "an interlocutor of amplified sensi

bilities andcapacities,"

"a potentially excellent pupil marked out fo rleadership"

(pp. 152, 37; 191). The primary cause of her error is, I believe, clear: She fails

to observe th at th e passage q u ot ed a bo v e distinguishes two types of interlocutors

and that Euthydemus must be judged in its light (cf. pp. 21-22). This failure

affects her interpretation in v ar io us w ays . Above all, Gray is no t led to ask

whether Socrates would approach his more promising pupils in th e same manner

that he approached Euthydemus: Would he take up with them the questions he

took up with him? Would he treat these questions differently or more deeply?

What would th e content of the presumably more"stirring"

t reatments be?

Nor does Gray consider how Xenophon's other w ritin gs can help answer

these questions. (She devotes barely one page of her two-hundred-page study to

"The place of the Memorabilia in Xenophon's widercorpus"

[p. 194].) For

example , Socrates discusses the theme of justice in book 4 of th e Memorabilia

and he defends in that context the rather conventional view that justice is simply

"thelaw"

(IV.4.12 ff: Socrates discusses this theme no t with Euthydemus but

with a fellow"noncontradictor,"

the sophist Hippias of Elis). This discussion

remains rather unenlightening if read alone. But w hen r ea d together with a paral

lel passage from the Education of Cyrus, fruitful paths of reflection are opened

up (cf. Memorabilia IV.4.12-18 with Education of Cyrus 1.3.16-17). And it isreasonable to surmise that Socrates would have guided his better pupils, Xeno

phon among them, down these less trodden but richer paths. In other words,

Gray remains insufficiently aware of the extent to which the Memorabilia be

longs to a larger c o ns te ll at io n o f writings, where th e richness of an individual

work is bound up with the place that it occupies within th e Xenophonic uni

verse. It is one of th e aims of the present study to show how a better apprecia-




tion of this connectedness can help bring to light th e richness of Xenophon's

presentation ofSocrates'

view of justice.

I.SOCRATES'

VIEW OF JUSTICE

Even in his own lifetime, Socrates was famous as a philosopher fo r his con

stant investigation of the quest ion, What is justice? It is a reputation to which

th e Memorabilia as a whole bears eloquent tes t imony: To mention only one

point , th e work literally begins and ends with conspicuous references to this

investigation. (In th e first chapter of the book, Xenophon gives a list of the

What is . ? questions tha t Socrates was"always"

investigating,a list in which

the quest ion, What is just? figures prominently [1.1.16]. And in the final chapter,

Socrates claims that he has "spent his wholelife"

[diabioun] doing "nothingother than thoroughly examining what the just and th e unjust things are, while

doing the just and refraining from theunjust"

[IV. 8.4; c o ns id e r a ls o IV.4.5-6].)

Yet Socrates was perhaps equally famous fo r never finishing or completing his

examination of justice; he seemed to have spent his whole life being at a loss

as to what it is (Symposium 4.1, Memorabilia IV.4.5-6). As a result, his views

on th e subject r em a in e d e lu si ve to most of his contemporaries. In fact, some of

them even accused him of deliberate concealment. For example , he wa s once

criticized by the sophist Hippias of E lis for resting satisfied, when it came to

justice, with "asking and refuting everyone, w hile you yourself do not want to

render an account to anyone or to declare your judgment aboutanything"

(IV.4.9; cf. also 1.2.36-37; IV.4.1 [beginning];Thrasymachus'

critique of Soc

rates in Plato's Republic 336b8-d4). While it may be debatable whether Socra

te s deliberately concealed his views about justice, it is surely no t difficult to see

why these views could have been thought to be elusive. For in the Memorabilia

alone, no fewer than five definitions of justice are offered or suggested: (1)

justice is"wisdom"

(sophia: III.9.5); (2) justice is "helping one's friends an d

harming one'senemies"

(cf. IV .2. 12-18); (3) justice is "thelaw"

(or "the law

ful": to nomimon , IV.4.12ff; IV .6.6); (4) justice is "to know what is lawful

concerning humanbeings"

(IV.6.6, in fine); (5) justice is "to harm no one, not

even a little, but to benefit human beings to the greatestextent"

(IV. 8. 11).

That Socrates spent his whole life searching fo r justice may suggest tha t he

never arrived at an account of it that he regarded as fully satisfactory. But it

does not suggest that he was entirely at a loss as to what it is. After all, Socrates

no t only searched fo r justice, but he was also a teacher of justice. He instructed

or sought to instruct others. (It is true that, according to Xenophon, Socrates

never promised to be a teacher of justice [or of "virtue": Memorabilia 1.2.3, sec.

8]. But this does no t mean tha t he did no t teach justice in actual fact. On th e

contrary, Xenophon states explicitly that Socra tes " taught most eagerly of all

whatever he himself knew of the things it is fitting fo r a ma n who is a gentleman



10 Interpretation

toknow,"

while making clear that Socrates counted"justice"

among these gen

tlemanly topics of inquiry [IV.7.1; 1.1.16; cf. IV.2.22-23]. It would seem, then,

that Socrates was a teacher of justice who did not promise to teach justice [or

virtue].) The question thus naturallyarises:

What did heteach

hisstudents that

justice is? What were his mature views on this topic, provisional as they may

have been? More generally, What was the overall character of a Socratic educa

tion to justice? To begin to answer these questions, I consider in the first place

some passages of Xenophon's Education of Cyrus, where Xenophon tells the

story of the education and military career of the famous founder of the Persian

Empire. The passages in question occur in the first part of the work, in the

context of a description of th e old republic of Persia, an austere regime to which

Cyrus owed (much of) his education and which he later transformed. They per

tain more narrowly to the manner in which that regime educated its children to

justice. This description provides a useful foil in light of whichSocrates'

view

of justice, as well as the general character and goal of a Socratic education to

justice, gradually emerges.

Toward the beginning of th e Education of Cyrus (1992), Xenophon explains

that public schools (didaskaleia) had been established in the republic of Persia

where parents could send their children to learn justice, among other subjects

(1.2.6-7). There, he says, the children's teachers spent the greater part of the

day sitting in judgment of their pupi ls , since the Persian children, like their

elders, accused each other of stealing, of violence, deception, calumny and other

such things. The children found guilty of these and similar injustices were pun

ished, as were those who had made unjust accusations. Moreover, these teachers

also judged th e accusation that is the greatest source of hatred among human

beings, but which is seldom pressed in court: ungratefulness. Whenever they

saw that a child could have been grateful but had failed to be, they punished

him severely. For they supposed that ungrateful human beings were most likely

to neglect the gods , their parents, their fatherland and their friends. And shame-

lessness, which seemed to lead most of all to everything shameful , also seemed

to tread most closely on the heels of ungratefulness.

Xenophon adds to his description of the Persian education to justice a report

of a conversation that Cyrus once had with his mother , Mandane (1.3.16-18).

The occasion fo r the conversation was as follows. Cyrus and his mother had

gone to visitCyrus'

maternal grandfather, Astyages, then the despotic ruler of

neighboring Media, at a time when Cyrus was still a boy of about twelve (1.3.1).

When th e time came fo r mother and child to return home to Persia, however,Cyrus expressed th e wish to remain in Media with his grandfather. But his

mother objected:

"And justice, mychild,"

[Mandane said], "how will you leam it here, when your

teachers are overthere?"

And Cyrus said: "But this, at any rate, mother , I already

knowprecisely."

"And how do you knowit?"

Mandane said."Because,"

he said




"my teacher, having judged that I already knew justice precisely, had appointed me

judge of others. Only once was I beaten because I had not judged correctly. The

case was something like this. A large boy wearing a small coat had stripped a small

boy wearing a large coat of th e coat he was wearing and, having dressed him with

his own coat, dressed himself with that boy's coat. Now when I judged between

these, I thought that it was bette r for both of them to have th e coat which fitted

him. But my teacher beat me fo r this, saying that whenever I was appointed to

judge of th e fitting, I should act as I had, but when I had to decide to whom th e

coat belonged, I had to consider which possession was just, that due to force or that

due to making or buying.'Since,'

[my teacher] said, 'the legal is just, but th e illegal

isforceful,'

(to men nomimon dikaion einai, to de anomon biaiori) he bid th e judge

always to tally his verdict with th elaw."

"Thus you s ee , mo the r, that the just things

at any rate I already know precisely. And if I should need anything inaddition,"

[Cyrus] said, "grandfather will instruct mehimself."

(1.3.16-17)

The view of justice that Persia sought to inculcate in its children was, as this

conversation makes clear, quite simple indeed: "justice is thelaw."

The Persian

education to justice was primarily an education to law-abidingness. It aimed at

inculcating habits of lawfulness in its children by the threat and use of corporal

punishments as well as by praise and blame (see, e.g., 1.6.20). These habits were

supported in turn by the children's sense of shame, which Persia sought to

nurture through its punishment of ungratefulness. These habits and this sense of

shame would insure that the young Persians would abstain from injustice toward

each other as they grew older, and become instead mutually friendly and helpful.

Otherwise put , Persia's education to justice was meant to foster concord and

mutual service among the Persians. It represented th e first stage of a public

education whose complete goal was the making of good citizens: human being s

who are good or helpful to their friends (o r fellow citizens) and harmful to their

enemies (1.2.5 in fine). In that sense, th e Persian education to justice was di

rected from the outset toward an emphatically political goal.

For present purposes , however, the most notable feature of this education is

that it reminds us of Socrates, who also argues that "justice is thelaw"

in one

chapter of the Memorabilia (IV.4). There, Socrates answers the claim of th e

sophist Hippias that "laws or obedience to them are [not] seriousmatters"

by

pointing out that law-abidingness is in fact very profitable to both cities and

individuals (IV.4. 15-18). He even goes so far as to suggest that "the gods too

. . are satisfied th at th e same thing is both just andlegal"

(sec. 25). It would

seem, then, that Socrates accepted the view of justice publicly held in Persia.

To be sure, it is not entirely clear that th e"law"

he had in mind was the Persian

law; Socrates d id not say so explicitly, and he could have been thinking of the

laws in force at Athens, for example. In fact, many of his remarks to Hippias

suggest that he had no specific law in mind but that he equated justice with any

law, positive or unwri t ten , whatever its content (cf. Morrison 1995, p. 334 ff).

On the other hand, his main argument to the sophist contains th e suggestion that



1 2 Interpretation

th e superior law-abidingness of the Spartans is a model to imitate, and the laws

crafted by the Spartan Lycurgus bore a striking resemblance to those of th e

Persians (IV.4. 15; Sparta and Persia were both aristocratic republics with consti

tutional kings who enjoyed limited powers ; theirrespective systems of public

education emphasized temperance, endurance and obedience to rulers at th e ex

pense of book learning or music ; they also emphasized hunting and training fo r

war while restricting commercial activity: cf. Xenophon's Constitution of the

Spartans XV.1, II . Iff., II.7, IV.7 with Education of Cyrus 1.3.18, 1.2.2ff., 1.2.3).

To dete rmine whether (o r to what extent) Socrates accepted Persia's view of

justice, we must consider more carefully th e story of the tw o boys and their

coats. This will enable us to clarify the perspective from which Socrates equated

justice and

legalityand, therewith, any disagreement that may have underlain

his seeming embrace of Persia.

Even prior to his judgment of the tw o boys, th e young Cyrus knew tha t in

Persia, "justice is thelaw."

After all, he had been appointed by h is Persian

teacher because he already knew justice precisely. Moreover, Xenophon makes

clear that Cyrus accepted the view of justice in question (1.6.27). Yet despite

these facts, Cyrus d is regards th e Persian law in this case: he gives each boy a

fitting coat without regard to their respective legal rights. We could say that he

goes beyond the law in the direction of th e fitting or th e good. Why does Cyrus

do this? Judging from his speech to his mother , at any rate, th e reason would

appear to be this: he holds not one, but tw o basic opinions about justice, which

happen to contradict each other in this particular case. He believes on th e one

hand that "justice is thelaw,"

but also on th e other that "justice is somethinggood"

(Strauss, 1953, pp. 146ff; Stauffer, 2001, part 1). Moreover, to the extent

that Cyrus gives each boy a fitting coat without regard to their respective legal

rights, it would seem th at th e second opinion exerts a stronger influence on his

mind than the first: Cyrus believes tha t it is just to be guided by the fitting or

the good, rather than by the law, when the law turns out to be harmful. And

further still, inasmuch as we, th e readers, typically approve of his decision, we

could add thatCyrus'

preference is not merely idiosyncratic: we too believe, it

seems, tha t justice is above all something fitting or good.

Yet lest we forget, Cyrus is punished fo r his decision. Whereas Cyrus judges

that justice is not simply the legal but th e fitting or the good, his t eacher main

tains that the just is always the legal, even when the legal proves to be unfitting

or bad, as was clearly th e case here. The teacher objects toCyrus'

disregard of

th e lawand

insistson

itsabsolute

sanctity and applicability. But why insist on

this? What is wrong withCyrus'

judgment in this case? After all, both boys

were clearly benefited by the decision. Indeed th e common good between them

could not have been better served. Why, then, did that decision deserve to be

punished?

Here we must reflect on th e potential political significance ofCyrus'

judgment. What would th e consequence be of applying the principle of justice em-




bedded in that judgment, not only to this particular instance of coat swapping,

but to all property and even all good things enjoyed in Persia? The answer is

that a political revolution would result.Cyrus'

principle of justice could be

statedthus: all property, all good things justly belong to those who can use them

well or profitably, irrespective of their legal right to them. That the implementa

t ion of such a principle would transform Persia becomes clear once we reflect

that, while every parent there had a right to send his children to the public

schools of justice, only those who could financially afford to support them while

they were in school actually sent them there. The others did not, but rather sent

them out to work. This decision was of course of crucial significance, since th e

children who had not successfully gone through the education to justice (as well

as the other stages of the Persian publiceducation)

were not allowed to share

in the public honors and positions of rule later on in life (1.2.15). Thus the

economic scarcity existing in Persia permitted th e regime to educate only some

of its children. Since the decision whether to educate a child was made privately

by his parents, and not by some public authori ty , th e "distribution ofeducatio

in the regime inevitably came to mirror the preexisting distribution of wealth.

The problematic nature of this result becomes clear once we reflect tha t at least

some of the children of the poor were almost certainly-more capable of benefit

ing from Persia's public education than at least some of the children of the

wealthy. Accordingly, were we to applyCyrus'

principle of justice not only to

coats but to educational opportunities as well, we might have to conclude that

the poor but talented children should have been educated instead of the wealthy

but unpromising ones. (Consider, for example , the case of Pheraulas, Education

of Cyrus, II.3.7-16; VIII.3; see especially Nadon, [1996], pp. 364-67). In a

word,Cyrus'

judgment, if applied to the enjoyment of every type of good and

privilege in Persia, would have had revolutionary implications for that regime

because it would have meant the end of the political hegemony of the wealthy

families. To come back toCyrus'

teacher, then, we can suspect that his insis

tence on the absolute sanctity and applicability of the law was the result of a

desire to maintain the political status quo in Persia, a regime which presented

itself as an aristocratic republic but was in truth closer to an oligarchy.

But le t us return to Socrates. What, we may wonder , would have been his

view of this controversy between the young Cyrus and his Persian teacher? With

whom would he have sided? At first, we might be tempted to conclude that he

would have agreed with the Persian teacher, since, as we saw, Socrates suggests

to Hippias that "justice is the

law"

(IV.4. 12; see also IV . 6.6). Yet many passages

of Xenophon's other Socratic writings point to the alternative conclusion. For

instance, in the opening chapter of the Oikonomikos, Xenophon recounts a con

versation between Socrates and his young, funloving friend Critoboulos where

Critoboulos is gradually led to the very view that underlies th e judgment of

young Cyrus: property justly belongs to those who can use it well or profitably,

irrespective of their legal right to it (1.1-15; cf. 6.4). And within theMemora-



14 Interpretation

bilia itself, Socrates is seen to guide his pupil Euthydemus to the conclusion

that it would be just to steal a friend's sword, or any other weapon, when that

friend is dispirited and might harm himself (IV.2.17). That is, Socrates suggests

there again that

propertycan

justlybe taken

awayfrom those who cannot use

it well or profitably. It would seem, then, that if Socrates imitates the Persian

teacher in equating justice with th e law, he also doubts the absolute sanctity of

property rights. Much like th e young Cyrus, he looks at property from th e van

tage point of the fitting or the good rather than that of legality. And judging

from that perspective, he sees that the laws often protect unjust ownership, i.e.,

ownership that is not profitable to its legal"owner."

Are we to conclude that Socrates acceptedCyrus'

principle of justice, tha t

he to o held that justice is the fitting or th e good rather than th e law? But if so ,

why did he continue to insist in various places that "justice is thelaw"

without

apparently qualifying this principle in any way? Didn't he see that many laws

are unjust? And if he did, why didn't he advocate that such laws be repealed or

improved (but cf. Memorabilia 1.2.9)? In all these respects, it seems, Socrates

remains closer toCyrus'

teacher of justice than to Cyrus himself.

To appreciate the perspective from which these difficulties might be solved,

le t us return to our Persian teacher of justice and reconsider his position more

closely. Perhaps we dismissed him to o quickly a moment ago without appreciat

ing th e element of wisdom in his insistence on the absolute sanctity and applica

bility of the law, an element which might help explainSocrates'

attitude.

How, we ask, would Persia have to be transformed so as to give every mem

ber of that community what he can use well or profitably, or what is fitting fo r

him? We have already seen that, shouldCyrus'

principle of justice be imple

mented in the field of education, the political hegemony of the wealthy Persians

would necessarily be destroyed. The Persian oligarchy has to go. What will

replace it? Given the economic scarcity existing in Persia, the regime can only

educate the best of its children, whether they be born to the wealthy or the poor.

Cyrus'

principle thus requires the implementation of a system of class mobility,

where each child is assigned the education fitting to his talents, irrespective of

th e identity or social class of his own parents. Only in this way can everyone

in the regime come to receive th e education he can use well or profitably. But

we must go further. Such a system would only function properly if it were

headed by a knowledgeable or wise human being, or group of human beings,

who would be in a posi t ion, first to determine which children have the nature

and talents

fittingfo r th e public education and

which do not,and

then to implement his (or their) decision. In fact, this class of the wise would ultimately have

to hold the power to assign every good and privilege in the community in a

fitting fashion, unhindered by any restriction or property rights. The implemen

tation ofCyrus'

principle of justice ultimately requires tha t the "rule oflaw"

be replaced by the "rule of th ewise."Only in this way, only if wisdom were

to hold absolute political power in Persia, could there be any hope fo r the re-




gime to be made just or"fitting"

and to remain so over t ime. In th e end, and to

go one final step, the implementation ofCyrus'

principle might even require

th e establishment of what we could call "the universalstate,"

where the con

ventional and

arbitrarydistinctions

between citizens of various countriesobvious obstacles to any

"fitting"

redistribution of th e world's property would

be eliminated.

From here, we begin to see that such a political system probably could never,

or should never, come into being. It is hard to believe that any one human beingor group of human beings could ever come to know what is good or fitting fo r

every member of the entire human race, or even fo r an entire community. And

even if such knowledge were somehow available, it is not at all clear that hu

manity (o r that community) would ever assent to the rule of th e wise, who,

because of their small number , could not rule by force but only by persuasion.

To get a sense of th e magnitude of this difficulty, we need only reflect on how

a rich Persian would likely react to the decision that his child must be trained

as a farmer. And even if humanity (o r the community) did assent to the rule of

the wise, it is fa r from obvious that the wise would want to exercise this rule.

After all, this would entail spending one's existence fulfilling th e needs of others

and arbitrating their disputes, all of which would be necessary to give to each

what is fitting. But this sounds like an unrewarding and perhaps even a wretched

existence, not the life a wise man would likely choose fo r himself. The wise, if

they were to rule at all, might then have to be compelled to rule, a scenario

which appears, to say th e least, unlikely. In fact, it seems much more probable

th at th e attempt to do away with existing laws would result in an unscrupulous

human being deceiving his fellow citizens into granting him absolute or tyranni

cal authority (Strauss, 1953, p. 141). In short, the political implementation ofCyrus'

principle of justice is not a realistic possibility and is even fraught with

grave political dangers. In that sense, there was more wisdom in the Persian

teacher's insistence on law-abidingness than inCyrus'

attempt to go beyond th e

law in th e direction of the fitting or the good. (David Hume, [1975], pp. 304-5

remarks: "Cyrus, young and unexperienced, considered only th e individual case

before him, and reflected on a limited fitness and convenience , when he as

signed the long coat to the tall boy, and th e short coat to th e other of smaller

size. His governor instructed him better, while he pointed out more enlarged

views and consequences, and informed his pupil of th e general , inflexible rules,

necessary to support general peace and order insociety."

For a discussion of

the importance and limits of the rule of law, see especially Plato's Statesman

293e7ff.)

Could it be thatSocrates'

equation of justice with legality is best understood

as a manifestation of his wisdom, of his awareness of the limits of the political

possibilities of justice? Indeed, if the view that justice is th e fitting cannot be

implemented politically, if the attempt to do so is fraught with grave dangers, it

might be better to return to the ordinary view "justice is thelaw"

and to



1 6 Interpretation

defend tha t view in a spirit of wise moderation (as opposed to a spirit of senti

mentality or naivete, or even , as may have been true of th e Persian teacher, out

of political opportunism or anger). Could it be, in other words , that Socrates

defendedthe equation of justice with

legalityjust as a sensible person would

defend the lesser of tw o evils? Socrates certainly doubted the simple adequacy

of the equation in question. Xenophon makes that fact very clear in the Memora

bilia, albeit with his usual restraint. (For example , Socrates says on one occasion

to the"law-makers"

Critias and Charicles that he is prepared to obey the"law"

prohibiting conversation with the young , and yet he goes on to disobey that

"law"

precisely on the grounds that it is "something contrary to the laws": appar

ently, at least some"laws"

were not really"laws"

inSocrates'

view [Memora

bilia 1.2.33-34, cf. IV.4.3]. Besides, when Socrates asserted that "justice is the

law,"

the sophist Hippias was his addressee, and he proved to be a very bad one

[cf.IV 4.12-25]. He was no better at conversing thanSocrates'

onetime student

Euthydemus. Thus in accord with what I suggested in my introduction, we must

suspect that what Socrates said to Hippias, including the claim that "justice is

thelaw,"

was not primarily meant to make "thetruth" "visible."

In short, we

have here another example of Xenophon choosing an addressee fo r his Socrates

whose limitations help cast th e philosopher in a more traditional light.) Besides,

can we really believe that a man who spent his whole life investigating justice

could have thought that all laws are equally just? That a law imposed by force

on a political community is as just as a law to which the community consented?

That a bad or harmful law is as just as a good or wise law? This seems very

implausible.

At this point, it is necessary to address a serious objection. One may readily

admit that the complete implementation ofCyrus'

principle of justice would be

impossible or dangerous, fo r the reasons just indicated. But this is not yet to

concede that some partial implementation of that principle would be similarly

impossible or dangerous. After all, a less oligarchic Persia would be more just

than a more oligarchic one, fo r example , and it is certainly possible to take at

least some steps away from oligarchy. In other words ,Socrates'

insistence that

the just is in every case the legal may seem like wise moderation when looked

at from a somewhat extreme point of view, but it is also a questionable insis

tence, at least in the case of very unjust laws. If Socrates sharedCyrus'

view

that the just is th e fitting, why didn't he advocate repealing or improving at least

the very"unfitting"

laws, and especially those maintaining an unconscionable

distribution ofproperty?

It istrue

tha t Socrateswould

have had little to gain

personally from such improvements in the laws: he needed very little fo r himself

because of his outstanding frugality and self-control (Memorabilia 1.2.1, 1.2.14,

1.5.6, IV.5.1, IV . 8.1 1). But wasn't it his duty as a good citizen to try to improve

the lo t of his fellow citizens, who weren't as frugal and self-controlled as he

was?

To address this objection, we must penetrate more deeply into our subject




matter. I have suggested throughout th e analysis tha t Socrates accepted the prin

ciple of justice underlyingCyrus'

judgment of th e two boys. But perhaps I have

not formulated this principle correctly. If th e judgment in question seemed so

unquestionably just, it was, I would argue, because both of the boys received a

coat that was fitting fo r their respective needs. Each one was benefited to th e

greatest possible extent. That is, th e most adequate formulation ofCyrus'

princi

ple is not that "justice is th efitting,"

but rather that "justice is a commongood."

This is the principle that Cyrus shares with Socrates, as could be easily shown

by reconsidering the Memorabilia in particular. (When Soc ra te s got his pupil

Euthydemus to agree, for example , that it is just to steal a friend's sword when

he is dispirited and might harm himself, Socrates was clearly describing a situa

tion where two people are bound by a common good [o r a community of inter

ests: Memorabilia IV . 2. 17]. The same is also true of the other tw o examples

given in that passage.) But what if no such community exists? What if one had

to adjudicate between a small boy with a big coat, and a big boy with no coat

at all? Would Socrates insist that the coat be given to th e big boy in tha t case

as well? Would he insist that "the just is thefitting"

even then? Now it is true

that, on the whole, this would be a better arrangement: th e big boy could use

th e big coat more efficiently than th e small boy can. Yet this would not be better

fo r each individual: surely, th e smaller boy is deriving at least some benefit from

his inadequate coat. The importance of this difficulty becomes clear once we

reflect that, at th e political level, a common good understood along the lines of

the coat example may never exist or, at any rate, may exist only under rare

circumstances. We recall tha t in Persia, because of economic scarcity, only some

of the children could be publicly educated. Now it may be true that, on the

whole, it would be better to educate the most promising children. But to do so

would not be better for each individual. Even a very unpromising child, born to

wealthy parents, will derive at least some benefit from the Persian public educa

tion. By taking this educational opportunity away , we sacrifice that child's good

to that of another , at least to some degree.

What would Socrates say that justice demands in such a case? Would he

insist on distributing coats or educational opportunities in the best possible way,

pointing out that this is all that we can do? Perhaps he would argue that those

whose good must be sacrificed have an obligation to be just, or to serve th e

common good , and therefore that they have no just basis for complaint. But

wouldn't this be to beg the fundamental quest ion, since there is no common

good in this easel What kinds of sacrifices does justice demand from us, as a

matter of obligat ion, according to Socrates? To be sure, this question bears

directly on th e issue of th e political possibilities of justice, since, as we saw,

while perfect justice requires the rule of th e wise , th e wise are not likely to want

to rule. They do not want to spend their whole life allocating to each "what is

fitting,"

since this might be an unrewarding and even a wretched existence. But

what about their obligation to rule? That is, even if all other difficulties had



1 8 Interpretation

been disposed of, would justice impose on th e wise an obligation to serve th e

common good as rulers? And what if a better life was available to them (cf.

Memorabilia 1.6.14)?

Socrates does not

directlyaddress this

far-reachingquestion in the Memora

bilia, at least not in any obvious way. We do not know, therefore, whether he

addressed it, or the manner in which he might have done so. But nothing pre

vents us from venturing some heuristic suggestion. Perhaps, then, it was part of

his analysis of justice to focus on certain powerful and enduring opinions which

human beings, or at least just human beings, hold about it, and especially on

th e opinion or insistence that justice, whatever else it is, is above all something

good. It is this insistence, as we recall , that was at the root ofCyrus'

judgment

of the tw o boys, as well as of our own agreement with that judgment. But we

must add that this insistence is, as it were, comprehensive in its scope. For it

would seem to include the demand that justice, if it is to be true justice, must

be something good for everyone involved, which is to say, not only fo r the

beneficiary of th e just action but also fo r the doer of it, for the just man himself.

Thus we ordinarily speak and think of justice as a "commongood,"

and a genu

ine common good would necessarily include th e good of the just man himself,

along with that of the individual or community which he serves (cf, again, the

three situations described at Memorabilia IV.2.17). Moreover, we say and think

that it is good fo r us to be just, at least in the long run, or in the sense that our

souls are thereby benefited (Bolotin, 1987, p. 18). Finally, and to the extent that

we also say and think that justice requires self-sacrifice, don't we expect , or at

least hope, that these sacrifices will ultimately redound to our benefit, fo r they

will be made good , we believe, by human beings or by th e gods? Indeed, if our

just actions prove simply harmful to us, we believe that an injustice has taken

place: we did not get what we deserved. We may even come to look to the

divine fo r our just reward in the next life. But, Socrates might have argued, by

insisting that true justice must be good "for everyone

involved,"

or by thinkingand speaking of justice as a "common

good,"don't we implicitly grant that a

human being would be just, or at least not unjust , if he attended to his good in

a situation where no common good existed? Don't we grant tha t the voice of

justice would be, so to speak, silent in such a case? Or to put it otherwise,

doesn' t our belief in, or insistence on, the complete goodness of justice amount

to a recognition that, precisely on grounds of justice, th e wise would not be

obligated to sacrifice their personal happiness to that of the"whole"

community

if a better or happier life was available to them?

To repeat, we do not know whether Socrates confronted the question with

which we are now concerned or the manner in which he might have done so.

In fact, one could reasonably object that we have now gone much too far, not

only in ascribing certain concerns and arguments to Socrates, with scanty textual

evidence (but cf. Memorabilia III.9.4), but also in our disregard of what is

arguably the most conspicuous feature of the Memorabilia as a whole: Socrates




is presented in it as a most just ma n precisely because he "harmed no one, not

even a little, but benefited his associates to the greatestextent"

(IV. 8. 11, my

emphasis). That is, th e overarching premise of the Memorabilia's apology is

that the essence of justice lies in "serving

others"(cf. 1.3.1, II.4.1, III. 1.1, 8.1,

10.1, IV . 1.1, 4.1). But if Xenophon, and his teacher Socrates, accepted the truth

of the premise in question, how can the foregoing analysis be on the mark (cf.

especially Hellenika VII. 3. 12)? What is more, the analysis w ou ld a pp ear to be

flawed in another respect. For while it is surely significant, as we have empha

sized, that we speak an d think of justice as a common good , don't we also say

an d think that justice makes certain demands on us, that we must be devoted to

that very c om mo n g oo d? Don't we draw a distinction, in other words , between

just behavior and selfish pursuit of self-interest?

Byw h at r ig h t did we

seeminglydisregard this distinction? It would seem, then, that o ur a na ly si s r eq ui re s some

s ign ific an t r e vis io n s. Thus I shall return to this question in th e concluding sec

tion of this article, after treatingSocrates'

education to justice. But fo r now , we

must go back to ou r earlier claim to demonstrate it more adequately, the cla im,

namely, that when Socrates equates justice with "thelaw,"

he is n ot an im ate d

by what I have called sentimentality or naivete regarding law.

I have suggested that when the Persian teacher of justice equates the just

with the legal, he may be animated by th e less than r e sp e cta ble wis h to maintain

th e political hegemony of th e wealthy Persians, th e political class to which, no t

surprisingly , he himself belongs (Education of Cyrus, 1.2.5). Yet while there

may be som e and even considerable truth to this suggest ion, it also obscures an

important point which we can no longer disregard.Cyrus'

teacher seems to

have genuine respect and even reverence fo r the Persian laws. He is no t simply

disingenuous when he insists on law-abidingness. What is the source of this

reverence? It is adumbrated, I believe, toward the end of his instruction to Cy

rus, where he explains to his pupil that while "the legal is just, the illegal is

forceful" (or "violent": biaios, 1.3.17).Cyrus'

teacher equates illegality with

force; he opposes the rule of law to the rule of force. H is reverence fo r the

Persian law seems to be based, at least in some significant measure, on his

belief that law is a noble guardian against force, or that human beings escape

violence, and the harm that results from violence, through legality. Moreover,

his reverential attitude, and the belief on which it is based, is no t some kind of

Persian idiosyncrasy. After all, we, too, respect the laws to which we are subject

at least in part because we see in them noble guardians against violence. We,

too, set

"law"

and

"force"

in opposition: the goodness an d nobility of the "rule

oflaw"

with th e badness an d shamefulness of the "rule offorce."

What would Socrates have thought of such an opposition (and therewith of

the attitude of mi n d tha t it fosters)? The answer is provided by a conversation

reported in the Memorabilia on the subject of law (1.2.41-46). It is true that

this conversation did no t directly involve Socrates, but rather the statesman Per

icles, the famous leader of th e Athenian democracy, an d Alcibiades, later infa-



20 Interpretation

mous fo r his political activities during th e Peloponnesian War. Yet we must

keep in mind that Alcibiades, who was at the t ime of the conversation not yet

twenty and stillPericles'

ward, was also "[a] companion ofSocrates"

when it

took place (1.2.39). (Xenophon says

onlythat th e conversation "is

said"to have

taken place [legetai: Memorabilia 1.2.40].)

(41) "Tell me,Pericles,"

[Alcibiades] said, "would you be able to teach me what

lawis?"

"By allmeans,"

aid Pericles.

"By th e gods, teach itthen,"

said Alcibiades, "for when I hear certain ones

praised as law-abiding men, I think that someone who does not know what law is

would not justly obtain thispraise."

(42) "But you do not desire anything hard, Alcibiades, in wishing to know what

lawis,"

said Pericles. "For all things are laws that the assembled multitude has ap

proved and written, pointing out what should and should not bedone."

"Do they hold that one should do good things or badthings?"

"The good , by Zeus,lad,"

he said, "and not th ebad."

(43) "What if it is not th e multitude, but th e assembled few who write what one

should do, as is th e case wherever there is oligarchy? What isthis?"

"Everything,"

he said, "is called law that th e overpowering part of th e city, upon

deliberation, writes that one shoulddo."

"So even if a tyrant who overpowers th e city writes fo r th e citizens what they

should do this to o islaw?"

"Even what th e ruling tyrantwrites,"

e said, "this to o is calledlaw."

(44) "But what is force and lawlessness (bia kai anomia),Pericles?"

he said. "Is

it not when one who is stronger compels one who is weaker not by persuasion but

by the use of force to do whatever is in his opinionbest?"

"In my opinion, atleast,"

said Pericles.

"And whatever the tyrant writes and compels th e citizens to do without persuad

ing them this islawlessness?"

"In myopinion,"

said Pericles. "For I take back what I said about what the ty

rant writes without persuasion beinglaw."

(45) "And what th e few write, without persuading th e many but overpowering

them, shall we say that it is force or shall we not sayit?"

"Everything, in myopinion,"

aid Pericles, "that one compels someone to do

without persuading him, whether he writes it or not, is force rather thanlaw."

"And whatever the whole multitude writes without persuasion, when it overpow

ers those having wealth, would be force rather thanlaw?"

(46)"Alcibiades,"

said Pericles, "we too were quite clever indeed at things of

this sort when we were your age. For we to o practiced such things and made pre

cisely th e sort of sophisticated arguments that you, in my opinion, are now practic

ing."

And Alcibiades said, "Would that I could have been your companion at that

time, Pericles, when you were at yourcleverest."

(Memorabilia 12.41-46)

At the outset of this charming and revealing exchange , Pericles is under th e

sway of th e opinion, whose influence we already saw in th e Persian teacher,

that there is a simple opposition between law and force, between the rule of law




and the rule of force. For that reason, he is easily unsettled byAlcibiades'

observation that the first (revised) account of law "everything . . is called law

that the overpowering part of th e city, upon deliberation, writes that one should

do"

fails to give any expression to this opposition (sec. 43).

Pericles'

firstaccount has brought it about that law has become indistinguishable from force;

it has come to light as nothing higher or nobler than an act of public coercion.

But Pericles is unwilling to accept this consequence, and he is accordingly dis

satisfied with his first account (sec. 44). Alcibiades encourages this dissatisfac

tion by offering what seems to be a way out of the difficulty, a way to give full

expression toPericles'

belief th at th ere is an opposition between law and force.

This opposit ion, Alcibiades suggests, is rooted in the opposition between persua

sion and compulsion: whereas th e rule of law is rule based on persuasion (or on

the consent of th e ruled), the rule of force (o r lawlessness) is rule based on

compulsion. Pericles seizes on that distinction. In the later part of th e conversa

tion, he is accordingly le d to claim that a law is only a law if it is fully consen

sual, if it involves no compulsion at all but only persuasion: "everything in my

opinion . that one compels someone to do without persuading him, whether

he writes it or not, is force rather thanlaw"

(sec . 45). But as Alcibiades quickly

points out, this view entails that most, not to say all of the democratic"laws"

of Athens are not really laws. They are acts of force, the force that th e poor

exercise against the rich (see, e.g., Oikonomikos, 2.5-6; Symposium 4.30-32,

sec. 45). Thus whilePericles'

first account of law could not do justice to his

opinion that there is an opposition between law and force, his second account

cannot support his belief that the laws of democratic Athens, in the making of

some of which he presumably participated, are indeed laws.

We conclude that the opposition between the rule of law and the rule of force

is not as clear as Pericles (and, before him, the Persian teacher) seemed to

assume. In fact, the simple opposition between them has come to light as untena

ble since, fo r all practical purposes, the rule of law is always created and main

tained partly by force. Every manmade law derives some of its power from force

rather than persuasion, and conversely (although this point is not emphasized

in the exchange) force can never dispense entirely with persuasion, since th e

"enforcers"

cannot be ruled by force: even the tyrant must rule by persuasion at

least his army of bodyguards. (Admittedly, th e tyrant might be able to rule even

his bodyguards by force, or at least by fear, by playing them against each other.)

There might appear to be, then, no difference in kind, but only a difference in

degree, between political communities under th e "rule of

law"

and those under

the "rule offorce."

Yet this appearance needs to be properly qualified. For one,

it is clear that some types of political rule are qualitatively much better and

more decent than others: even Alcibiades admits as much , and so does Socrates

in various passages of the Memorabilia (seeAlcibiades'

first question to Per

icles at sec. 42; as fo r Socrates, see e.g. Memorabilia 1.2.32 and III. 1-7 as a

whole). Nor should we forget th at th e more consensual forms of rule tend to be

more stable than, and to th is extent superior to , those relying more on force.



22 Interpretation

The distinction in quest ion, in other words, while it is something of an oversim

plification, does re ma in m ea nin gf ul and politically significant (cf. M emorabi lia

1.2.10). But the conversation suggests that even th e best political order will no t

be entirely free froma reliance on

force. Topu t

the sameconclusion differently:

the conversation reveals that the laws of every political order are produced by

something higher or more fundamental, what Xenophon calls in other places the

politeia, the"regime"

(see, e.g., Memorabilia IV.6.12). Yet the regime is itself,

in essence, an arrangement of th e different parts of th e community defined by

their r el at iv e s tr en gt h: as Pericles pu t it , "everything . is called law that the

overpowering part of the city, upon deliberation, writes that on e shoulddo"

(sec. 43, my emphasis). Putting these tw o points together: th e conversation

teaches that th e simple opposition between law an d force is untenable because

law is itself produced by a preexisting factual arrangement defined fundamen

tally by fo rce. (From here, we begin to understand how Xenophon's report of

Socrates'

interview with Critias an d Charicles [Memorabilia 1.2.31-38] is

meant to prepare the reader fo r his report of the conversation between Peric les

and Alcibiades [sees. 41-46]. Socrates had been summoned by Critias and Char

icles, tw o of th e Thirty Tyrants, after he had allegedly criticized the rule of th e

Thirty in public. They proceeded to forbid him to "converse with theyoung"

or, as they had written in the laws, they commanded him to stop "teaching an

art ofspeeches"

[sees. 33, 31]. The story in q ue st io n m ak es abundantly clear

t ha t t he rule of the Thirty was violent a nd o pp re ss iv e and, in particular, that th e

prohibition against conversing with the young was an act of pure force [see

sees. 35, 37]. Yet both Xenophon an d Socrates go ou t of their way to call the

prohibition in question a"law,"

while Xenophon calls Critias and Charicles

"law-makers"

[sees. 31, 33-34]. At first, on e is tempted to treat these character

izations as merely ironic. Yet once we reflect onAlcibiades'

conversation with

Pericles, we begin to understand the seriousness behind them. Alcibiades offers,

so to speak, a systematization of the lesson intimated by the"law-makers"

Crit

ia s an d Charicles.) To go one final step in our analysis, we might even ask

whether the reported conversation leaves any room fo r th e existence of any"laws."

For we generally believe, with Pericles, that law is both different from,

and higher or nobler than, force. To the extent that the conversation has shown

that this simple distinction is untenable, we could say that it p re se nt s us with an

alternative: either"laws"

exist, but they are no t nobler than force, or, if we insist

that laws must be nobler than force to be laws, then there are no laws. It is

doubtful, in other words, tha t there exists a being or co nce pt

"law"

which

combines all the opinions we have on this subject into a coherent whole of

which, as such, a rational account could be given.

It is a lm o st c er ta in that the young Alcibiades came to these insights about

law and law-making through his association with Socrates, an association which,

as we have ment ioned, w as s till going on at the t ime of the conversation. In fact,Alcibiades'

w ho le m an ne r of questioning Pericles, and especially his raising a




What is ? question, was that of a Socratic. By contrast, return now fo r a

moment to Professor Gray, who contends that th e conversation shows the cor

rupt nature of Alcibiades, "a young man who learned mastery of speech from

Socrates but did not have the morality to apply it

properly"(p . 116). Gray is

surely correct to say thatAlcibiades'

character was suspicious, but she should

have at least considered whether he did not see something that Pericles failed

to see. Gray does not seem to appreciate that Xenophon put an instructive argu

ment in the mouth of a villain who could be easily dismissed because of his

notorious hubris, and then intimated that his hero was the source of that argu

ment. In a word, she falls victim to Xenophon's apologetic rhetoric. (More

specifically, Gray argues that "Pericles is like those politicians in Plato's Meno

98ff. who have correct belief but no

knowledge becausetheir

beliefs havenot

been reasoned through. He knows that democracy is justifiable but is unable to

win the contest of reasoning which Alcibiades sets in train. The pupil lacks the

right opinion but is in command of the ironic style of question and answer

refutation and uses it on his guardian to elicit a definition which will be easily

refuted. Partial wisdom meets partial wisdom in a deconstruction of the tradi

t ional form which is a measure of Xenophon's control of it. The corrupt pupil

has a technical victory over the symbol of political wisdom, as Critias and Char

icles had their limited political victory over Socrates as th e true symbol of wis

dom in th e earlier conversation [a t1.2.31-38]"

[p . 116]. I would agree with

Gray that democracy is justifiable, but she should have explained why Alcibiades'

victory over Pericles is merely "technical.")

We conclude that unlike Pericles, and unlikeCyrus'

Persian teacher, Socrates

knew that the simple opposition between "rule oflaw"

and "rule offorce"

is

untenable; unlike them, he fully appreciated the element of force at the root of

most , not to say all, human laws; his equating of justice with "thelaw"

was not

the result of a sentimental failure to appreciate one important aspect of legality.

II. THE SOCRATIC EDUCATION TO JUSTICE

What I have said so fa r aimed to shed light on the perspective from which

Socrates equated justice with th e law, but it has not brought out sufficiently the

character and goal of a Socratic education to justice. In what respect, if any,

was such an education different from its Persian counterpart? Here again, I

begin from a consideration of the Education of Cyrus.

When Cyrus was already a man of about twenty-six or twenty-seven, and

after the death of his grandfather Astyages, Media came to be threatened by a

large military alliance headed by the king of Assyria. The new ruler of Media,Astyages'

son Cyaxares, responded to the threat by appealing to his Persian

allies, and it was Cyrus who was chosen to lead the Persian contingent to be

sent in relief. As Cyrus and his father Cambyses rode out of Persia together,



24 Interpretation

they had a long conversation about the tasks and duties of a general, a subject

which, givenCyrus'

situation, was obviously of interest to him (1.6). The crucial

part of that conversation arose out ofCambyses'

suggestion that a good general

should only attack his enemies if he is going to

"gain"

(pleon echein) from it

(sees. 26-34). But, Cyrus immediately asks, how would someone be most capa

ble to gain from his enemies? At first, th e wise Cambyses appears reluctant to

answer this delicate question: swearing by Zeus, he says that Cyrus is no longer

questioning him about low (phaulos) or simple (haploos) matters. "But know

well,"he continues, "that whoever intends to do this must be a plotter, a con

cealer, a deceiver, a cheat, a thief, a robber, and in every way greedy to get th e

better (pleonektes) of hisenemies"

(sec. 27). Cyrus is naturally taken aback by

th e suggestion:

"By Heracles,what kind of man do you

suggest , father,that I

become!"

(sec. 27). Indeed, Cambyses seems to be urging his son to transgress

all th e precepts of Persian justice (cf. 1.2.6). Yet, th e father insists, he is only

suggesting that Cyrus become a most just and law-abiding man. "Whythen,"

Cyrus reasonably replies, "were we taught th e opposite of these things when we

were children andadolescents?"

(sec. 28). Cambyses explains that, indeed, the

precepts of justice in question remain in force with regard to friends or fellow

citizens. But, he adds, so that you may be capable of harming the enemies, you

were also taught many ways of ill-doing. When Cyrus responds that he, at least,

was never taught any such things, Cambyses reminds him that along with th e

other young Persians, he was taught how to use the bow and the javelin, and

especially, on the occasion of public hunts, how to deceive the game. And yet,

to deceive an animal is not the same thing as to deceive a human being, Cyrus

reasonably retorts. "And I know that I was beaten whenever I even appeared to

wish to deceiveanyone"

(sec. 29). "Nor did we allow you to use the bow or th e

javelin against humanbeings,"

Cambyses responds , "but we taught you to throw

at a target not so that you would use these skills against your friends, but so

that you would be capable to shoot at the enemies should war arise. Likewise,

we taught you to deceive and to be greedy in getting the better (pleonektein)

not of human beings but of animals, not so that you would harm your friends,

but in order that you not be untrained even in these things should wararise"

(sec. 29).

Cyrus remains dissatisfied with his father's somewhat reticent explanation.

If knowing how to do good and how to harm human beings is useful, they

should have been taught both these things regarding human beings. " It is said,

child, that there was once a teacher among our

ancestors,"Cambyses replies,

"who taught justice to the children just as you bid that one should not lie and

lie, not deceive and deceive, not calumniate and calumniate, not be greedy and

be greedy(pleonektein)"

(sec. 31). But in all these things, this teacher distin

guished between what one should do to one's friends, and what to one's ene

mies. He also taught that it would be just to deceive even one's friends, or to

steal from them, if it were done fo r the sake of th e good. And as he taught these



Xenophon's Rhetoric an d Treatment of Justice 25

things, th e children necessarily began to practice them toward o ne a no th er . The

result , Cambyses explains, was that some of these children, who were naturally

gifted fo r deception and for greed (pleonektein), and perhaps also no t without a

natural love of gain

(philokerdein), didnot

refrain from attempting to be greedy(pleonektein) even with their friends. (That is, this manner of teaching justice

led to a liberation of the love of gain of the children, who turned against each

o th er a nd their fellow Persians.) For that reason, Cambyses explains, an unwrit

te n law was established at th e time, and is still in force today, that the children

must be taught justice"simply"

(haplos), i.e., by means of a bs ol ut e a nd uncondi

t ional precepts ("neverlie,"

"neverdeceive,"

"neversteal,"

and so on), just as

it is taught to house slaves. Those wh o transgress these p re ce pts are punished

so that, once they have acquired th e proper habits,they

will be gentler citizens.

But when the children have reached full adulthood, as Cyrus himself now has,

it is thought (dokein) to be safe to teach them what is lawful regarding enemies.

Indeed, Cambyses concludes, it is thought (dokein) that those who have been

brought up to respect each oth er would no t allow themselves to become harsh

toward their fellow citizens (sec. 34).

I mentioned earlier that the Persian education to justice was aimed a t p ro du c

ing good citizens (1.2.5). To be a good citizen means in the first place to be

gentle or friendly toward one's fellow citizens. The young Persians w er e a cc or d

ingly taught from the earliest age that they sh ould nev er lie, never deceive,

never steal, and so on. Obedience to these absolute precepts w as se cured by

corporal punishments and by praise and blame, and it insured that th e Persians

would become and remain friendly to each other. But good citizenship also

means the ability to defend one's country in t ime of war: th e good citizen is no t

only friendly to his fellow citizens, he is also harsh with his enemies. He must

possess the virtues associated with war (see Memorabilia III. 1.6). In particular ,

he must be trained in th e arts of deception, which Persia inculcated in its youths

by organizing frequent hunting expeditions (Education of Cyrus 1 .2 .10 -1 1) . But

th e difficulty then arises as to what is to prevent the Persians, once they have

learned these arts, from using them against each other. Admittedly, this diffi

culty might never arise or, at least, would no t be so serious, if the Persian laws

always secured th e good fo r each individual Persian. But as the story of th e tw o

boys an d their coats brought ou t so beautifully, th e legal prescriptions in Persia

were n ot a lw ay s good. The same fundamental di lemma can be seen in Persia's

public teaching regarding justice. The prospect of war forces Persia to qualify

the original

"simplicity"

of tha t teaching; it compels her to sanction as just

a partial liberation of thePersians'

acquisitiveness, inasmuch, that is, as that

acquisitiveness is directed outward toward the enemies of th e country. Persia is

forced to teach, reticently an d with infinite care, what th e ancestral teacher of

justice also taught his students: that justice is helping one's friends and harming

one's enemies. But as was already apparent in the case of that teacher's students,

this"complex"

teaching runs the risk of producing a complete liberation of



26 Interpretation

acquisit iveness, or of making the Persians harsh even to each other. It runs th e

risk of weakening the authority of th e stern and simple precepts of justice under

which the Persians lived in their youth. For Pers ia 's foreign policy provides a

kind of justification fo rthe pursuit

of self-interest byindividuals:

indeed,how

could such a p ursu it be legitimately blamed, if Persia herself teaches that it is

just to deal with foreign powers on th e sole basis of self-interest? If collective

greed is just, or at least no t unjust, mustn't the same be said of individual greed?

Be that as it may , it is clear that once the Persians had attained adul thood, and

especially once they had learned the arts of deception, the only real bulwark

preventing their becoming harsh even with fellow Persians wa s their acquired

habits of law-abidingness and th e respect (o r shame) they felt toward each other.

AsCambyses'

general reticence intimates, it is fa r from clear that this bulwark

was always up to th e task. (See in particularCambyses'

double use of dokein

at sec. 34. More generally, Xenophon adumbrates th e less than complete success

of th e education to justice in the following way. When he describes the educa

tion to moderation [sophrosune], to obedience to the rulers [peithesthai tois

archousi] and to continence [engkrateia] which the children received in addition

to their education to justice, he says in every instance th at th e children's educa

tion wa s facilitated [sumballesthai] by th e sight of their elders, wh o possessed

all of these qualities [1.2.8]. Xenophon n ev er says that the education to justice

was facilitated by th e sight of the elders'justice. This is no t to deny that th e

children imitated their elders in this case as well: they, too, accused each other

of all manners of injustices [see Education of Cyrus 1.2.8, cf. sec. 6].)

The mention of th e ancestral teacher of justice by Cambyses should remind

us of Socrates. Indeed th e summary description of that teacher's teaching bears

a striking resemblance to the brief dialectical examination of justice which Soc

rates is seen to conduct with his pupil Euthydemus in the last book of th e

Memorabilia (cf. Education of Cyrus 1.6.31-32 with Memorabilia IV.2.14-18).

There, too, the conclusion is reached that to lie to, or to deceive one's enemies

is just, while to do so to one's friends is unjust ; and that deceiving even one's

friends or stealing from them can be just, provided it is done for their own good.

(The enemy described by Socrates at Memorabilia IV.2.15 is also an unjust

enemy , h owever. H e later drops this important qualification, but without any

explanation. Needless to say, Euthydemus does no t ask for on e [sec. 16]. More

over , in th e passage from th e Education of Cyrus, Cambyses says only that th e

deception mu s t be done "for the sake o f thegood"

[1.6.31].) In other words , the

Persian unwritten law regardingthe

"simple"

teaching of justice prohibited its

teaching in a Socratic manner. But howprecisely did the Socratic education to

justice compare with its Persian counterpart? What was its specific character

and goal?

The Pers ian education to justice was a public education, which is to say that it

wa s aim ed at every young Persian, irrespective of his natural talents or abilities

(although as we saw, only the children of th e wealthy received that education



Xenophon's Rhetoric an d Treatment of Justice 27

in actual fact). By contrast, th e Socratic education to justice was more private

in nature. It was addressed only to a limited number of youths and, ult imately,

only to those whom Socrates regarded as "goodnatures"

(Memorabilia IV . 1.2).

What, then, did a good nature consist in?

Accordingto

Xenophon,Socrates

judged the good natures from three qualities: they learned quickly what theyturned their minds to ; they remembered what they learned; an d they desired all

the subjects of learning through which one can nobly (kalos) manage a house

hold an d a city, and, altogether, make good use (to holon . . eu chresthai) of

human beings and human matters (IV. 1.2). That is, a good n at ur e c om b in ed

intellectual quickness, a good memory , and a desire fo r knowledge of a c er tai n

sort. The young Euthydemus, for example, whose limitations I have had occa

sion to emphasize but whose attitude on this point is probably representative,

shows little interest in theoretical pursuits such as geometry or as t ronomy, at

least in th e beginnings of his acquaintance with Socrates (IV.2.10, cf. IV.7 as a

whole). Rather, he desires to know whatever seems necessary to the success of

the political ambitions which he has been harboring. (Euthydemus wishes to

preside overAthens'

democracy [IV.2.36; IV . 2. 1-7 and passim]. As fo r his

desire fo r knowledge, it is admittedly of a somewhat perverted kind: he merely

collects the writings of wise poets and sophists [IV.2.1]. Moreover, when he

initially meets Socrates, he believes that he already knows what he needs to

know to be politically successful: he lacks th e spontaneous desire fo r knowledge

characteristic of the good natures. But these facts merely confirm that he is no t

himself such a nature.) Euthydemus desires the so-called kingly art or kingly

virtue, "that virtue through which human beings become fit fo r political affairs,

fit to manage households, competent to rule, and beneficial to other human

beings as well asthemselves"

(IV.2.1 1; cf. rV.1.2). It is this particular desire for

knowledge that makes him, despite his otherwise poor intellect, in on e respect a

typical addressee of a Socratic education. His training, therefore, gives us some

pointers regarding the character and goal of such an education.

Given tha t th e three qualities constitutive of a good nature were all, broadly

speaking, intellectual quali t ies, we might be tempted to conclude that the moral

character of a youth was of l it tle importance inSocrates'

view: a youth did no t

need to be just, or concerned with justice, to be promising. But this conclusion

is off th e mark. We recall that a good nature desires to learn whatever is condu

cive, no t merely to the profitable or effective management of households or

cities, but to their noble management as well. And to manage something in

noble fashion w ou ld s ee m to require that it be managed with justice. In keepingwith this, we observe tha t when Euthydemus told Socrates that he desired the

"kinglyvirtue,"

the youth made it clear that in his view, he c ou ld not be good

at exercising it without justice. (A s he pu t it, "it is n ot p os sib le to be a good

citizen withoutjustice"

[sec. 11].) The noble longing for th e kingly virtue natu

rally issues, in other words, in a concern to act justly in public and private

affairs, or to be just oneself. Indeed, to go one step further,Socrates'

t reatment



28 Interpretation

of Euthydemus suggests th at the concern to be just was especially important

when Socrates approached promising youths (IV.2 as a whole). Like Euthyde

mus , a good nature longs to be "a goodcitizen,"

and he believes that he cannot

begood at

this without being just. But where will this concern lead him if he ismade to realize, through a Socratic

"elenchus,"

that he does not know what

justice is or demands, inasmuch as his opinions on the subject contradict each

other (see IV.2. 12-23)? He will want to become a pupil of Socrates, quite natu

rally, eager to remove the ignorance of which he is now, for the first time,

painfully aware (seeEuthydemus'

reaction toSocrates'

refutation at IV.2.40).

That is, th e discovery of his ignorance will prompt the good nature to postpone

th e pursuit of his political ambition until such time as he possesses an adequate

knowledge of justice.

Onlywhen this important task has been accomplished will

he think himself ready to turn to political affairs, confident that he can now be

(o r become) a "goodcitizen."

To put the same point otherwise,Euthydemus'

example suggests that the Socratic education to justice, like its Persian counter

part, presented itself as a preparation fo r political involvement (cf. Memorabilia

1.6.15). Like that educat ion, it presented itself as a means, a mere means , to the

political end of good citizenship (Bruell, 1987, pp. 104-5).

But were these tw o types of education also similar in their content? Here,

there would seem to be significant differences. For one, the Persian education

relied primarily on corporal punishments to inculcate its teaching regarding ju s

t ice. Socrates on the other hand made no use of such methods but educated

entirely by conversation or speech (cf. Memorabilia 1.2.18). Not surprisingly,

therefore, the"cognitive"

content of the Persian education was much more lim

ited than that of its Socratic counterpart. We recall that in Persia, the children

were taught justice by means of absolute and unconditional precepts: the Persian

regime was eager to present the demands of justice as"simply"

as possible. In

fact, the success of its education apparently depended on the conscious fostering

of a certain ignorance, or innocence, in its children. (Cyrus himself provides a

good illustration of this. In his conversation with his father, he seems genuinely

surprised tha t as a military general he will have to deceive his enemies or to

steal from them! This innocence is all th e more remarkable given the otherwise

sophisticated understanding of the Persian way of life, and its limitations, that

Cyrus had demonstra ted in his speech to the Peers [see Education of Cyrus 1.5].)

By contrast , Socrates sought to remove hispupils'

ignorance by bringing out

dialectically the full complexity of th e question of justice, of what justice is or

demand s. H ewould

begin fromapupil's preexisting opinions on the subject,

from his opinion, for example , that lying or deceiving is absolutely unjust, and

gradually bring out the inadequacies and even th e contradictions in those opin

ions (cf. Memorabilia IV.2.14 ff.). In this way,Socrates'

addressee might be led

to abandon his former views, or at least to begin a search for a truly adequate

account of justice, an account that would do justice, so to speak, to the element

of truth in each of his contradictory opinions. To put this difference in a nut-




shell: Persia was satisfied to inculcate politically salutary opinions about justice,

whereas Socrates tried to lead his addressees to genuine knowledge of it. (This

is not to suggest, however, that a Socratic education could act as a kind of

sophisticated replacement fo r a Persian education. On the contrary, a Persian

education was a necessary prerequisite fo r undergoing a Socratic training. Thus

in th e opening of his first conversation with Socrates, Euthydemus is seen to

hold th e"Persian"

view that lying or deceiving is absolutely unjust [IV.2.14].

Opinions like these would provide the needed material from which the Socratic

investigation of justice could begin its work of clarification. The investigation

would bring out , among other things, that a human being is just in the ordinary

sense if he is guided in his actions not (o r not merely) by his knowledge of

justice, but (also) by a nonrational or suprarational element, what we can call

th e "goodintention"

or the "good will"[see Memorabilia IV.2. 19-20]. ForSocrates'

attitude toward the good will, see Memorabilia 1.2.52.)The most perplexing difference between the Persian and Socratic educations,

however, given that both were meant to prepare fo r a political life, is their

respective duration. In Persia, the education to justice lasted only fo r a finite

number of years. It was completed when th e young reached adul thood, around

their twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh birthday. In its final stage, the young Per

sians would be taught that it is just and lawful to be greedy in getting the better

of th e country's enemies. (W e recallCyrus'

conversation with his father.) After

learning this, the now adult Persians would turn their attention away from educa

tion and engage in political affairs, as Cyrus himself did following th e conversa

tion in question. The Persian education to justice, in other words, was truly

instrumental to a life of political activity. By contrast, the Socratic education to

justice, while it came to sight as a means to the same end, apparently turned

into an end in itself after a while. It proved to be a lifelong task, a task tha t was

not completed in any finite period of t ime. No indications are given in the

Memorabilia, at any rate, that the politically ambitious Euthydemus ever turned

(o r returned) to politics after becoming a pupil of Socrates. Besides, Socrates

himself refrained from direct political involvement and spent so to speak his

whole life investigating justice (Memorabilia 1.1.16, 6.15, IV.4.5-6; Symposium

4.1). It is true that some of his students , most notably Alcibiades and Critias,

did become politicians after leaving his side. But according to the Memorabilia,

their behavior was bound up with their rejection of Socrates and what he stood

fo r (1.2.12-48).

Are we to conclude that th e Socratic education to justice could not prepare

its addressees fo r good citizenship becau se it failed to answer the question of

what justice is? Is this the troubling significance ofSocrates'

lifelong investiga

tion of justice and his concomitant abstention from politics? Or could it be,

rather, that Socrates was successful in answering this quest ion, and that his

answer to it is bound up with, or amounts to , a critique of th e political life?

Could it be, in other words, that the Socratic education to justice, while it came



30 Interpretation

to sight as mere preparation fo r a political life, led in truth to ask whether or

no t to live such a life? (Consider th e possible meaning of the second e x a mp l e

given at Memorabilia IV.2. 17.)

III. CONCLUSION: FROM THE POLITICAL TO THE PHILOSOPHIC LIFE

Let me try to spell ou t in a preliminary way how this suggestion should be

understood. To do so it is useful to reflect once again onSocrates'

pupil Euthy

demus. We sa w earlier tha t Euthydemus shares with the good natures the yearn

ing to be a good citizen, or to p os se ss w ha t Socrates called the "kinglyvirtue,"

th e virtue of th e good citizen (IV.2. 11). This virtue, as he believes, will enable

him to perform th e work of th e citizen, which consists in serving his city well

in all of its needs: the essence of good citizenship lies in service to others or in

devotion to the common good according to Euthydemus. (For a m ore extensive

discussion of the work of the good citizen, see IV .6. 14.) But we must no w add

that Euthydemus also yearns to be a good man , or, as he puts it, to be "noble

an dgood"

(IV.2.23). He does no t explain what he thinks a good m an is or does,

however, although he indicates that such a person must know th e noble, th e just

and the good things (IV. 2.22-23). Or perhaps it would be m o re a cc ur at e to say

that Euthydemus believes that a good ma n is, in essence, th e same thing as a

good citizen: human goodness as such lies in service to others or in devotion to

th e common good in his view. (When Socrates asks Euthydemus what he wishes

to become good at when he gathers the writings of wise poets and sophists , the

youth answers tha t he wishes to acquire [what Socrates calls] "the kingly vir

tue,"

or, as he puts it, to be "a goodcitizen"

[IV.2.1 1, my emphasis]. Yet after

Socrates has convicted him of ignorance regarding justice, Euthydemus says

that he thought he was "pursuing in my philosophizing a philosophy through

which [..

.] I would be educated to th e highest degree in what befits a m an

yearning for nobility andgoodness"[IV.2.23, my emphasis]. A good citizen is

the same thing as a "noble and goodman"

inEuthydemus'

view.) But is Euthydemus correct in holding this view? Is a good man the same thing as a good

citizen, or the same thing as a serviceable man? Xenophon, fo r one, seems to

have had doubts about the correctness of this equation. In his historical work

the Hellenika, fo r example , he observes that "most people, as it seems, define

those wh o are their benefactors as goodmen,"

and he indicates by the context

of that remark that he views the"definition"

in question as crudeor

vulgar

(V II.3 .12). And indeed, how couldn't it be crude to think that a bank robber ,

fo r example , is a good human being simply because he has given us some of

his loot? But Xenophon's observation could have a deeper significance as well ,

inasmuch as our fellow citizens are our everyday benefactors, even or precisely

when they are devoted to the common good. There are reasons to suspect, in

other words , that Xenophon was dissatisfied withEuthydemus'

simple equation,




an equation which is no t idiosyncratic but very common and, in Euthydemus at

least, apparently still unconscious. Moreover, insofar as "service toothers

s

on e of the most basic meanings of justice (cf. Memorabilia IV . 8.1 1), we surmise

that this dissatisfaction was c on ne ct ed w it h Xenophon having investigated in a

Socratic manner the question of what justice is. For if a human being is attracted

to the political life at least partly because he yearns to be good (in the sense of

serviceable), then the enduring attractiveness of that life will presuppose his

continuing acceptance of this particular understanding of human goodness. But

th e quotation from th e Hellenika intimates that th e Socratic investigation of

justice might no t have allowed those who came into contact with it, an d who

understood an d accepted its results, to continue to share in the understanding in

quest ion, and therewith to desire, or at least to continue to desire in the same

way, the life fo r which they may have once longed. In this way, this investiga

tion could have led to a lowering of the appeal of th e political life, and also

indirectly to th e elevation of some other life, what we m ight call the philosophic

life, to judge at least from Socrates and his pupils (cf, e.g., Symposium 1.4).

Admittedly, important difficulties would have to be solved before these con

jectures can become satisfactory suggestions. For one, we w ould n ee d to spell

ou t more fully why the philosophic life is the fundamental alternative, as it

apparently is, once the political life has been demoted in this way. And more

obviously perhaps , the fact tha t philosophy did not entirely supplant p ol iti cs o r

p o li ti ca l a m bi ti on in Xenophon's own life suggests th at th ere exists a viable

"middleway"

tha t successfully blends these tw o kinds of lives: they need not

stand as irreconcilable alternatives. But be that as it may, we may safely con

clude from th e foregoing this much: the Socratic education to justice would

naturally foster in its addressees a heightened awareness of their hitherto un

conscious supposition about human goodness. And since to become aware of

this supposition is also, almost inevitably, to realize that it is no t obviously true,

that it must be, at least, e xa mi ne d an d argued for, we could say that whatever

else it achieved, o ne e ss en ti al consequence of the Socratic education to justice

was to steer its addressees toward greater self-knowledge (cf. Memorabilia

IV.2.24-30).

Professor Gray emphasizes in various parts of her monograph that Xeno

phon's portrait of Socrates is above that o f a s er v ic ea b le human being (pp. 10ff;

170,179). She notes that Xenophon has been

widelycriticized for this

emphasis,which has been thought to bespeak a superficial and vulgar mind: the pupil

could no t grasp the complexity of the master's teaching and therefore he stressed

what he did understand,

Socrates'

usefulness in mundane matters such as solv

ing disputes among friends or r el ati ve s (e.g., II.2-3). Besides, it was surelythe sign of a philistine to reduce

Socrates'

goodness to his usefulness. Grayacknowledges that Xenophon's portrait is frequently "useful, banal and thera-



32 Interpretation

peutic,"ut she insists that "Xenophon also operates at higher

levels"

(p . 13).

Gray does not raise a crucial question, however: What did Xenophon think of

the identification of goodness with serviceability? Did he view it as satisfactory?

In one passage,Gray

surmises that th e equation in question suggested itself to

Xenophon fo r its rhetorical usefulness, i.e., that he wrote the M emorabil ia to

satisfy an audience accustomed to "wisdom literature": "The wise man was

expected to be helpful rather thanharmful"

(p. 179). But Gray does not pursue

this fruitful thought very fa r despite the evidence of its correctness. Indeed,

Gray ultimately recants and ends up defending a much more traditional reading:

the superior goodness of Socrates lay, in Xenophon's eyes , in his superior use

fulness to others and especially to young men such as Glaucon, Plato's older

brother (p. 194). To be sure, this reading of th e Memorabilia is not indefensible

insofar as Xenophon's Socrates does put forward in his own name, and on more

than one occasion, at least a version of the equation of goodness with service

ability (o r with usefulness: see Memorabilia III. 8.5-7; cf. Symposium 5.3-8).

But what is the specific character of this version? Gray correctly senses that

Socrates' "utilitarianism,"

as we might call it, was not entirely traditional it

was a "distinctadvance"

on tradition, albeit one which could "threaten tradi

t ionalvalues"

yet she insists that Socrates "does not himself apply it thatway"

(pp. 180; 179). Professor Gray might have taken a significant step toward th e

recovery of Xenophon's Socratic wisdom had she sought to prove this conten

tion adequately.

REFERENCES

Bartlett, Robert C, ed. 1996. Xenophon: The Shorter Socra ti c Wr itings. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press.

Bolotin, David. 1987."Thucydides."

In History of Political Philosophy. 3d . ed., edited

by Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 7-32.

Bruell, Christopher. 1987."Xenophon."

In History of Political Philosophy, 3d . ed., ed

ited by Leo S traus s and Joseph Cropsey. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp .

90-117.

1994. "Xenophon and HisSocrates."

In Memorabilia, translated by Amy L.

Bonnette. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Pp. vii-xxii.

Galinsky, G. Karl. 1972 Herakles Themes. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Gera, Deborah Levine. 1993. Xenophon 's Cyropaedia: Style, Genre, and Literary Tech

nique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gray, Vivienne. 1998. The Framing of Socrates: The Literary Interpretation of Xeno

phon's Memorabilia. Stuttgart : Franz Steiner.

Hume, David. 1975. Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. 3d. ed. Oxford: Ox

ford University Press.

Laertius, Diogenes. 1966. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Har

vard University Press.

Lucciom, Jean. 1953. Xenophon et le socratisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.




Marchant, E. C. 1923. Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apology. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.

Morrison, Donald. 1994. "Xenophon's Socrates as

Teacher."

In The Socratic Movement,

edited by Paul A. Vander Waerdt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Pp. 181-208.

1995. "Xenophon's Socrates on th e Just and th e Lawful." Ancient Philosophy

15:329-47.

Nadon, Christopher. 1996. "From Republic to Empire: Political Revolution and th e Com

mon Good in Xenophon's Education ofCyrus,"

American Political Science Review

90 (June): 361-74.

Pangle, Thomas L. 1994. "Socrates in th e Context of Xenophon's PoliticalWritings."

In

The Socratic Movement, ed. Paul A. Vander Waerdt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University

Press. Pp. 127-50.

Russell, Bertrand. 1945. A History of Western Philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Strauss, Leo. 1953. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1972.Xenophon'

s Socrates. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.

Stauffer, Devin. 2001. Plato's Introduction to the Question of Justice. New York: State

University of New York Press.

Vlastos, Gregory. 1991. Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press.

Xenophon. 1992. Education ofCyrus. Translated by H. G. Dakyns. London: J. M.

Dent & Sons Ltd.

1994. Mem orabilia. Translated by Amy L. Bonnette. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Uni

versity Press.



Rousseau an d The Redemptive Mountain Village:

The Way of Family, Work, Community, an d Love

Mark S. Cladis

Vassar College

The tension between the hopes and desires of th e individual and the require

ments of a shared public life are at the heart, or th e knot, of Rousseau's thought

an d life. He wrestled with th e various conflicting claims tha t issue from the

p ub lic and p riv ate life: p re ro g at iv es a nd obligations to self, friends, family, vo

cat ion, civic life, and to humanity. He grappled with these an d found ways to

mitigate the tension between them.

I wish I could say that Rousseau provided a solution to how society can

maintain commitment to both the pluralism that individualism r eq ui re s a nd the

commonality that th e common g oo d r eq ui re s. Still, he did illuminate this mo d

ern drama of the contingent yet inevitable storms that bluster as we attempt to

find public an d private meaning a n d c on te nt me nt . Few writers have portrayed

more poignantly the strain of loneliness in a hollow private life, or the weight

of alienation in a barren public life; few writers have dep ic ted more movingly

the peace a n d s at is fa ct io n of an a mp le p ri va te life, or th e sense of belonging

an d purpose of a lively public life.

Rousseau imagined a time o f human innocence in what he described as Na

ture's Garden or the state of nature. Next, he deta iled our fall from the Garden,

and imagined r ed e m pt iv e w ay s of life that, if not as guileless as existence in th e

Garden, are at least satisfying and no t too psychologically exhausting. The ques

tion of r es to ra ti on o r redemption dominated much of Rousseau's thought. He

posed tw o different, even contrary, remedies: a public path and a private path.

The public path, as found in On the Government of Poland, recommends that

individuals ensconce themselves snugly within a highly nationalistic, educative

community; the private path, as found in 77i<? Reveries of the Solitary Walker,

recommends that individuals Solitaires c ultiv ate a spiritual, interior life and

extricate themselves from commitments and o th er s oc ia l entanglements that ex

acerbate the human propensity to inflict harm. The one calls fo r the complete

loss of the private life, the other the loss of th e public. Both are effective, if the

goal is to live undividedly; both are inadequate, ifthe goal

is to livea

full,flourishing human existence. The Flourishing City, as depicted in the Social

Contract, is Rousseau's middle way, his attempt to bring together the tw o paths.

There is another opt ion, however, th e way of the Mountain Village . This is

the way of friendship, love, marriage, communi ty , an d agreeable work. This

INTERPRETATION, Fall 2001, Vol. 29, No.



36 Interpretation

path runs between the private path and th e middle way , and hence it can be

called the moderate private path."Moderate,"

because it does not revolve around

the Solitaire;"private,"

because at its center stands th e household, not an inclu

sive common good. It incarnates Rousseau's deepest

fantasyand attempts a

precarious balance between solitariness and sociability.

MOUNTAIN MANNERS, ALPINE GEOGRAPHY

Rousseau 's famous novel , Julie or the New Eloise, will be my principal book

fo r this moderate private path. This way leads us to the Mountain Village with

its warm, supportive families, strong friendships, agreeable work, and its alter

nating seasons of soli tude, family, and outdoor public festivities. "Friendship,

love, andvirtue"

are th e themes Rousseau himself identified in Julie (Les con

fessions, in QZuvres completes, 1959 [henceforth, O. c], i, 545; J. M. Cohen,

trans., Confessions, p. 504. Translations in this essay are my own. For conve

nience, the second part of th e reference refers to an English translation, when

available.) In fact almost all of Rousseau's favorite subjects and ideals appear ,

and mostly in Julie's character. Julie, like Rousseau, places common sense

above philosophy, candidness and sincerity above tact and tactics, the useful

and agreeable above frivolity and luxury, and character and virtue above wealth

and social status. Also, Julie, unlike her atheist husband, Wolmar, is religious a

la Rousseau. She d iscovers God in beauty, and worships God by service to

others (see Julie, O. c, ii, 590-91). Clarens is the name of Julie's household,

and the name of Rousseau's domestic fantasy. Rousseau's ideal home was never

Nature's Garden inhabited by the Solitaires. Rather, it was the Mountain Vil

lage. The Village is inhabited by simple, good natured, hardworking, indepen

dent folk who experience daily the necessity and beauty of nature. Clarens is

more than a home. It is a way of life.

Clarens is also a geography. Rousseau had drafted or outlined what he

thought could become one of his most helpful works, Moral Sensitivity, or The

Materialism of the Wise (for Rousseau's description of "Moral sensitive, ou le

materialisme dusage,"

see Confessions, pp. 380-81; O. c, i, 408-9). In this

project , Rousseau wanted to show that our character and morals come not only

from our social climate but also our physical surroundings. It is no coincidence

tha t Clarens is located high in the Swiss mountains. The mountains, and the

hardyway of life that

theydemand, endow the residents with virtue and charac

ter. Rousseau was one of the first to associate rugged landscape with stalwart,

estimable character. The "salutary and beneficial mountainair,"

according to

Julie's tutor, St. Preux, is "one of the great remedies of medicine andmorality"

(O . c, ii, 78-79; Julie, p. 66). The salutary aspects of Clarens are not , of course,

due to geography alone. The Alpine geography works together with Clarens's

mountain manners. Like Emile's tutor or th e Social Contract's Great Legislator,



Rousseau and the Redemptive Mountain Village 37

th e mountain manners at Clarens nourish the self without prompting false needs

and amour-propre: that anxious and anomie self-love and pride, so dependent

on public opinion. At th e same time, th e difficult Alpine geography constantly

confronts the self with naturalnecessity

and curbs

excessive, dangeroussociabil

ity. Together, these form a context in which the individual is neither extin

guished nor inflated, but is placed in harmony with itself, neighbors , work, and

nature.

After Rousseau, others such as Thomas Mann or Martin Heidegger would

place their Utopias or places of healing in towering mountains inhabited by a

race of simple but wise folk. This elevated, bucolic landscape and tranquil,

hardy way of life support a modest community life. It resembles Gemeinschaft

(cooperative community) more than Gesellschaft (competitive society), to use

FerdinandTonnies'

terms; or country life more than city life, to use Rousseau's

vocabulary. In the warmer months , the mountain inhabitants enjoy fetes in th e

open air. In th e colder months , families occasionally visit each other, and there

are even some social "circles": groups of families who enjoy song, games, and

wine. (For Rousseau's description of these mountain social circles, see Politics

and the Arts: Letter to d'Alembert, pp. 99-113; Lettre a M. d'Alembert, pp.

193-214. These circles are among the few secondary groups of which Rousseau

ever wrote approvingly. Although they inhabit a space between th e public and

private, Rousseau noted that they were"decent"

and not"dangerous"

because

they "neither wish to , nor can, hide that which is public"Lettre a M. d'Alem

bert, p. 207; Politics and the Arts, p. 108].) The community life is modest

because the social ties, while affectionate, are entirely voluntary and easily un

coupled. This is not the land of devoted citizens who put nation above family

or self. Nor is this th e land of urbanites who celebrate novelty more than tradi

tion, diversity more than affinity, dynamic street life more than habitual family

life. The way of Clarens exemplifies th e simplicity of rural life, the beauty and

ruggedness of mountains, and the character of those immersed in both moun

tain manners and unmannered mountains.

The Garden-Fall-Restoration narrative can illuminate Julie and Rousseau's

depiction of th e public and private in tension. Julie begins with the gentle,

peaceful existence of one as innocent as a Solitaire in Nature's Garden: Julie.

In her gardenlike existence, she is surrounded by natural beauty; loving parents;

her dear friend, Claire; and a devoted tutor, St. Preux. Yet, like the Solitaire's,

if Julie's innocence is to become complex virtue, she must leave the garden and

attempt torecapture

features ofthe

garden,albeit

t ransformed. Her fall isocca

sioned by love and its artificial obstacles. An initially innocent romance between

her and St. Preux becomes tangled and emotionally debilitating when their love

is consummated and then thwarted by Julie's father, th e status-conscious Baron

d'Etange. He forbids Julie to marry St. Preux, a man without a title. As Julie

and St. Preux's relationship becomes increasingly concealed, their private lives

hidden from public view, they resort to lies and deceit. In their idyllic garden,



38 Interpretation

Julie notes to St. Preux, their relationship was "easy an d marked by

an "elegantsimplicity"

an d"purity."

Now, after their fall into sex, lies, an d

social artifice, "that happy t ime is no longer. Alas! It cannot return, an d as the

first effect of so cruel a

change,our hearts have

alreadyceased to understand

eachother"

(O . c, ii, 102; Julie, p. 83). Cast out of their garden, they can

no longer openly share their most private hopes and fears. They now suffer

tremendously, equally unhappy whether together or separated.

How does this gentle tale, that begins in such innocence, turn bitter and

cruel? Although Julie an d St. Preux are exceptional humans, they are incomplete

alone: they need love, and love is dangerous. Their love fo r each other is ob

structed by social convention: since St. Preux lacks a title, his merits will never

be enough to gain Julie's father's approval. In her innocence and youth, Julie

never sa w th e serpent, amour-propre, in her garden. She didn't know her garden

belonged to a world where concern fo r social appearance and status ruins love.

Many eloquent and persuasive a rg u me nt s a ga in st her father's social prejudices

are offered. Of St. Preux, Lord Bomston (a family friend) says to Julie's father,

"in spite of your prejudices he is of all men most worthy of her. Nobility?

Vain prerogative. . . . But he has nobility even so , do no t doubt it, no t written

in ink on old parchment but engraved on the foundation of his hea rt in indelible

characters. In a word, if you prefer reason to pre judice , and if you love your

daughter better than your titles, it is him you will giveher"

(O . c, ii, 168-69;

Julie, pp. 137-38). Still, her father will no t relent. His attachment to social

status runs deep. For her part, Julie loves her father, and m ore important, she

has a duty to him. Julie's private love fo r St. Preux, then, is thwarted ultimately

by her f ilia l obligation to her father and her duty to uphold public appearances ,

to marry well , to marry properly. Lord Bomston, a ma n who w ears his wealth

and titles lightly, characterizes Julie's fall and abyss when he writes to her, "the

tyranny of an intractable father will drive you into the abyss which you will

recognize only after the fall. You will be obliged to contract an alliance

[with Wolmar] disavowed by your heart. Public approval will be refuted inces

santly by the cry of yourconscience"

(O . c, ii, 200; Julie, pp . 168). Julie's

abyss is characterized as a world in which private love and p ub lic duty are in

conflict, causing deep strife w ithin an d among its inhabitants. As she writes to

Claire, "whom will I support , my lover or my father? . . Sacrificing myself to

duty, I cannot evade committing a crime, and whatever course I take, I must die

both unhappy an dculpable"

(O. c, ii, 201; Julie, p. 169). Like Antigone, Julie

is torn between love and

duty,between private happiness and

public appearance.

Eventually, their mutual redemption is occasioned, in part , by Julie's ma r

riage to th e Godlike atheist Wolmar. Wolmar enables th e former, fallen Julie to

become a new , redeemed Julie: a virtuous yet no longer innocent woman who

discovers happiness in her duty as wife and mother. As fo r St. Preux, Wolmar

heals him, too, by engineering his return to Clarens and his reconciliation with




Julie; he becomes a trusted friend of th e family and derives much joy from that

friendship. Living with her two men under th e same roof, Julie leams to place

virtuous duty above romantic love, while cultivating a seasoned, spousal love

fo r Wolmar and a

friendshiplove for St. Preux.

Everyaspect of the

household,we will see, is arranged to reconcile the public and private harmoniously. Still,

a lingering tension remains between Julie's passion fo r St. Preux and her duty

to Wolmar. Only upon her death is that tension erased completely. After diving

into icy waters to save one of her children, Julie contracts and eventually dies

from pneumonia. By this death, in th e line of duty, not a fit of romance , her

virtue is entirely vindicated and her redemption is complete. St. Preux, too, can

be saved by performing his duty, for, after Julie's death, he is to remain at

Clarens and tutor Julie's children. The circle of his Garden-Fall-Restoration can

be closed: as his garden and fa ll began with instructing Julie, his reclamation is

to be made complete by educating her children. At th e close of the novel , how

ever, it is not clear whether St. Preux will return to Clarens. He appears as an

outsider , with no home to return to .

The tale found in Julie is th e same one told in th e second Discourse and in

many of Rousseau's other works. As long as we dwell in a private universe, we

may live as innocents, doing little good or harm. When we enter the social

universe, however, our innocence is sacrificed for the possibility of achieving

complex virtue, but also vice. For th is tr an s itio n to be relatively successful,

aspects of th e gardenlike existence must be preserved. On the extreme public

path the serpent, amour-propre, was deflected away from the self and redirected

to the group. When all is public, one is not div ided between public duty and

private love. Moreover, as in the Garden, one is confronted with necessity, th e

intractability of a highly socialized society. On the extreme private path, in

contrast, where one lives entirely within oneself, the opposite strategy saves

one. When all is private, one does not suffer from dividedness. Also, as in th e

Garden, one is motivated principally by amour de soi (that is, gentle, healthyself-love as opposed to amour-propre, anxious, destructive self-love), and one

is confronted with th e necessity of nature.

In contrast to these two extreme paths, the way of Clarens is neither strictly

public nor private. Its mountain manners and Alpine geography create a natural ,

social context that enables individuals to integrate th e public and private. At

Clarens, one enjoys many aspects of the Garden, as well as a modest sociability

that does not bring into play the destructiveness of amour-propre. Yet, as we

will see, unlikethe other

tw o paths,the

wayof Clarens is unstable. For eventu

ally love and duty, the private and public, will come into conflict. Clarens, then,

is as fleeting as it is precarious.

Wolmar alone is not th e way of Cla rens. The way of Clarens includes such

natural and social circumstances as stellar characters, strong friendships, good

marriages, useful andagreeable work, community fellowship, moments of soli-



40 Interpretation

tude, natural beauty, and the necessary discipline and hardship of living in the

Alps. Nature and artifice, working harmoniously together, create this Second

Garden, Clarens. (For a helpful account of how artifice works with nature in

Julie,see David

Gauthier, 1979.)

CLARENS, THE SECOND GARDEN

Julie's tr ans fo rma tion is concomitant with the transformation of the Clarens

household, a physical embodiment of a way of life that permits the reconcilia

tion of th e public and private. The househo ld transformation begins with th e

arrival of Wolmar. (St.Preux'

s letter to Lord Bomston contains the most com

plete description of the changes; see O. c, ii, 440-70; Julie, pp. 301-4, although

much is abridged in th e English edition.) The household, St. Preux notes , is now

orderly and peaceful, "and without show, without ceremony, everything there is

gathered and directed toward th e true humandestiny!"

In the absence of injuri

ous social convent ions, humans can work and dwell at peace with each other,

nature, and self.

The house itself is altered: "it is no longer a house made to be seen but to

beinhabited."

Inordinately large rooms are made into useful apartments; ornate

antiques are replaced with simple, comfortable furniture; everything is pleasant

and cheerful , and "nothing there smacks of riches andluxury."

The yard, too,

has been transformed. In place of the old billiard room are now a wine press

and a dairy room. "The vegetable garden was to o small fo r the cooking; they

had made a second one out of the flower bed, but one so well put together that

the flower bed thus converted pleases the eye more thanbefore."

Vineyards are

planted, and decorative trees are replaced by fruit, nut , and shade trees. All in

all, "everywhere they have substituted th e useful fo r the agreeable, and yet the

useful has almost always become

agreeable."St. Preux mentions the delightful

"noises of thefarmyard,"

the crowing of th e cocks, the lowing of the cattle, the

harnessing of the horses. He also notes th e simple, pleasant meals taken in the

fields, the shared labor in cultivation, and many other rural aspects that make

th e new Clarens "more lively, more animated, more gay . . . than it had been in

its drearydignity."

In sum, Clarens has become a place "of joy and wellbeing"

(O . c, ii, 441-42; Julie, pp. 301-2). St. Preux, once a world traveller, now

wonders why anyone would leave Clarens, where one finds a way of life that is

na tu ra l, p roduc ti ve, and happy.

Clarens, however, is more than a house and yard; it is also an open and frank

social atmosphere in which people say what they mean and mean what they say.

There is no need to be unduly cautious about one's speech. Whether eating,

strolling, or working, whether "in private conversation, or before everyone, one

speaks always the samelanguage."

The transparency that Julie lost in th e fall

and that is absent in the City that symbol of perfidious social existenceis




re-established at Clarens. And with this arrival of transparency, a barrier be

tween public and private is removed. This is not to say, as St. Preux notes, that

th e household members "indiscreetly spill all theiraffairs"

(O . c, ii, 468; Julie,

p. 302).

Everythingneed not, and should

not,be told to all. But that which is

revealed or concealed is not based on advancing social status or other forms of

nar row, personal gain. Concealment at Clarens, such as it is, is an acknowledge

ment of privacy as a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human. Some know l

edge is appropriately guarded and protected, or else revealed only at one's dis

cretion. At Clarens, then, there remains some distinction between public and

private, but that distinction is not based on baneful conventions and pursuits.

The distinction fosters harmony, not injury.

The public and private are made harmonious not only by open communica

tion, but by th e "useful yet agreeable"way of life at Clarens. Work and home

are not relegated to strictly public and private domains. Public and private are

intertwined, as are work and pleasure. Sociability at Clarens mainly takes place

while one is doing chores, as opposed to scheduled, formal entertaining in which

one dresses and behaves to make a public statement. As one works , one enjoys

interaction with family, neighbors, and community members. Useful and pleas

ant endeavors reconcile the public and private at Clarens. Without idleness and

luxury, one's powers and desires are more easily matched, fo r one has little

t ime or care to imagine what one needs to make others envious. Private thoughts

about public manipulation disappear. This leads not only to personal but social

well-being.

Labor rests at th e heart of Clarens. Alienation from work was an abiding

concern fo r Rousseau. He feared that as capital in international markets became

more fluid, as profit dominated all other goals , and as the division of labor

increased, workers increasingly found limited meaning and satisfaction in their

work. Their jobs were more special ized, curtailed, and often they did not know

fo r whom or what they worked. Labor at Clarens, in Rousseau's imagination,challenges these unhappy trends. St. Preux sums up the Clarens alternative in a

single sentence: "One sees nothing in this household which does not join to

gether the agreeable and the useful, but the useful occupations are not confined

to pursuits which yieldprofit"

O. c, ii, 470; Julie, p. 304). At Clarens, the very

idea of work is redefined. Not reduced to profit , nor to efficiency, work is yoked

to that which is purposeful and agreeable. Rousseau, like Marx, sought to re

mind us that we are sensuous , tactile creatures who find our natural vocation in

congenialwork.

I am crafting an image of Clarens from material in Julie. This fantastic Sec

ond Garden, however, is not limited to Julie. It is found in the second Discourse

and in the Confessions, among other places. Rousseau, we know, often cele

brated nature. Less well known is his high regard fo r farm life. There is a

connection, he maintained, between one's character and activities, and the activ

ities of farm life, meaningful work in alliance with nature, brought both strength



42 Interpretation

of character and joy. In the Confessions he recounted how, when on the verge

of death, he quit his doctor's pharmaceutical prescriptions an d instead immersed

himself in life on the farm, with its chickens, pigeons, cows , vegetable gardens,

grape

harvests,fruit

gathering,and above

all, honeybees

(see,fo r

example,

Confessions, p. 220; O. c. i, 231). Rousseau's various descriptions of the happi

est chapters in his life are invariably rooted in farm life, and they often read

like chapters ou t of Julie. In his happiest recollections, he is in the country, not

in solitude, but with some company , involved in useful yet not overly burden

s om e a ct iv it ie s.

Why are these the settings in which Rousseau discovered tranquility and

purpose? Why Clarens? As in the Garden, Rousseau's state of nature, Clarens

is free of hurtful artificiality and unjust social conventions. As in th e Garden,

one is no t free of necessity, but encounters a necessity rooted in th e rhythm of

nature and household activities, rather than in the compulsion of convoluted and

obsessive social artifice, competi t ion, and greed. As in the Garden, on e experi

ences an intimate r el at io n w it h nature. Yet, no t as in th e Garden, on e enjoys

human company. With amour-propre curbed, on e can delight in n at ur e and hu

mans , both. As St. Preux notes, without pomp and pretense, with everything

arranged so as to unite the useful and the pleasant, Clarens is "directed toward

th e true humandestiny!"

If here St. Preux's voice is Rousseau's, and I think it is, then Rousseau

rooted C larens in human nature. Rousseau usually had a generous sense of the

malleability of human nature, and he often warned Europeans against sanction

ing their cherished yet parochial ideals by attributing them to nature. And to

many of us, Clarens must seem nothing but parochial. Rousseau, however, felt

he was on firm ground when he identified Clarens with nature , including human

nature. Clarens seemed to have it all: beauty, useful work, domesticity, friend

ship, community, solitude, and the absence of injurious social artificiality. It

was, we have said, his fantasy of the good life.

Marriage and family are part of tha t life. Rousseau's celebrations of domes

ticity are no t limited to those found in Julie. In the Confessions, fo r example ,

he noted his domestic happiness with Therese, the woman he lived with for

over twenty years before marrying her. Reflecting on their simple meals and

walks together, Rousseau wrote, "friendship, confidence, intimacy, sweetness of

soul, what delicious seasonings theyare!"

Similarly, recollecting his reunion

with Therese after political banishment had briefly separated them, he ex

claimed, "Oh friendship, union of

hearts, habits,and

intimacy!"

(O . c, i, 354and 582; Confessions, pp. 330 and 538). Such passages, I realize, may sound

more like accounts of friendship than marriage. Friendship and companionship,

however, defined marriage for Rousseau. We have already noted that he rejected

th e then pervasive view that marriage should principally advance one's ec o

nomic an d social position. Intimacy and companionship, not wealth an d station,

characterize th e Rousseauean marriage and family.




When Rousseau wrote Julie, he had already endured th e pain of moral isola

t ion. He understood how one can feel alone even among a crowd. Loneliness

prevails when one's options are radical social disengagement isolation or

engagement with an insipid social existence emptiness. Clarens rescues th e

alienated by offering th e warmth, joy, and purpose of a closely knit, productive

family. Clarens anticipated the modem family, that center of one's moral and

social life. Julie, as wife, is Wolmar's intimate companion and friend. They are

also coworkers. Julie and Wolmar address together all matters that pertain to

th e household. Yet the Clarens household, unlike the households of today, is

not a narrow domestic space, but an inclusive space tha t brings together work

and pleasure, utility and aesthetics, public and private, men and women. In Julie,we noted, work is not confined to specialized labor outside the home. Julie

and Wolmar, then, have much to discuss together, and much work to pursue

together.

Clarens is th e way of marriage and family, but also of friendship. Lord Bom

ston and St. Preux, St. Preux and Julie, Julie and Wolmar, St. Preux and Claire,

and above all, Claire and Julie: there are many friendships at Clarens. These

friendships, like Clarens's family life, provide generous portions of support ,

warmth, and intimacy. Yet whereas family members are yoked by both love and

duty, the union of friends imposes no duty. Love fo r the friend, Rousseau held,

flows as naturally as one's own self-love, amour de soi. "Self-love [amour de

soi], like friendship which is but a part of it, has no other law except the senti

ment which inspires it; one does everything fo r his friend as fo r himself, not

out of duty, butdelight"

("Letter to MmeD'Houdetot,"

Correspondance, 1967,

iv, 394). Rousseau often dreamed of a society of friends, of a society "where

neither duty nor interest would enter, where pleasure and friendship alone

would make thelaw"

(O . c, iv, 683; Emile, pp. 348-49). Friends acknowledge

one another's equality and independence. Without these, th e friendship deni

grates into patronage on one side, slavish dependency on the other. These condi

t ions of friendship do not lessen but enhance the emotional depth. Rousseau,

fo r example, described th e "tears ofemotion"

he would shed each time he

walked the eighteen miles to see his good friend, George Keith (see Confessions,

p. 551; O. c, i, 597). This strong friendship was based on respect, equali ty , and

independence.

The world of Clarens may be a fantasy, but it is also a social protest. Its

family and friendships condemn the utilitarian character of the marriages and

friendships of Rousseau's age. In the effort to accumulate public status and

wealth, spouses and friends were deemed useful. Clarens challenges this utility

of the private life fo r public attention and personal gain. Family and friends, in

Rousseau's view, are to offer the gifts of affection and moral support , not wealth

and status. The realms of intimacy at Clarens oppose the cold, calculating, pub

lic world of Hobbesian market relations and Parisian social climbing. Once in

fected with amour-propre, players in such public spheres threaten to undermine



44 Interpretation

even private friendships. In the Confessions, Rousseau claimed that his friend

ships were ruined the moment he became a public figure: "I was born fo r friend

ship. . . So long as I lived unknown to the public I was loved by all who knew

me. . . .

Butas soon as

I hada name

Ino

longer had any

friends"

(O . c,

i, 362;Confessions, p. 338). Fame can make one an object of utility or envy among

friends and erode the equality and independence necessary fo r friendships. Uti

lizing the Garden-Fall-Restoration narrative, Rousseau would often describe

t imes in his life graced by strong, private friendships, and then, inevitably,

something or someone from the outside would sabotage the relationships. Resto

ration, however, seldom occurred. Clarens, in its own , fictional, way, became

Rousseau's chief compensat ion, an imaginary restoration. For some t ime to o

much time, really he dwelt in this fantasy and it thereby eased his pain. This

use of Clarens as a private salve, however, should not cloak Rousseau's public

service of envisioning Clarens as an alternative and challenge to a world increas

ingly engaged in the manipulative pursuit of wealth , s ta tus , and power.

WOMEN, COMMUNITY, AND SOLITUDE AT CLARENS

Of all the friendships at Clarens, that of Julie and Claire is th e most notewor

thy. What Montaigne once said of his best friend, La Boetie, could be said as

well of Julie and Claire : "ou r souls mingle and blend with each other so com

pletely tha t they efface the seam that joined them . .

"

(Montaigne, 1958, p.

139). In fact, Julie and Claire's friendship resembles in most ways Montaigne's

description of the ideal friendship. One wonders if Rousseau was inspired by

Montaigne's essay, "OnFriendship"

and also challenged his claim that women

do not have the capacity for the sacred bond of friendship (see Montaigne, The

Complete Essays, p. 138). Julie is perhaps the most effective eighteenth-century

refutation of Montaigne's insulting claim, fo r Julie and Claire exhibit all the

virtues of friendship. They freely share their hopes and fears, their joy and

suffering. They sustain each other with moral and emotional support, encourage

each other to do their best, and they delight in each other's company. Often

they seem to compensate each other fo r the inadequacies of their male friends,

St. Preux's rashness, for example , or Wolmar's reserve.

Rousseau's portrait of this strong friendship between tw o women adds to the

perplexity of assessing Rousseau's depiction of women in Julie and elsewhere.

On the one

hand,Julie exemplifies

Rousseau'sideal

human: self-possessed,yet

engaged in the company of others. Julie "knows and follows rules other than

public opinion, [her] principal honor being what [her] conscience delivers[her]"

(O . c, ii, 91; Julie, p. 73). It is Julie, therefore, and not her father, who sees

through the pretensions of a patriarchal society that places status and wealth

above intelligence and character. On the other hand, in spite of her indepen-



Rousseau and the Redemptive Mountain Village - 45

dence, Julie yields to patriarchal authority, first to her father, then to her hus

band.

Julie is a companion to Wolmar, but she is also a helper, much as Eve was

to Adam, at least as that tale is traditionally understood. (There are feminist

accounts w hic h a rg ue that as God was a helper to Israel, so Eve was a helper

to Adam, that is , as a leader an d not a subordinate; see Phyllis Trible, 1979, p.

75.) Although all matters are discussed together, Wolmar is the head of th e

household. It turns out that in th e Second Garden, at Clarens, social conventions

are in place, conventions that Rousseau supports. Men's authority remains su

preme. Rousseau would have us believe tha t such conventions are rooted in

nature. Unlike Emile's Sophie, Julie is a strong, independent woman , an d she

is no t consigned to live ou t her life in a narrow domestic cage. At Clarens,

women's lives are no t radically relegated to the private, because the very distinc

tion between public and private is no t strict. Julie, unlike Sophie, need no t

sustain an acute p ri va te s pa ce as an antidote to the corrosive affects of th e City.

The City is fa r from Clarens, an d hence Julie's home need not function as a

mighty , defensive fortress. Julie, then, is no t Sophie. Still, neither is she a

woman liberated from patriarchy. She speaks her mind openly; she challenges

existing prejudices; she is a working woman with many significant responsibili

ties. Ultimately, however, she yields to her men. She trades her father's over

bearing dominance fo rWolmar'

s unimposing patriarchy. In either case, Clarens

remains entirely patriarchal.

Yet Clarens also implicitly advanced the cause and rights of women. By

portraying a marriage based on friendship an d compatibil i ty, it challenged the

notion that w om en w ere cha ttel subject to contract. By displaying th e vivid and

admirable interior life of Julie an d Claire, it d efied the idea that women were

docile and unimaginative. And by highlighting a sphere of intimacy, fondness,

and trust, Clarens contributed to an effective history that would eventually give

birth to th e right to privacy, a right that has p ro te ct ed a ndempowered

women

in democratic societies. With the publication of Julie, Rousseau highlighted the

significance of a privacy that allows people to share without fear of public

exposure such intimacies as letters, emotions, and beliefs. The privacy portrayed

in Julie has become fo r us a given, an e ss en ti al a sp ec t of what it is to be human.

This realm of trust has also become a striking contrast to what we experience

in ou r c on tr ac tu al an d litigious p ub li c e xi st en ce . At Clarens, however, while

privacy is found, the harsh contrast between public an d private is not. The public

life is as supportive of human

flourishingas is the private, in part because the

distinction between the tw o is softened.

The public life surrounding Clarens is no t the interesting, diverse, crowded

streets of London or New York. Nor is it the Spartan arena where citizens gather

to r e m e m b e r past victories and cultivate an intense patriotism. Public life at

Clarens is more like the county fair. Like the fair, it is seasonal: it arrives with



46 Interpretation

warm weather. This is no t to say that during the cold months there is no public

life. There are the social circles, the taverns, an d other places or occasions where

people informally gather to play cards, chat, and drink. But inclusive public

events take place when travel iseasy

an d wh en c e le b ra tio ns can occur outdoors,

under th e bright sun, where all are fully illuminated. Group dancing is a favorite

activity, because it integrates young an d old, m ale and female, employee and

employer. At such intergenerational, public fetes, there are no professional en

tertainers, no stage fo r all to stare at. Rather, th e people entertain themselves,

with song, dance, games, a nd m us ic . This, in Rousseau's view, is a truly natural

public life.

The natural public existence of Clarens is far from the public life of Paris,

that is, City life. In Paris, that "vast desert of aworld,"

t. Preux finds himself

"alone in the crowd"(O . c, ii, 231; Julie, p. 196). If transparency characterizes

Clarens, hiddenness and appearance identify Paris: "the men to whom one

speaks are not at all those with whom one converses. Their sentiments do not

at all emerge from their hearts, their insight is not at all in their spirit, their

discourse does no t at all represent their thoughts. One sees of them only their

appearance . .

"

(O . c, ii, 235; Julie, p. 196). St. Preux admits that the "vast

diversity"

of Paris offers m uch entertainment. But the hectic entertainment of

Paris requires, or compensates for, "an empty heart an d frivolousspirit"

(O . c,

ii, 245; Julie, p. 201). St. Preux speaks fo r Rousseau when he suggests that an

insipid public existence produces amusing, yet mindless, distractions.

In his Letter to M. d'Alembert, Rousseau provided what can serve as a theo

retical account , an d justification, of th e public life at Clarens. Rousseau wrote

this treatise to oppose the installation of a professional theater in Geneva. Its

main topic is the nature and function of entertainment. In a city like Paris,

professional entertainment serves to distract individuals from their hollow lives,

providing a temporary, if intense, escape. The theater is a favorite entertainment

fo r city dwellers, because, like television, it suspends the viewer's actual life,providing an intermission in an otherwise chaotic, empty , or lonely existence.

This form of recreation, in Rousseau's view, provides some benefits, but they

are highly limited. His main critique of city recreation is that it ultimately fails

to re-create the human spirit; that is, it fails to enable community members to

engage meaningfully with each other, thus refreshing recreating their lives

and social relations.

We may be tempted to dismiss Rousseau's antiurban sensibilities as quaint or

prejudicial. I know I have. In this essay, I have used "theCity"

as a Rousseauean

metaphor for an impersonal, banal public existence that increasingly requires an

intense, self-indulgent private life. For Rousseau, however, th e City was more

than a metaphor. He distrusted and disliked big cities, especially Paris, but also

London, among others. This narrow prejudice, however, should not diminish in

ou r eyes his achievement, namely, his success in naming one o f the great plights

of modernity: moral and social isolation. At th e heart of his critique of th e




theater we find his concerns about alienation and isolation. "People think that

they gather together at the theater withothers,"

ousseau wrote, "but really it

is there that each is isolated. It is there that they go to forget their friends,

neighbors, and relations . .

"(Lettre a M.

d'Alembert,p.

66;Politics and the

Arts, pp. 16-17). Like Marx, who sympathetically acknowledged that religion

brings comfort to the alienated, and yet it thereby distracts them from discover

ing the true cause of their oppression, Rousseau, too, sympathetically acknowl

edged the value and need of city entertainments. He understood that they ease

one's pain, and that the need fo r such entertainment reflects one's suffering: "It

is discontent with one's self, it is the weight of idleness, it is forgetting simple,

natural tastes, that makes outlandish amusement sonecessary."

If we experience

the need to occupy ourselves constantly with the stage, or television and video

games, we might add, it is because "inside of us we are ill at ease"(Lettre a M.

d'Alembert, p. 66; Politics and the Arts, p. 16). Rousseau's insights are not

limited to urban existence. All of us in contemporary Western society , regardless

of geographic location, dwell in the City.

Clarens was Rousseau's attempt to awake us to a different kind of existence,

a way of life in which the private and public nourish, not ruin, each other. If

Parisian entertainment is antisocial (one sits alone, watching a stage) and is

based on appearances (actors wearing masks) , then entertainment at Clarens is

communa l , and in place of professional actors, everyone assumes the role of

entertainer."But,"

Rousseau asks, "what then will be the objects of these enter

tainments?"

The community itself can provide all that is needed. "In the middle

of some place plant a stake crowned with flowers; gather together there th e

people , and you will have a fete. Better still: le t th e spectators give entertain

ment to themselves; make them actors themselves; make it so that each sees

and loves himself in the others, thus all being the betterunited"

(Lettre a M.

d'Alembert, pp. 233-34; Politics and the Arts, p. 126). In this community enter

tainment, participants are moved not by scripted lines, but by the spontaneous

emotion that comes from palpable interaction: touching, moving, smil ing, sing

ing. At Clarens, love of self (amour de soi) is cultivated in private, yet it is also

reflected, and nourished, in the face of others.

Community life is a season, a rhythm of Clarens. So is solitude. After identi

fying our true vocation as "this oscillation between labor andrecre

t.

Preux describes Julie's "recreation in a secluded place where she takes her fa

vorite walk and which she calls herElysium"

(O . c, ii, 470-71; Julie, p. 304).

Julie's Elysium is a secluded, hidden,private

garden,"which is always

carefully

locked with akey."

It is closed to the public. Upon entering the Elysium, whose

door would have been impossible to find without Julie's assistance, St. Preux

was struck by the dense foliage, the abundance of flowers, the sound of a run

ning brook, and the singing of birds: "I thought I saw the wildest place, the

most solitary in nature, and it seemed I was the first mortal who had ever pene

trated thisdesert."

With St. Preux, we are back in Nature's Garden, or at least



48 Interpretation

it would seem that way. The Elysium knows nothing of the symmetry or artifici

ality of formal, eighteenth-century French gardens. It appears to St. Preux as

"uncultivated andwild,"

beautifully wild. When Julie intimates that th e Elysium

isentirely

under her

direction,St. Preux

balks,"I do no t see at all

anyevidence

of human work,"and he insists that "it only cost Julie neglect."s is her way,

Julie is p at ie nt y et firm with St. Preux: "It is true that nature has done every

thing, but under my direction, an d there is nothing here which I have no t or

dered"

(O . c, ii, 71-72; Julie, p. 305).

If this is Nature's Garden, it is no t th e original on e th e state of nature that

Rousseau described in his second Discourse. That garden was the work of nature

alone. Julie's Elysium, in contrast, is a work of art, or a "desertartificiel,"

as

St. Preux would later describe it (O . c, ii, p. 474). Rousseau again seems to

declare that there is no going back to the original garden. Gardens places of

soli tude, places of redemption no w require human effort, and imagination.

Julie's Elysium is natural, insofar as only nature , no t Julie, can give birth to a

flower or a bird; natural, also, insofar as Julie chooses no t to import "exotic

p la nts orfruits,"

but rather to utilize those that are "natural to th ecountry."

Still,

it is Julie who p la nt ed a nd cultivated the raspberries, currants, lilac bushes, wild

grapes, hops, jasmine, hazel trees, an d so on. It is Julie wh o diverted th e water,

and who enticed th e birds to reside in her private sanctuary. Julie's garden, like

the rest of Clarens, is the result of nature's laws and human art working together,

in harmony. Rousseau is famous fo r having said on a few occasions that society,

no t nature, is the source of the vast majority of human woe. In Julie, however,

Rousseau did not contrast society to nature, but rather better societies to worse

societies, in accordance with whether they encourage or impede human flourish

ing. Like Julie's garden, Clarens itself may look entirely natural , as if it emerged

organically from its mountain soil. In fact, however, every aspect of Clarens

is shaped by human hands and imagination, in cooperation with nature. This

cooperation entails a way of life that recognizes such natural limits as human

hardship, suffering, an d death, and that rejects such unnatural burdens as exces

sive competi t ion, luxury with its attending discrepancy between rich and poor,

an d living without meaning or purpose. Clarens is a society, assembled by hu

mans , in agreement with nature.

Solitude and beauty belong to the social order at Clarens. Rousseau's lengthy,

elaborate description of Julie's Elysium underscores the importance and neces

sity of privacy and solitude in this well-run household and society. St. Preux

exclaims that in Julie's garden he is transported

"entirelyout of the

world,"at

least fo r an hour or so (O. c, ii, 478; Julie, p. 310). After his respite in th e

garden, his t ime fo r contemplation and refreshment, he returns to the world to

resume his work and life. Use of th e garden is one of Julie's greatest gifts to

St. Preux. With little money , some effort, and much love, Julie fashioned fo r

herself and her friends a place of restoration. Julie understands that in th e

rhythm of life, solitude has its season, as does work and community. "The re-



Rousseau and the Redemptive Mountain Village - 49

pose which serves as relaxation from past labors and which encourages other

labors is no less necessary to man th an the laboritself"

(0. c, ii, 470; Julie, p.

304).

Solitude, love, family, friendship, communi ty , work: these are the compo

nents of Clarens, Rousseau's fantasy and moral measuring rod. Clarens is also

a possible home fo r Emile, Rousseau's favorite, imaginary pupil. Emile does

not belong in Rousseau's Poland, fo r Emile was not trained to place citizenship

above all else. He did not receive a public education that would shape his heart

and mind in the image of th e state. On the other hand, Emile does not belong

on the private path in the Solitaire's garden. He was not raised, his tutor tells

us, to live alone. Of all th e places in Rousseau's moral geography, Emile is

perhaps best suited fo r Clarens. Emile is made fo r family, friendship, work,

solitude, and a modest measure of community and civic participation. L ike Mon

taigne, mayor of Bordeaux, Emile fulfills his civic duty, but that duty can never

capture , or satisfy, the entirety of his heart and soul. Neither Citizen nor Soli

taire, Emile walks Julie's path of gentle sociability. Given his affectionate per

sonality and religious sensibility, it would seem that Emile, not Wolmar, is the

ideal companion for Julie.

REDEMPTION AT CLARENS

The redemptive logic of Clarens is similar to that of Rousseau's extreme

public and private paths. In all three cases, th e destructive fallout of amour-

propre is kept to a minimum. On the extreme public path , private amour-propre

is redirected to public ends , to the glory of the nation; on the extremeprivate

path, amour de soi (gentle self-love) curbs amour-propre. Both maneuvers em

ploy Rousseau's strategy for reducing friction between th e public and private

by dodging those situations that put the two in conflict. Whether one embraces

an absolute public or private existence, disillusionment and strife abate as one

pursues well-defined aims with predictable outcomes. At Clarens, amour-propre

is forestalled by good marriages, strong friendships, private retreats, public cele

brations, demanding, agreeable work , and a difficult terrain and climate. Here,

we have a multitude of miraculous balancing acts. Its mountain manners and

Alpine geography manage to keep all in place, at least provisionally. The moun

tain manners provide moral sustenance while checking false needs. The severe

Alpine geography brings natural necessity into th e daily life at Clarens, and it

discourages dangerous, excessive sociability. Together, these form Clarens: a

place where the self is neither squelched nor puffed up, but lives in harmony

with itself, others, work , and nature.

Read Rousseau 's description, in his Letter to M. d'Alembert, of a mountain

communi ty he once visited in his youth:



50 Interpretation

An entire mountain covered with homes, each at th e center of th e land on which it

depends, arranged such th at th es e houses . offer to the numerous inhabitants of

this mountain both th e meditation of a retreat and th e sweetness of society. These

happy farmers, all at ease free of poll taxes, tariffs, commissioners , and assigned

labor cultivate the soil, with all possible care, th e bounty and produce of which is

theirs, and employ th e leisure that this cultivation leaves them to make thousands of

handmade goods. ... In th e winter especial ly, a t ime when th e deep snows hinder

easy communication, each family stays warm at home in a pretty and neat home of

wood , which they themselves built, occupying themselves with numerous enjoyable

labors that chase boredom from their refuge and add to their well-being. Never did

a professional carpenter, locksmith, glass-maker, or lathe-operator enter this coun

try; all do everything for themselves. . (Lettre a M. d'Alembert, pp. 133-34; Poli

tics and the Arts, pp. 60-61)

Rousseau goes on to note their useful books, their living rooms that look more

like "a mechanic'sworkshop"

or a "laboratory in experimentalphysic

heir

skill in drawing, and their singing and dancing. This Swiss mountain community

no doubt served as a model fo r Rousseau's Clarens. It carries the design of th e

Second Garden, a fragile balance between solitariness and sociability. Its em

phasis on self-sufficiency stays slavish dependency, a source of misfortune that

travels with amour-propre. With the specialization of labor comes the multipli

cation of commodities and complex systems of exchange, and from these come

arenas of competi t ion, injustice, and oppressive dependency. When we stand in

need of each other fo r basic goods, or fo r luxuries that are deemed basic, th e

more powerful exploit the more vulnerable, and from such exploitation come th e

ills that Clarens is protected from, humiliation, envy, contempt , and injustice.

Dependency is found, of course, in the domestic sphere of Rousseau's mountain

community. But domesticity, fo r Rousseau, is by definition a safe place for

intimacy and trust. To this belief he clung in spite of his own disappointing

domestic experience with his father and later with Madame de Warens.

Clarens, and perhaps even the mountain community that Rousseau described

to D'Alembert, is nothing less than an elaborate, fictional portrayal of Rous

seau's vision of humanity's happiest state, lodged neither in radical solitude nor

fatalistic social assimilation. Clarens is placed between th e extreme public and

private paths. Its location, high in the Swiss mountains, makes it difficult to

reach. This geography is not incidental. Few can achieve it. Many wouldn't

want to . There is no theater. There are no ethnic restaurants. There is little

pluralism. Thereis

littleanonymity. And even if you desire to live in a place

like Clarens, such sites are scarce, and their counterfeits can be oppressive, even

cruel."Misfits"

or"imbeciles"

in a small community are sometimes"eccentrics"

or"geniuses"

in th e City. Or, if that is to o romantic a notion, in the City theyare perhaps just ignored, a condition that most would prefer to derision and

scorn.

When I say places like Clarens are scarce, I mean, empirically speaking, there




are few places like it. This is mostly because its pivotal, delicate components are

subject to breakdown. Clarens can easily cease to be Clarens. The marriage

could have turned sour, with both partners caught up in amour-propre, compet

ing with each other to attract other suitors or somehow gain the upper hand.The friendships, too, could have become competitive and been destroyed byenvy. The private retreats could have become occasions to scheme for personal

revenge or public conquest. The work could have turned oppressive fo r the

employees and obsessive for the employers , if Clarens strove to accumulate

riches and status. Finally, th e climate could have turned mild , and th e roads and

heating systems improved, thus providing more occasions for social interaction,

more opportunities fo r amour-propre to ignite. Much could have gone wrong.

When I

sayClarens is a fantasy, I mean Rousseau

imaginativelycreated and

populated it out of deep longing and angry protest. It was a protest against

those market economies that were encouraging anomie, acquisitiveness, a fierce

division of labor, and alienation from self, work , and community. Clarens, then,

was a powerful social complaint against developing modern economies and the

destructive, self-centered individualism that flowed from them. Yet Clarens was

also a personal sigh. It functioned, in Rousseau's heart, as an emotional surro

gate fo r intimacy, friendship, and community.

For some, the way of Clarens is the most promising path to redemption. It

reinstates many features of Nature's Garden simplicity, natural necessity,

curbed amour-propre while also introducing a set of human goods and joys

missing from that Garden intimacy, family, friendship, and community. Yet

its redempt ion , like that of the preceding paths, is provisional and incomplete.

Clarens culminates in death and sorrow. Julie's romantic passion fo r St. Preux

is never fully extinguished. There is still a tear in her heart caused by her love

for St. Preux and her duty to W olmar. W e might be tempted to attribute her

dividedness to a merely contingent mistake made in her past. Yet Julie seems

caught in a quandary more fundamental and inevitable. As long as we are not

alone, as long as we enter relationships, conflict between duty and love is bound

to arise. Even at Clarens, love can surprise one. One might never see it coming ,

until it is too late. A t that point , the well-ordered household is subject to divided

ness, deception, chaos , and pronounced suffering. As long as we are social crea

tures, and we are not on the extreme public path, there is no sure way to protect

ourselves from ourselves, from diverse loves that can collide with each other

and with personal and public duties, from loves that can lead to bitter grief.

Only Solitaires are sheltered from such risks, only those who lead a still life, a

nature morte.

Julie ends in death and sorrow, though there is nothing lifeless about these.

On the final page, Claire names the central features of Clarens and declares

them demol i shed: "Confidence, friendship, virtues, pleasures, playful games

the earth has swallowed

all."As for her relation to friends and communi ty ,

Claire confesses, "I am alone in th e midst ofeveryone.

he only voice she



52 Interpretation

hears is that of the dead, the ghost of her best friend, Julie: "Claire, oh my

Claire, where are you? What are you doing far from yourfriend?"

(O . c, ii,

745; Julie, p. 409). Only in death, it would seem, can Claire again achieve th e

joys of Clarens. With this final sentence the novel ends: Julie's "coffin does not

entirely contain her . it awaits the remainder of its prey . it will not wait fo r

long."

Freedom from the pain of loneliness, longing, and dividedness only

comes at death. The redemption Clarens has to offer is not complete. Moreover,

its redemptive powers are frail. Clarens probably cannot survive the death of

Julie; too much at Clarens hangs together precariously. Clarens, it turns out, is

indeed the Second Garden: it, too, is a fleeting moment in t ime that reminds us

of how things could be if we maintained the fragile balance between solitude

and

sociability,independence and

dependence,love and

duty,desires and pow

ers, public and private.

CLARENS AND DEMOCRACY

If human flourishing entails, among other things, both th e public and private,

is there a path that includes a broader sense of the public than what we found

in Clarens? At the outset I called the way of Clarens th e moderate private path."Moderate,"

because it does not revolve around the Solitaire;"private,"

because

at its center stands the household, not community or an inclusive common good.

Clarens has no political life. Perhaps it would not be Emile 's ideal home. At

Clarens, we encounter stellar individuals with immense capacities fo r love,

friendship, and good work. But could Julie or St. Preux ever become committed

citizens? Could their intense relationships and their self- or family-sufficiency

be incorporated in a city-state like Geneva? Is there a path that attempts to

include enjoyment of intimacy and commitment to a common good , devotion

to family and to global justice, acceptance of diversity and love of common

goals, self-assertion and renunciat ion, private perfection and public compromise ,

personal insouciance and social seriousness?

If our society were marked exclusively by intermediate spheres that sought

to integrate home, family, friends, associates, work, pleasure, and communi ty ,

then it would resemble Clarens, and it would not promote a workable democ

racy. It could not tolerate, fo r example , the very tension and conflict that are at

the heart of the shared moral life of liberal, democratic society. In spite of my

own longing fo r something like Clarens, and my attempt to achieve it in my lifeand communi ty , I fear anything resembling a national Clarens. The threat of

coercion, implicit or explicit, that haunts Clarens 's integration and harmony of

public and private should worry us more than its pleasures and satisfactions

appeal to us. Any all-encompassing, national communitarian aspirations should

give us pause.

Still, the way of Clarens has much to offer local attempts to achieve lively,

just, and flourishing communities. It seems clear that since the European and




American industrial revolutions, the work sphere and the domestic sphere have

become increasingly segregated. This development coincided with sequestering

women and children to th e private, domestic sphere. New research suggests tha t

in many rural, preindustrial communit ies , women's and men's roles were more

fluid, as the domestic and work spheres were less divided (see, fo r example ,

Hansen, 1997). Today, many are seeking ways to bring employment into th e

home, and home and children into employment. Rousseau, of course, is hardly

a model for battling the seclusion and oppression of women. But his Clarens

does offer a helpful vision in which work and home, children and adults are

less divided, more integrated.

Yet what if a local community should not only seek to integrate work and

home,but also to

keep, say,women's vocations limited to tradit ional domestic

roles? Clarens has neither a government nor a culture to safeguard individual

rights. Democracies require a robust , national government to enforce rights and

prohibit discrimination. Yet democracies require more than that. They need cul

tural resources that support democratic laws and practices. Rousseau understood

that freedom, equali ty, and individual rights require support not only from law,

but from common , shared tradit ions and commitments , from something like a

common , secular faith. I employ th e concept of"faith"

because it intimates

notions like commitment, hope, virtue, a shared history and future, and also

because faith is partisan. There is nothing neutral or value free about the virtue,

beliefs, and practices of a liberal democracy. There is nothing neutral about

supporting individual rights, or supporting a culture, a way of life, that incul

cates the character and habits of citizens engaged in democratic practices.

Rousseau has much to teach those of us dedicated to civic liberalism about th e

importance of the language and practice of a common faith. But these lessons do

not reside in Clarens, but rather in th e Flourishing City of th e Social Contract.

Ultimately, Rousseau was not satisfied with Clarens. Human flourishing, to

Rousseau's mind, entailed the ability to be self-possessed (a s he once put it, "to

be oneself , even in the middle of society") and also to maintain and enjoy a

variety of social commitments, including civic ones. Clarens, then, represents a

componen t , but not the fullness, of human flourishing. Endeavoring to fashion

a democratic republic in which the private life is nurtured and protected and th e

public life is inclusive, lively, and just is a worthy challenge. It was Rousseau's

challenge. We will often fail. No perfect harmony will be achieved. Still, the

endeavor is th e way forward. It is probably the challenge of democracy in th e

twenty-first century.

REFERENCES

Gauthier, David. "The Politics ofRedemption."

University of Ottawa Quarterly 49

(1979): 331-33.

Hansen, Karen V. "Rediscovering the Social: Visiting Practices in Antebellum New En-



54 Interpretation

gland and th e Limits of th e Public/PrivateDichotomy,"

in Public and Private Thought

and Practice. Edited by Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumar. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1997.

Montaigne,Michel Eyquem. The Complete Essays. Translated

byDonald Frame. Stan

ford: Stanford University Press, 1958.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Confessions. Translated by J. M. Cohen. New York: Penguin

Books, 1953.

CEuvres completes. Edited by Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond. Paris:

Pleiade, 1959-69, vols. i-iv.

Lettre a M. d'Alembert. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1967.

Correspondance complete de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Edited by R. A. Leigh.

Geneva: Ins ti tu t et Musee Voltaire, 1967.

Julie,or the New Eloise. Translated and abridged

byJudith H. McDowell. Uni

versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968.

Emile. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1979.

Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D'Alembert. Translated by Allan Bloom.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Trible, Phyllis. "Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3Reread."

In Wom enspirit Rising. Edited byCarol Christ and Judith P laskow. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.



Discussion: Locke on Natural Law

The Internal Coherency of Locke's Moral Views

in the Questions Concerning the Law of Nature

Samuel Zinaich, Jr.

Purdue University Calumet

In this essay I defend the internal coherency of John Locke's moral views as

they appear in Questions Concerning the Law of Nature (Locke 1990). John

Locke's initial thoughts about th e law of nature are recorded in te n different

essays which have been called the Essays on the Law ofNature (Locke, 1958)

and th e Questions Concerning the Law of Nature (Locke, 1990). This work byLocke remained unpublished until W. Von Leyden first published it in 1954.

For the purposes of this essay, I use th e Horwitz, Clay and Clay edit ion, hereaf

te r referred to as Questions. While not much scholarship has been published on

the examination of the correctness of either edition, there is one notable excep

t ion. M. A. Stewart has discussed th e limitations of the Horwitz, et al., edition

(1992, pp. 145-65). Many scholars take Locke to be an advocate of a version

of natural law morality in this document (a partial list includes: Von Leyden,

1956 and 1958; Lenz, 1956; Yolton, 1958; Hancey, 1976, Colman, 1983; Zi

naich, 2000). Others do not. Two worthy examples of the latter view are the

late Robert Horwitz (Horwitz, 1992) and Michael Zuckert (Zuckert, 1994).

I will proceed

by considering

the views of Robert Horwitz as

theyare found

in his commentary on the Questions. He points out that Locke contradicts him

self several times; as Horwitz explains, however, Locke contradicts himself in

tentionally. The reason is that th e style of writing Locke used reflected his

attempt to articulate something other than a coherent view of the law of nature.

I argue that Horwitz is mistaken because he has failed to understand the context

in which th e alleged contradictions occur.

I will then consider the views of Michael Zuckert. Zuckert argues basically

th e same thing as Horwitz; unlike Horwitz, however, his arguments are much

more detailed and forceful. (This should not be taken as a criticism of th e philo

sophical ability of Horowitz . As I understand the story, Horwitz d ied before he

had time to finish his commentary. It was published posthumously by his friends

in his honor. See editor's note in Horwitz, 1992, p. 251.) For example, while

Horwitz only gives us one example of a contradiction, Zuckert gives us several.

interpretation, Fall 2001, Vol. 29, No. 1



56 Interpretation

In each case I argue that Zuckert is mistaken as well. As with Horwitz, all of

my comments against Zuckert rest upon a close scrutiny of texts in which he

believes the alleged contradictions exist.

I

Horwitz writes, "The Ques tions abound with manifest and massive contradic

tions"

(1992, p. 252). More specifically, Horwitz claims that Locke argues fo r

the existence of the law of nature in the first quest ion, but later on he denies a

premise in each argument. Horwitz explains that Locke do es this intentionally,

and that this is just the style of writing that he used:

Initially he strongly states a position, and thereby gives it an authoritative cast, but

then he gradually raises doubts about it, or even flatly contradicts it. For this reason, it

is wise fo r th e reader to regard every assertion in th e Questions as provisional in char

acter, rather than as a pronouncement by Locke of a definitive doctrine. (P 253)

The text of his commentary, however, reflects only one example in which he

believes Locke denies one of th e premises of th e arguments for th e existence of

the law of na ture , namely, Locke's second argument. I will briefly describe Locke's

second argument found in the first question and then consider Horwitz's objection.

Locke argues that the law of nature exists because this is the best explanation

for the existence of men's consciences. Locke believes that each person pro

nounces upon himself a verdict when he has performed some moral action. For

example, Locke explains, quoting Juvenal, Satires XIII 2-3, "no one who is

guilty wins acquittal when he himself isjudge"

(fol. 17; I cite Locke's Questions

by the folio number as printed in both the von Leyden and the Horwitz, et al.

editions). In other words, according to Locke, no one can escape the judgment

of his own conscience, even though he may escape the censure of the legal or

moral community.

The alleged contradiction occurs in questions seven (fols. 62-81) and te n

(fols. 91-104). Horwitz briefly explains:

For example , he [i.e., Locke] flatly contradicts here his earlier contention that the

workings of conscience established th e existence of th e law of nature. Near th e very

beginning of th e Questions he asserted that "men's

consciences"prove "that a law

of nature exists; . that is, from th e fact that 'no one who is guilty wins acquittal

when he himself isjudge.'"

(1992, p. 283)

To determine whether this is really a contradiction, I will attempt to compare

the passages in questions seven and te n that allegedly contradict Locke's view

of the conscience in th e first question.



Discussion: Locke on Natural Law 57

Horwitz claims that Locke contradicts in question seven th e earlier view that

men pass judgment on themselves in th e absence of any kind of civil or religious

authority. For example, Horwitz argues (p . 283) that Locke denies this claim in

th e seventh question

because,as the

followingpassage

from Locke indicates,conscience becomes fo r Locke nothing more than a reflection of the dominant

opinion:

For men have judged themselves not to have violated, but to have observed, th e law

of nature, since they have been guided by the then dominant opinion [and] have per

formed one action or another in conformity with th e custom of their race, actions

which seem perhaps to others, and not without reason, vicious and impious. And

they have felt none of th e lashes of conscience, nor that internal goad of th e heart,

which usually wounds and to rments those guilty of a cr ime, because they consid

ered their action, whatever it was , not only permissible but even something praise

worthy. (Fol. 17)

But is this what Locke means? I do not think this is the correct interpretation.

To explain why I think it is wrong, I must first expound upon th e context of

this passage. Here Locke has been arguing against consensus as a means of

knowledge of the law of nature. He distinguishes tw o kinds, positive and natural

consensus. Positive consensus is an agreement which issues from either a tacit

or expressed compact (fol. 63). Locke argues that "Neither of these kinds of

agreement proves the existence of a law at all, since they both depend entirely

on a compact , and issue from no principle of naturewhatsoe

fol. 63). Natu

ral consensus is "an agreement to which men are brought by a kind of natural

instinct without the intervention of anycompact"

(fol. 65). Locke reasons that

if this precept is true, then knowledge of the law of nature would be brought

about by a kind of natural instinct, either in the consensus of conduct or actions,

opinions, or principles. He den ies all three of these natural instincts.

The passage above is discussed in the second part of this argument under the

natural instinct in the consensus of opinions. Specifically, Locke is discussing

why no consensus of opinions concerning right conduct exists among men. He

argues first that one has only to consult the histories of th e world to see that

there is no such consensus. In fact, as Locke writes: "should we survey, one by

one, the kinds of virtues and vices, [virtues] which no one doubts constitute th e

law of nature itself, it will soon become evident that there exists no kind con

cerning which men's opinions do not vary andare not confirmed

bypublic

approval andpractice"fol. 69).

Next, he argues that "were the consensus of mankind to be considered th e

rule of m ora ls , there would either exist nola w of nature, or this law would vary

from place toplace"

fols. 69 and 70). Locke adds, however, that this is some

thing that "no one willacknowledge"

fol. 70) because each culture, i.e., a

culture with some view about the law of nature , believes that it is acting in



58 Interpretation

accordance with th e law of nature. Its members believe this to be true for tw o

reasons (and understanding these reasons is the key to unders tanding whyHor-

witz's interpretation is mistaken). First, they believe this because "they have

been guided by the then dominant opinion [and] have performedone

action or

another in conformity with th e custom of their race, actions which seem perhaps

to others, and not without reason, vicious andimpious"

(fol. 70). That is, even

though they think tha t they are obeying the law of nature , they have been guided

instead by th e mistaken view of th e dominant opinion of th e culture. Second,

they believe th is to be correct because "they have felt none of the lashes of

conscience, nor that internal goad of th e heart, which usually wounds and to r

ments those guilty ofcrime"

(fol. 70). That is, each individual believes his view

of the law of nature is correct because each can generate evidence fo r his own

view of th e law of nature. He does so by appealing to his own psychological

experience of not feeling guilt when he performs actions approved by his own

culture.

After making explicit my alternative interpretation of this passage, I see noth

ing that contradicts the earlier view that men pass judgment on themselves in

the absence of any civil authority or religious authority. For example , this claim

says that people judge themselves even when th ere is no dominant religious or

civil opinion in place. This claim does not mean that they judge themselves

according to th e specific laws of nature, only that they judge themselves. The

passage in the seventh question says that individuals often defend their own

views of the law of nature by appealing to the fact that what they are doing is

confirmed by their own consciences. In fact, as Locke makes clear, they do so

even if views of th e law of nature are mistaken. This claim is, then, not a denial

of Locke's earlier claim, but a support fo r it be cau se the conscience is doing

what it was designed to do, namely , praise and blame.

The other passage is in the tenth question. It is a difficult passage to under

stand:

[T]hat men have various and manifold opinions concerning th e law of nature and

th e basis of their duty is perhaps th e only thing about which all mortals have th e

same opinion; [a truth] which, even if their tongues were still, their conduct would

express clearly enough as they diverge in some different directions. Not only are a

few to be discovered here and there, not only men of private condition but even en

tire nations, among whom there can be observed no sense of law, no rectitude of

conduc t ; there are other peoples to o and there are a great many of these who

without any conscience of wrong pay no heed to at least some of the precepts of th e

law of nature; fo r whom it is not only customary but praiseworthy to commit and

sanction crimes which are proper objects of th e greatest detestation to other peoples

who think soundly and who live according to nature. And so, theft is permitted

among some peoples and praised; and th e grasping hands of robbers are not re

strained from violence and crime by any fetters of conscience. Among others there




exists no shame in debauchery, in one place there exist no temples or altars to th e

gods, in others these are splattered with human blood. (Fol. 91; emphasis is mine)

Here Horwitz points out that Locke contradicts himself by pointing out tha t

there are people who do bad things without any conscience about wrong and

are not restrained by any fetters of conscience. This passage shows, according

to Horwitz, that conscience is nothing more than a reflection of th e dominant

opinion (1992, p. 283).

Does the above quotation bear any evidence of contradicting Locke's earlier

view? I think the answer is no fo r tw o reasons. First, regardless of what Locke

means in this passage, he states that from these considerations, "it seems neces

sary to conclude that either there is no Law of Nature anywhere or that some

people are not bound by this law and thus that the obligation of the Law of

Nature is notuniversal"

(fol. 93). This passage indicates that the above quotation

is not Locke's view at all, but only an objection that he is considering. Unfortu

nately, Locke never addresses these objections fully except to assert flatly, in

head-to-head fashion, that regardless of what anyone says no one is above the

law of nature; everyone has other duties depending upon his or her relationship

with other people:

Against these object ions, which are not decisive, we assert that th e obligation of th e

Law of Nature is perpetual and universal. We have already established th e obliga

tion of this law; we must now proceed to a discussion of th e extent of this obliga

t ion. (Fol. 93)

Second, le t us suppose that the passage in question is Locke's view. Does

Locke say anything at all that contradicts his earlier view? No, because Locke

never states that men do not pass judgment on themselves in the absence of any

civil authority or religious doctrine. In fact, what he says in this passage is

exactly what he says in the passage in the seventh question: that, in th e light of

the dominant opinion, their consciences approve and sanction crimes which are

often the proper objects of the greatest detestation to other people. Therefore,

regardless of what someone's conscience approves or disapproves, his con

science is still doing what it was designed to do.

There are apparently other texts in which Locke allegedly contradicts him

self. Zuckert points out a number of these in his excellent book (1994, pp.

118-215). I will now turn to consider Zuckert 's views.

In order to show why there is not a coherent natural law view in the Ques

tions, Zuckert argues along two different lines. First, he attempts to show that



60 Interpretation

the first three arguments fo r th e existence of the law of nature penned by Locke

are inconsistent with Locke's definition of what makes an edict a law. (Locke

discusses both of these issues in the first question of the Questions.) Second,

Zuckert argues tha t Locke den ie s a premise in each argument that he uses to

justify the existence of th e law of nature. The contradictions occur in the text

of the other questions that follow the first question.

To make clearZuckert'

s first line of argumentation, I will first discuss

Locke's view of law. After that I reconstruct Locke's arguments fo r the exis

tence of the law of nature, and then I discuss the elements from both discussions

that Zuckert believes are inconsistent.

To convince us that the law of nature is, in fact, a law, Locke lays out

(without argumentation) what he takes to be the conditions that make an edict

a law (fo ls. 11 and 12). An edict is a law just in case it is (1) th e declaration of

a superior will (Later on in folio 86 Locke describes the first condition as the

effective or the efficient cause of law.); (2) it prescribes what is to be done and

what is to be avoided; (3) it is binding upon men, i.e., there are te rms of the

law that prescribe what we are to do or what we are to avoid doing (Also in

folio 86, Locke describes th e th ird condition as tha t which binds terminatively.);

and (4) it is sufficiently promulgated. Locke makes clear that th e law of nature

satisfies the four conditions that make an edict a law:

From these considerations it is readily apparent that all th e conditions necessary to

law are found in this [law of nature]: For 1, it is th e declaration of a superior will,

in which th e formal definition of law seems to consist. 2, [It has] th e property of

law: it prescribes what is to be done and what is to be avoided. 3, It is binding

upon men, fo r it contains in itself all of th e conditions requisite to obl igat ion; [and]

although, in fact, it is not promulgated in th e manner of positive laws, it is, how

ever , sufficiently known to men . . since it is possible to know it by the light of rea

son alone. (Fol. 12)

Immediately after this discussion, Locke writes: "Once these considerations

have been laid down in this manner , the following arguments persuade that a

law of this kindexists"

(fol. 13). Locke rehearses five different arguments for

the existence of the law of nature. I have already reproduced th e second argu

ment in the first section of this paper. I will now reproduce th e first and third

arguments.

In the first argument, Locke argues that a law of nature exists because "there

exists some law, which obtainseverywhere"

(fol. 13). Locke derives this prem

ise from Aristotle in tw o different ways. First, Locke derives it from Aristotle's

famous argument fo r the function of man. For example, Aristotle argues that

the human function is either living, i.e., "the life of nutrition andgrowth,"

or

"some sort of life of senseperception,"

or "some sort of life of action of the

[part of the soul] that hasreason"

(Nicomachean Ethics, 1098a34-1098a4). As

Aristotle argues, however, the function is neither the life of nutrition and growth




nor some sort of life of sense perception (1097b 34-1098a4). Aristotle con

cludes that th e human function is th e "soul's activity according to reason [as

itself having reason] or requires reason [as obeyingreason]"

(1098a7-8). Locke

derives an additional conclusion

immediately from Aristotle's argument , that

"consequently man must necessarily perform those actions which are dictated

byreason"

(fol. 13). Locke evidently means that if man must perform those

actions which are according to reason, then some law exists which applies

everywhere.

Next, Locke advances another argument from Aristotle. The upshot is as

follows. He reasons that since Aristotle breaks law into civil and natural , and

since Aristotle argues "this natural law is that law which has everywhere th e

sameforce"

(fol. 13), he reasons "it isrightly

inferred that there exists some

law of nature, since there exists some law, which obtains everywhere"(fol. 13).

Later, Locke considers tw o objections to the first argument. The first objec

tion states that the law of nature is nowhere to be found:

[A]t this point, some object to th e law of nature, claiming that no such law exists at

all, since it is discovered nowhere , fo r th e greatest part of mankind lives as if there

were no guiding principle to life at all, nor any law of th e kind that all men recog

nize. (Fol. 15)

Locke argues that this objection is unsound because it is possible to have a law

of conduct which obtains everywhere but which is not recognized by many

people. Its precepts, fo r example, could be neglected because of idleness, or

because of bad habits, or because of mental defects.

The second objection argues that there is no agreement about what the edicts

of the law of nature are, even among those who are of th e sounder part of

mankind. Locke's reply is as follows:

. . . that, even granted that this sounder part of mankind itself does not fully agree

what th e law of nature is, what its certain and known edicts are, it does not in tru th

follow from this that no law of nature exists at all. (Fol. 17)

Moreover, Locke argues that th e sounder part of mankind does believe in the

same natural laws, but d if fers in how they are to be interpreted (fol. 17).

Having stated Locke's view of law and his first argument fo r the existence

of th e law of nature, I now turn to

Zuckert'

s first objection. The point, in short.

is as follows:

The first argument appeals to a combination of Aristotelian points, one to th e effect

that "the function of man is activity according toreason,"

rom which Aristotle, or

Locke, concludes that "man must necessarily perform those actions which are dic

tated byreason"

fol. 13). But Locke has on th e preceding page explicitly rejected



62 Interpretation

th e idea of law of nature as "dictate ofreason,"

nd therefore it does not appear that

th e "law ofnature"

Locke attributes to Aristotle can be th e same as th e law Locke

seems to accept. (Zuckert, 1994, p. 193)

Zuckert appears to be right as Locke writes about his own view of the law of

nature: "Less accurately, it seems to me, some say it is a dictate of reason; fo r

reason does not so much lay down and decree this law of nature as it discovers

and investigates a law which is ordained by a higher power and has been im

planted in ourhearts"

(fol. 12).

One way to respond toZuckert'

s objection is to point out that the phrase,

"dictate ofreason,"

s used equivocally in folio 12 and folio 13. For example ,

as the editors of the Questions (1990) point out on page 101, note 9 (and even

Zuckert on page 190 of his book), Locke is referring toGrotius'

view of th e

law of nature: "Natural law is a dictate of right reason, which indicates th e

presence of either moral turpitude or moral necessity in a given act by reason

of its agreement or disagreement with our rational nature itself and which indi

cates, as a consequence , that such an act is either forbidden or commanded by

God, th e author ofnature."

t is not entirely clear tha t Locke means the same

thing in fol. 13, however, since in folio 13 Locke's use of the phrase, "dictate

byreason,"

appears to mean the same thing as Aristotle's phrase, "according to

reason."If this statement is true, then, in folio 13 Locke must mean that man

must perform those actions, which reason, after it has found what is consistent

with man's function, prescribes with authority to th e desires that such an action

is right. This lat ter interpretat ion is consistent with Locke's view of the law of

nature because it is a law that is consonant with a rational nature or man's

function.

Zuckert also finds fault with Locke's second argument (reproduced in th e

first section of this essay). He points out tha t the kind of law implicit in this

argument does not satisfy Locke's definition of the law of nature. This statement

is so because it does not satisfy the requirement that the law be knowable by

the light of nature, when the term 'light ofnature'

appears to be reason under

stood as tha t faculty of the intellect by which it articulates and deduces argu

ments (Zuckert, 1994, p. 194). This argument is in no way inconsistent with his

definition of the law of nature, however. The reason is that Locke is not using

the existence of men's conscience as a means to the knowledge of th e law of

nature. Instead, Locke argues tha t many explanations can be given fo r the fact

that all men have some sort ofconscience. This use of conscience does not

imply that all men judge th emselve s in th e same way concerning actions. It only

implies that they judge themselves . Locke reasons that the existence of th e law

of nature is not only one of these explanations, but it is also th e best explanation.

In describing Locke's argument this way, we can say the law of nature in th e

second argument and th e law of nature described in his definition of th e law of

nature remain identical.




The third argument by Locke is teleological: The law of nature exists because

there is a proper function fo r man, i.e., a function that leads to human happiness

or flourishing. To justify his argument , he brings forward th e following points.

Locke argues that everything [except man] observes a fixed law, which is suited

to its own nature. Of these laws designed for animals "each individual thing

departs from the law set down for it no t as much as a nail'sbreadth"

(fol. 18).

Here, Locke has in mind th e essence given to all species that determines the

kind of thing it is and what its function will be. If this essence can be described

in causal terms, it is a subset of th e causal laws (which include fo r example the

law of gravity) designed to do something very specific. The essence requires,

among other things, each individual of th e species to preserve its ow n life, to

join w ith an d p ro pa ga te with others of its own

kind,and to protect its offspring.

This essence acts as a kind of law because the animals do no t have the ability

to ac t otherwise.

Although ma n is no t without laws that he shares with all animals, neverthe

less, there are a ls o a d dition a l laws man is subject to that n on h um a n a ni ma ls are

no t required to observe. According to Locke, this difference is so because ma n

also "has a prescribed mode of action which suits hisnature"

fol. 18). Locke's

reason for this view re sts u po n the fact that ma n also has an essence tha t deter

mines th e kind of thing he will be and his function. From this essence also arise

laws fo r man to follow. Locke, however, points out that while the animals must

observe these fixed laws, the laws for man, which arise in virtue of th e kind of

thing he is an d w hich suit his nature , are no t fixed. On the contrary, these laws

prescribe a special or unique way of living.

To make sense of this distinction, the term'prescribed'

is typically contrasted

with the term'fixed.'

The term'fixed'

brings with it the notion of determinacy.

The term'prescribed,'

however, brings with it a quite different notion. This

term indicates that there is a set of laws or rules that instructs, recommends, or

advises a certain kind of life. This means that m an is designed in such a way

that if he follows the prescription of these rules, the o bs er va nc e w ill lead to

human happiness.

Zuckert again argues that "Locke's third argument fails to embody th e final

clause of his own definition of the naturallaw"

(p. 194). While I am unclear

what Zuckert means by the phrase "finalclause"

in th e quotation above, th e

fundamental line of thought can be summarized in this way. Locke's definition

of law (and th e law of nature) is inconsistent with the third a rg u me n t because,

while his definition emphasizes th e prescriptive nature of the law of nature, the

third argument describes the law of nature in fixed or deterministic terms. For

Zuckert, then, the effect is this:

He quotes Hippocrates in support of this notion of law: "Each thing in both small

an d in great fulfilleth the task which destiny hath setdown"

(fol. 18). His definition

of the law of nature points to a very different kind of law, however, fo r th e law



64 Interpretation

Locke has in mind "commands or forbids someaction"

(fol. 11). Locke's law of na

ture is prescriptive, not determinative. (P . 194)

Zuckert'

s argument seems to expose an important problem in the consistency

of Locke's writings. There is a way to understand what Locke says that remains

faithful to the text and alleviates th e consistency problem, however. The funda

mental approach, then, is this. In th e third argument Locke contrasts tw o differ

ent kinds of natural laws.

The first kind applies only to nonhuman animals. Of this natural law Locke

writes: "all things [other than man] observe a fixed law of their operations and

a measure suited to their ownnature"

(fol. 18). As Locke points out (quoting

Aquinas and

Hippocrates),however, these laws are

largelyfixed and determinis

ti c in nature: "each thing in both small and in great fulfilleth the task which

destiny hath set down, and each individual thing departs from the law set down

fo r it not as much as a nail'sbreadth"

(fol. 18). Immediately after, however, and

this is th e crucial point, Locke points out a d if fe rent k ind of natural law, one

which only applies to humans: "Since this is th e case, it does not seem that man

alone is free of laws, while all others things are bound by them, but he has a

prescribed mode of action which suits hisnature"

(fol. 18). This second kind of

natural law is in fact the same law of nature that he discusses in the definition

of law and the same one he attempts to defend with five arguments in th e first

question. Therefore, Zuckert has failed to establish that th e notion of the law of

nature in the third argument is inconsistent with Locke's definition. (O f the last

tw o arguments Zuckert writes: "Properly adumbrated , these tw o arguments

could indeed be consistent with Locke's definition, although they neither imply

it, nor itthem"

[p. 194].)

I now turn to Zuckert's second line of argumentation. Zuckert argues that

Locke denies a premise in each argument which he uses to justify the existence

of the law of nature. The alleged contradictions are found in the text of the other

questions that follow the first question.

Zuckert argues that Locke denies th e premise of his first argument fo r th e

existence of the law of nature. His basic approach, then, can be described in

this way. According to Zuckert, Locke argues that the law of nature exists be

cause "there exist certain principles of conduct which the entire human race

recognizes and which men everywhere embrace with unanimousagre

(fol. 13). Later, as Zuckert correctly points out, Locke argues: "There exists

among men no common consensus concerning rightconduct"

(fo l. 68). Since

both statements clearly contradict one another, Zuckert's assessment of the first

argument appears to be correct.

Zuckert's approach to the first argument is mistaken on tw o counts, however.

The first is that Locke does not argue that th e law of nature exists because

"there exist certain principles of conduct which the entire human race recognizes

and which men everywhere embrace with unanimousagreement."

On the con-




trary, as I have made clear above, Locke argues that a law of nature exists

because "there exists some law, which obtainseverywhere"

(fol. 13). Unfortu

nately, there seems to be a problem here. Zuckert describes Locke's first argu

ment one way, and I describe it in entirely different te rms. How can this issue

be resolved conclusively? The issue appears to be based on tw o different inter

pretations. I can resolve th e issue by explaining the second reason why Zuckert's

approach is mistaken.

To sum up, Zuckert's crucial mistake is as follows: He quotes a passage of

Locke's manuscript B (fol. 13, 11. 18-19) that is part of a large portion of text

that Locke himself deleted (fol. 13, 1. 18-fol. 15, 1. 15). The editors of the

Questions briefly discuss th e deletion. Even though they include this passage in

th e main text they are careful to point out that it was deleted (see n. 15 on p.

105 of Locke's Questions, 1990). W von Leyden also points out th at th ese

pages were deleted. Instead of printing them with the main text, he reprints them

at the back of his own translation (see von Leyden 's Note B to his translation of

Locke's Essays on the Law of Nature, 1958, p. 282). Of course, th e reason why

Locke deleted this early passage seems obvious. He understood that th e two

passages could not fi t together . In the end, the deletion probably represents an

evolution in Locke's own thinking as he wrote the Questions.

Zuckert takes up Locke's second argument. It is th e same problem that Hor

witz discusses as well. Since I have already examined the problem at length and

found no contradict ions, and since Zuckert does not add anything new to th e

discussion, I will move on to consider Zuckert's problem with Locke's third

argument and direct the attention of the reader to the first part of this essay.

While Zuckert 's discussion and attack on the third argument are complicated,

th e essential point is as follows: The intellectual roots of Locke's third argument

commit him to a position tha t he later contradicts in folio 61: "So far as Locke's

third argument , his Thomistic argument , points to the Thomistic natural law

theory, it points to th e natural inclinations as the

way

in which the natural law

is known orknowable"

(1994, p. 201). O ne line later he writes, "According to

Question VI, the law of nature 'cannot be known from the natural inclinations

ofmankind'

(fol.61)"

(p . 201).

The following points may be noticed at once. One is this. According to Zuck

ert, Locke's third argument logically implies or logically commits him to a view

that he contradicts later. This is what I take Zuckert to mean by th e phrase ,

"pointsto."

While I may be mistaken about this, we may speculate that th e

phrase may have at least three meanings. First, the phrase may mean simply

that Locke's third argument reminds us of another position, a position that is

not logically connected. Second, Zuckert may mean tha t Locke's third argument

logically implies or even , thirdly, his argument logically entails another view.

Zuckert cannot mean the first because he wants to argue that Locke shakes the

dust of the third argument from his boots. He cannot maintain this without

saying, at least minimally, that the view his third argument "pointsto"

is logi-



66 Interpretation

cally connected to th e third argument , a claim which he denies later, and by a

valid method (modus tollens), we may reason that Locke means to deny th e

third argument itself. He may even mean something stronger, that the argument

logically entails the consequent view. Zuckert does not have to maintain such a

strong position, however. He merely needs to maintain a basic logical connec

t ion. The meaning is that Locke's argument at folio 18 logically commits him

to another idea that the natural inclination of a human forms the epistemic

foundation of the knowledge of the law of nature. At folio 61, however, he

explicitly denies the epistemic role th e natural inclinations may play.

Next, Zuckert attributes th e roots of Locke's third argument to Thomas Aqui

nas. It is from this source that Zuckert brings forward the all-important discus

sion of natural inclinations. In the natural law literature, the natural inclinations

play three roles. The first role, in short, describes how th e natural inclinations

make the disposition to act in certain ways possible. For example , in this litera

ture, a w e ll -f or m ed woman finds within herself, among other things, the disposi

tion or propensity to form or enter societies, to know God, to propagate her

own species, to preserve herself an d her offspring. The result of having these

dispositions is that the dispositions become the basis of moral accountabil i ty,

because without a willingness to pursue these ends , one's action cannot be said

to be voluntary.

The consequence of the s ec on d r o le is that the natural dispositions correspond

to the precepts of the law of nature. For example, we read th e following in

Aquinas : "Thus ma n has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and

to live in society; an d in this respect , whatever pertains to this inclination be

longs to the naturallaw"

(1997, Summa Theologica I II, Q. 94, Art. 2).

Finally, sometimes in this literature an d certainly in Aquinas, th e natural

inclinations become the epistemic foundation of th e knowledge of the law of

nature, or as Zuckert points out: "the means by which the Thomistic natural law

is promulgated tohumanity"

(1994,p. 201). In

Aquinas,fo r

example,we see

th e role that Zuckert is referring to : "[Sjince, however, good has the nature of

an end , an d evil, the nature of the contrary, hence it is that all those things to

which man has a natural inclination are naturally apprehended by reason as

being good , and consequently as objects of pursuit , and their contraries as evil,

an d objects ofavoidance"

(Aquinas, Summa Theologica I II, Q. 94, Art. 2). I

take Aquinas to argue that any well-formed person has within herself no t only

th e faculty to recognize her own natural inclinations and th e ends which each

one gives her reason to pursue, but also the ability to know by means of reason

that the ends of her natural inclinations are good and, as a consequence, the

ones she s ho uld pursue.

I am no w in a position to consider Zuckert's attack on Locke's third argu

ment. There are tw o problems. First, Zuckert's attack is not an attack on th e

premise of Locke's argument. On the contrary, it is an attack on a prem ise that

he takes to be an implication of Locke's third argument. As I p oi nt ed o ut above,




th e premise of th e third argument is that there is a proper function for man, i.e.,a function that leads to human happiness or flourishing. One has only to consult

th e text of the Questions to see if I am correct. The end result is tha t Zuckert's

attack seems to miss the mark.

Nevertheless, le t us ignore this problem fo r the moment. Instead, le t us sup

pose that Zuckert has, nonetheless, discovered tw o statements in th e text of th e

Questions that contradict one another. Such a supposi t ion, if true, may indirectlysupport his line of argumentation. Nevertheless, Zuckert's supposition is correct

only if it is true that Locke's third argument implies (again, this is what I take

Zuckert to mean minimally by the phrase "points to") that th e natural inclina

t ions are the epistemic foundation of the knowledge of th e law of nature. The

question fo r us now to consider is whether there is any reason why we should

accept Zuckert's interpretat ion. The answer is yes only if one of tw o arguments

is true. Either there has to be textual evidence that supports Zuckert's interpreta

tion, or there is evidence that Locke meant us to understand that in this discus

sion the topics of metaphysics and epistemology (normally tw o topics that are

kept separate) are or may be collapsed together. The first reason is obvious; th e

second one may not be so obvious, however. The underlying line of thought, in

brief, seems to rest partly upon th e view that Locke's third argument contains

within it not only elements which support his metaphysical commitment to the

existence of the law of nature , but these same elements may also be used to

draw certain epistemic conclusions.

Both reasons are false. The first reason is false because there is no evidence

in th e text at folio 18 that Locke accepts the natural inclinations as the epistemic

foundation of the knowledge of the law of nature. In fact, there is no discussion

of the natural inclinations in th e third argument at all. Additionally, and perhaps

more importantly, one may argue that such a discussion is irrelevant because,

as discussed above, the focus of Locke's third argument is on his elaboration of

his premise, namely, that there exists a proper function fo r humans to follow.

Additionally, even though Locke makes reference to Aquinas, it is not clear at

all that he wants us to understand that his epistemic roots are the same as the

epistemic method of Aquinas.

The second reason is false because Locke understands that the topics of meta

physics and epistemology are to be kept separate. Part of the evidence of this

view rests upon the way in which he organizes the Questions. The first question

is largely dedicated to showing why the law of nature exists. Such an endeavor

is a metaphysicalenterprise,

because metaphysics is dedicated to the question

of what and what does not exist. After he finishes his work in th e first quest ion,

Locke moves to consider a different but equally important question. How is th e

law of nature known? This is an epistemic discussion because epistemology

studies the questions of what can and what cannot be known. Questions two,

four, five, and seven contain Locke's answer to this question (Locke's third

question does not contain any text: "Does the Law of nature become known to



68 Interpretation

us by tradition? It doesnot"

[fol. 36]. Likewise, th e sixth question does not

contain any text: "Can the law of Nature be known from the natural inclination

of the mankind? It [fol. 61].)

The result of these tw o objections is as follows: Since there is no textual

evidence in folio 18 fo r Locke's reliance upon the natural inclinations as th e

epistemic foundation of th e law of nature, and since Locke keeps both topics of

metaphysics and epistemology separate and distinct, there are no explicit state

ments in folio 18 or statements derivable at folio 18 that contradict Locke's

remarks about th e natural inclinations in folio 61 .

I no w consider Zuckert's objections to Locke's fourth and fifth arguments. The

fourth a rg um en t s ta te s that th e law of nature exists because its existence is th e

best explanation fo r the continuing existence of societies. But what exactly does

this s ta te me nt c om e to? Apparently to th is conclusion: It seems as if Locke is

positing some causal relationship between the existence of the law of n atu re and

th e existence of societies. The law of nature, then, creates societies in some sense.

Perhaps what Locke means ca n be made a little clearer in this illustration.

Since most normal people have both a disposition to live with others like them

selves implanted in them by God and some sense of what the law of nature

prescribes in virtue of this disposition, they prescribe laws fo r themselves to

ensure that their own s o cietie s r e m a in intact. For example , Locke mentions the

ac t of covenant keeping. He explains that the covenant is one of the foundations

on which human society seems to rest (fols. 18 an d 19). Since most people

understand that keeping promises is important and that moral an d legal censures

are needed to correct those w ho re fu se to keep their covenants , many societies

are organized partly upon this foundation. Locke adds: "These removed, all

community among men collapses, just as, were the law of nature removed, these

[foundations] collapsethemselves"

(fol. 19).

Zuckert's central line of attack on the fourth argument , in brief, juxtaposes

Locke's argument in folios 18 an d 19 with Locke's discussion of the epistemic

viability of consensus in th e seventh question (fol. 62). For example , in the

fourth argument , Locke argues that the law of nature exists because its existence

best explains why human societies form. Zuckert adds: "the law of nature as

thus understood co nfirm s or ass um es that human beings are sociable innature"

(1994, p. 204). In the seventh question, however, Locke argues that whether we

consider consensus in positive or natural te rms neither of these kinds of agree

m en ts p ro ve s the existence of a law of nature at all. By 'positivecons

Locke means consensus

among

people tha t "issues fromcompact ,

either

tacit,as when some common human necessity or advantage draws men to it, such

as the free movement of ambassadors, a free market , and other things of this

kind; or expressed, as th e establishment of boundaries among neighboring na

tions, the embargo against buying or importing certain goods, and many other

agreements of thiskind"

(fol. 63). By 'naturalconsensus'

Locke means "an

agreement to which me n are brought by a kind ol natural instinct without th e




intervention of anycompact"

(fo l. 65). Positive consensus will not work because

it is based "entirely on a compact , and issues from no principle of nature whatsoever"(fol. 63). Natural consensus will not work either because there is no con

sensusof conduct or actions, no consensus of opinions, or no consensus of

principle among the nations (see fols. 65ff). The end result seems promising

for Zuckert because, as he makes clear, Locke's view of the futility of seekingth e law of nature in the consensus of mankind in folio 63 contradicts his reliance

on his premise that the law of nature best explains why human societies form.

Unfortunately, Zuckert's point is still not clear. Why does this look like a

contradiction? The reason is that Zuckert points out tha t Locke's fourth argu

ment assumes that humans are sociable in nature. If this is true, then Locke

seems to be committed to some sort of consensus that he later denies.

Whyis

this? This is so because Locke argues that in virtue of the existence of th e law

of nature, humans have a sociable nature. Notice the crucial point. Apparently,

it is from this sociable nature that humans compact with one another to create

societies. Later, he seems to undermine his own view by arguing that no matter

how we describe this compact , whether positive or natural, the conclusion is

always th e same. We cannot know the law of nature through either means.

I will now make some comments about Zuckert's objection. First, le t us

assume that Zuckert has correctly described Locke's fourth argument and his

views in th e seventh question. Has Locke contradicted himself? No, because in

th e fourth argument, Locke is making a metaphysical point; in the seventh ques

tion, however, he is making an epistemic point. Let me attempt to clarify this

point. Let us suppose that the law of nature exists. Also le t us suppose tha t the

law of nature gives rise to , or in some sense, explains why humans have a

sociable nature. Finally, suppose that in virtue of a sociable nature, humans are

inclined to agree to live together in a community and make promises to protect

tha t community. In sum, le t us suppose that all these claims are true and consis

tent with the fourth argument. But what is the relevance? In short, all these

assertions are metaphysical statements about the world because they purport to

describe or mirror in some sense the way th e world is.

Let us turn now to the seventh question. Again, what does Locke argue? He

argues that we cannot know that the law of nature exists merely by looking at

th e kinds of agreements humans make , whether those agreements are positive

in origin or natural. But why is this true? Locke gives us several reasons. On

th e one hand, Locke argues that one cannot find any universal convergence

about th e agreements humans make (see fols. 63-78). On the other hand, Locke

argues that "even if there were to exist among men a unanimous and universal

agreement concerning some opinion or another , this agreement would not prove

that opinion to be a law ofnature"

fol. 79). Why? Locke's basic reason, in

short, follows: A unanimous agreement might point to something that is not the

law of nature (see fol. 79 fo r Locke's extended reductio of this point). Having

spelled out Zuckert ' s understanding of Locke, my challenge is as follows.



70 Interpretation

Where's the contradiction? The answer is simple enough. There is no contradic

tion because both Locke's purpose in his fourth argument and his arguments in

th e seventh question point to a completely dif ferent l ine of reasoning.

My second comment is that I think Zuckert partly misunderstands Locke's

fourth argument. While he understands the basic thrust of the argument , namely,

th e law of nature exists because it is the best explanation fo r the creation of

human societies, he attributes too much to Locke's argument. What I suggest is

that Zuckert attempts to elucidate Locke's views by pointing to a missing prem

ise, as it were, in Locke's argument , i.e., the sociability of human nature. He

thinks that accounts fo r why societies form in the first place, fo r without th e

sociability of human nature , how would humans agree to live with another in a

community? Such a detail seems

plausible;it is not Locke's point in the fourth

argument , however. Locke's point is much narrower. He merely argues that th e

law of nature exists because its existence appears to be the best explanation fo r

why human societies exist. Of course, he does write: "since without this law

there can be no association or union of men amongthemselves"

(fol. 18). Unfor

tunately, he never makes clear how we are supposed to make the move from th e

law of nature to the creation of associations, or which associations he believes

presumably form th e backbone of the creation of societies. Zuckert superim

poses sociability; Locke is silent.

My third and final comment is that while Locke doe s discuss the role of th e

law of nature and agreements in the fourth argument , it is nothing at all like

Zuckert's interpretation. This is what Locke says. First, society cannot exist

without "the keeping of contracts andagreements"

(fol. 20). Next, the existence

of the law of nature ensures that, in some sense, humans take seriously contracts

and agreements tha t they make. Locke thinks this is true because " there would

be no reason to expect a man to abide by an agreement . . . unless the obligation

to fulfill promises came from nature and not from the will ofman"

(fol. 20)

But notice carefully what Locke argues. It's not a story about why people make

agreements; on the contrary, it's a story about why people are earnestly inclined

to keep a promise.

Now what do the second and third comments comprise? The end result is

that there is no contradiction between the fourth argument and the seventh

question because Locke does not ti e together the epistemic role of consensus in

any sense to the metaphysical justification of the law of nature. If I am correct,

then there can be nothing in the fourth argument that contradicts Locke's text

later on.

Locke's fifth argument states that "without the Law of Nature there would

be no virtue or vice, no praise fo r probity or punishment fo rwickedness"

(fol.

20). Here, he means that the law of nature exists because it is the best explana

tion fo r both th e existence of virtue and vice, and th e existence of praise fo r

praiseworthy actions and punishment fo r untoward actions. Locke means that

most normal individuals have some sense of right and wrong because of th e




existence of some of th e precepts of th e law of nature within their minds. It is

partly because of this sense of right and wrong that individuals create moral

systems fo r themselves and society in general in order to give to themselves

some indication of moral order. Without theexistence of the law of nature and

the corresponding dispositions, Locke argues that man would only have himself

to determine what his duty is. This concept would mean that man's will would

be subject only to what either interest or pleasure urged upon him. He would

be "the supreme and absolutely free judge of his ownactions"

(fol. 20).

Zuckert's challenge to the fifth argument is as follows:

As stated, Locke clearly and decisively rejects this argument. As we have already

seen, he traces human practices of

identifyingvirtue and vice

praisingand

punish

ing them respectively to forces quite other than th e law of nature. (1994, p. 206)

In support of his attack, Zuckert follows through with a passage found in the

fourth question:

Indeed, these opinions concerning what is right and virtuous which we embrace so

firmly are, fo r th e most part, th e kind which are infused into our minds , at an age

when our minds are little on their guard, when we are still of a tenderage,

before

we can yet form a judgment concerning them or notice how they insinuate them

selves. They are instilled by our parents or teachers and by others with whom we as

socia te , who, since they believe th at th es e very opinions contribute to th e proper fo r

mation of a life, are themselves, possibly because they have been th emse lv e s taugh t

these same opinions in th e same manner , inclined to instill those opinions they think

necessary to a happy and blessed life into th e yet inexperienced minds of th e very

young. (Folios 42 and 43)

In addition, Locke argues that since our minds cannot find the source of these

beliefs, there is a strong tendency in humans to think tha t "these opinions are

inscribed in our hearts by god andnature"

(fols. 43-44) .

Zuckert 's objection appears to be on the mark, because in th e fifth argument ,

Locke argues that the la w of nature exists because it is the best explanation fo r

both the existence of virtue and vice, etc. However, Locke seems to deny this

remark and argue instead that there are better explanations in terms of our par

ents and teachers.

I th in k th at we should reject Zuckert's line of attack because, again, what

Locke writes in th e fifth argument and what he writes in the fourth question are

not related. This truth can be illustrated in the following way. What is Locke's

point in the fifth argument? He argues that the reason people judge themselves

is explained in terms of the existence of the law of nature. But what exactly

does this statement mean? Apparently this. Locke argues that the presence of

th e law of nature causes (in some sense) an individual to condemn herself when



72 Interpretation

she commits an action she believes is wrong and to praise herself when she

commits a right action. Locke's crucial point , however, is that the existence or

presence of th e law of nature does no t contribute to the content of what an

individual may happen to believe is praiseworthy or condemnatory. It only con

tributes to our feelings of guilt or admiration.

The question of the origin of ou r beliefs still remains. Locke's answer would

take too long to discuss and, in the end, may be too cursory fo r such an en

deavor. This shortcoming is understandable, because such a discussion is outside

of the purpose of his book. It is sufficient fo r our purposes to indicate some of

the sources. As the passage above indicates, many of ou r opinions come from

our teachers a nd p ar en ts . Elsewhere Locke discusses the role that tradition plays

in th e formation of

manyof our moral beliefs

(see, e.g.,the second question).

Apart from these sources, Locke is silent.

Ill

Zuckert and Horwitz argue that Locke does no t articulate a coherent natural

law view of morality. As evidence fo r this account, both scholars bring forward

passages tha t appear to be contradictions. I argue that no such contradictions

exist. In fact, as fa r as I can tell, there does not appear to be any passage in th e

Questions that qualifies as a true logical contradiction. I conclude that both

Zuckert an d Horwitz have failed to defend their attacks on the Questions.

There is on e last question to address. Let us suppose fo r the moment that

Zuckert an d Horwitz are c or re ct a bo ut Locke's aim in th e Questions. If they are

correct, then what was he trying to achieve in th e Questions? Horwitz maintains

that what Locke was secretly trying to do or, at least, attempting to hide, in

some sense, is revealed in the very last question, the eleventh: "Does the private

interest of each individual constitute the

foundationof th e law of nature?

It doesnot"(fol. 105). In short, what Locke was attempting to do was akin to a p ro je ct

found in the Leviathan (Hobbes, 1995). Locke was attempting to replace the

traditional discussion of natural law with a discussion that attempts to derive

the natural law from the right of self-preservation (Horwitz, 1992, p. 300). Zuck

ert's view is basically the same (1994, pp. 213-15). Such a vision of th e Ques

tions is correct only if tw o other elements are true, however: first, Locke rejects

a traditional natural law view, and second, what Locke actually argues in th e

last question is similar to the project in the Leviathan. As I have shown, the

former is false. The latter view, I am convinced, is also mistaken, but that is a

discussion fo r another day.

REFERENCES

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. In The Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

2 vols. Edited by Anton C. Pegis. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.




Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub

lishing Company, 1985.

Colman, John. John Locke's Moral Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,

1983.

Hancey, James. "John Locke and th e Law ofNature."

Political Theory 4, no. 4 (1976):

439-54.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Edited by Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing

Company, 1995.

Horwitz, Robert. "John Locke's Questions Concerning the Law of Nature: A Commentary."

Edited by Michael Zuckert. Interpretation 19, no. 3 (Spring 1992): 251-306.

Lenz, John W. "Discussion: Locke's Essays on th e Law of

Nature."

Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research 27, no. 1 (1956): 105-13.Locke, John. Essays on the Law

ofNature. Edited and translated by W. von Leyden.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.

Questions Concerning the Law of Nature. Edited by Robert Horwitz, Jenny

Strauss Clay, and Diskin Clay and translated by Diskin Clay. Ithaca: Cornell Univer

sity Press, 1990.

Stewart, M. A. "CriticalNotice."

The Locke Newsletter 23 (1992): 145-65.

Von Leyden, W. "John Locke and NaturalLaw."

Philosophy 31, no. 1 16 (1956): 23-35.

Introduction to John Locke: Essays on the Law of Nature. Edited and translated

by W. von Leyden. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.

Yolton, John. "Locke on th e Law of

Nature."

77!e Philosophical Review 67, no. 4 (1958):

477-98.

Zinaich, Jr., S. "Locke's Moral Revolution: From Natural Law to MoralRelativism."

The Locke Newsletter 31 (2000): 79-114.

Zuckert, Michael P. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1994.



On the Lockean Project of a Natural Law Theory

Reply to Zinaich

M ichae l P. Zuckert

University of Notre Dame

Almost fifty years ago Leo Strauss stunned the Locke-speaking world by

arguing that fa r from being the easygoing anti-Hobbesian he had been taken to

be, John Locke was in fact a nearly orthodox but surreptitious follower of th e

philosopher of Malmesbury. In order to support that substantive claim Strauss

argued that Locke had practiced an art of p h ilo so p h ic r h eto ric whereby he partly

concealed the true foundation of his philosophy by emphasizing his connections

to such tradit ional and orthodox thinkers as Richard Hooker and obscuring his

a g re em e nt s w it h such untraditional an d unorthodox thinkers as Thomas Hobbes

and Benedict Spinoza. The initial reaction to Strauss's Locke was mixed; some

were genuinely intrigued by the ne w Locke Strauss revealed; others were re

pelled by the violence his picture did to their received views of Locke and the

methodology deployed to uncover this ne w Locke. This initial reaction had the

virtue of fomenting a lively debate, both on the substance of Locke's philosophy

and on the Strauss esotericism thesis as applied to Locke.

At some point, however, the debate was declared over, prematurely in my

opinion. There were those who were impressed by Strauss's reading and fo l

lowed his lead to a g re ate r or lesser degree. Among these were Robert Horwitz

and I. There were also those wh o concluded the Strauss path was so mistaken

as no longer to be worthy of any notice, e xc ep t p er ha ps fo r the occasional

slurring book review when a Strauss-influenced treatment of Locke appeared.

Order was restored to th e Locke world by the development of several relatively

autonomous"traditions"

or"schools"

of Locke scholarship. Strauss-influenced

scholars continued to pay at least some attention to the others , although continu

ing to attend mostly to each other. The anti-Strauss partisans did no t even go

that far, more or less ignoring Strauss himself an d those whose work bore th e

marks of his influence.

Sam Zinaich has no w written a very powerful attack against tw o of th e

Strauss-influenced readings of Locke. Robert Horwitz is no longer alive to de

fend himself, so it has fallen to me to reply fo r both of us to Zinaich'scritique.

Apart from its many intrinsic merits Zinaich's effort represents a truly philo

sophic response, reasoned and civil disagreement rather than mere silence. I

welcome his reopening a discussion that ought never to have been closed.

The disagreement between Horwitz an d Zuckert and Zinaich is in toto quite

interpretation. Fall 2001, Vol. 29, No. 1



76 Interpretation

complex but th e threshold issue can be put quite simply: As Zinaich presents it,

Horwitz and Zuckert maintain that Locke's Questions contain many inconsisten

cies and contradictions that lead the attentive reader from a surface endorsement

byLocke of a tradit ional and orthodox natural law

philosophyto a critique of

that orthodoxy and the endorsement of a very different and untraditional view

instead. Zinaich maintains that Horwitz and Zuckert have not successfully made

out the first component of their position, that is, the claim that the Questions is

riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. He argues th e work is entirely

consistent and consistently endorses just the traditional and orthodox natural law

position Horwitz and Zuckert see Locke rejecting.

I

Professor Zinaich is both systematic and thorough, and I will follow his orga

nization here. He begins with tw o points about Horwitz's essay: (1) Although

Horwitz claims there are "manifest and massivecontradictions"

in Locke's

Questions, he only manages to identify one such contradiction. Zinaich gener

ously explains th e disparity between Horwitz's promise and his performance by

reference to th e fact that Horwitz d ied before he could fin ish his commentary.

(2) Horwitz is mistaken in believing that Locke contradicts himself in th e one

example Zinaich finds Horwitz presenting.

I find it curious that Professor Zinaich should put his very weakest argument

first, for he is quite mistaken on the points he raises against Horwitz . Horwitz

organized his discussion in commentary form, and therefore did not gather to

gether in one place the many contradictions he believed he had seen in Ques

tions. I confess I have not tried to count them all up, but, in th e first two pages

of Horwitz's comments on Question I, I see four contradictions identified by

Horwitz, although not in all cases labelled as such. (1) In his essay (p . 253) he

claims that Locke first appeals to an "alleged 'universal agreement of the entire

humanrace'

as a"foundation"

fo r "the argument fo r the existence of natural

law."

Horwitz points out, however, tha t Locke later "finds that no such agree

mentexists"

(p . 253). (2) Horwitz also says that Locke at first appeals to "conscience"

as an"alternative"

foundation for th e existence of natural law, but later

also "rejects . .

outright"this appeal to conscience (pp. 253, 257). (3) Horwitz

also points out that Locke identifies th e natural law with the Stoic notion of

"rightreason,"

but later rejects the notion of reasondeployed in that definition,

implying that any natural law he accepts cannot be what the Stoics spoke of

(pp. 253-54). (4) Horwitz, still discussing Question I, points out that Locke

"suggests that social life would collapse and would be impossible without natu

rallaw"

(p . 258). But Horwitz points out here and elsewhere that Locke also

insists that th e natural law is "hidden from men and therefore is, at best, known

to veryfew,"

an observation that contradicts the initial claim, fo r how can a



Locke on Natural Law 11

voluntary law nearly completely unknown serve th e function Locke attributes

to it? (5) Horwitz adds in his comments on Question II that Locke's insistence

on men's general ignorance of the natural law "flatly contradicts the opening

sentence of this

very Question,where he spoke

of 'that law of nature to which

men offer obedience with such unanimous consent, inasmuch as they could

hardly consent to and obey a law of which 'most mortals have noknowledge' "

(p . 262). Although I know of many more cases, I do not propose to continue

this exercise any further. I trust I have presented enough evidence to demon

strate that Horwitz can by no means be said to supply only one example of a

contradiction in Locke's Questions.

Professor Zinaich devotes considerable space to analyzing the one example

of contradiction he finds in Horwitz. Horwitz's point is straightforward: In

Question I Locke looks to the phenomena of conscience as a proof fo r the

existence of natural law. Even men "who recognize the commands of no other

law by which they are either directed orbound"

recognize the verdicts of con

science. That shows, says Locke, there is a law under which they condemn

themselves, a law natural not positive. Locke quotes the poet Juvenal as a wit

ness: "no one who is guilty wins acquittal when he himself isjudge"

(fol. 17).

Juvenal's saying is especially useful to Locke at this point in his argument, fo r

the Roman poet makes the kind of connection Locke is seeking between the

inner judgment of conscience and law: "for without some law there can be no

judgment."

The law in this case (where conscience judges those who recognize

no other law) is said by Locke to be "not written, butinnate"

(fol. 18). Horwitz

also quotes a statement by Locke in th e context of thelatter'

s exposition of th e

lack of consensus on any standard of right and wrong in the conduct of men.

Locke there states that nonetheless "men's conscience confesses to that inner

law which their vices often deny"; "those very persons who act wrongly , yet

thinkrightly"

(fols. 67-68; Horwitz, p. 282). That is to say, the judgments men

make against their own actions prove th at th ere are natural standards that they

know even when they fail to conform their behavior to those standards.

Zinaich has a different view of Locke's point about conscience: Conscience

attests to the existence of the law of nature by the mere fact that men "judge

themselves"

in the absence of positive laws. The business of conscience is to

praise and blame, but not necessarily according to the true or proper standards

specified under the law of nature.

The issue between Horwitz and Zinaich, then, is the narrow one of whether

Locke's view, expressed later in Questions (e.g, Question TV),that the judgments

of conscience are extraordinarily variable, or even in some cases nonexistent

among men , contradicts the argument presented in Question I fo r the existence

of natural law as an inference from human conscience. Horwitz says yes, Zinaich

says no. Horwitz judges yes, because he believes the argument in Question I

appeals to or requires a more or less invariant conscience. Zinaich says no,

because he believes the argument in Question I is perfectly compatible with



78 Interpretation

conscience of a variable character. For th e sake of concision, le t us refer to

these tw o different notions of conscience as Q and Cv respectively.

Zinaich's argument depends on an important distinction: Locke in Question

I isnot

talkingabout how

th econtent of

the lawof nature

is knownbut how its

existence is shown or inferred. Zinaich concedes that conscience (according to

Locke) is not a reliable instrument for knowing the content of th e natural law,

fo r the deliverances of conscience do vary significantly. But Cv is nonetheless

a sufficient basis (o r so Locke is arguing, according to Zinaich) on which to

infer the existence of th e law of nature. The fact that men judge themselves at

all indicates they know of some law above them which is not positive but natu

ral. Zinaich also very helpfully characterizes Locke's argument in Question I as

an "inference to th e bestexplanation."

That is to say, the existence of a natural

law is posited by Locke as the best explanation fo r the facts of conscience. It is

an argument tha t infers unseen natural law as the best explanation fo r what is

seen, th e acts of conscientious judgment Locke observes. The dif fe rence be

tween Horwitz and Zinaich can be restated then in th es e te rm s :

Horwitz:

(1) C, (but not Cv) is a basis on which one can infer the existence of the law

of nature.

(2) In Question I Locke infers the existence of the law of nature from con

science.

(3) Therefore, he must be invoking C[ in Question I.

(4) But later in Questions Locke insists that Cv is the case, not C,.

(5) Therefore, Locke later contradicts the argument he made in Question I.

Zinaich:

(1) Cv is a basis fo r inferring the existence of the law of nature.

(2) Locke infers the existence of the law of nature in Question I.

(3) Later on Locke makes clear that Cv is the case, not Q.

(4) But this is compatible with the argument in Question I, and therefore

Locke has not contradicted himself.

The issue between Zinaich and Horwitz then comes down to step (1) in their

respective arguments. Which of

these is true to Locke is th e point we must

attempt to establish. In order to do so, there is one further point we must keepin mind. Whatever may be the case fo r th e judgments rendered by conscience,

Locke is very clear throughout that the law of nature is one and invariant in

content, applicable to and binding on all men universally. (See especially Ques

tion X, fols. 99-100). With that fact in hand, we must now examine which of

the two versions of Locke's argument is correct. Zinaich, as I said, has helpfully




called attention to the fact that Locke's argument is of the "inference to the bestexplanation"orm, but he does no t himself present that argument , no r for tha t

matter does L ocke give anything more than th e following highly suggestive

comment:

For that verdict w hic h e ac h pronounces upon himself is evidence that there exists a

la w of nature. For if th e law of nature did no t exist . . how does it c om e a bo ut that

th e conscience of those who recognize th e commands of no o th er law . passes

judgment on their very life an d conduct and either acquits o r c on de mn s them of

crime? (Fols. 17-18)

I have four arguments to show that in Question I Locke is appealing to Q

and that therefore when he later denies Q a nd a ff ir ms Cv he contradicts himself:

(1) Q but no t Cv can serve as an "inference to the bestexplanrgument

fo r the existence of th e law of nature.

(2) In Question I Locke refers to the law of n at ur e w ho se existence is there

allegedly proved as"innate,"

an inference from Q but no t from Cv.

(3) Later in Questions when Locke affirms Cv an d denies Q he presents

another explanation fo r conscience than the -law of nature. That is, he makes

clear that the law of nature , in his opinion, is no t th e "bestexplanation"

fo r Cv.

(4) His appeal to the authority of Juvenal implies Q .

Neither Horwitz no r Zinaich is explicit in presenting his construction of

Locke's argument in Question I, so I venture the following as a reconstruction

of what each must have in mind.

Horwitz:

(1) C, implies L.N. (law of nature), because th e invariant judgments of con

science m en make imply the existence of an equally invariant a nd u ni ve r

sal L.N., somehow known or present to men's minds, which is the cause

of Q .

(2) Cv does no t imply L.N., because an invariant an d universal L .N . d oes no t

function as a causal explanation fo r Cv, on the principle that a uniform

cause produces a uniform effect.

Zinaich:

Cv implies L.N. But why? A uniform cause is no t the best inference from

variable effects. Therefore, Zinaich must be mistaken to think Locke is appeal

ing to Cv in Question I.

I must note in passing that the a rg u me n t I have just presented does no t prove

the nonexistence of th e law of nature. The transcendent natural law I discuss in

my chapter in Natural Rights is perfectly compatible with Cv. The argument



80 Interpretation

does establish, however, that conscience, as Locke understands it, is not a valid

basis on which to infer th e existence of the law of nature. Thelatter'

s existence,

if that is to be established, must be established in a different way, which is

exactly what Locke presents in his Question V, as Iexplained

inNatural Rights.

Moreover, in Question I Locke proclaims tha t the law of nature allegedly

proved to exist on the basis of conscience is"innate."

To call it innate means it

is"inborn,"

and known or present directly to th e human mind. This is a claim

about knowledge of the law of nature , not only about its existence. Again, it is

easy to see a connection between Q and a law of nature that is innate: indeed

it is reasonable to describe Q as the deliverances of the innate law of nature.

But Cv is not evidence of an innate law of nature. If it is innate, the judgments

of conscience should not be variable. A tipoff that the law of nature described

in this argument fo r Question I is not one to which Locke declares allegiance is

this very description of it as"innate."

Not only the Locke of the much later

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, but th e younger Locke of Questions

already denies the innateness of knowledge of the law of nature (see Question

IV, fol. 37).

Since conscience only works as a warrant fo r inferring the existence of a

natural law as its best explanation if the judgments of conscience show a high

degree of invariance, then th e facts of great variability that Locke insistently

calls attention to are quite devastating fo r th e argument from conscience to

natural law outlined in Question I. Locke acknowledges th e significance of th e

variability of conscientious judgment when , after noting the variability, he pre

sents a quite different "bestexplanation"

fo r the phenomena of conscience as

these have now been brought to light. He does not trace th e judgments of con

science to natural law, but rather to th e varying dominant opinions in different

societies. Judgments of conscience , Locke shows us, do not rightly imply th e

existence of natural law, but only the force within us of what he later came to

call "the law ofopinion."

Human beings are sensitive to the opinions dominant

in the society in which they live, so much so that they tend to confuse the

standards of moral judgment they learn in th e nursery with the promptings of

nature. It is that confusion Locke means to expose in his apparently vacillating

approach to the relation between conscience and the law of nature (see espe

cially Question IV . fols. 42-43).

Finally, it is clear from other evidence that when Locke introduces con

science in Question I as testimony to the existence of the law of nature he has

inmind Q. Consider the

quotation from Juvenal: "no one who is guilty wins

acquittal when he himself isjudge"

(fol. 17). Juvenal, and Locke, following

him, says"guilty,"

without qualification. The saying would make no sense (or

have no point) if we read it in Zinaich's way. Zinaich takes a statement, which ,

true or false, is meant to make a claim about th e force of right and wrong in

the world and turns it into the completely uninteresting tautology that no one

who believes himself guilty believes himself innocent.




Zinaich discerns tw o threads to my t reatment of th e Questions in chapter 7

of Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. I claim tha t Locke's arguments

purporting to establish the existence of a law of nature in Question I cannot be

arguments he accepts , because they depend on conceptions of th e nature of th e

law of nature different from the definition of the law of nature Locke himself

lays out in tha t Question. Zinaich has me a rgu ing , nex t, that Locke also denies

the premises of these arguments as the Questions proceeds. Zinaich is quite

correct as fa r as he goes, but before I consider th e specifics of his replies to my

arguments, I would like to restate very briefly the broader position I maintained

inmy

book. There was indeed muchoverlap

betweenmychapter and Horwitz's

essay (and Strauss's earlier essay) , but my thesis was somewhat different from

Horwitz's. I treat the arguments in Question I as arguments tha t"persuade"

that

there is a law of nature , but notice that Locke carefully does not say that these

arguments persuade him. Given th e fact that we can relat ively readily identify

different precedent thinkers (some explicitly cited by Locke) who forwarded

one or another of the five arguments Locke summarizes , I surmised that Locke

was presenting the arguments he knew of that convince the partisans of natural

law that such a thing exists. Pufendorf, in his similar catalogue of arguments, is

very clear that some (a t least) of these arguments are inconsistent with others

and most are inadequate fo r their purpose, and I argue that Locke, while less

explicit about it, presents them in such a way tha t makes the differences and

inconsistencies relatively apparent. My hypothesis, then, was that Locke pre

sented in Question I a series of arguments raised and held to be persuasive by

earlier thinkers, but tha t he does not there endorse them as arguments that per

suade him. The rest of th e Questions represents an attempt by Locke to sort

through and evaluate these arguments. My point , therefore, is not that Locke is

throwing dust in our eyes or directly contradicting himself, but that he is recon

sidering and ultimately rejecting the positions taken not by himself but by his

predecessors. I do agree with Horwitz, however, that Locke is less than perfectly

clear that the above is his project in Questions, and he does execute it in a way

that makes possible what most modern scholars do: attribute to him an endorse

ment of the arguments in Question I and therewith of a very eclectic or confused

theory of natural law.

Both Locke's interest in natural law and his cautious or gingerly manner of

treating it reflect a most important intellectual and political development of th e

early years after therestoration. As I argued in Natural Rights, the British nation

had just undergone a theological-political crisis of great magnitude: pervasive

civil conflict culminating in a civil war culminating in the Cromwellian "repub

lic,"

a regime universally seen to have failed by 1660. The civil conflict, civil

war, and Cromwel l ian dictatorship had all found their source in the disruptions

produced by the Protestant Reformation, and the conflicting attempts to find a



82 Interpretation

(o r the) proper political embodiment of the Reformation . Given the ambiguities

of Protestant political theology an d th e differences among the sects, the quest

fo r the holy grail of a true Protestant politics had led to disaster. Locke was just

one of many thinkers of th e post-Restoration world wh o sought anontheological

grounding fo r political life. The exploration of natural law, a guiding set of

moral a nd p ol it ic al principles m e a n t to be independent of specific revelatory or

biblical commitments, was the dominant intellectual response to this situation.

As Locke came forward to share in this widespread project, he seems to

have had tw o somewhat conflicting imperatives in mind: (1) to examine in a

philosophically adequate way the resources of natural law as an orientation to

w a rd p ol it ic al life in place of Protestant political theology. As on e en gag ed in

such an examination Locke was predisposed, it seems, to take a critical stance

toward th e tradition, fo r he had already been much influenced byDescartes'

novel philosophic system, an influence that led him to be critical of the premises

and style of argument invoked in scholastic natural law philosophy and, behind

that, in Aristotle. (2) To attempt to find in some version of natural law philoso

phy a basis fo r political life. Locke appears to have committed to the agenda of

moving politics off the biblical-theological basis of the first half of the century

(with its repeated disasters) and onto more"neutral"

grounds , in principle more

accessible to human reason an d therefore to human beings as such than the

various sectarian principles that had gu ided such widely disparate figures as

Robert Filmer, Phillip Hunton, and John Milton. Very much in Locke's corpus

from th e Questions themselves to the Letter on Toleration, The Reasonableness

of Christianity and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding attests to

Locke's commitment to this agenda. His agenda involved no t merely a commit

ment to some on e particular version of natural law, but a commitment to that

general style of political philosophy an d practice. While his first goal of finding

a philosophically adequate theory of natural law indicates theoretically incisive

examination an d critique of received doctrines, the second half of his agenda

m an da te s a m uff le d e xp os ur e of the flaws of the natural law theories, fo r as an

approach to politics natural la w as such was superior to political theology based

on on e or another revelatory tradition. The two agendas together point to just

the dif ficu lt k ind of r h eto rica l e x er c is e that Questions in fact was. Thus Profes

sor Zinaich, wh o thinks political philosophy largely has to do with making argu

ments , misses this broader context of Locke's political philosophic activity. I

would guess, by the way, that one reason Locke never p ub li sh ed th e Questions

was because he did no t believe he had quite succeeded in meeting the verydifficult expository imperatives he set himself here.

Ill

In order to prevent my reply from being longer than Professor Zinaich's

original essay, I propose to limit my response mostly to his critique of the first




line of argument he identified in my chapters. The above discussion of Horwitz

on conscience is relevant to my own second line of argument , for I, too, had

claimed that Locke subsequently rejected the premise for his initial argument

regarding conscience and natural law. My defense of Horwitz is thus also a

defense of one of the key claims I had raised in my second line of argument.

I argued, it may be recalled, that three of Locke's five arguments tha t "persuade"

there is a natural law could not be th e arguments that persuade Locke,

fo r they appeal to conceptions of natural law different from th e one he endorses.

Zinaich replied by insisting that the notion of natural law implicit in th o se th re e

arguments is consistent with Locke's own definition.

I identified two reasons fo r doubting that Locke's first argument invoked a

notion of natural la w identical with his own. Professor Zinaich entered a

longand subtly argued objection to one of these reasons, but completely ignored th e

other. Since either one alone suffices to make my point, I could save space by

merely restating the second point: according to Locke's definition, the "law of

nature can . . be so described (as a law) because it is the command of the divine

will"(fol. 11). But Aristotle, Locke's authority in his first argument , speaks of

"the proper function ofman,"

a matter to be discerned by reference to the natural

constitution of man. Neither Aristotle himself explicitly nor the general structure

of th e argument he makes requires or involves any reference to a divine will (o r

to any will fo r that matter). These Aristotelian principles of "properfunctioning"

are not laws as Locke understands law; law requires an authoritative lawgiver

and obligation. Aristotle's principles lack an authority, a lawgiver, and obliga

t ion. Thus Aristotle speaks in a place cited by Locke (Ethics, bk 1, chap. 7) of

actions which are"well-performed,"

not of obligatory actions (o r duties). The

first argument Locke cites is perhaps an authority fo r the notion that there are

natural standards of human act ion, but not fo r the notion that those standards

have th e character of law, a distinction Locke's own definition of the law of

nature brings to the fore. The Aristotelian first argument is therefore no author

ity at all fo r the natural la w Locke purports to be establishing. One could with

out any contradiction accept the Aristotelian position and not accept natural law

as defined by Locke.

My other claim about Locke's first argument was even simpler. "From some

texts in Aristotle's Ethics Locke (on behalf of Aristotle?) concludes that man

must necessarily perform those actions which are dictated by reason (fol. 13).

But Locke has on the preceding page explicitly rejected the idea of law of nature

as 'dictate of

reason,'nd therefore it does not appear that the 'law of

nature'

Locke attributes to Aristotle can be the same as the law Locke seems to accept"

(Natural Rights, p. 193). Zinaich counters by insisting that the phrase "dictate

ofreason"

is equivocal and that it is being used differently in Locke's first

argument than in the theory Locke earlier rejected. Zinaich instead says that

"Locke's use of the phrase 'dictated byreason'

in fol. 13) appears to mean the

same thing as Aristotle's phrase 'according toreason,'"

hich Locke had

quoted from the Ethics.



84 Interpretation

Zinaich's instincts here are good; one ought to construe a text according to

the principle of interpretive charity, that is, one should attempt to understand it

so as to be as intelligible and internally consistent as possible. But one should

not interpret it to be more intelligible and consistent thanthat.

I believe bothLocke's specific formulation and the substance of th e thought here speak

strongly against Zinaich's reading. First, Locke says "ut ea homnu necessario

agenda sunt quae dictat ratio": "so that men must necessarily do those things

reasondictates,"

to put it slightly more literally than the translators of the text

do. The word Locke uses to refer to reason's action is dictare, to dictate, the

same root word from which the word dictatum (in the phrase dictatum rationis,

dictate of reason) is constructed. Given th e fact Locke has just made much of

rejecting

the

understanding

of natural law as dictatum rationis on folio 12, his

use of the very same word on folio 13 to mean something different (as Zinaich

claims) is highly unlikely. Locke's objection to the law of nature as dictatum

rationis deriv ed from his view that "reason does not so much lay down and

decree this law of nature as i t discusses and investigates a law which is ordained

by a higher power"

(fol. 12)."Reason,"

Locke continues, "is not the maker

of this law, but itsinterpreter"

(ibid). Zinaich in effect claims that Locke claims

no more fo r reason in his first argument , but Zinaich's construal does not fit

with Locke's text . Zinaich's suggestion that "quae dictatratio"

means the same

as Aristotle's "according to reason"does not help, fo r the latter is almost as

contrary to Locke's point as the phrase dictatum rationis itself. Locke does not

believe that reason, "since it is only a faculty of th e mind and a part of us, gives

uslaws."

The problem is twofold: First, reason lacks the authority needed to

make a precept into a law; and second, Locke understands reason as purely

discursive, that is, as possessing no substantive principles that could possibly be

legislative. The Aristotelian "according toreason"

attributes no authority to rea

son in th e sense Locke insis ts on, but it does attribute to reason substantive

principles that allow it to be prescriptive if not fully legislative. Locke denies it

can be either. To say tha t reason can discover laws is not the same as to sa y

reason can dictate or give laws. Aristotle's notion of human function ("activity

according to reason") clearly has a more substantive and prescriptive character

than Locke is willing to grant to reason, as is visible in his treatment of knowl

edge of th e ends of action in book 6 of the Ethics in his discussion of phronesis.

I conclude, therefore, that on both grounds (the appeal to reason as"dictating"

and the appeal to nature rather than the divine will) the alleged natural law

invoked in Locke's first argument is inconsistent with th e definition of naturallaw Locke presents in his own name on the previous page of his text. The first

argument is one tha t persuades some, Locke thinks wrongly, that there is a

natural law . A t most, however, it supports th e claim th a t th e re is a natural human

good , or a"proper"

natural activity fo r human beings, but without much more

(o r something less in the case of "dictates of reason") this argument, even if

sound, falls well short of establishing the existence of a law of nature.




Locke's second argument is somewhat familiar already, fo r it is th e argument

from conscience Zinaich and I have already discussed in the context of Hor

witz's claims about Locke's"contradictions."

The issue now is not whether

Locke later contradicts what he says in QuestionI, however, but

whetherth e

argument from conscience implies a natural law as Locke defines natural law.

My claim was no , because Lockean natural law is defined as a deliverance of

discursive reason, and conscience does not qualify as this. Zinaich's response is

familiar. "Locke is not using the existence of men's conscience as a means to

the knowledge of the law ofnature."

He reiterates his earlier point: The exis

tence of the law of nature is "th e bestexplanation"

fo r the fact of conscience. I

reiterate my previous rejoinders: It is not th e best explanation on Locke's own

account, and th e only argument that makes sense fo r establishing th e existence

of the law of nature from the fact of conscience is that conscience supplies us

with knowledge of the law of nature, as Locke indicates by declaring th e law

of nature as allegedly implied by conscience to be"innate"

(fol. 18).

In Natural Rights I argued that Locke's third argument for the existence of

the natural law as little implies th e law of nature as he defines it as do the tw o

previous arguments. Zinaich again makes a very smart reply, but one not true

to Locke's text. I had pointed out that Locke's law of nature is prescriptive (i t

issues commands and prohibitions that can be obeyed or violated) but th e law

of nature implied in argument three is determinative. Zinaich rejects this claim;

Locke, he maintains, speaks of the law of nature in a double sense. Some beings

(e.g., nonhuman animals) are governed by a fixed or determinative law, a law

which operates causally rather than by address to their faculty fo r free action.

Human beings, however, are governed by a law of nature that is prescriptive.

In so arguing Zinaich attributes to Locke a doctrine that is fairly standard in th e

antecedent natural law tradition. What is most striking, though, is how little

Zinaich's subtle distinctions resonate with Locke's own discussion. Unlike

Thomas Aquinas, Locke does not distinguish the operation of the law in rational

animals from its operation in other beings. Zinaich, it is true, claims one impor

tant piece of textual evidence in support of his interpretation. Man, Zinaich tells

us Locke tells us, "has a prescribed mode of action which suits hisnature

o

prescribe is not the same as to determine or to fix. Indeed, Zinaich calls attention

to a text in which Locke says, in effect, that th e law binds (tenere) all other

things, but prescribes (praescribere) fo r man. This would be a more powerful

argument than it is if Locke had not spoken in the same paragraph of the law

that binds all the nonhuman things as fo llows: "all therest

observea

fixedlaw

of their operations and a measure suited to their own nature. For what prescribes

to each thing the form and manner and measure of its activity proves to be a

law"

(fol. 18 emphasis added). Locke is not deploying Zinaich's distinction

between prescribing and binding, fo r th e fixed or bound things are also said to

have their law prescribed. We thus have no reason to suppose Locke means to

draw the distinction Zinaich supplies fo r him.



86 Interpretation

Zinaich's construal of this argument , again motivated by an admirable desire

to ma k e th e best s en se p os si bl e of Locke's argument , has the opposite effect.

He loses sight of what Locke actually says, as opposed to what he might have

said if he were actually restating, say,the

Thomistnatural law doctrine.

Zinaich's interpretation passes over without notice the truly noteworthy aspect of

Locke's third argument , which is his insistence on speaking of the natural law

in th e terms Aquinas reserves fo r the eternal law as it applies to nonhuman

things, or in the te rms ofHippocrates'

deterministic notion of the law governing

"eachthing."

Zinaich passes over the actual a rg um en ts a nd i llustrations Locke

gives in favor of arguments an d illustrations he does no t explicitly give. He thus

misses what seems to be Locke's real point here: Some are persuaded there is

a natural law from the c au sa l r e gu lar itie s of nature , a confusion of one sort of

natural order (a causal order) with another (a moral order). Locke seems eager

to expose th e questionable presuppositions behind the acceptance by many of a

natural law. This is of course no t to say there is no n atural law; it is merely

to say that belief in it is often based on intellectual confusion an d inadequate

reasoning.

I have no w followed Zinaich about halfway through his essay. Although I

admire his effort, the careful reading an d close argumentation he provides, I am

no t convinced that the rest of th e essay succeeds any better at discrediting th e

Horwitz-Zuckert reading of th e Questions tha n the f irs t ha lf does. I do no t intend

to follow out all the rest of his arguments , but befo re closing I must say a word

or tw o about his treatment of th e first part of my "second line ofargumentation."

This is the place in his essay where he calls me out fo r using a piece of text to

make my point that Locke had deleted from his manuscript. Zinaich is correct;

I did no t pay sufficient attention to an editorial footnote in the text that informed

that th e text I wa s citing had been deleted by Locke. I am grateful to Zinaich

for calling my attention to th is error; nonetheless, the point of my argument in

Natural Rights is unchanged an d unshaken by this textual correction.

I have tw o general responses to Zinaich's objections to this part of my argu

mentation: (1) Although Locke deleted part of the text on which I relied, he

nonetheless made the same point I claimed he was making in the text he left in

his manuscr ip t ; (2) Zinaich has grossly oversimplified my arguments about

Locke's first argument for the existence of th e law of nature. Had he followed

ou t my argument in full, he would have seen that I bring ou t the very point he

uses to refute me, and that, moreover , I show Locke to have refuted this also.

In order to make all this lessabstract, le t me begin by stating the issue

between Zinaich and me . I had pointed ou t that Locke begins his arguments fo r

the existence of the law of nature by invoking a"consensus"

among mankind

"on certain principles ofconduct."

I then showed that Locke, both later in Ques

tion I and in subsequent Questions, had denied that there wa s any such consen

sus. I concluded that Locke could no t believe that universal consensus on moral

standards implied the existence of natural law, since he denies the premise of




that argument. Zinaich maintains that I could find Locke committed to the moral

consensus only by relying on the deleted passages. Zinaich believes that all

Locke is actually claiming in his text is that "there exists some law, which

obtainseverywhere."

Zinaich has Locke appealing to the universal fact of theexistence of some law everywhere, no t to an agreement on the same law. The

lack of consensus Locke later concedes is, in other words, irrelevant to the point

Locke is making according to Zinaich's reading. As should be evident, we have

here a variant on th e earlier disagreement about conscience.

W e also have here th e product of th e equivocality of th e word"some."

The

bare text of the sentence Zinaich quotes can bear either meaning. In my book I

explicated it in te rms of the deleted passage, which definitely gave it the "con

sensus"meaning. Even without this deleted passage, however, th e context of

this disputed sentence shows that Locke intends that sentence to denote th e

consensus reading an d no t Zinaich's substitute interpretation. The contested sen

tence is presented by Locke as a restatement of an argument he claims to have

found in Aristotle's Ethics, book 5, chapter 7. Locke's Latin version goes like

this (in translation): "it is rightly inferred that there exists some law of nature,

since there exists some law which obtainseverywhere"

(fol. 13). Locke means

this, however, as a Latin version of the Aristotelian Greek text he quotes or

rather misquotes , as the editors of th e Questions inform us. In theeditors'

En

glish version, Locke's use of the Greek material allegedly taken from Aristotle

reads: "Dividing la w into civil an d natural, he [Aristotle] says, 'this natural law

is that law which has everywhere the same

force''"

(fol. 13). (The italicized parts

of this sentence are in Greek in Locke's manuscript: to de n o m i k o n physikon esti

to panaxou ten auten exon dynamin.) Locke has Aristotle saying in effect that

there is a law which has everywhere the same force (dynamis), and this is the

very law that is the law of nature. This law has the same force everywhere, an d

thus it is clear the Greek text Locke employs as an equivalent of the contested

sentence will no t bear the reading Zinaich gives it: If different laws prevail in

different places, one cannot say there is a la w with th e same force everywhere.

What Locke says immediately following the passage from"Aristotle"

further

confirms the"consensus"

reading of the first part of Locke's first argument:

At this point some object to th e law of nature, claiming that no such law exists at

all, since it is discovered nowhere, fo r the greatest part of mankind lives as if there

w ere no guiding principle to life at all, nor any law o f the kind that all me n recog

nize (Fol. 15. Emphasis added.)

This objection clearly is addressed to the"consensus"

reading of the contested

passage, fo r it would no t count as an objection to the Zinaich reading at all.

This objection makes a good transition to the second set of comments I wish

to make about Zinaich's t re at me nt o f my rendition of Locke's first argument on



88 Interpretation

the existence of the law of nature. In reply to this"objection"

Locke in effect

concedes th e main point: The law of nature is not known everywhere. Locke

eventually ends up his presentation of the first argument with a position rather

close

(butnot

identical) tothe one

Professor Zinaichclaims he affirms at th e

very outset of Argument I. "Indeed, just as in a state, it is wrong to conclude

that there exist no laws since various interpretations of those laws are to be

discovered among those expert in the laws, so to o in Ethics, it hardly follows

that there exists no law of nature, since in one place one thing is considered to

be a law of nature , in another something else .

"

(fol. 17).

What Professor Zinaich does not bring out in his critique, however, is th e

fact that I had already traced th e development of Locke's first argument to this

conclusion, emphasizing along the way that th e"consensus"

claim was merely

th e first, and it turns out tentative, stage of that argument, from which Locke

retreated, dialectical step by dialectical step, until he concluded with the above

quoted passage. Zinaich, in a word, failed to mention how I had shown Locke

revising his own argument as he went along. Zinaich thus wrongly leaves the

reader with the impression I attributed the consensus version to Locke as his

last word on the subject. Once again, Professor Zinaich has mounted his critique

by ignoring and omitting important parts of th e argument under examination.

He also omitted th e last stage of my presentation on Locke 's fir st argument.

Let me merely quote the last part of my treatment of Locke's argument. I begin

by restating the position reviewed just above:

Although th e only uniformity in what human beings take th e natural law to be is

variabili ty, nonetheless "concerning this law all hold th e same opinion, and differ

only in its interpretation; fo r all recognize that vice and virtue exist bynature"

(fol.

17). The nearly universal variation in what people take th e content of th e law to be

is less important than th e universal agreement that nature is the source of moral dis

tinctions; th e differences are mere differences of"interpretation"

of a universally rec

ognized law. Locke thus retreats to a second-order immanence: th e law's content is

not present in universal or widespread or even elite opinion and practice, but th e

law's existence is .

Yet even this fallback position must also be among those arguments that per

suade others and not Locke, fo r again he denies in his own name th e premise upon

which it is built. In Question IV he reiterates th e relativist themes we have already

noted. . The problem is not only th e familiar one conceded in Question I, th at "in

one place one thing, in another something else, is declared to be a dictate of nature

and of right reason; and what is held to be virtuous among some is vicious amongothers."More significant in our present context than that "some recognize a differ

ent law ofnature"

s that "others [recognize]none."

Locke claims to know of peo

ple, those closest to nature in fact, who "live ignorant of any law, as if they needed

to take no account at all of what is right andvirtuous"

(fol. 42; cf. fol. 9). Human

beings do not agree even on th e second-order immanence of th e natural law. (Natu

ral Rights, p. 199)




Locke's argument, then, is both much more dialectical and far more radical

than Zinaich allows. Nonetheless his careful, if at t imes overly selective critique,

provides an excellent vehicle for reappreciating Locke's philosophic acumen

and tact. Zinaich's essay can serve tha t function so well because he is exemplary

in taking seriously the issues and arguing so strenuously fo r his different inter

pretation. It is invigorating to have such an adversary.

REFERENCES

Horwitz, Robert. "John Locke's Questions Concerning the Law of Nature: A Commen

tary."

Edited by Michael Zuckert. Interpretation 19, no. 3(1993): 251 .

Locke, John. Questions Concerning the Law of Nature. Edited by Robert Horwitz, Jenny

Strauss Clay and Diskin Clay and translated by Diskin Clay. Ithaca, NY: Cornell


Zuckert, Michael P. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton




Discussion

Alexandre Kojeve-Carl Schmitt Correspondence and

Alexandre Kojeve, "Colonialism from

a EuropeanPerspective"

Edited and Translated by Erik De Vries

Carleton University

This introduction has tw o purposes. First, it provides some background con

cerning the little-known, and perhaps surprising, friendship between Alexandre

Kojeve and Carl Schmitt. Second, it outlines th e importance of their correspon

dence and, especially, the lecture Kojeve gave at Schmitt's invitation in 1957,

fo r an understanding of Kojeve's thought as less systematic and more ambigu

ous than the reading English-speaking students often give it. Because Kojeve,

particularly during his lifetime, published nothing as overtly political as Schmitt

did, these documents add more to our understanding of Kojeve's thought than

to that of Schmitt.

A t first glance, the friendship between Alexandre Kojeve and Carl Schmitt

seems improbable. When they began corresponding in 1955, Schmitt was some

thing of an academic par iah; in 1933, th e legal scholar had joined th e Nazi Party,

publicly declared his anti-Semitism, was later interrogated (but not charged) at

Nuremberg, and retired from his post at the University of Berlin in 1946. After

his famous lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology ended in 1939, Kojeve joined

the Resistance (Auffret, 1990, pp. 270-71; Sombart, 1998, p. 71). A fter th e

war's end, he wound up in th e French ministry of economic affairs, where he

worked until his death in 1968. Schmitt's anti-Semitism was sufficient to divide

him permanently from other scholars with whom he had been friendly, including

Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer and Carl Joachim Friedrich (Schwab, 1993,

p. 301). We can probably also count among them Leo Strauss, who did not

Editorial note

The journal has permitted th e use of notes in these articles because the tw o authors can no

longer make changes in their work and because th e articles have been edited by a third person.

Translator'

s note

I gratefully acknowledge th e kind assistance of Kirsten Nellen in translating the most difficult

of Kojeve's unusual German passages, and of Piet Tommissen and George Schwab, who provided

corrections to th e translation. I would also like to thank Charlotte Masemann both fo r her translation

of Latin phrases and her advice throughout th e production of this translation. Any remaining errors

are mine.

interpretation, Fall 2001, Vol. 29, No. I



92 Interpretation

resume his friendly correspondence with Schmitt after the latter failed to reply

to a letter in 1933 (Meier, 1995, p. xvii).

How Kojeve was able to look p as t such a monumental obstacle as Schmitt's

anti-Semitism is unclear, but we do know that he owed Schmitt a considerable

debt. Kojeve's Esquisse d'une phenomenologie du Droit, completed in 1943,

relied largely on Schmitt 's argument , presented in his Concept of the Political,

tha t the friend-enemy distinction is the primary political division (Kojeve, 1981,

p. 144). For Schmitt, establishing this distinction as primary was meant to pre

serve the possibility of a s er io us p o li ti ca l theory by overcoming liberalism's

tendency, particularly when combined with democracy, to o bsc ure a nd neutral

ize the political, that is, th e possibility of battle to th e death against an enemy

(Schmitt, 1996, p. 23). Kojeve's use of the friend-enemy distinction in th e Es

quisse echoes his earlier insistence, in his Introduction a la lecture de Hegel,

on the anthropogenetic battle fo r recognition as th e lens through which Hegel's

Phenomenology must be read. In both instances, the human capacity to risk life

fo r purely nonbiological r ea so ns e ng en d er s a historical a nd p o li ti ca l world with

meaning no t reducible to th e universal satisfaction of biological desires (Kojeve,

1973, p. 143).

By 1955, when Kojeve an d Schmitt began corresponding, western Europe

h ad been astonishingly transformed by th e Marshall Plan an d the creation of th e

European Economic Community. If Kojeve's "universal and homogeneousstate"

had no t ye t arrived, neither did the concept of the political have the force

it had had in Weimar Germany. In 1932, Schmitt had written:

If the different s ta tes , re lig ions , classes and other human g ro up in gs o n earth should

be so unified that a conflict among them is impossible and even inconceivable and

if civil war should forever be foreclosed in a realm w hi ch e m br ac es th e globe, then

th e distinction of friend and enemy would also cease. What remains is n e it h er p ol i

tics nor state, but culture, civilization, economics, morality, law, enter tainment, etc.

If and w hen this condition will appear, I do no t know. At th e moment , this is not

th e case. And it is self-deluding to believe that th e terminat ion of a modem wa r

would lead to world peace . . . (Schmitt, 1996, pp. 53-54)

With the advent of "Poin t IVpolitics"

(discussed in Kojeve's letter of May

2, 1955, below), in western Europe after World War II, it became clear to both

men that while th e political had already nearly vanished, states had also not

been replaced

byKojeve's "universal and homogeneous

state,"

or Schmitt's

"administrative state"(Verwaltungsstaat) (Schmitt, 1980, p. 11). What had ap

peared instead were groupings of states allied in"empires"

engaged in competi

tion stripped of th e political.

Both the correspondence and th e presentation Kojeve gave in Dusseldorf in

1957 at Schmitt's invitation shed some light on the thought of both me n on th e

nature of the twilight world they were observing. In both Der Nomos der Erde



Discussion: Kojeve -Schmitt, Colonialism 93

im Volkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europeaum (1974, first published in 1950)and Land and Sea (1954b), Schmitt argued that th e exhaustion of exploitable

lands by seafaring empires under nineteenth-century colonialism had rendered

th e historical distinction between land and sea

obsolete;colonial

"taking"

(Neh-

men) had given way to a global"grazing"

(Weiden). Kojeve's Dusseldorf

speech, his response to Land and Sea, lays out his plan fo r the new European

Empire's domination of th e Mediterranean basin with a policy of "giving colonialism"

which resembles nothing so much as a kind of European Marshall Plan

fo r North Africa. The plan Kojeve advocated in Dusseldorf reflected his own

administrative project within the French government's Direction des Relations

Economiques Exterieures (D.R.E.E.). An unpublished, posthumous report of

Kojeve's administrative career describes both his advocacy of a unified Euro

pean economic policy and the dismantling of trade barriers, particularly fo r the

agricultural products of third world countries. In his Dusseldorf lecture, Kojeve

reveals the explicitly political grounds fo r this "giving colonialism": the inhabit

ants of th e former European colonies in Africa are clients, but "poorclients,"

Kojeve tells his audience, are "bad, or even dangerous,clients."

This last admission illustrates Kojeve's ambiguity concerning history's ca

pacity to determine or attenuate political action. Until at least 1939, Kojeve read

Hegel through the lens of th e master-slave dialectic, binding history both to the

slave's work and to the master's willingness to risk life fo r the sake of recogni

tion; the universal recognition accorded to citizens at the end of history rendered

both master and slave and, therefore, risk and work obsolete. By recogniz

ing the serious possibility of mortal danger from th e global working class duringa period in which he also claimed that warfare is obsolete (see Kojeve's letter

of July 11, 1955, below), the postwar Kojeve severed the bond between the

master's risk and history; if th e la tte r had ended, the former remained possible.

Man's capacity to risk life after history's end receives tw o distinct interpreta

t ions in Kojeve's postwar works. The first interpretation appears in thewell-

known addition to the second edition of th e Introduction in th e form of the

posthistorical"Japanized"

man , perpetually capable of "gratuitoussuicide"

in

stead of the"re-animalization"

(Kojeve, 1968, p. 437) Kojeve had posited as

the only possible outcome of history's end in the first edition.

According to th is interpretation, posthistorical man's capacity fo r mortal risk

is gratuitous and therefore apolitical. If posthistorical man's choice between re-

animalization and gratuitous suicide is determined, as Kojeve suggests in th e

Introduction, byhis willingness to be satisfied

bythe recognition the universal

and homogeneous state provides him, then the gratuitousness of the latter option

lies in the impossibility of achieving recognition through action. The kamikaze

pilot Kojeve uses as an example in 1959 has been replaced in our time by the

suicide bomber, and, perhaps, in the near future, a radical wing of anti-WTO

protesters: the value fo r which he perishes (o r risks perishing) is"formal"

rather

than historical; that is, any success is temporary, and will be forgotten once



94 Interpretation

overcome. Posthistorical men cannot negate th e universal and homogeneous

state because it is formless (see Schmitt's letter of Dec. 14. 1955, below) and

will not play th e enemy.

There is, in contrast, nothing formal or gratuitous about the risk from th e

"dangerous clients"n Kojeve's Dusseldorf lecture. In 1950, Kojeve had written

to Leo Strauss th at th ose dissatisfied by the posthistorical brand of recognition

are instead classified as"sick"

and are simply "lockedup"

(Strauss, 2000, p.

255). There is a world of difference between th e merely sick and th e dangerous,

however. His recognition of this difference suggests tha t the later Kojeve re

mained open to (if not convinced of) Strauss's alternative to his own position:

that the human capacity for meaningful political action is rooted in nature rather

than in history and therefore survives history's end.

A note on the text

The original letters and lecture from which this translation is taken are in German, in which all

nouns are capitalized. Consequently, th e l ibert ies Kojeve frequently, but unpredictably, takes with

capitalization in his French writings (with such t e rms as Master and Slave. Justice, State, etc.) do

not appear in this translation.

The correspondence and Kojeve's Dusseldorf speech below have been translated directly from

Piet Tommissen's meticulously annotated edition (Tommissen, 1998). While Kojeve was forbidden

to publish th e lecture himself, a French translation has since been published in tw o parts (Kojeve,

1980; Kojeve, 1999), although some passages from th e original German text were omitted from it.

I have included those passages here, but enclosed them in square brackets.

I have made minor corrections in th e few instances where there were obvious typographical

errors in the Tommissen edition and have noted these. All notes are mine. Round and square brack

ets are Schmitt's and Kojeve's; curly ones ({ }) are editorial and appear in tw o types of instance:

where there is some uncertainty about the original text (owing to difficulties in reading Kojeve's

handwriting) and in cases where I have provided the original German word because of am biguit ies ,

puns , etc. Italicized text was underlined in th e original letters.

Alexandre Kojeve-Carl Schmitt Correspondence

Paris, 2/V/55

Dear Professor!

Thank you very much fo r kindly sending your extremely brill iant Nomosessay.1

I had already been made aware of it and read it in the November issue of

"Gemeinschaft undPolitik."

Rereading it was a useful pleasure. To say eve ry

thing essential in 10 pages is an extraordinary performance!

Of course I havesomething

tosay

about

it,but it is impossible to do so

ina

letter. On the whole, however, I am fully in agreement.

With respect to your "lastquestions"

. in short, I would answer something

like this:

1) "initself"

there is (certainly since Napoleon) no longer any"taking"

(all

related attempts have failed)



Discussion: Kojeve-Schmitt, Colonialism 95

2) "forus"

(i.e. fo r "absolute knowledge") there is now only "producing"!

3) but "for consciousnessitself"

(for instance US/USSR) there is also "division."

The goal is unfortunately! homogeneous distribution. Whoever in his

hemisphere attains it first will be "thelast."

TheAmericans'

"PointIV"2

will

"distribute"

more slowly than the agreement between th e USSR and China, etc.

But in th e "worldlyworld"

there is more to distribute. Thus a concrete prognosis

is difficult!

Most respectfully,

Faithfullv,

(s)

1. Schmitt, 1953.

2. President Harry Truman's Point IV was introduced in his inaugural speech on January 20,

1949, as "a bold new program for making th e benefits of our scientific advances and industrial

progress available for the improvement and growth of underdevelopedareas,"

namely, in Western

Europe. It marked an important advance over th e provisions of th e European Recovery Program

(the Marshall Plan), which focused on economic recovery through direct financial transfers, but not

on technology transfer.

Plettenberg (Westphalia)

9/5 55

Dear Mr. Kojeve,

I am risking sending you the accompanying document the first information

I received about you seven years ago (summer 1948). Your le tte r of the 2nd of

May, which Dr.Schnur'

conveyed to me, gives me the courage to take this risk.

Otherwise I would have to fear that you would subsume me under Leon Bloy's

categories,2if you saw a card such as this. Everything crucial appears on page

215 of your Introduction a la lecture de Hegel/ I do not know if Dr. Schnur

correctly conveyed to you what the Hegelian "take onGod"

[Gott-Nahme] is

for me. Many have portrayed Hegel as"atheist,"

and we certainly all know

Bruno Bauer's amusing "Trumpet of the lastJudgement."4

But this point of

yours on page 215 would have to change all present philosophy, if the philoso

phers who, in th e course of the academic division of labor, administer the legal

right to the firm"Philosophy"

were really to interrogate you. I do not , however,

share your opinion that

"taking"

has ceasedsince

Napoleon,and that

todaythere is only production (grazing {geweidet}). There remains only destruction

{ausgeweidet} . The earthly God, who now only gives and no longer takes be

cause he creates from Nothingness, creates Nothingness first of all before every

thing, from which he creates, i.e. takes .

May I, at the same time, send you a printed essay which will hardly interest

you for other reasons (i t has to do with aFestschrift3

fo r Ernst Jiinger's 60th



96 Interpretation

birthday) in which, however, a remark is reported, fo r which I recognize, on th e

modem earth, no other competent judge than you , Mr. Kojeve.

Faithfully,

(s)

1. At Iring Fetcher's suggestion, Roman Schnur, a legal scholar, introduced Schmitt to Kojeve,

although Kojeve had already been aware of Schmitt's work , according to evidence gathered byTommissen (1998, pp. 57-63). Kojeve's 1943 Esquisse dune phenomenologie du droit uses th e

friend-enemy distinction Schmitt f irst presented in his 1933 edition of Die Begriff des Politischen,

translated by George Schwab as The Concept of th e Political (Schmitt, 1996).

2. Leon Bloy (1846-1917) was a passionate convert to Catholicism and a poet. It is unclear to

which categories Schmitt is referring here.

3. This page of Kojeve's Introduction a la lecture de H eg el interprets pp. 476-77 of th e Hoff-

meister edition of Hegel's Phdnomenologie des Geistes; 678 (p . 412) in th e Miller translation

(Hegel, 1977). In this passage, Kojeve starkly presents his view of Hegel as atheist: "Briefly, Man

who seeks to understand himself thoroughly and completely as Spirit cannot satisfy himself except

with an atheistic anthropology. And this is why Schicksal, th e Destiny of all Theology, of all Reli

gion, is, in th e final analysis, atheism. ... In theism, Man becomes conscious of himself. But he

does it in th e mode of Vor-stellung [re-pre-sentation]. That is, he projects himself outside himself,

"stellt sichvor'

[re-pre-sents himself), and, no longer recognizing himself in this project ion, he

believes that he is in th e presence of a transcendent God. And it is thus that Hegel could say that

th e only difference between his Science and Christian Theology consists in th e fact that th e latter

is a Vorstellung, while his Science is a Begriff, a developed concept. In fact, it is enough to over

come the Vorstellung, it is enough to grasp [be-greifen], to know or to understand what was pro-

jected, it is enough to say of Man everything th e Christian says of his God in order to have th e

atheistic anthropology which is at th e foundation Hegel'sScience."

4. Bruno Bauer, 1841; translated into English by Lawrence Stepelevich (Bauer, 1989).

5. Mohler, 1955. Schmitt 's contribution appears on pp. 135-67 (Schmitt, 1955).

Pans, 16/V/55

Dear Mr. Schmitt,

Thank you very much fo r your letter, the accompanying card, and the Jiinger

essay, which I have just read.

The"Icon"

"Hegel vient enFrance"1

{"Hegel comes to France"} is really

very priceless and appears to be quite "serious"! I would certainly not have

"subsumed"

you under Bloy: I knew a few of your writings. . . That I dislike

the expression "commentaire existentialiste deK."

{"K.'s existentialist com

mentary"}extremely2

certainly goes without saying. But unfortunately it is gen

erally customary in France. The only truth about it is that I sought (and now am

again seeking) to reach a "mise ajour"

{"update"}of Hegel. If

"existentialist"

means as much as"modem,"

or even "a la mode"{"fashionable"} then I am in

agreement.

You are, of course, completely correct: everything essential appears on my

page 215, as you cited. In my course I spoke of Hegel's anthropo-theism, but I

also emphasized that it has to do not only with a mortal but really with a dying(and perhaps already dead) God.




But how few understood that! Besides them, I have only heard it from an

Englishman. In a discussion (which I have lost and forgotten the name of th e

publisher) was the sentence: ". . but Mr. K. is human, as the rest ofus."3

Real

Anglo-Saxon

ironyand

"Ver{?}zenheit."4

For nobody (besides me) understood

this sentence either. But it used to be completely different. Heinrich Heine, e.g.,knew it very well. In th e Pariser

Tagebuchern5

(page forgotten!) it goes some

thing like this: "Since I am no longer a Hegelian, it is also going well for me.

Now if somebody comes to me, complains about life, and asks fo r help, I say

to him: / am no longer God! Turn to a suitable institution, whose buildings are

usually equipped with towers andbells."

Yes, what people said about God fo r thousands of years as it pertained to

people (i.e. to themselves [there we have "existentialism"!!] isreally

over th e

top. Just to understand it is so difficult that even after my books only a very

few understand it. And who takes that seriously?!

At th e tim e of my course (i.e. before the war) I always inwardly read"Stalin"

instead of"Napoleon"

and nevertheless interpreted the Ph.d.G. [In your termi

nology. Stalin = "the Alexander of ourWorld"

= "industrializedNapoleon"

=

World (= Country) empire].

Now I believe that Hegel was completely right and that history was already

over after the historical Napoleon. For, in th e end , Hitler was only a "new

enlarged and improvededition"

of Napoleon ["La Republique une et indivisible"

{'The single and indivisible Republic"} = "Ein Land, ein Volk, einFiihrer"

{"One country, one people , one leader"}]. Hitler committed th e errors which

you characterize so well on p. 166 (towards the middle)6: now, if Nap. in his

t ime had done it as well as Hitler, it would certainly have been enough. But

unfortunately Hitler did it 150 years too latel Thus th e second world war

brought nothing essentially new. And th e first one was just an intermission.

What did Napoleon want? To"sublate"

["aufheben"} the state as such, in

favor of"society."

And he believed himself able to attain it through a"total"

victory in the"total"

war. (Through this"total"

war the state [state = war-wag

ing territorial unit] as such is brought " tocompletion"

and is thus "sublated.")

But th e Anglo-Saxons want (and could already then) the same thing (cer

tainly with more success). And Marx also meant nothing other than th is with

his "Realm of freedom [to dowhat?!)."

Who could do it? Are there , then , still States in th e real sense of the word,

thus governments which are anything other than administrations and politics

{Politilc](-war) which meant something more than Police. The Americans

have never known what war, politics and state mean (the"boys"

do not die as

soldiers, but are killed as police agents , and, naturally, nobody sees anything

good about that. [But you know all that better than I do]. And Europe is about

to forget this. ("Mourir pour Dantzig"10?!) Africa, Asia? No, as you completely

correctly say, history is unique and fo r these countries it is too late: until they

attain the famous "niveau devie"

{"standard of living"} of the "American way



98 Interpretation

oflife""

and thus can think of"armament"

there is certainly no longer th e

opportunity to wage war. The d isa rmamen t conference is well on its way to

success!

When I entered th e modem democratic"state"

after the war as a bureaucrat

[foreign trade = foreign "policy") I thought (only after several yearsl) that there

was no longer any State at all. Parliament and government (i.e. the formerly

political structures) maintained th e balance so well that neither of the tw o could

decide, determine or do anything at all. And thanks to this mutual "neutraliza

tion"

of the political the administration could carry out its work unencumbered,

i.e. [could] rather"administer"

(= organize the"grazing,"

to speak your lan

guage). Certainly there is still a kind of "foreignpolicy."

omestic polit ics,

however, no longer exists: everybody wants, of course , th e same thing, namely

nothing; fo r they are, by and large, if not satisfied [befriedigt] at least contented

[zufrieden] [and th e most dissatisfied elite is a revolutionary, i.e. political power

only if the masses are discontented]). But this so-called foreign policy has only

one goal: to rid the world of politics (= war). Externally, everything appears to

be "as it used to": a rmament , a lli ances, etc. But it is so different that it is clear

even to th e "homme de larue"

{"man of the street"}, who can no longer take

it seriously.

When I had seen (and experienced) that, I understood that the USSR is sim

ply a bit more"modern"

than the others. Here, one could get rid of government

and Parliament without anything having changed. And in the USSR they were

gotten rid of; the Revolution did not install a new government in place of the

old government , but a new administration.

Government without Parliament is"fascism"

(tyranny). Thus it was at

tempted to set down that Hitler = Stalin. It became clear that it doesn't work.

Thus a Russian"Parliament"

was desperately sought, but not found. But to what

end a Parliament when there is a"king"

(= Regius = State)?! Or, otherwise: to

what end a Parliament when everybody remains quiet anyway and no danger of

revolution exists to be dealt with in a"parliamentary"

way (o r by a"king"

without "Parliament").

What do such"anticommunist"

Russians as may be want? The same as th e

"communist"

ones, namely , "to live well andpeacefully."

Only the former think

that the latter want it too fast (Krushchev vs. Malenkov12). But that is not a

political prob lem, and to that end neither war nor revolution is necessary, nor a

state at all, but just an administration. And there already is one.

So "Worldprognosis"

on a Hegelian basis:"Appeasement"13

Disarma

ment {Abriistung} ("without indignation{Endriistung},"

to make a calembour

{pun}!) "PointIV"

politics (for otherwise {?} unemployment in th e

USA14) "rationaldivision"

of raw materials and industrial products (= "grazing"

without "destruction") in the West equalization of income within each

country and between countries ("underdeveloped countries"15).

And after 10-20 years, even a"non-Hegelian"

will notice that East and West



Discussion: Kojeve -Schmitt, Colonialism 99

not only want the same thing (in fact, since Napoleon), but do {the same thing}.

Then"alignment"

will be easy.

All of this as commentary on my: "no longer any taking, but onlygrazing"

(with"whimsical"

production, which depends on working time, which is a function of

"education"

[Bildung], i.e. the possibility of not being bored "at home").Your "Land and

Sea"16

remains.

I agree with everything (of what is"brilliant"

in it, I will say nothing, for

you certainly know it yourself) except for the question of t ime. That was true,but is no longer. And this you say yourself, p.

156.17

Superficially, one could express it something like this:

economically, there is no longer any"ocean,"

but only "inlandwater"

[One needs the"Roman"

anachronism of Mussolini's Italianfoolishness in

th e 20th century to believe that th e Mediterranean is still a political phenome

non: today everything is surely "Mediterranean"].

strategically, "Land andSea"

has been"sublated"

in a Hegelian way in

"air": but a war would never be "pulled out of th eair,"

and nobody likes an"attacker"

anymore anyway. And where all only want and are able to "defend"

themselves, there is no longer any history and thus no"Alexander."

Please forgive the long and . . . confused letter. But I also wanted to put my

"timelyconsiderations"

before a"competent"

judge. Faithfully,

(s)

1. Tommissen identifies Kojeve's subject here as Dufrenne, 1948.

2. Reading dusserst where Tommissen's edition reads dussert .

3. In English.

4. Illegible in th e original, according to Tommissen's edition.

5. I was unable to find any work by Heine by this title, although Kojeve may be referring to

a collection of Heine's Paris articles, since published as Pariser Berichte 1840-1848 (Heine, 1979).

Tommissen's view is that th e quote is not Heine's; nonetheless , th e sentiment is. In a letter from

April 15, 1849, Heine writes , "In manchen Momenten, besonders wenn die Krampfe in der Wirbel-

saule allzu qualvoll rumoren , durchzuckt mich der Zweifel ob der Mensch wirklich ein zweybei-

nigter Gott ist, wie mir den selige Professor Hegel vor funfundzwanzig Jahren in Berlin versichert

hatte ... ich bin kein gottlicher Bipede mehr (Heine, 1982, p. 112). ("In certain momen t s ,

especially when the cramps rumble all to o agonizingly through my spine, the doubt crosses my

mind whether man really is a two-legged god , as the late Professor Hegel assured me twenty-f ive

years ago in Berlin ... 1 am no longer a divine biped.") From Nov. 3, 1851: ". . . Hegel m'avait fait

croire que j'etais un Dieu! J'etais si fier de ma divinite, je me croyais si grand que, quand je passais

par la porte Saint-Martin ou Saint-Denis, je baissais involontairement la tete, craignant de me heurter

contre l'arc c'etait une belle epoque, qui est passee depuis longtemps . . .

''

(Heine, 1972, p. 146).

(" . . . Hegel made me believe I was a god! 1 was so proud of my divinity, I believed myself so greatthat, when I passed through the door of Saint Martin or Saint Denis, I involuntarily lowered my

head for fear of hitting myself on th e arch it was a belle epoque , which is long gone. . . . ")

6. This error, according to Schmitt, is to respond to the contemporary "call ofhistory,"

gener

ated by the dialectic between land and sea, with "the old answer": "While people believe themselves

to be historical and stay with what was once true, they forget that a historical truth is only true

once."

7. Kojeve's meaning th roughout is ambiguous , since Politik means both"policy"

and "poli

tics"; Aussenpolitik is translated here in its common English usage as "foreignpolicy,"

hereas



100 Interpretation

Innenpolitik, having no real meaning if translated as "domesticpolicy,"

s translated below as "do

mesticpolitics."

8 The word"Police"

appears in brackets immediately after th e German word Polizei here.

9. In English.

10. "Mour i rpour

Dantzig?"

was the

headlineof an article

inth e

May 4, 1939,edition of Paris-

based L'Oeuvre by Marcel Deat (1894-1955), then a socialist and pacifist, but, from 1941, a collab

orator in th e Vichy government as founder of th e Rassemblement National Populaire. In th e article,

Deat argued that th e matter of th e Polish corridor did not concern French peasants. I am indebted

to Tommissen for identifying th e source of this quotation. See also Cointet, 1998, especially pp.

146-48.

11. In English.

12. Georgi Malenkov (1902-1988) was chosen by Stalin to replace him as Communist Party

leader and prime minister on th e latter's death in 1953, which Malenkov did, for te n days. Nikita

Krushchev (1894-1971), who was second secretary of th e party, persuaded Politburo members to

split the tw o posts. They agreed, and Krushchev became party secretary, while Malenkov took th e

post of prime minister, a position with significantly less power. On February S, 1955, Krushchev

ousted Malenkov, installing Nikolai Bulganin (1895-1975) as prime minister. At the t ime Kojeve

wrote this letter, Krushchev had taken a staunch anti-Western position, and would thus have ap

peared an unrepentant Stalinist (and hence "communist") . Malenkov, on th e other hand, had advo

cated a foreign policy of reconciliation with th e West and a shift in domestic economic policy

away from heavy industry towards consumer goods (thus playing, in Kojeve's terminology, th e

"anticommunist") . In fact, Krushchev proved to be anything bu t a loyal Stalinist, as evidenced by

his 1956 "secretspeech"

denouncing Stalin's practice of political persecution; moreover, his concil

iatory foreign policy came to resemble Malenkov's almost immediately after th e latter's ouster

(Marantz, 1975).

13. In English.

14 . Partially illegible in th e original, according to Tommissen's edition.

15. In English.

16. Kojeve is not referring to Schmitt's eponymous book Land und Meer (Schmitt, 1954b), bu t

to Schmitt's essay in the Jiinger Festschrift (Schmitt, 1955).

17. Here Schmitt discusses th e radical separation of th e technological {die Technik) from th e

normative standards of criticism and from "dialectical-historicalthought."

26/5/55

Dear Mr. Kojeve,I received your letter of

11/51

on a journey in southern Germany: I will

answer it from Plettenberg after my return (next week); today just this confirma

tion of receipt and the assurance tha t I certainly understand "K . remains human."2That "Point

IV"

is our constitution is confirmed to me here every single

day; I flee from the overcrowding of th e streets back into my shelter.

At the same time I would like to send you a print of the 2nd edition of my

harmless lit tle pamphlet, "Land und Meer"3; forgive me fo r daring to submit to

you a world-historicalobservation which was told to a young girl (my daughter

Anima): however, it is actually presupposed in the East-West essay4and is hence

forgivable.

Many thanks fo r th e abundance of your thoughts and the stimulation I re

ceived in your last letter!

Yours,

(s)



Discussion: Kojeve-Schmitt, Colonialism -101

1. Schmitt almost certainh means Kojeve's letter of 16/5.

2. Kojeve's original reads, "Kojeve restshuman"

(in English).

3. Schmitt, 1954b.

4. Schmitt's essay in Mohler, 1955.

Paris, 28/V 55

Dear Mr. Schmitt,

many thanks fo r your letter an d the friendly transmission of your "Land und

Meer."

I read the little book with great happiness: it is a great art to formulate

important questions clearly and simply!

I already told you that I am completely in agreement with you concerningthe past, with respect to th e

"elements."

And no w I see that ou r opinions about

th e future are also less different than one could believe on th e basis of the

Jiinger essay.

Your answer to my letter interests me extraordinarily: today there are very

few people who still know what state and politics (and thus "history") are, or

rather, were.

Yesterday I spent the entire day in bureaucratic discussions with Englishmen

and Americans about "Convertibility"': that was a good

illustration,as much of

th e"Land-Sea"

contrast as of the anachronistic exploitation of the "lecons del'Histoire"

{"lessons of history"}!

Reallyone2

{?} the philosophy (o r th e "wisdom"){?}2

e po ch s w here the

danger of anachronism fo r nonphilosophy becomes real.

Most respectfully,

Faithfully,

(s)

1."Convertibility"

is in English. Under th e agreement reached at Bretton Woods in 1944, mem

be r states were to make their currencies"convertible"

at fixed rates into th e U.S. dollar, itself

convertible to gold. In practice, this only happened at the end of 1958. France w as n ev er an enthusi

astic participant in Bretton Woods because it placed th e onus for keeping exchange rates fixed on

non-U.S. members (a fault which led to th e agreement's c ol la ps e w he n th e U.S. dollar became

overvalued during the period 1968-71). See Bordo, 1994.

2. Partially illegible,.according to Tommissen's edition.

Plettenberg7/6/55

Dear Mr. Kojeve,

it is all over with th e"state,"

that is true; this mortal God is dead, nothing

can be changed about that; the present-day, m o d e m administration-apparatus of

the "care ofDasein"

is no t"state"

in Hegel 's sense, no t"government"

(I do not

know if yo u were able to follow, from Paris, the grotesque (on both sides)



102 Interpretation

comedy which played itself out in Gottingen because of the minister of educa

tion andarts'

a parody-reprise of the "GottingenSeven"

of 1837); no longer

capable of war or the death penalty; and hence also no longer capable of making

history. Nonetheless, Igrant

thatyou are correct.

I am , however,of the view

that fo r the next3stage th e magni homines {great men} now major homines

{greater men} are concerning themselves with disputations of Grossraum4;

Grossraum, i.e. a planning-space suited to the dimensions of today's and tomor

row's technology [Technik]. I do not consider our Earth, no matter how small

it may have become, to be a planning unit not by a long shot; and I even

leave open if it ever can become one."Grossraum"

does not have, fo r me, the

sense of a contrast to"small-space"

{Klein-Raum} (which I {say} only in passing

and glancing backward), but th e sense {which is} a plurality and, therefore,

enables meaningful enmity, and is hence justifiably historically noteworthy of

an opposition to th e unity of th e world, i.e. against the assumption that the cycle

of time is already over. That is what I do not believe. Le cercle n'est pas encore

parcouru {The circle has not yet been travelled}. The contemporary world-dual

ism (of east and west, or land and sea) is not the final dash for unity, i.e. the

end of h is to ry . It is, rather, the bottleneck through which th e road to new "up-

to-date"

magni homines {great men} leads. I am thus looking fo r th e new no-

mos5of the Earth, a geo-nomy; this does not arise from the dictate of a lord of

th e world, into whose hands a few Nobel prize-winners maneuvered power ; it

arises from a tremendous, reciprocal "match ofpowers."

I am writing tha t in all directness in answer to the questions of both your

letters (of 16/5 and 28/5), because I cannot withhold my answer from you. I

know how misleading every such discussion is today, but it would be wrong if

I were not to speak to you bluntly. I fear (and see) th at th e"taking"

has not yet

ended. Recently I asserted (in a radio discussion for the Frankfurt broadcaster):

man remains a son of the Earth. I will send you the discussion as soon as it

appears.

I am eagerly looking forward to your Hegel book. It ought to appear in

German. It is outrageous that the German public takes no notice of the Introduc

tion a la lecture de Hegel. But you will experience the truth of Goethe's expres

sion: "I already know th e dear Germans: first they are silent; then they carp; then

theyeliminate"7

(sic: twice in August 1816, namely in Riemer and in Zelter) a

nice 5-stage law. I have, therefore, advised a German publisher (Eugen Dieder-

ichs) to consider th e possibility of a German edition. I personally no longer get

involved in suchmatters;

butmy

gratitude

fo r your Introduction was too strong,and is still too strong, for me simply to have been able to remain silent.

Faithfully,

(s)

1. Franz Leonhard Schluter (1921-1981), a member of th e Free Democratic Party, was appointed education minister in th e 1955 parliament of Lower Saxony. The Senate of th e Georg-

August University of Gottingen publicly opposed th e appointment on th e grounds that Schluter was




a Nazi defender. Premier Heinrich Hellwege (1908-1991) appointed a committee to investigate th e

allegations, but Schluter resigned four days later, long before the committee reported. See Marten,1987.

2. In 1837, Emst August (1771-1851), King of Hanover, rescinded th e 1833 constitution. Seven

facultymembers at th e

Universityof

Gottingen, includingth e

brothers Jacob (1785-1863)and

Wilhelm (1786-1859) Grimm, protested and were subsequently dismissed.

3. Reading ndchste here where Tommissen's edition reads ndchse.

4."Grossraum."

roughly translatable as "greatspace,"

appeared in German legal scholarship,

including Schmitt's beginning in th e 1920s. Joseph Bendersky provides an account of th e context

in which th e term acquired currency (Bendersky, 1983, pp. 250-61).

5. Although nomos is crudely translatable as"law"

or"norm,"

Schmitt insists on a more precise

meaning of th e t e rm. For Schmitt, nomos is a founding order directly tied to th e division of territory.

See Schmitt, 1974, pp. 36-48.

6. Schmitt's "Gesprach iiber den NeuenRaum"

was broadcast on Hessische Rundfunk on April

12, 1955. It was published, together with th e text of another broadcast, as Gesprach iiber d ie Mach t

und den Zugang zum Machthaber; Gesprach uber den Neuen Raum (Berlin : Akad em ie Verlag,

1994). The passage Schmitt cites here appears on p. 64 .

7. The passage actually reads, "Denn die lieben Deutschenkenn'

ich schon: erst schweigen sie,

dann makeln sie, dann beseitigen, dann bestehlen, und verschweigensie."

("For I know the dearGermans: first they are silent, then they carp, then eliminate , then steal and conceal.") The passage

appears identicalh in a letter of August 9, 1816, from Goethe to Carl Friedrich Zelter (Riemer,

1833, p. 298) and in Riemer's own report of a dinner speech by Goethe on August 29, 1816 (Riemer,

1841, p. 719).

Paris, 11/VII55

Dear Mr. Schmitt,

please forgive me fo r only today answering your last letter (of 7/VI). I was

travelling on business, then much work in the office (Sicily, Brussels, Tunisia,

Morocco).

It pleases me that we think the same about the modern so-called"state."

I do

not, however, understand how you can speak nonetheless of a comingpolitical-

military"conflict."

For me, Molotov's cowboyhat1

is a symbol of th e future.

But as I have mentioned a philosopher, and a Hegelian in addition, may

not play the prophet.

And is there nowadays really, then, a"dualism"

of East and West? I believe

in "Land andSea"

rather than in the directions of th e compass. But here, too, it

is significant that war fleets belong to the past.

Be that as it may , I am very much looking forward to your future works.

Thank you very much fo r your intervention in th e matter of th e translation

of my book. Kohlhammer Publishing appeared to be ready, wrote to my pub

lisher, but since then I hear nothing more of it, not even from the translator,Mr.

Fetscher.2

On the other hand, I received a letter today from America a New York

lecturer from Israel (J . Taubes3) who writes to me that his Hegel lectures "a la

Kojeve"

have interested the students there very much.

Faithfully,

(s)



104 Interpretation

1. Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (1890-1986), foreign minister from 1939-1949 and

1953-1956, in fact remained an ardent Stalinist all his life; he wa s openly hostile to Krushchev and

was expelled from th e Communist Party's Central Committee in 1957 after attempting, with others,

to remove Krushchev as first secretary. Of Molotov's cowboy hat, alas, I could find no trace.

2. The translation appeared as Hegel: eine Vergegenvartigung seines Denkens. Komentar zu r

Phdnomenologie des Geistes (Kojeve, 1958).

3. Jacob Taubes (1923-1987) was a Judaist scholar and lifelong admirer of Schmitt. Taubes

struggled for most of his adult life with Schmitt 's anti-Semitism, and, while he corresponded with

Schmitt, only met him in person in 1978. In 1967, atT au b es'

request , Kojeve gave a lecture at th e

Free University of Berlin. Taubes writes, "I asked him where th e voyage was going now from

Berlin (h e had come to us directly from Peking). His answer: 'toP letten b erg . ' I was astonished,

although I was somewhat used to surprises from Kojeve. Kojeve continued: For where must one

travel to in Germany? Car l Schmitt is surely th e only one worth talking to . That stung me. For I had

denied myself a visit to Carl Schmitt, and somehow envied Alexander Kojeve his uninhibitedness in

associating with CarlSchmitt"

(Taubes, 1987, p. 24; see also Mohler, 1995, pp. 116, 120-22. 253).

Paris, 1/VIII 55

Dear Mr. Schmitt,

thank you very much fo r your friendly letter of2 5 / V I I 1

and fo r sending me

the ballads, which were as funny as they were sharp-witted, of Erich Strauss

(w ho is he,anyway?).2

Lines such as

"Hylisch chthonisch undverdreckt"3

{"Hylic, c ht ho ni c a nd filthy"}

are worthy of aMorgenstern.4

For me, it is self-evident that revolutions have become just as impossible as

wars. Both are waged precisely by states, which no longer exist!

Revolutions, like wars, belong, in my opinion and in your terminology, not

to division, but to taking. And you will certainly agree, if I add, with Hegel,

that taking is only political insofar as it takes place on th e grounds of prestige

and for prestigious ends. Otherwise surely even an im als could wage war and

the s la ve c ap tu re in Africa in the 19th century was also a war? On the other

hand, Athens certainly did not have much to

" t a k e "

from Sparta (and vice versa)

except for" h e g e m o n y , "

i.e. precisely prestige.

It pleases me, in any case, that I misunderstood you (for which I apologize,

however). It was certainly the only point on which I believed there to be a

difference of opinion between us.

I wa s recently in an automobile accident an d am sitting with a broken arm

in Paris, instead of being in Yugoslavia as I had anticipated. Thus it will please

me very much to see your daughter. I am writing to her in this context.

Mr. Fetscher writes me to

saythat you have

recentlyspoken abo ut me to

professors and students: many thanks!

Faithfully,

(s)

1. This letter is missing.

2. "ErichStrauss"

is Schmitt's poetic pseudonym.




3. The ballads Schmitt sent in th e missing letter fortunately also appear in Mohler, 1995, p. 192.4. Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914), satirical poet and stu dent of philosophy.

Plettenberg

14/XII 55

Dear Mr. Kojeve,

fo r months since August I have been wanting to write to you, just to

express my gratitude to you for having kindly entertained my daughter, Anima,in Paris, about which she wrote me an enthusiastic report. I have, however, been

frequently distracted during these last months, and only today do I again find

th e opportunity. Certainly it is a question which has long occupied me and

which I would like to pu t to you, as an observant reader and one who has

worked through your"Introduction."

That it is in this capacity that I eagerly

await your Hegel book and, at the same time, in a German edition, is under

stood. It would also interest me whether th e translation by Dr. Fetscher is pro

ceeding well and if it will appear soon.

Now my modest question: it concerns the concept of enemy in Hegel, an d

particularly the word"enemy"

in th e section about the "unhappy conscious

ness,"p. 168 in Hoffmeister, p. 581 ofyour Introduction (L e Moine, Le

Pretre1

{The Monk, The Priest}; what do the asterisks ** * there mean??2). It has to do

with the expression: the enemy in his most characteristic [eigensten] (a few

lines later: in his typical [eigentumlichen])form.3

Who is this enemy? is it

possible that he shows himself precisely in the animal functions? What does he

seek there?

In my booklet "Ex CaptivitateSalus,"4

on page 89/90 in a rem ark about the

"enemy,"

a verse (from Theodor Daubler5) is quoted:

The enemy is ou r o wn q ue st io n in form.

To this verse, a gifted young

German6

who was at Harvard fo r three years,

said to m e recently: The USA has no enemy because it has no form [Gestalt].

An important problem. May I ask you to try to read those pages 89/90 (in the

section: Wisdom of the Cell) once attentively? I do no t know if you own the

booklet Ex Captivitate Salus. If not, it will be a special delight fo r me to send

it to yo u immediately.

It is generally as with the question of th e possibility of a"dictatorship"

in

th e system of Hegelian philosophy the question whether there can be an "en

emy"

in Hegelat all. For: either he

is onlya

necessary passingstage of

negation,

or invalid an d insubstantial. Of the animal functions, it means (p . 168) that they

would be "something which is invalid in and fo ritself."

I would be sincerely grateful fo r a line on this theme, while I am no t impa

tient, fo r I know that yo u are occupied with much work.

Faithfully,

(s)



106 Interpretation

Recently the book by a Nuremberg (and social-democratic) editor , Beyer,

a pp ea re d a bo ut Hegel's time in Bamberg as an editor; biographical, under th e

title "Zwischen Phanomenologie undLogik"7

(Hegel as "coward"). If it interests

you, I will send it to you.

1. "The Monk, ThePriest,"

these are Kojeve's own titles fo r these paragraphs, w hi ch a pp ea r in

225 and 226, respectively, of Miller's translation of th e Phenomenology (Hegel, 1977).

2. The p a ss ag e c it ed (Kojeve, 1958, p. 583) is n ot p ar t of Kojeve's Introduction proper, but an

appendix to it, showing his schema of th e structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The aster

isks are part of Kojeve's numbering system.

3. See Hegel. 1977, 223 and 225; Miller translates both terms as"characteristic."

4. Schmitt, 1950.

5. Theodor Daubler (1876-1934), poet. His most famous work , Das Nordlicht (1910), a poem

of 30,000 lines, was much revised during his lifetime. Schmitt's fascination with Nordlicht went

back to 1912; in 1916 he published a commentary on th e poem (Schmitt, 1991).

6. According to Tommissen, this is Hans-Joachim Arndt, later professor of political science in

Heidelberg . Amdt me t Jacob Taubes (see note 3 to Kojeve's letter of 1 l/VII/55 above) at Harvard

in 1948.Taubes'

description of the encounter appears in Taubes (1987), p. 23 and pp. 67-68.

7. Beyer, 1955.

Paris, 4/1 56

Dear Mr. Schmitt,

thank you very much fo r your letter of 14/XII and please forgive the late

reply: I was, until recently , in Tunis because of the n e go ti at io n s a bo ut the cus

toms union (which turned out very well). And now it is about Morocco. .

Before I answ er your letter, I would like to wish you a good ne w year.

Perhaps we will have th e opportunity to meet personally?

Of the publication of the German edition of my old book I know nothing:

Dr. Fetscher has no t written me

ina

longtime.

I dono t

evenknow

ifall

difficult ies have been overcome. .

The old book is also to appear in America, but I do no t know anything

precise about that either. And as fa r as the book is concerned, it is still always

a project. I have certainly w ri tt en a bo u t a thousand pages, but all of this is only

a "preparatoryexercise."

Anyway, fo r six months I have no longer worked on

it: no time. Still, I think about it no w an d again an d matters are gradually becom

ing clearer.

I do no t know your "Ex captivitatesalus"

and would like to read it, like

everything that flows from your pen.

The book about Hegel's time in Bamberg would also interest me, but I really

do no t want to burden you with it. I will surely have the opportunity to see it

here somewhere.

Now, th e enemy question:

The "enemy in his characteristicform"

is certainly th e devil, more precisely




the Christian devil, who also appears in the "animalfunctions."

For Hegel ("for

us"or "in itself") these functions are

"invalid"

because man negates them, and

is only man and not just an animal as this negation alone. For, while th e

"unhappy

consciousness"

(i.e. religiousman ,

more

precisely Christ)appears as

slave before death and th e risk of life in th e struggle fo r recognition (his human

reality and honor) and avoids th e struggle, "foritself"

what is animal is not

"invalid"

but powerful, i.e."diabolical."

One can thus say th e following:

The real enemy is th e enemy to the death: he can kill and be killed, is thus

body and thus, if one likes,"form."

If one is prepared to kill him (i.e. if one is

prepared to risk one's own life), th en the enemy is"invalid"

[nichtig] and can

(a t least as enemy) be destroyed. If, however, one is afraid of the enemy , then

he becomes"diabolical"

and thus "powerful": he is th e"master"

and one is his

"slave"

(a t least insofar as one does not flee from h im into "another world").

"Whether there can be an enemy in Hegel atall,"

you ask. As always: Yes

and No.

Yes, insofar as. and as long as there is a struggle fo r recognition, i.e. his

tory. World history is the history of enmity between peoples (which does not

exist at all among animals: animals"fight"

fo r something, not out of enmity).

No, insofar as and as soon as history (= struggle fo r recognition) has been

"sublated"

in Absolute Knowledge. Thus enmity is, after all, only a"moment"

of the"Logic,"

i.e. of human speech. The fulf illed reason of th e wise man (of

Absolute Knowledge) also speaks (in the Phen. of S.) about th e (past) enmity ,

but the wise man never speaks out of enmity, nor to enemies. Or, expressed

differently: enmity is subla ted, i.e. destroyed, in mutual recognition; but one can

only really recognize a [former] enemy , so that the enmity is also preserved

(sublated) in the recognition, although in a sublimated (sublated) form.

Hegel takes us this far. Now one could perhaps ask oneself, if in about

500 years the speech of the wise man (Hegel) about enmity will still be under

stood. Already today only a few understand what the words"enemy," "state,"

"war," "history"

mean. Most are"against"

all this and in this respect they still

understand, to a certain extent, what it means. But if all this really disappears,

one will perhaps no longer understand what that meant. Then there will also be

no Hegelian"wisdom."

And as long as enmity still exists, there is still a wisdom

in Hegel's sense. For then one speaks only"for"

or"against,"

and only"about"

something . with my best wishes ,

Faithfully,

(s)



108 Interpretation

Plettenberg

1 1/5/56Dear Mr. Kojeve,

I certainlyunderstand your

"Hegelian"

language and there

is,fo r

me,no

greater satisfaction than to read your explanations about Hamlet in your letter

of 5/5'

I am eternally grateful to you for it, as well as fo r the passage on p. 253

of your Introduction, a passage which I have long known and meditated. But I

am still not clear about the tragic in Hegel. My small essay "Hamlet orHekuba"2

is only a lecture, which had a particular theme (Hamlet = James, i.e. th e intru

sion of th e historical present of 1600 in the play) as content. I did not want to

take up th e general problem of th e trag ic in the lecture. I did, however in

Excursus 2 want to speak of th e state. Please note the passage on p. 65, lines

6-12 at the top in the book "Hamlet or Hekuba"! The state puts an end to th e

hero-tragedy after Hegel; Philosophy of Right 93 and 218; at 93 (hero-W :

the addition in Lasson3), 359 on barbarism; in 218 it says: "In the time of

heroes (see the tragedies of theancients"

etc. Shakespeare is thus still barbaric.

Nonetheless, is Hamlet an "intellectual"? I find that the play is split in an obvi

ous way: Part I (including up to the death of Polonius) is a revenge play, Part

2 a street ballad [Moritat]. Only in Part I does the father's ghost appear. What

does that mean? In Part 2 he has disappeared without a trace, is simply no

longer mentioned. The tragic thing does not lie in th e play, but outside it, in

reality. It is splendid that you say: James 1 only"coincidentally"

died a natural

death . Correc t.

I do not want to write more today, but to thank you fo r your letter and to

express my best wishes for your health. The notification that you are not feeling

healthy distresses me very much. I had at tempted, fo r several weeks, to organize

a lecture fo r you at the Rhein-Ruhr Club in Dusseldorf. This club not to be

confused with th e heavy-industrial Industrie Club in Dusseldorf has mainly

mid-sized industry and independent entrepreneurs as members , is very exclusive

and a good pla t form , of which, e.g.Briining4

(the former Reich Chancellor, now

in the USA), CarloSchmid5

(my namesake , a social democrat) and others have

made use. The Club has asked me to ask you if you would be prepared to

deliver a lecture (with discussion), perhaps about th e problem of the underdevel

opedregions6

r another (not purely philosophical) theme. Would you really

consider it or is it pointless to pursue this idea: please write me that in all

openness and sincerity. For me it would be a particular joy to procure a platform

(if also a modest

one)in

Germanyfor you in this

way,and

forme

personal ly ,the possibility of getting to know you and to have a discussion with you.

Please forgive this attempt to see you personally; it stems from a lively wish

to thank you personally and to continue our discussion; there is, moreover , the

endeavor to make your name known in Germany and to introduce your Hegel

interpretation to the scholastic mediocrity of the modern university business, or

at least to make an attempt at it. A lecture in Dusseldorf would perhaps stir up




more attention than a lecture in a university city, which today stand together

under the aegis of "culturalexchange"

and have become hotbeds of conformity

without ideas.

So will you send me a word about whether it suits you if I pursue th e Dussel

dorf plan, perhaps for this fall or winter?

Yours sincerely,

(s)

Hamlet is"play,"

jeu {game}, street ballad, on th e edge of comedy , except

at both intrusion points [Einbruch-Stellen] .

1 . This let ter is missing.

2. Schmitt, 1956.

3. Hegel, 1921. In th e passage at 93, Hegel considers hero-law as possible only in th e state of

nature, i.e. where there are no existing ethical institutions. Schmitt was particularly interested in th e

critical moment of action which precedes and grounds these institutions, and thus differentiated

between Verfassung (constitution) and Verfassungsgesetz (constitutional law), and the corresponding

powers of verfassunggebende Gewalt and verfassungsgesetzgebende Gewalt the power which cre

ates a constitution, and which issues constitutional laws, respectively. See Schmitt (1965), pp. 75

ff. and 98 . The full sentence at 218 reads, "In heroic times, as we see in th e tragedy of th e ancients ,

th e citizens did not feel themselves injured by wrongs which members of th e royal houses did to

oneanother"

(Hegel, 1967, p. 140). Section 359 appears under the heading "The GermanicRealm,"

which is, in Hegel's descriptions, divided into tw o realms,one

mundane ,and the other "a world of

beyond."

Before the advent of th e state (360), both are externally barbaric (pp. 222-23).

4. Heinrich Briining (1885-1970) was leader of the Catholic Center Party, and Chancellor of

Germany from 1930 to 1932, when he was replaced by Franz von Papen (1879-1969). He escaped

to th e United States in 1934 and held an appointment at Harvard University from 1937 to 1952. In

1951, he returned to Germany, where he taught political science at th e University of Cologne(Man-

nes, 1999, p. 14).

5. Carlo Schmid (1896-1979), German professor of law and political science, translator of

Baudelaire into German, and, from 1949-1972, a sitting member of the Social Democratic Party in

Germany.

6. "Underdevelopedregions"

ppears here in English.

Paris, 21/5 56

Dear Professor,

thank you very much for your friendly letter of 11/V, as well as fo r th e

invitation of the Dusseldorf club. In principle I would be pleased to give a

lecture there. Because I am , however, ill fo r the moment, I cannot, unfortu

nately,promise

anythingfirm. Perhaps one could foresee something fo r

Januaryor February 1957?

The theme: "underdeveloped seems to me to be very good. On

this occasion I could perhaps also make my

"Hegelian"

interpretation of Marx

known: what was the proletariat in the 19th century has become the "under

developed"2

in the 20th, with everything thatfollows from that, as theory and

practice.



110- Interpretation

On the tragedy problem in Hegel:

1. I believe that Hegel himself did not see th e "tragedy of theintellectuals."

Yet I believe that my interpretation is"orthodox."

2. If I understand Hegel correctly, a citizen is de facto, also always a bour

geois (the real"master"

[Herr] belongs in the"mythical"

prehistory): either

as"aristocrat"

or as actual"bourgeois"

(rich or poor). If it is so, then the state

(= each actual state where th e"authority"

replaces th e "struggle fo r recognition)

puts an end to the t ragedy: precisely because there is no "actualmaster"

in the

state (more precisely: because the "realmasters"

can however only be death-

worthy criminals). I agree with this. Yet I believe that there are (or can be)

people in th e state (and thanks to th e state) who are not"bourgeois,"

on th e

simple grounds that they are not citizens. These are precisely the"intellectuals"

(and monks??) who live (o r at least would like to live) in an autonomous ("im

mune") Republique des Lettres. And in this republic there are also tragedies.

3. Your interpretation of tragedy (as "history") is, in my opinion, certainly

compatible with the Hegelian (somewhat "Marxist") interpretation. Roughlythus : there is also an actual "struggle fo r

recognition"in th e state. Not only

between individuals, but between"classes"

(to speak with Marx). Thus there

are also "tragic historicalsituations."

Only Hegel and Marx would notice that

these"situations"

are not absolutely tragic, fo r there is always a revolutionary

(i.e. more precisely bloody) escape from them.

Faithfully,

(s)

1. In English.

2. In English.

Vanves, 30/XI 56

Dear Professor,

lately you had th e kindness to plan a le ctu re fo r me in Dusseldorf. In the

meant ime, as you know, I was ill. Thus I could unfortunately not give a firm

acceptance. Now it appears that I will be coming, fo r several weeks , to see

friends in Germany, in January 1957.

I would be very happy if I could meet you on this occasion. Perhaps that

could be combined with the lecture in Dusseldorf? It would suit me particularly

well if I could hold this lecture between the 10th and th e 20th of January.

With many thanks in advance, faithfully,

(s)




5/12 56

Dear Mr. Kojeve,

I am very happy about your letter of 30/XI; first of all because of th e news

that you are healthy again, and secondly at th e prospect getting to know you

personally. I am available to you during all of January 1957; only on the evening

of January 21st I have a lecture at th e Technical College in Aachen. I can also

come, at any time, to Dusseldorf, or wherever you would like. Plettenberg is a

dreadful hole of small steel industry and is difficult to reach in the winter: the

analogy with Machiavelli's refuge in San Casciano does not, unfortunately, ex

tend to the beauty of th e landscape. Therefore it is more practical if we meet in

a larger city.

I have communicated with the Rhein-Ruhr-Club. Due to the break in discus

sions over the summer it is uncertain whether a lec ture for th e middle of January

can still be successfully organized. Time is a little bit tight, because the winter

program has already been established. Still, I want to do my best. I will keep

you posted about it . If I can be useful to you in any other way fo r your journey

to Germany, it will be a genuine pleasure.

Sincerely,

(s)

Plettenberg (Westphalia)

23/12 56

Dear Mr. Kojeve,

may I ask you , in haste, fo r some information regarding the planned lecture

in Dusse ldorf? The board of the Rhein-Ruhr-Club asked me to ask you about

the theme: could you link your ideas with a current theme: the Suez Canal, or

French colonial policy, or something of th e kind? The Club would like to hold

th e lecture in the middle of January, but fears that, with the shortness of time,

not enough listeners will come if th e theme does not have a current aspect.

I would be eternally happy if the lecture came about. Naturally, in a city

such as Dusseldorf, the larger share of important listeners is in great demand;

hence our concern. I am sending you as an example an invitation to the previous

lecture. Could you immediately send the information about yourself (a few bio

graphical notes, as in the accompanying sample) which will be printed with the

general invitations?

Please forgive the h aste! I give you my best wishes for the coming year and

hope that we meet in January in Dusseldorf!

Ever faithfully,

(s)



112 Interpretation

Vanves 24/XII 56

Dear Professor,

many thanks fo r your letter, which I have just received. Enclosed some bio

graphical notes: some of these can

certainlybe deleted.

We previously considered the theme of "UnderdevelopedCountries"1

(how

does one say that in German, by the way?). It seems to me to be very current.

The title could, nonetheless, be somewhat "spicedup."

Such as:

The problem of the underdeveloped (?) countries [or (?)] so-called "colonial

ism"

[and th e"Euro-African"

idea].

Still, I must, as a bureaucrat, naturally be very careful and deal with "princi

ples"rather than concrete questions.

Personally, I put no value on a large public. But I understand tha t the Club

is interested in it.

In any case I thank you very much for your efforts in the matter.

I will be extraordinarily happy to get to know you personally and to speak

with you.

With best wishes fo r the New Year,

Faithfully,

(s)

PS: I assume th at th e Club will cover the travel costs? Or what are the arrange

ments?

K

1. In English; reading"Underdeveloped"

where Tommissen's edition reads "Unterdeveloped"

Vanves, 23/1 57Dear Professor,

I would like to thank you most sincerely, once again, for the extremely

friendly and nice reception in Dusseldorf.

I hope that you will decide after all to come to Paris. The city is really

agreeable and beautiful.

I read th e booklet aboutpower1

n the train as always, with great satisfac

t ion. I am in full agreement with the content.

On this occasion I would like to ask you to

conveyto your daughter the most

cordial greetings.

As far as th e publication of my lecture is concerned, I must unfortunately

refrain from doing so fo r now: at the urgent advice of my superiors! I hope that

th e RR-Club will understand that .

At the same t ime I am writing to Mr.Koch2

to express my thanks and to

apologize.




With respectful and friendly greetings,

Faithfully,

(s)

1. Schmitt, 1954a. See also note 6 to Schmitt's letter of 7/6/55 above.

2. Then president of th e Rhein-Ruhr-Club, Justus Koch (1891-1962) had acted as a defense

counsel for Paul Komer, Goring's permanent deputy, in th e "MinistriesCase"

at th e Nuremberg

Military Tribunals (Trials of War Criminals, 1997, p. 10).

Plettenberg 31/1 57

Dear Mr. Kojeve,

manythanks

fo ryour

letter of 23/1!

For me it the most important thing isthat you not regret your trip to Dusseldorf. Once I disregard th e personal benefit

I took from it myself , I must above all state tha t your name has now become

effective for at least 20 young, intelligent Germans . That seems to me to be a

good result. Besides, I hope that you repeat this attempt in Germany under better

external conditions and that this Dusseldorf experiment did not , at least, have a

deterrent effect.

I can hardly open a daily newspaper without immediately finding articles in

it on the theme of your lecture. Perhaps, however, you also received an impres

sion of the difficulties one encounters today with a German public. Dr.Schacht1

wrote me a longer letter; he just travelled to Munich, where he celebrated his

80th birthday. I am sorry that he was not there, fo r despite his advanced age he

often makes very interesting comments in the discuss ion . Also Mr. Kaletsch of

th e Flickcompanies,2

hom I met th e following Friday, was sorry not to have

heard the lecture. He was occupied with the unfortunate de Menthonincident.3

But I find, as I already said to you, that the young people who heard you were

the most important. From my "Gesprach iiber die Macht und den Zugang zum

Machthaber"

you will have understood the hidden pessimism which fills me

towards everyone who participates in power. A friend in power is a friendlost,4

as it goes in the "Education of HenryAdams,"5

and from th e "Re-Education of

CarlSchmitt"6

I would also like to add: A fo e in power is a fo edoubled.7

That the lecture cannot be published is regrettable, if also understandable.

For me, the personal meeting with you remains a great moment of the autumn

of my life. The reading of your"Introduction"

and of your letters becomes,

because of it, a discussion of immediate liveliness.

I remain, with best greetings and wishes ,

ever sincerely faithfully,

(s)



114 Interpretation

Song of the ol d m an of the Mose l 1957

humanity is no w being integrated

the mosel is being canalized

the sacrament remains turned around

the laity remains without the chalice

hidden remains the dear god

the whole world becomes a meltingpot8

th e automatic becomes global

th e laity takes veronal

Alexandre Kojeve

to commemorate the discussion

over Palatinate wine in Dusseldorf

C.S.

1. Hjalmar Schacht (1877-1970) : Banker and politician. President of the Reichsbank (Imperial

Bank) 1923-1930 and 1933-1939, member of Hitler's cabinet 1935-1943. He r es ig ne d as finance

minister in 1937 after a feud with Hermann Goring (1893-1945) over economic policy, but re

mained a cabinet minister without p o rt fo li o u nt il 1943. While he espoused th e Nuremberg Laws,

Schacht opposed th e invasion of Poland, was in contact with resistance groups from 1940 onward ,

and conspired in the failed coup attempt against Hitler in July 1944. He was a rr es te d a nd imprisoned

for these activities shortly afterward, but e sca p ed e x ec u ti on . Schacht was tried by the International

Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946, and ultimately cleared (Fischer, 1995; Peterson, 1954).

2. Konrad Kaletsch (1898-1978) was a high-ranking executive of the Flick companies begin

ning in 1937. In 1947, he and five other Flick executives were tried in one of three Nuremberg

trials directed against corporations on charges of employing Jewish slave labor. Kaletsch was found

not guilty, although three of his colleagues (including Flick president Friedrich Flick) were con

v ic te d a nd served prison t ime (Jung, 1992).

3. I was unable to uncover what this incident was. This is probably Francois de Menthon (1900-

1984), France's chief prosecutor at th e Nuremberg trials in 1945-1946, as well as resistance leader

and justice minister fo r France's provisional government from 1943-1945.

4. "A friend in power is a friendlost"

appears here in English.

5. Adams, 1995, p. 107.

6. In English.

7. "A foe in power is a fo edoubled"


8. "Meltingpot"


Vanves 12/11 57

Dear Professor,

thank you very much fo r th e amusing poem.

Although it seems that th e good

laitydoes no t even n eed Veronal. I have

recently experienced something completely remarkable in this field withso -

called"politicians."

Perhaps you will decide on a trip to Paris after all: it would make m e very

happy !

With respectful greetings,

Faithfully,

(s)




Paris 4/IV 60

Dear Professor!

Thank you very much fo r the friendly transmission of Tyrannei derWerte,1

which

I,as

always, read with great interest and satisfaction.I hope that we will soon have the opportunity to talk.

With respectful greetings,

Faithfully,

(s)

1. Schmitt, 1979.

Colonialism from a European Perspective

Alexandre Kojeve

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Before I begin my lecture, I would like to thank the Rhein-Ruhr-Club most

sincerely fo r the friendly invitation.

And then I would also like to apologize fo rmy

poor German . It

is, however,a joy to give a lecture in Hegel's language. But my German leaves much to be

desired, and therefore I must ask fo r a good deal of indulgence.

Finally, I would like to repeat what Mr. Koch already said to you. Namely,

that everything that is said here is my own opinion, which I present, throughout,

not as a French bureaucrat, but exclusively as private citizen [if also as a former

student atHeidelberg].'

I would also like to remark that in my lecture I very consciously and deliber

ately want to avoid anything which is in any way political or could appear to

be so. I intend radically to depoliticize all th e concepts I discuss, above all the

concept of so-called colonialism. Thus I will examine and deal with all problems

from a purely economic, exclusively political-economic[national-okonomi-

schen] perspective.

The word"capitalism"

was coined in the 19th century, and Karl Marx gave

this concept a very precise, specifically economicmeaning.

Marx understood by"capitalism"

an economic system characterized by th e

following. First: the"capitalist"

economy is an industrialized economy. Second:

the industrial means of production belong, in this system, not to the physically

laboring (with the help of these means) majority of the population, but to a

politically aswell as economically

"leading," "guiding"

minority or elite ofso-

called capitalists. Third: this system is set up so that th e working majority, the



116- Interpretation

so-called"proletariat,"

derives absolutely no advantage from th e technical prog

ress of industrialization, or, if yo u like, of the"rationalization"

of production.

The progress of industrial technology increased the labor yield, the "produc

tivity"

as it is called today. It thus creates a surplus value from labor. This

"surplusvalue"

was not, however, paid out to the working mass , but was re

tained by th e capitalist minority. Thus th e working majority of the population

remained, in spite of technical progress, at th e same s ta nd ar d o f living, which

was, moreover, a minimum fo r subsistence and thus could absolutely no t be

lowered. In contrast , technical progress permitted a constant increase in th e capi

talist minority's income.

I say deliberately: "increase inincome"

and no t in standard of living. For

just as there is a minimum fo r subsistence, there is also a maximum fo r

living[Lebensmaximum] , or, le t us just say a living optimum which is no t surpassed.

And this optimum had already been attained by th e"leading"

minority longbefore industrialization. Marx called it very good, mo re over, and said so even

in his scientific works.

Thus, in fact only a very tiny part of the capitalist surplus value was con

sumed. Almost everything was"invested"

an d thus served the further progress,

i.e. th e constant expansion and"perfection"

[?] of industrialization or rational

ization of th e national economy.

However, as I have ment ioned, th e"capitalism"

Marx has in view was set

up so that the working majority absolutely did not p ro fit from this progress.

And while they did not become poorer in absolute terms (which was completely

impossible anyway) , they did become so relatively: the difference between

{their income and} the combined income of the elite became ever greater.

From this Marxist theory of capital formation an d surplus value, Marx him

self and th e so-called Marxists of th e 19th century derived th e well-known social

and p o litic al c o ns e qu e nc e s. The so-called "socialRevolution"

was prophesied

as a historical necessity. It was said: capital formation founded on surplus value

destroys the social equilibrium; th e entire system will thus collapse sooner or

later. And this violent collapse of capitalism was called "socialrevolution."

Now, it can be ascertained, without further ado, that th e Marxist soothsayers

erred. For precisely in th e really capitalist countries, there was no "social revolu

tion."

[And today no t a single serious person seriously asserts that there is still

any possibility fo r such a revolution in these countries.]

But while it is no longer possible to deny these facts seriously today, it is

possible to interpret them falsely. One could assert that Marx erred in his predic

tion because the theoret ical foundations of these predictions were false. [And

that was actually asserted very often.] But, in my opinion, such an interpretation

is no t only false in itself, but also dangerous. For Marx erred, in fact, no t be

cause he was theoretically wrong, but rather right.

For how did this error, certainly generally recognized today, actually come

about? It was not tha t there was no revolution in the West, although the capital-




ism Marx described continued to exist there. It was also not because of this that

Marx erred, because (as one liked to assert in the last century) absolutely noth

ing like the capitalism he described existed. In fact, Marx erred, first of all,

because in his t ime capitalism was

exactlywhat

hesaid

it was,an d

secondly,because this capitalism resolved its economic defects or, if one likes, "contradictions"

discovered and described by Marx. Namely, in the direction Marx

himself indicated. To be sure, no t in a"revolutionary"

and"dictatorial,"

but in

a peaceful an d democratic way.

Marx and the Marxists really erred in only one way. They assumed that

c a pi ta li st s w e re exactly as naive andshortsighted,2

exactly as unwise and blind,

as the bourgeois political economists and intellectuals generally, who believed

themselves to have"refuted"

Marxist

theoryin books of

varying

thickness.

Now, had it really been so, Marx would certainly no t have erred in this way.

But it was, in fact, no t this way. The capitalists published the"anti-Marxist"

books, sometimes even (a s young students) read them, but they did exactly the

opposite of what could be drawn from these books. Namely, they rebuilt capital

ism in a Marxist way.

To pu t it briefly, the capitalists sa w exactly the same thing as Marx saw and

said [although independently of him, and with some delay]. Namely, tha t capi

talism can neither progress, nor even exist, if the "surplusvalue"

produced

through industrial technologies is no t divided between the capitalist minority

and the working majority. In other words , the post-Marxist c ap it al is ts u nd er

stood that the modem , highly industrialized capitalism of m a ss p ro d uc ti on not

only permits , but also requires, a co nstan t increase in the income (and of th e

standard of living) of the working masses. And they behaved accordingly.

In brief, the capitalists did exactly what they ought to have done according

to Marxist theory in order to make the "socialrevolution

mpossible, i.e. unnec

essary. This"Marxist"

reconstruction of th e original capitalism was accom

plished more or less anonymously. But, as always, there was a great ideologue

here, too. He wa s called Henry Ford. A nd thus we can say that Ford was the

only great, authentic Marxist of the 20th century. [All other so-called theorists

were , more or less,"Romantics"

who, moreover, distorted the Marxist theories

in order to apply them to noncapitalist relations, i.e. precisely to economic sys

tems Marx did no t have in view.]

Nevertheless, after Ford fully consciously did what advanced capitalists had

already done before him, more or less unconsciously, along c a me intellectual

theorists wh o developed Fordist ideas under thename

"Full

Employment,"3

in

a learned language incomprehensible to the average person; and they were so

successful in this that it became really difficult to understand that it had to do

with Fordist ideas, which were properly Marxist an d therefore, as soon as they

were realized, actually refuted pseudo-Marxist theories.

Be that as it may, the fact is that today, the capitalism described and criticized

by Marx, i.e. old-style capitalism, which created investment capital byartifi-



118- Interpretation

daily limiting th e income of the working class to th e minimum fo r subsistence,

no longer exists in any industrialized country except fo r Soviet Russ ia . Where

it is, moreover, called"socialism"

if not"communism"

[, but demonstrates th e

same sociopolitical (police-related on the one hand, and

revolutionary

on the

other) side effects as the European capitalism of th e 19th century. In full confor

mity with Marxist theory. For, from this theory's perspective, it does not matter

whether the surplus value is invested by private individuals or state bureaucrats.

It is only important that th e capital -formingsurplus value is calculated such that

the working masses are kept close to th e minimum fo r subsistence.]

II

Now, ladies and gent lemen, what I have said is absolutely not new. [These

are plainly t ru ism s today.] And you will certainly ask yourselves why I am

speaking about it. All th e more because my lecture is not entitled"capitalism"'

but"colonialism."

Now, I have spoken about Marx and Marxist capitalism, as well as its peace

ful and democratic"political,"

if you like overcoming, because, in my opin

ion, this old-style capitalism has not been so totally and finally overcome as

appears at first glance. Indeed, not only because it continues to exist in Soviet

Russia (and in the so-called satellites) under th e more or less correct name

"socialism,"

but also because it unfortunately also lives on in the West,

where it is also called"colonialism"

today.

Marx himself, however, had only western Europe in mind. And in his t ime

that was also fully justified. It is less justified, however, that even today many

of those who repeat or who criticize him have the same world view as an ancient

Roman political economist might have had. Except tha t the United States of

North America are also included in this "orbis

terrarum"

{"earthly globe"}.

In reality, however, after the 2nd World War in any case, the so-called

"Westernworld"

is absolutely no longer just European or Euro-American . It is

also, and perhaps even predominant ly , at least in the long term, African and

Asian.

Now, when this World is looked at as a whole, i.e. as it really is, it is not

difficult to see tha t the Marxist definition of capitalism is very well suited to

this world, and indeed with all the consequences which follow"logically,"

i.e.

not only"actually,"

but also"necessarily."

Indeed, we see that nowadays th e most important means of production be

longs to a Euro-American minority which alone profits from technological prog

ress, as it expands this minority's income from year to year, while the Afro-

Asian majority does not become poorer , to be sure, in an absolute sense (which

is certainly physically impossible), but does become relatively more impover

ished. A t th e same time, it is absolutely not true that this is a matter of tw o




economically divided systems. For there is a vigorous economic interaction be

tween Euro-America and Afro-Asia. But th e system is c o ns tr u ct ed s uc h that th e

one, smaller part becomes richer every year through it, while the other, larger

one

absolutelynever raises

itself above the absolute minimum fo r subsistence.

In other words: in no industrialized country except fo r Russia today is

there a"proletariat"

in the Marxist sense, i.e. really p oo r c la ss es of th e popula

tion who can only just subsist and have no real affluence. [In the so-called

"capitalist"

countries everybody is, more or less, equally rich and no t poor; fo r

everybody there lives in relative, to be sure affluence.] But if on e takes th e

real world as a whole , however, then on e immediately sees a gigantic proletariat,

precisely in the true Marxist sense o f this word. And because it has to do with

an economic unit, i.e. an economic sys tem, one can thus

certainly say

that there

is also a "surplus value"in th e Marxist sense of the term, which in its totality

only reaches those countries which, alone, govern th e industrial means of pro

duction.

The way in which this "surplusvalue"

is obtained and retained is, from th e

economic perspective, completely irrelevant. It is important only that this sur

plus value contributes to the capital accumulation in the industrialized countries.

And thus one can, although no t calmly an d confidently , nevertheless still say

that the modern Western economic system is also completely"capitalist,"

in th e

Marxist sense of the word.

Nonetheless, an important difference, no t only in the psychologico-political,

but also in the economic respect, exists between th e s ys te m w he re the surplus

value is extracted from the working m a ss es w ith in the country and that where

this surplus value is taken in other countries. And this difference can be termino-

logically fixed if the concepts capitalism, s oc ia li sm a nd colonialism are defined

in the following way. By capitalism we can understand the classic, European

capitalism of the 19th century, i.e. the system where the surplus value is ex

tracted within the country and is invested by private persons. By socialism (I

do no t mean the theoretical socialism, which existed nowhere yet, but th e system

which actually exists today in the Sovietized countries), by Soviet socialism will

be understood that system in which the surplus value, is, just as in capital ism,

r ai se d w it hi n the country, but where this surplus value is invested by the state.

Finally, the word"colonialism"

will indicate the system where the surplus value,

as in capitalism, is no t invested by the state, but privately, but where it is raised

not inside but outside of the country.

These definitions immediately indicate, then, that real capitalism does not

exist anywhere anymore , as well as that colonialism is still related to this van

ished capitalism. Thus one understands how it is that contemporary Marxists

take a position on colonialism which is analogous to that which Marx took up

against classic capitalism. On the on e hand, they establish that {the difference}

between the Afro-Asian majority and the Euro-American minority is constantly

expanding; on the o th er hand, they infer from this that this system, because of



120 Interpretation

this lack of equilibrium, will collapse. In addition, they assume, like Marx, that

they are the only ones to make these observations and to draw these conclusions

from them, whereas the present-day colonialists, in contrast , will be just as blind

and stupid as the capitalists were in Marx's day.

Now, were it really thus, th e neo-Marxists could certainly be correct in their

prediction concerning capitalism. And it is fo r precisely this reason that I said,

at the beginning of my lecture, that it would be extremely dangerous to interpret

falsely the facts that Marx's p re di ct io n w it h respect to capitalism went wrong.

[For we saw that capitalism did no t collapse, although its"contradiction"

re

vealed by Marx continued to exist. In reality there was no social revolution

in the West, because Western capitalism itself eliminated this contradiction, in

a peaceful , democratic way, at that, while reconstructing its"economy"

in a

"Fordist"

way. And] From this historical fact one can logically draw only one

conclusion: namely that, in order to prevent the collapse of colonialism, this

colonialism will have to be reconstructed in a rational way, which is analogous

to the way in which the capitalists before, around an d after Ford reconstructed

the ol d capitalism.

Ill

The situation is q ui te p ec u li ar and, in a certain way, disturbing. In old capital

ism, the"Marxist"

contradiction was actually and actively overcome in practice

by"Fordist"

capitalists themselves. Only after this did the new scientific theory

of so-called FullEmployment4

emerge, and states, in accordance with th e already-

existing economic system, only adjusted later. In contemporary colonial ism,

however, the situation is perfectly reversed. There are already many good theo

r et ic al w or ks about the problem (as, fo r example, in th e context of the United

Nations); there are also positive governmental

statements5a nd p ro gr am s (such

as, fo r example) President Truman's famous "Point IV"6). But the practitioners

of th e economy take a reserved, even sceptical position and behave as if the

whole business has nothing to do with them, because it has to do with a so-called

p o li ti ca l p ro bl em .

Now it is certainly a p o li ti ca l problem and perhaps even the political problem

of the 20th century. But, as has been mentioned, I would like to disregard that

completely. And that all the more so, since the problem is undoubtedly and

even, perhaps, above all an economic problem.

For,to pu t it

colloquially,i.e.

appropriately: p o or c li en ts are bad clients, and if the majority of a firm's clients

are poor , i.e. bad, then the firm itself is a bad firm in any case, no t a sound

one, but particularly no t when th e firm, in order to avoid going bankrupt, must

expand every year. And no t one person will be surprised if such a firm goes

bankrupt on e fine day. [Expressed in"nobler"

language, this simple assertion is

c al le d the "law of[?]."

But it remains true today nonetheless.]




Thus one must really ask th e question today: how can colonialism be eco

nomically reconstructed in a"Fordist"

way, so to speak? On the face of it, there

are three conceivable methods , and all three have already been suggested.

First, on e can work on the famous " terms oftrade."7

That is, in good German,

one can pay more fo r goods, i.e. mainly raw materials , produced by the underde

veloped countries than has been the case until now. The purpose is to stabilize

th e prices of ra w materials, an d to do so at a level which not only allows th e

exporting countries to live, and not only to live securely, but also to live continu

ally better, just as the importing countries continually live better . In other words:

modern colonialism could do th e same thing as old capitalism did, namely , to

understand that it is no t only politically, but also economically advantageous

no t to pay as little as possible fo r labor, but as much as possible. That was th e

real purpose of the much-discussed "Commodity agreements."8Well, they were

much discussed, anyway, and in many languages, too [: five months at th e

Havana conference of '47, four months in th e GATT in Geneva in '54]. A nd

all countries were finally ready fo r it. It was all the more pleasant when it

was established that there were underdeveloped people in the underdeveloped

c ou nt ri es w ho could absolutely no t understand why, for example , oil produced

in the Middle East sh ould cost a lm ost half as much less than oil in Texas. Or

also why , if there were a so-called world union, precisely these ra w materials

would go for almost nothing at all, while industrial prices w ou ld ch an ge rela

tively little. And so on. So, as has been mentioned, all countries were in agreement

in Geneva. But: on e country was against it and, what is more , on "principled

grounds."But that was enough. And thus nobody speaks about it fo r th e mo

ment anymore.9

For the only principled country was called the USA.

Secondly, on e could proceed directly. One could, namely, collect th e surplus

value from ra w materials and anything else colonial, as before, but no t invest it

in the already industrialized an d rich countries, but in the underdeveloped, poor

countries in which the surplus value is being extracted anyway. And thiscould

be done by world organizations suited to it:SUNFED,10

or something of the

kind. This has also already been much discussed: for years, and "internation

ally."[Although no t exactly as I have just done, but in a

"noble"

way, as it

meant that the industrialized countries were to come to the aid of the underde

veloped ones, in that they were to be financed by an international investment

institution. And then everybody was finally (I mean after 5 years of studies and

conferences) without exception . in agreement to find, altogether, $250

mill ion,and to pu t it at the disposal of all the underdeveloped countries. But

th e sum has still no t been foundprobably because it is so very small ]

And it is still being spoken about . in the United Nations!

Thirdly, on e can proceed directly, no t internationally, but nationally instead.

That is, a given industrialized country can extract the c o lo n ia l s ur plus value with

the on e (indeed, the right) hand, as all industrialized countries do nowadays , but

with the other (thus the left) hand invest this surplus value, or even more than



1 22 Interpretation

that, in one or more underdeveloped countries. Now, if such a country really

invests th e entire surplus value, or even more than that, in this way , one can, to

be sure, no longer speak of colonialism in the conventional sense. For then one

is certainly, de facto, no longer taking anything, and is even giving something.

And when the country in question spends fa r more than is collected by it, then

it must even really be called anticolonialist.

As far as I know, this third method is applied by only tw o countries today,

namely by France and by England. As fa r as France is concerned, no matter

how high one calculates the extracted colonial surplus value to be, i.e. including

th e markup fo r French goods, preferential tariffs, etc., nonetheless it emerges

that, since th e war, France invests five to six t imes more in its colonies and

former colonies than these colonies and ex-colonies supply in surplus value.

And while I know th e corresponding English figures less precisely, I do know

that about the same is true fo r England.

To summarize the contemporary situation in th e Western world, one can thus

say the following:

First: the stronghold of"principled"

colonialism is in Washington;

Second: all industrialized countries are de facto colonial except France and

England.

IV

I certainly do not need to bring to anybody's attention that what has just

been said should be taken cum grano salis {with a grain of salt}. Or, in German:

it was a joke. But the philosophers call such a joke "Socraticirony"

(which,

moreover , can be more or less successful). In other words: my lecture is, at root,

meant seriously and is, in one way or another ,"pedagogical."

What is meant

seriouslyis that the real problem of our time and of our world

is not political, but economic colonialism. For in general political colonialism

no longer exists at all. Only a very few countries today are still under a truly

colonial"regime."

And even if, because of these, local difficulties exist or could

arise, then the whole Western world will certainly not be destroyed by them.

This colonialism is no longer a world problem. In my opinion, however, eco

nomic colonialism is a world problem and a mortal danger.

What is also seriously meant is tha t not only is it possible to conduct colo

nialism without having colonies, but that, in fact, all industrialized countries

more orless11

unconsciously are colonialist, in the sense that these countries

alone derive advantage from technological progress in that they become richer

every year, while th e backward countries remain exactly as poor as before, and

therefore become relatively poorer every year.

What is seriously meant , finally, is that the problem cannot really be solved




as long as the practitioners of economics continue to stand aside. Modern colo

nialism requires a ne w collective"Ford"

just as urgently as th e o ld c ap it al is m

needed many Fords, who emerged spontaneously at the tim e. I mean people

who produced fo r a mass market , which they created themselves only when

they increased the wages, i.e. the production costs, fo r economic reasons, with

ou t expecting that the state would only create this mass market for theoret ical

or political reasons.

All of this seems to me to be the law of th e contemporary world. In Greek:

the nomos of the Western Earth.

I just read, in one of th e wittiest and most brilliant essays that I have ever

read, that the ancient Greek nomos develops from three roots: from taking, from

division and from grazing, i.e. from use or consuming. And that seems to me

to be absolutely right. But the ancient Greeks did not know that the modem

nomos also has a fourth, perhaps central, root, namely giving. This root of th e

s oc io -p ol it ic al a nd economic law of the modern Western world escaped th e

ancient Greeks: maybe because they were a small heathen people, and not a

great Christian power? Who knows?

One thing I know fo r certain. Namely, that what has just been said is abso

lutely no criticism of Professor Carl Schmitt. For his"division"

implicitly in

cludes my "giving": if everything has already been taken, on e can naturally

divide only if some give away what the othersreceive.12

only wanted to point

out that, from the etymological perspective, the verb "togive"

perhaps sounds

better than the verb "totake"

even if it means practically the same thing! Thus

we say, fo r example, tha t we pay our taxes ourselves, and no t that they are

taken away from us!

And words have even a much larger meaning than is normally believed. In

the final analysis, after all, ma n is distinguished from animal by language. And

precisely from this linguistic perspective it is no t going at all well fo r our West

ern world. The old, taking capitalism, which gave the domestic masses as little

as possible, wa s rechristened

"socialism"

in Russia (a t least after it wa s national

ized). But ou r modem, giving capitalism , which gives the domestic masses as

much as possible, still has no name. At least, no t insofar as it is giving. For

insofar as it is taking, even if only from abroad , it is called"colonialism."

And

wh o does no t know this name nowadays? But the very latest thing, I want to

say giving colonialism, which gives the backward countries more than it takes

from them, is still anonymous. It is, to be sure, only a newborn child [thus small

and

weak ,but is it no t also

unusually

beautiful?]. But, in accordance with th e

modern Christian custom, a newborn child should be baptized and named [And

that seems to be a good , a sma rt, cu stom . ]

But named or u n n a me d the nomos of the modern Western world is, fo r

me, undoubtedly what I have called, in an improvised and thoroughly bad way,

"livingAnd because this colonialism is

"law,"

all industrialized



124 Interpretation

countries will, sooner or later, submit to it: particularly, however, those coun

tries which have no so-called"colonies"

to which they give anything, and which

thus abandon themselves to the purest form of taking colonialism, and, more

over normally with an excellent conscience.

V

Were it really so, then it would be time to ask oneself: in what amount , in

which way, and to whom are the legally-required disbursements to be made in

the framework of giving colonialism? I would just like to take up this question

before I finish.

So first of all: How much should one pay? That is a difficult question and I

would not like to take a position on that generally. I can only remind that th e

UnitedNations'

experts calculated that the entire problem of the underdeveloped

countries could be solved if all th e developed countries invested about 3 per

cent of their national revenue in the backward countries. If that is true or not, I

do not know. [I do know, however, that 3 per cent in th e United Sta tes would

mean a considerable amount. In western Europe, too, that would yield a lot.]

But I know that, independently of the theoretical calculations ment ioned , France

has, in fact, invested about 3 per cent of its national revenue in its colonies

annually since th e war. Moreover, without being ruined by that . . [But I con

cede that the operative motives there were purely of an economic kind. At least

they were not always so, and not everywhere.].

And, if one might extrapolate the French experience in this area, it appears

that "givingcolonialism"

in the Western world as a whole could manage on

about $10 billion. That is certainly a burden, indeed a heavy burd en . But th e

French example shows that this burden is, by far, not unbearable.

Secondly: How should one give?

Now,I have neither time nor the desire to

speak about CommodityAgreements.13

[I would only like to remark sincerely

that I have never succeeded in understanding the grounds fo r the American

aversion. Thus I personally tend, of course , to see a so-called prejudice in that .

But I could also be wrong.] I must, however, confess that I think our American

friends are right in one respect, namely that CommodityAgreements14

alone

cannot solve the entire problem. Direct contributions would have to be added in

any case. And here th e question arises of what should be given in this direct

manner. To this, in fact, tw o very different even, if one likes, contradictory

answers are given today.

The American direct contributions consisted, until now , almost exclusively

of consumer goods [which are certainly absolutely not primarily of the Coca-

Cola type, as is sometimes maliciously asserted]. In contrast, the French and

English direct contributions are exclusively on-the-spot investments (in which

consumer goods are not only not given away, but are even usually sold more




expensively than they cost on the world market). [And I would like to remark,in passing, that in this respect th e Anglo-French method is analogous to that

which Russia is applying in China today.]It is difficult to say which of these tw o methods is to be favored.

For,on

theone hand, it is, psychologically, decidedly easier to give away surplus consumer

goods than to invest, particularly where we are dealing with investments in

competing firms. And it is perhaps better, anyway, to give something than noth

ing at all. But on the other hand, it must not be forgotten that th e industrializa

tion of the backward countries has become a world-myth nowadays and that,

until now, this myth is being realized in a spectacular way only outside the

Western world, by which I mean in China. From a long way off, in Europe, it

is hard to see it, but from India, which is closer, one can already see it much

better! [Moreover, I believe that the industrialization of the backward countries

with gigantic populations is just as necessary as it would be necessary fo r mass

production to raise th e buying power of the domestic masses {; it} is an eco

nomic necessity. Thus I must confess that I personally greatly favor the English-

French method of on-the-spot investment to the American method of giving

away readymade goods.]

Thirdly: To whom should one give? For many reasons I believe that, on th e

one hand, th e international means of aid is by far not th e best one, and that, on

the other hand, a regional aid would be, in itself, greatly preferable to national

aid. Even on purely economic grounds. Namely because there are, still today,

actually natural economic regions. But these regions are, from the perspective

of giving colonialism, not equal.

Let us, to begin with, take the regions, which lie outside th e Western world,

of the Mongolian empire , first founded by Ghengis Kahn, and which recently

became politically and economically reestablished. There we see, in contrast to

th e 200 million relatively industrialized Russians, about 700 million underdevel

oped Asians. I e.: each Russian would have to carry 3.5

"underdeveloped"

peo

ple on his shoulders fo r many decades. That is a heavy, very heavy burden . But

perhaps still not an unbearable burden [provided, however, tha t the Russians

continue to follow the course of police-supported consumer asceticism].

Let us then look at the sterling zone. Here things look much worse. For here

each Englishman would have to carry about 10"underdeveloped"

Asians on his

shoulders. And that would be absolutely unbearable. In spite of the much-prized

British"austerity,"15

which is, however, decidedly less"ascetic"

than Soviet

socialism,and which

rests , moreover ,on a pure moral-religious and not on a

police [polizeiliche] foundation. Thus it seems that in this region, the future

giving colonialism must be not purely English, but Anglo-Saxon, i.e. Anglo-

American .

If, however, one also adds India, with Indonesia and Indo-China, to the total

North and South American region, even if only partially, in this way one arrives

at a per capita burden on the Americains which is proportionately larger than is



126 Interpretation

the burden on the Russians of th e Chinese. Because however, in the very long

run, the American national product is becoming much higher than the Russian

one, it will thus be possible fo r America to attain decidedly better results than

Russia without

giving up

th e "American way oflife"16

[, which, moreover, is

not a path of"austerity,"

to say nothing of "asceticism"].

And now , last but notleast,17

the European region. Like the Mongolian one,

this region also has an old, very old, history. For this region was once called

the Imperium Romanum and economically preserved itself astonishingly viably

and robustly. Indeed, modern historians have established that this economic re

gion would have preserved itself, i.e. reestablished itself, even despite the bar

barian wars , if the Islamic conquest of th e Mediterranean, which was th e con

necting link of one single economic world , had not converted it into a border

between tw o worlds, so that fo r centuries it longer served commercial traffic,

but became almost exclusively a theater of military games.

But people have meanwhile become more serious, more adult; and the t ime

is certainly not far off where they will no longer play at all. Thus one can

certainly calmly and confidently say that the economic conditions of the Medi

terranean region's economic unity have been restored. And here one must say

that, from th e perspective of giving colonialism, this economic region is a region

which has been blessed by God. For each inhabitant of th e industrialized coun

tries north of the Mediterranean only needs to look after one half of an inhabit

ant of the backward southern and eastern countries of this region in order to

attain the same, or even better, results as anywhere else in th e whole world.

A nd half a man per head is, for Europe, no burden at all, but instead is, so to

speak, just stabilizing ballast, which is well known to be very useful , but which

nonetheless does not make i tself felt directly.

Thus one is all th e more astonished when one reads in the newspapers that

giving colonialism in the Mediterranean must get its financial resources from

far away. For these resources could in fact be found much farther away , indeed.

For the sums concerned, and which are spoken of, are relatively so small that

they are really "a l'echelleeuropeenne"

{on th e European scale}, even if one

likes to speak, rightly, of"small"

or even"smallest"

Europe, in contrast to th e

contemporary superpowers.

[These sums are all the more natural when in this "smallEurope"

there are

at least two or three countries which must notice that the high rate at which

they are becoming wealthier is economically destabilizing. Thus these countries

would like to become wealthier somewhat more slowly, and

theyuse

perfectlyadequate means fo r that: more importing, reducing tariffs, etc. All of this is,

undoubtedly , very clever and even wise. But it should perhaps not be forgotten

that, in fact, all these resources can serve to improve life by only a little in a

place where one already lives "like God inFrance"

[wie Gott in Frankreich]The really poor members of th e economic Mediterranean region will not become

richer in this way. If nothing more serious than this is done, if givingcolonial-




ism is not practiced as well, then th e southern and eastern Mediterranean clients

will remain, as before, poor clients; and that also means: bad or even "dangerous"

clients.]

I must stop here! I havealready

spoken a

lot,as well as long. And I notice

that I have not even begun my actual lecture. For what was just said was only

an introduction to it.

Thus I must summarize my lecture very briefly.

The title reads: Colonialism from th e European perspective. I should thus

have explained how colonialism looks from this perspective: at least in my

opinion. Now, how does it look to me? Or: how should it, in my opinion, look

in reality? In other words: what should it be?

My answer is the following:

First: it should not be a taking but a giving (if you like: a dividing, or sharing)

colonialism. [And it would be good to find a fitting name fo r it.]

Secondly: it should not give away readymade goods , but invest productively

on the spot.

Thirdly: as really European giving colonialism it should cover the entire area

(and perhaps only the area) which lies around the Mediterranean and which has

historically proven itself to be a viable economic region; an area which is, how

ever, nowadays only half-covered in my view, adequately by French giving

colonialism.

That can suffice as an outline of my theme. For th e actual execution of this

theme, however, I have no more time and I'm very sorry fo r that!

That all the more so as I have, so far, only stated mere truisms. And that is,

for listeners, always somewhat disappointing. So I must also apologize fo r that.

But I must confess tha t I personally have a weakness fo r truisms, precisely

because they are truths. The original , however, if it is not perfectly brilliant,

always runs the risk of showing itself, sooner or later, simply to be wrong.

And I absolutely wanted to avoid th e risk of coming to Dusseldorf at the

friendly invitation of the R-R Club, but stating something false.

1. Text in square brackets appeared in the German text but was omitted from Kojeve's French

version of th e text as published in Commentaire (Kojeve, 1980 and 1999).

2. Reading kurzsichtig where Tommissen's edition reads durzsichtig.

3. In English.

4. "FullEmployment"


5. In Tommissen's edition these tw o words are illegible, but they appear in Kojeve's own

French translation (Kojeve, 1999, p. 560).

6. In English.

7. In English.

8. In English.

9. Several commodi ty agreements were subsequently successfully constructed under th e so -

called New International Economic Orde r (NIEO) in th e 1970s, but all except fo r the rubber com

modityagreement failed, mainly due to lack of political support (Gilbert, 1996).

10. The Special United Nations Fund fo r Economic Development was proposed by developing

nations in 1952 as an alternative to th e World Bank, controlled by wealthy states, particularly th e



128 Interpretation

United States. A UN committee was formed and recommended th e formation of SUNFED, a $250

million third-world capital fund, in 1953. The third-world states pressed hard, but th e United States

ultimately prevailed in 1959 with its compromise solution: the International Development Associa

tion (IDA) offered the third world loans on much easier te rms than th e World Bank did, but was

run by the World Bank (Nossiter, 1987, pp. 34-37; United Nations, 1953).

11. Reading weniger where Tommissen's edition reads eniger.

12. Schmitt takes up this point in a 1959 essay: "In a world made by people fo r people and

sometimes unfortunately also against people man can give withouttaking"

(Schmitt, 1995, p. 583).

13 . "CommodityAgreements"


14. "CommodityAgreements"


15. In English.

16. In English.

17. "Last but notleast"


18. I.e. in luxury.

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Volume 4: Politische Philosophie - Studlen zum theologlsch-poUtischen Problem

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The Living Issues of German Post-WarPhilosophy, along with numerous

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th ecorrespondence between

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andthe foundation of Isfatnic CPofitical

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Muhsin S. Mahdi

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In this work , Muhsin Mahdi distills more than four decades of research to offer an authoritative analysis of the

work ofAlfarabi, the founder of Islamic political philosophy. Mahdi, who also brought to light writings ofAlfarabi

that had long been presumed lost or were not even known, presents this great thinker as his contemporarieswould

have seen him: as a philosopher who sought to lay the foundations for a new understanding of revealed religion

and its relation to the tradition of political philosophy.

Beginning with a survey of Islamic philosophy and a discussion of its historical background, Mahdi considers th e

interrelated spheres of philosophy, political thought, theology, and jurisprudence of the time. He then turns to

Alfarabi s concept of "the virtuous and concludes with an in-depth analysis of the trilogy Philosophy ofPlato

andAristotle.

"This is the magisterial work of an extraordinary scholar. In Mahdi's presenta t ion, Alfarabi becomes one of the

greatest minds of the Middle Ages, whose original ideas on philosophy and religion, on theology and jurispru

dence, are relevant to contemporarydiscussions."

Joel L. Kraemer

Clo th $34 .00

J33

The University of Chicago Press

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Interpretations Vol 29-1[1]

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