Table Of ContentVirtue and Law in Plato and Beyond
Virtue and Law in
Plato and Beyond
Julia Annas
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Preface
The ideas in this book have been with me for some time. I started
thinking about virtue in the Laws and law in the Republic in the mid-
2000s,andnoticedearlyonthatthereisanilluminatinganalogyinPhilo
to Plato’s procedure in the Laws. My attempt to bring together ideas
aboutPlato,Cicero,andPhilowasinterruptedby(successful)treatment
forbreastcancer,andtheyear’senforced‘vacation’mademethinkmore
deeplyabouttheissues.IcontinuedtoworkmoreonthemasIrealized
thatIneededtobackupmyviewsaboutvirtueintheLawswithamore
general view of the dialogue and its methodology. I have greatly bene-
fittedfromthetranslationandcommentaryofSchöpsdau,aswellasthe
older text and commentary by England, and I am grateful to Malcolm
Schofield for letting me see his introduction to the new Cambridge
translationoftheLawsbeforepublication.Ialsodelveddeeperintothe
works by Cicero and Philo, and the philosophical and social back-
grounds against which they were written. I remain aware that I am a
novice in Philo studies, and hopethat this has not been too much of a
disadvantage. I have been excited by the recent vigorous growth of
interest in the Laws, and am very grateful for the work of Malcolm
Schofield,ChristopherGill,SusanSauvéMeyer,ZenaHitz,AndreLaks,
and Christopher Bobonich. As a result of the book’s long gestation
period,Ihavethepleasure ofthankingalargenumberofpeople.Over
ten years I am sure that I have forgotten the source of many helpful
conversations,comments,andemails.Iapologizeforthis,andwouldbe
grateful to be reminded by people not mentioned here. I owe special
thanks to Malcolm Schofield, to my colleague Rachana Kamtekar,
ChristopherGill,CharlesKahn,BradInwood,DavidO’Connor,Franco
Trivigno, Jeremy Reid, Gretchen Reydams-Schils, and two readers for
Oxford University Press.
The book covers ground discussed in three published articles: ‘Law
and Virtue in Plato’, in C. Bobonich (ed.), Essays on Plato’s Laws,
Cambridge University Press, 2011, 71–91; ‘Plato’s Laws and Cicero’s
De Legibus’, in Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras in the 1st Century BC,
editedbyMalcolmSchofield,CambridgeUniversityPress,2012,206–24;
vi PREFACE
and‘VirtueandLawintheRepublic’,inPresocraticsandPlato:Festschrift
at Delphi for Charles Kahn, edited by Richard Patterson, Vasilis Karas-
manis, and Arnold Herrman, Parmenides Press, 2013, 165–82. Papers
dealing with issues in parts of the book have been delivered to the
followingaudiences,andIamgratefulfortheirresponsesandcriticisms:
the Princeton Ancient Philosophy Colloquium; the Society for Biblical
Literature;ConferenceonPhilosophyinthe1stCenturyBCatCambridge;
Philosophy Department, University of Oslo; Philosophy Department,
University of Uppsala; Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo; the Stanford
AncientandModernPoliticalThoughtGroup;PhilosophyDepartment,
University of Bergen; Seoul National University; the Korean Society for
Greco-Roman Philosophy; the Corbett Lecture for 2011, University of
Cambridge; the Benedict Lectures on Political Thought 2012, Boston
University; the Danziger Lecture 2013, University of Chicago; the Hall
Lecture2013,UniversityofIowa;theO’NeillLectures2013,Universityof
New Mexico, Albuquerque; University of Edinburgh Law School; and
theWestCoastPlatoworkshoponPlato’sLaws.
Again, I thank everyone who has helped me along the way, and
apologize to those I have unintentionally omitted. Translations are
mineunlessotherwiseindicated.
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. LawintheRepublic 9
3. ChangingfromWithin:Plato’sNewApproachintheLaws 32
4. VirtueinaFrameworkofLaw 72
5. LawandtheDivine 120
6. CitizenVirtue 149
7. CiceroonNaturalLawandIdealLaws 162
8. PhiloonVirtueandtheLawsofMoses 188
9. BringingThingsTogether 214
Bibliography 219
Index 231
1
Introduction
InthisbookIaimtodotwothings.IexploreastrandinPlato’sLaws,a
workwhichaftermuchneglectisnowtheobjectofagrowingandvery
interesting body of work. And I also aim to follow up two authors
influenced by this Platonic strand, an under-studied way of thinking
aboutvirtue,law,andtheirrelationship.Thebookisnotageneralstudy
oftheLaws,whichwouldbeafarlargerundertaking.
IthasalwaysbeennoticedthatPlatoinmanydialogues,andparticu-
larlytheRepublic,hasagreatdealtosayaboutvirtue.Hehassomething
to say about law, too, in the Crito and Statesman. In the Laws he
explicitly turns to the topic of law and spends a great part of the work
settingupamodellawcodeforaprojectedcity.ItisintheLawsthatwe
findtheissueoftherelationofvirtuetolawraisedandgivenanextensive
answer;thisissomethingthattheCritoandStatesmandonotdevelop.1
There is clearly a noticeable contrast between the Republic and the
Laws, one often put broadly as follows. In the Republic the aim of the
ideal state is to make all the citizens happy, which they are to do by
developing the virtues appropriate to their ways of life. The rulers or
‘guardians’ are qualified to rule the others by virtue of their long and
demanding training; this will produce virtuous and expert rulers, who
manage the society in the way that expert doctors manage medical
treatment or expert steersmen manage boats. Their training in virtue
bringsunderstandingofwhatisbestforallthecitizensandthesocietyas
awhole,whichtheyimposeontheotherstoproducevirtueandhappi-
nessforall.InMagnesia,theidealprojectedcityoftheLaws,ontheother
1 TheCritoisconcernedwiththequestionwhetherSocratesshouldobeytheactuallaws
ofAthenswhenunjustlycondemned.TheStatesman’sfocusisontheidealstatesmanand
kinds of constitution. Neither is concerned with the issue of virtue and law which is
extensivelydevelopedintheLaws.
