Spring 2010 - Interpretation

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2 5 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n of morality as such and so how one’s own good problematically relates to it. (Accordingly, or for this very reason, this principal problem necessarily extends itself to the problematic nature of the gods themselves insofar as the problematic yet divine nature of justice necessarily reflects, because it comprises a part of, the nature of those very gods.) It is thus by virtue of thinking through the problem of justice as service to others, and so, for example, the justice-like courage that consists in aiding one’s own comrades and kinsmen, that Plato’s Socrates indicates that the only way Alcibiades’ “understanding” of both justice and the good (as his private advantage) can be guaranteed to coincide and thereby seem to be unproblematic is if his sacrifice does not go unnoticed by these just and moderate gods (105e, 124c; see Addendum 9). This is all to suggest, then, that Alcibiades can only to seem cure his persisting confusion if his belief that his noble desire to be willing to perform self-sacrifice is truly and necessarily beneficial to him because of the workings of divine intervention or providence. This step, however, he is unwilling to explicitly take, in part, it seems, because it might reduce the allure of nobility, but also because, as has been seen throughout the dialogue and even in the Symposium, Alcibiades genuinely senses that the relation between justice and the good—and so belief in the providential gods—is inherently problematic (see Addendum 10). However this may be, one may nonetheless say that the truth of the irrationality in Alcibiades’ heart is firmly rooted in his desire to both give himself up to something greater than himself and to prove that in doing so he is worthy of compensation, e.g., is better than his rivals. But this is also to say that, insofar as the subtitle of the Alcibiades is On the Nature of Man, the truth of the irrationality of Alcibiades is presumably the truth of our own irrationality as well. It would thus seem that the key implication of the conversation that has unfolded between these two interlocutors is that human nature can presumably remedy its contradictory desires of “giving up and getting” only through the care and intervention of the gods themselves. Accordingly, even morality itself, and our attraction and concern with it as something good in itself and for us, can only be fully soluble with such gods. And yet, such a conclusion, it seems, must necessarily remain aporetic, if only because the gods’ possible introduction still leaves the following moral problem (already alluded to above): those who piously perform self-sacrificing acts can no longer be understood to be really “sacrificing” anything at all. Indeed, those who are morally upright seem to have also assured themselves, whether truthfully or not, that their respectable deeds
Political Science and the Irrational 2 5 1 will also lead to, at least in the long run, the fulfillment of their own private good. This, however, is to ultimately concede that the difference between the moral and immoral is simply reducible to the mere difference in the speed of delivery of that which appears to be genuinely good to each of these parties. Accordingly, Socrates’ examination of the problematic nature of public and private goods seems to lead one to the conclusion that even if there are such caring gods, they cannot, insofar as they are truly just, justly blame and so punish those who “impiously” pursue their own good directly. Or conversely, these gods cannot justly praise and so reward the “pious” for indirectly pursuing these very same goods. But then, such gods can no longer be properly understood as being what they are often presented as being at all: both just and providential (see Plato’s Hipparchus; Bartlett 1994, 143-55; and Strauss 1997, 122). In this way, the Alcibiades not only shows the insoluble tension between one’s private good and public virtue, it also points to a reinterpretation of justice that is compatible with the former though fundamentally different than the nobility that belongs to the latter. What, then, are we to make of nobility? It seems that, just as the providential gods have fallen away in this account, so too has nobility. Could this mean that, just as the caring gods issue from a combination of what one might impossibly wish for, so too does nobility? Are not these gods themselves, after all, the very embodiment of the noble? However this may be, in having seen the spuriousness behind the putative resolution to this impossible combination, one is thereby provided with the reason for its impossibility. One is, moreover, able to provision for oneself a moral defense for consistently living according to the results of that examination. Socrates, then, may be said to provide, for both theoretical and moral reasons, the means for an “all too human” defense of the philosophical life even if that life should happen to be confronted by either moral or “theoretical” demands issuing from those who, for example, claim that there are not only just and interventionist gods who are “first principles,” but gods who might likewise demand our unthinking obedience and piety (see Addendum 11). Conclusion By offering this miniature presentation of the classical defense of philosophy, the Alcibiades makes room for the need and authority of human reason. For in so doing, it provides an insight into what are and
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Spring 2010 - Interpretation

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