GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

PL'ATO'S POLITICAL THEORY *jg
>re, in any event remain less marked than that of members
f the first. Such as it is, it will be developed best by the
roper
exercise of the functions which the individual is
ualified to perform. For this/ Plato would conclude,
[ have done my best to provide in my State, and, so
mg as the philosopher-Guardians are in control, the
revision will continue/
2) That there is No Right of Self-Government,
lore formidable is the criticism which is based upon the
dagc, "It is only the wearer who knows where the shoe
inches." This, as we shall see later, embodies one of the
asic 1
presuppositions of democracy. Nobody, the democrat
rgues, can know what it is like to obey laws and live
nder a form of government except -those who are actually
ibject to the laws and those who actually suffer the
overnment. That is one of the reasons, and not the
sast important of them, why the subject should have a
Dice in making the laws and choosing the government.
t may be, in fact it is, the case that people who are im-
erfect are better suited by imperfect laws which provide
>r their idiosyncrasies, make allowance for their weakesses
and reflect their needs, than by perfect ones which
resuppose the ability to conform to a standard of beaviour
which outruns their capacity* In any event,
cople must in the last resort be allowed to determine
>r themselves by what principles the society in which
icy live is to be governed, even if, owing to their intpcrience,
folly and stupidity, they make a worse job of
inning society than Plato's philosophers would have done,
or it is better to be free to go wrong than to be compelled
> go right.
Plato would, I suppose, answer that, granted the
Bectiveness of his system of education, these aspirations
>r freedom and self-government
could not possibly arise,
or the laws could not conceivably irk a citizen whose
location had for its sole object the moulding of the citizen
Sec Chapter XIX, pp. 789^96-