Abstract
The ideal which Plato consistently endorses and develops
in the Laws is one of a city which, like the ideal soul, is
perfectly at peace with its inner conflicts. The law is presented as
a remedy for the destabilizing influence of the sensations and emotions
which make every human being an individual, before he is a
citizen. The authoritarian aspect of this remedy may worry contemporary
readers, but Plato supports it with his presupposition
regarding the extreme weakness of human nature. In particular,
the law imposes that rational regulation which each man potentially
possesses within himself in so far as he is a divine creature,
but which only a ‘small stock of men’ (918 c) is able to exercise. In
short, the price that Plato asks us to pay for political order is the
suppression of our ‘worse’, yet more human, selves.