Civil insubordination: Socrates Philosophy - Essay Example

Socrates and Civil Disobedience This essay answers the question as to the views of Socrates about Civil Disobedience and his hypothetical stand regarding the Civil Rights movement or Gandhi’s protest against British Imperialism. To understand Socrates’ views on civil disobedience, it is pertinent to refer to Plato’s Apology and his dialogues with Crito. On first reading, Socrates seems to have denounced the act of disobeying the government or the state as he refused to escape from his prison cell when requested to do so by his followers by stating that doing so would mean that disobeying the state. Further, he holds the act of harming another person “no matter what injury they may have inflicted upon you” (Crito 47-49). This can be construed as pacifism and a non-violent attitude towards life’s travails and his oppressors. However, a nuanced reading of Socrates would reveal that he supported the idea of Civil Disobedience in a limited set of circumstances. For instance, he states that ““As it is, you depart, if you depart, after being wronged not by us, the laws, but by men…” [Crito 54b-54c] The crucial distinction here is that Socrates did not find fault with the laws as much as he found fault with the people passing judgments. Hence, the injustice here lies in the legal system and not so much with the laws of the land. This sophisticated position of Socrates can be used to explain what he would have thought of the two movements under discussion for this essay. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, civil disobedience is the "refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government." The key words here are non-violence, public action and actions intended to bring about political change. If we consider Socrates’ position on these, it would seem that he would support Civil Disobedience in so far as the agreement between state and man has been compromised; lacking or it never existed at all. If we take the case of the civil rights movement, the agreement was never formed between state and man as the people were being denied their basic rights like the right to vote and the right to use public places. The next instance where the agreement between state and man has been breached is the case in Imperial India. The British took away some rights of the Indians that were implicit between the state and man like the right of the Indians to protest and punishing those who did raise their voice against the tyranny of their rule. It is in this context, that Socrates’ defense of civil disobedience lends itself to supporting Gandhi’s non-violent struggle against the British. Note that Socrates’ would have approved of Gandhi’s distinction between the Laws of the Land as opposed to the interpretation of the laws. The other aspect where Socrates’ defense of Civil Disobedience comes into play is when his works are cited to indicate a preference for a law “higher” than the laws of the land. The Apology has references to such thinking where the concept of “Dharma” as propounded by Gandhi finds resonance with Socratic thought. Hence, the point that is being made here is that only by a nuanced reading of Socrates’ and application of his thought to the contemporary issues facing us and the means and methods to protest in such an environment. In conclusion, it is apparent that none of the thinkers have advocated civil disobedience purely for the sake of breaking the law for trivial pursuits. The appeal to a noble cause and fight for justice for those who have been denied it is a consistent feature of thinkers from Socrates’ to Gandhi. This is reflected in both these thinkers going to jail instead of escaping (as in Socrates’ case) or giving into the oppressors (as in Gandhi’s case) which shows their respect for the laws but not for the people implementing the laws. Hobbes and Rationality Thomas Hobbes was one of the Enlightenment Era thinkers who believed that men are guided by reason alone and are rational creatures whose actions are motivated by their thoughts that form as a result of the matter that is endowed with motion. Hobbes defined reason as “Out of all which we may define, that is to say determine, what that is, which is meant by this word reason, when we reckon it amongst the faculties of the mind. For REASON, in this sense, is nothing but reckoning, that is adding and subtracting, of the consequences of general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts; I say marking them when we reckon by ourselves, and signifying, when we demonstrate or approve our reckonings to other men.” (Leviathan 36) Hence, in the Hobbesian scheme of things, the actions of men can be explained by analyzing the reasons behind them and by recourse to the rational impulses driving them. There is place for sensations like pleasure and hate but these are circumscribed by rational calculations as to how much of these can be maximized or minimized to bring greater pleasure or reduce the pain. The point here is that we cat in ways that increase our pleasure and reduce our pain and are hence guided by the rational seeking individualistic impulses that place a premium on reason. Hence, for Hobbes, it is the supremacy of reason that he turns to explain Man’s place in the world. Further, he distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary actions by stating that “not only actions that have their beginning from covetousness, ambition, lust, or other appetites to the thing propounded; but also those that have their beginning from aversion, or fear of those consequences that follow the omission, are voluntary actions.” (Leviathan 41) By voluntary one means actions that are undertaken with a will behind them and which are the result of well thought out reactions deriving from the reason. He distinguished the involuntary to indicate his preference for those impulses that he saw were guided by reason as opposed to those impulses that he saw were guided by reason. The notable aspect of Hobbesian philosophy is that unlike the other Enlightenment thinker, Descartes, Hobbes did not consider matter to be inanimate and did not drive a stake between mind and matter. For Hobbes, matter is endowed with motion and this motion is from within. The two metaphysical elements of matter and motion can be reduced to one element i.e. dynamic matter. This is the basis for reason and rationality arising out of the soul which is composed of subtle atoms. Out of this collection arises man’s eternal quest for happiness and the soul likewise is considered to be the repository of man’s rational impulses. Hobbes was known for his espousal of rationality and reason much like the other enlightenment thinkers who saw life as mechanical and the universe working in a clockwork manner. For instance, Newtonian physics or rather metaphysics that arose during that time saw the universe as predictable and the quantum theorists of the 20th century had not yet arrived with their theories. Hence, any reading of Hobbes has to be placed in this particular context where reason and rationality reigned supreme. In conclusion, Hobbesian thought was focused on the primacy of rationality and reason and the absence of spiritual component of human nature. For these thinkers, it was a matter of faith that man acts by reason alone and that we are guided by our rational selves. Note: Throughout this essay, “man” is used to denote “person” (of both genders) and hence should be taken in that context since the thinkers surveyed here are of an earlier era. References Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962. Plato. Five Dialogues. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1980. Webster. Merriam Webster Dictionary. New York: Webster, 2010. Read More