Book contents
- Platonic Autonomy
- Platonic Autonomy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Self-Determination
- Part II Motivational Challenges to Self-Rule
- Part III Internal and External Authorities
- Part IV The Limits of Autonomy and Self-Rule
- Part V Reconciling between Freedom, External Authority, and Nature
- Chapter 9 Self-Government and Law in the Crito and the Statesman
- Chapter 10 Freedom, Willing Servitude, and the Limits to Autonomy in Plato’s Laws
- Chapter 11 The Natural Preconditions of Political Freedom
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 10 - Freedom, Willing Servitude, and the Limits to Autonomy in Plato’s Laws
from Part V - Reconciling between Freedom, External Authority, and Nature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2025
Book contents
- Platonic Autonomy
- Platonic Autonomy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Self-Determination
- Part II Motivational Challenges to Self-Rule
- Part III Internal and External Authorities
- Part IV The Limits of Autonomy and Self-Rule
- Part V Reconciling between Freedom, External Authority, and Nature
- Chapter 9 Self-Government and Law in the Crito and the Statesman
- Chapter 10 Freedom, Willing Servitude, and the Limits to Autonomy in Plato’s Laws
- Chapter 11 The Natural Preconditions of Political Freedom
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In Book III of the Plato’s Laws, we are told that under the ancient constitution of Athenian, citizens ‘lived in willing servitude’ to the city’s laws and to its officers (archontes). How are we to understand the servitude (douleia) invoked in this slogan, and what are we to make of the qualification of the servitude as willing (hekontes, ethelontes)? Against those who suggest that Plato here construes willing servitude as a kind of freedom, I argue that the slogan is intended to emphasize the ways in which the ancient Athenians were unfree. Plato uses it to promote, as a political ideal, acceptance of the limitations on freedom that are the inevitable concomitant of political rule.
Information
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- Platonic AutonomySelf-Determination, Unity, and Cooperation, pp. 216 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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