Good people do too need laws

Good people do not need laws

Gentles, I would appreciate a specific citation where the quote from Plato can be found. (“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”). After quite some searching, I cannot find it. I am inclined to believe it is an apocryphal attribution. It is to be found all over the Internet, which only increases my suspicion. However, not one site gives any details. Interestingly, although it may be apocryphal it is immensely popular; It is used by everyone of every political stripe from arch-liberal to arch-conservative.

One can see the appeal of the quote, since it can be used as a universal tool to, in a rather sly way, denigrate any proposed law as needlessly bureaucratic while simultaneously flattering the hearer as being in the population of ‘good people’. It is, to my mind, however, yet another application of the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. That is, most people fall somewhere in between absolute good and absolute bad. So, for any realistic situation, this quotation is meaningless.

I do not claim to have made a complete study, but I would say that Plato’s view is not as the first quote would have it. First, he believed, quite reasonably I think, that a proper state must both educate people in the ‘right’ as well as having fixed law, and cannot have one without the other. Here he uses the analogy of the law being like the lines of a drawingmaster - used to guide the young through society until they have learned the ‘right’:

“This is what is done by those who have the means, and those who have the means are the rich; their children begin to go to school soonest and leave off latest. When they have done with masters, the state again compels them to learn the laws, and live after the pattern which they furnish, and not after their own fancies; and just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a style for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention of good lawgivers living in the olden time; these are given to the young man, in order to guide him in his conduct whether he is commanding or obeying; and he who transgresses them is to be corrected, or, in other words, called to account, which is a term used not only in your country, but also in many others, seeing that justice calls men to account.” [Protagoras, Plato]

Far from the rather cavalier attitude toward the law implied by the first quote. Here he states rather plainly that he believes that the law is of literally cardinal importance. He says that it is for the benefit of all and no man, not even the ruler, is above the law:

“Now, according to our view, such governments are not polities at all, nor are laws right which are passed for the good of particular classes and not for the good of the whole state. States which have such laws are not polities but parties, and their notions of justice are simply unmeaning. I say this, because I am going to assert that we must not entrust the government in your state to any one because he is rich, or because he possesses any other advantage, such as strength, or stature, or again birth: but he who is most obedient to the laws of the state, he shall win the palm; and to him who is victorious in the first degree shall be given the highest office and chief ministry of the gods; and the second to him who bears the second palm; and on a similar principle shall all the other be assigned to those who come next in order. And when I call the rulers servants or ministers of the law, I give them this name not for the sake of novelty, but because I certainly believe that upon such service or ministry depends the well- or ill-being of the state. For that state in which the law is subject and has no authority, I perceive to be on the highway to ruin; but I see that the state in which the law is above the rulers, and the rulers are the inferiors of the law, has salvation, and every blessing which the Gods can confer.” [Laws, Plato, Book IV]

So, I do believe that Plato has quite a bit to say on the subject of society and law. Perhaps it is not what was cited initially, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Yrs,
l.