Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-tq7bh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-21T01:53:38.719Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Plato, Hegel, and Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Thom Brooks
Thom Brooks*
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle
Get access

Abstract

Nearly every major philosophy, from Plato to Hegel and beyond, has argued that democracy is an inferior form of government, at best. Yet, virtually every contemporary political philosophy working today endorses democracy in one variety or another. Should we conclude then that the traditional canon is meaningless for helping us theorise about a just state? In this paper, I will take up the criticisms and positive proposals of two such canonical figures in political philosophy: Plato and Hegel. At first glance, each is rather disdainful, if not outright hostile, to democracy. This is also how both have been represented traditionally. However, if we look behind the reasons for their rejection of (Athenian) democracy and the reasons behind their alternatives to democracy, I believe we can uncover a new theory of government that does two things. First, it maps onto the so-called Schumpeterian tradition of elite theories of democracy quite well. Second, perhaps surprisingly, it actually provides an improved justification for democratic government as we practice it today than rival theories of democracy. Thus, not only are Plato and Hegel not enemies of modern democratic thought after all, but each is actually quite useful for helping us develop democratic theory in a positive, not negative, manner.

Information

Type
Hegel and the Greeks
Information
Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain , Volume 27 , Issue 1-2: number 53/54 , 2006 , pp. 24 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Notes

1 For example, Ian Shapiro writes: ‘Authoritarian rulers seldom reject democracy outright. Instead they argue that their people are not ready for democracy ‘Yet’, that their systems are more democratic than they appear, or that the opposition is corrupt and antidemocratic — perhaps the stooge of a foreign power’, and ‘[t]he democratic idea is close to nonnegotiable in today's world’ ( Shapiro, Ian, The State of Democratic Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 1.Google Scholar).

2 See Popper, Karl R., The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II: The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aflermath, 5th ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), pp. 1, 34, 22 Google Scholar. See ibid., p. 47 and Haym, Rudolf, Hegel und seine Zeit (Berlin, 1857), pp. 357–91Google Scholar.

3 Russell, Bertrand, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945), p. 742 Google Scholar.

4 Russell, , A History of Western Philosophy, p. 105 Google Scholar

5 See Knox, T. M., ‘Hegel and Prussianism’, in Kaufmann, Walter (ed.), Hegel's Political Philosophy (New York: Atherton Press, 1970), pp. 13–29 Google Scholar. See also Avineri, Shlomo, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 185–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See Avineri, , Hegel's Theory of the Modem State, p. 187 Google Scholar; Hardimon, Michael O., Hegel's Social Philosophy: The Project of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 215 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hicks, Steven V., International Law and the Possibility of a Just World Order: An Essay on Hegel's Universalism (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999), p. 173 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hook, Sidney, ‘Hegel and His Apologists’, in Kaufmann, Walter (ed.), Hegel's Political Philosophy, p. 90 Google Scholar; Knowles, Dudley, Hegel and the Philosophy of Right (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 327 Google Scholar; Levin, Michael and Williams, Howard, ‘Inherited Power and Popular Representation: A Tension in Hegel's Political Theory’, Political Studies 35 (1987), p. 114 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pelczynski, Z. A., ‘The Hegelian Conception of the State’, in Pelczynski, Z. A. (ed.), Hegel's Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 25 Google Scholar; Rauch, Leo, ‘Hegel, Spirit, and Polities’, in Solomon, Robert C. and Higgins, Kathleen M. (eds.), The Age of German Idealism (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 285 Google Scholar; Reybum, Hugh A, The Ethical Theory of Hegel: A Study of the Philosophy of Right (Oxford: Clarendon, 1921), p. 252 Google Scholar; Smith, Steven B., Hegel's Critique of Liberalism: Rights in Contexts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 152 Google Scholar; and Tunick, Mark, “Hegel's Justification of Hereditary Monarchy’, History of Political Thought 12 (1991), p. 482 Google Scholar.

7 On the ‘true’ and ‘healthy’ city, see Plato, Republic 369c–373a and my ‘Knowledge and Power in Plato's Political Thought’, International journal of Philosophical Studies 14 (2006), pp. 51–77 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. All Plato quotations come from Plato, , Complete Works, edited by Cooper, John M. (Indianapolis: Hacked, 1997)Google Scholar.

8 See Plato, Euthydemus 291c–292c; Plato, , Republic 426d, 477d–eGoogle Scholar; Plato, , Statesman 292c, e, 308e, 311c Google Scholar.

9 Klosko, George, The Development of Plato's Political Thought (New York: Methuen, 1986), p. 172 Google Scholar.

10 On the difference between Plato's Republic and his Law, see Brisson, Luc, ‘Ethics and Politics in Plato's Laws ’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 28 (2005), pp. 93–121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Plato, , Laws 693d–eGoogle Scholar; see Plato, , Eighth Letter 353d–eGoogle Scholar. Emphasis added.

12 See Plato, , Laws 823a Google Scholar.

13 See Plato, , Laws 755c–d, 756a–bGoogle Scholar.

14 See Plato, , Laws 752d–754e, 755a–cGoogle Scholar.

15 Plato, , Laws 751b Google Scholar.

16 See Hegel, G. W. F., Elements of the Philosophy of Right, edited by Wood, Allen W., translated by Nisbett, H. B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), §273CrossRefGoogle Scholar, R [hereafter, PR]. I shall put to one side whether or not the monarch is the dominant partner here as my argument does not depend on it. That said, I do argue elsewhere that the monarch is more powerful than his ministers. (See my Hegel's Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007)Google Scholar and my “No Rubber Stamp: Hegel's Constitutional Monarch’, History of Political Thought (2007), forthcoming.)

17 See Hegel, PR, §273R.

18 This is a point missed surprisingly often, but noted well by Ilting. (See Ilting, K.-H., ‘The Structure of the Hegel's Philosophy of Right ’, in Pelczynski, Z. A. (ed.), Hegel's Political Philosophy, pp. 103–4.Google Scholar)

19 Plato, , Republic 557b, 560e Google Scholar. See ibid., 572d–e and Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato's Republic (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), p. 300 Google Scholar.

20 See Beiser, Frederick, Hegel (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 252 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 See Plato, , Republic 562b–c.Google Scholar

22 Plato, , Republic 557e–558a Google Scholar.

23 Hegel, PR, §290A. See ibid., §§273R, 274, A, 276, 278R, 290A, 302 and Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science: The First Philosophy of Right, translated by Michael, J. Stewart and Hodgson, Peter C. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar, §167R (hereafter, ‘LNR’).

24 Hegel, LNR, §148R.

25 Hegel, PR, §303R.

26 Of course, for Hegel, the particular shape a people's political community ought to take is the rational structure of the free will in ‘the system of right’, as set out in the Philosophy of Right. (See Hegel, PR, §4A.)

27 Plato, , Republic 558c Google Scholar.

28 Hegel, LNR,§135R.

29 See Brooks, , ‘Knowledge and Power in Plato's Political Thought’, pp. 57–77 Google Scholar.

30 See Hegel, LNR, §§129R, 130R.

31 Hegel, PR, §279R.

32 Hegel claims that any state, whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, must always have ‘an individual at its head […] for all actions and all actuality are initiated and implemented by a leader as the decisive unit’ (Hegel, PR, §279R).

33 Hegel, PR, §279R (emphasis given).

34 On group rights, see Jones, Peter, ‘Group Rights and Group Oppression’, Journal of Political Philosophy 7 (1999), pp. 353–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Hegel, PR, §§281R, 301R.

36 See Plato, , Republic 561b–cGoogle Scholar and Hegel, PR, §273R. Also see Irwin, Terence H., Plato's Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), p. 229 Google Scholar.

37 Plato, , Gorgias 517bGoogle Scholar.

38 Plato, , Republic 586a–bGoogle Scholar.

39 Plato, , Phaedo 99b Google Scholar. See Plato, , Republic 520c–dGoogle Scholar.

40 Plato says: ‘And so he [i.e., the democrat] lives, always surrendering rule over himself to whichever desire comes along, as if it were chosen by lot. And when that is satisfied, he surrenders the rule to another, not disdaining any but satisfying them all equally’ ( Plato, , Republic 561b Google Scholar).

41 Plato, , Republic 559d–561c Google Scholar.

42 Hegel, PR, §281R (emphasis given). See Hegel, LNR, §129R.

43 See Hegel, PR, §310R.

44 Plato, , Philebus 48c–49a Google Scholar.

45 See Plato, , Gorgias 457c–dGoogle Scholar.

46 Hegel, PR, §279A.

47 Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York, 1942), pp. 284–85Google Scholar.

48 Hegel, PR, §311R.

49 See Hegel, PR, §281.

50 Knowles, Dudley, Hegel and the Philosophy of Right (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 335–36Google Scholar.

51 Aristotle, Politics in his The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. II, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984),1273b5–6 [Book II].

52 See Plato, , Republic 558c Google Scholar.

53 Hegel, PR, §301R.

54 See Hegel, PR, §308R.

55 Plato says that justice is ‘doing one's own work and not meddling with what isn't one's own’ (Republic 433a-b, 441e). On technē, see Reeve, C. D. C., Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato's Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

56 See Plato, , Euthydemus 291c–92cGoogle Scholar; Plato, , Republic 426d, 477d–eGoogle Scholar; and Plato, , Statesman 292c Google Scholar.

57 Plato, , Statesman 297b–cGoogle Scholar. See Plato, , Republic 494a Google Scholar.

58 Plato, , Theaetetus 170a–bGoogle Scholar.

59 See Plato, , Statesman 266e Google Scholar.

60 See Vlastos, Gregory, ‘The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy’, Political Theory 11 (1983), p. 503 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wakefield, Robin, ‘Introduction’, in Plato, , Republic, translated by Wakefield, R. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. xxv Google Scholar. This agrees with Reeve that, for Plato, ‘[p]roper political rule is proper psychic rule’ ( Reeve, , Philosopher-Kings, p. 262 Google Scholar).

61 Plato, , Republic 347c–d, 412d–eGoogle Scholar.

62 See my ‘Knowledge and Power in Plato's Political Thought’.

63 Plato, , Republic 472e–473a Google Scholar.

64 Plato, , Republic 473c–dGoogle Scholar. See ibid., 499a–d.

65 Plato, , Republic 499d Google Scholar (emphasis given). See ibid., 502b–c, 540d.

66 Plato, , Republic 592a–hGoogle Scholar.

67 Plato, , Phaedo 62b Google Scholar.

68 Plato, , Republic 500c–dGoogle Scholar.

69 Plato, , Republic 590c Google Scholar.

70 Plato, , Republic 546a–bGoogle Scholar.

71 Plato, , Republic 546a–eGoogle Scholar. See Jenks, Rod, ‘The Machinery of the Collapse: On Republic VIII’, History of Political Thought 25 (2002), pp. 21–29 Google Scholar.

72 See Plato, , Laws 693d–eGoogle Scholar.

73 Plato, , Laws 756e, 701e, 693d-eGoogle Scholar. Plato's ‘moderate authoritarianism’ has much in common with the notion of ‘sceptical authoritarianism’ I have defended elsewhere (see my ‘Defence of Sceptical Authoritarianism’, Politics 22 (2002), pp. 152–62)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 See Plato, , Republic 462c Google Scholar.

75 Plato, , Republic 557e–558a, 560b Google Scholar.

76 Plato, , Republic 562c–d (emphasis added)Google Scholar.

77 Plato, , Laws 693d–eGoogle Scholar.

78 See Hegel, LNR, §138 and Hegel, PR, §§275, 279–80, 283. ‘Die firstliche Gewalt’ may also be translated as ‘the princely power’.

79 See Hegel, LNR, §144R and Hegel, PR, §296.

80 See Hegel, PR, §296.

81 Hegel, LNR, §144R.

82 For example, see Hegel, G. W. F., Die Philosophie des Rechts: Die Mitschriften Wannenmann (Heidelberg 1817–1818) und Homeyer (Berlin 1818–1819), edited by Ilting, K.-H. (Stuttgart Klett-Cotta Verlag, 1983), pp. 166–67Google Scholar (reprinted in Wood's editorial note to §283 in Hegel, PR, p. 466).

83 See Hegel, LNR, §140 and Hegel, PR, §283.

84 See Hegel PR, §292.

85 See Hegel, PR, §329.

86 Hegel, LNR, §140, R.

87 Hegel, LNR, §140R. Elsewhere, Hegel adds that in addition to ‘the executive civil servants’ there are also “higher consultative bodies' which ‘necessarily work together in groups, and they converge in their supreme heads who are in touch with the monarch himself (Hegel, PR, §289). Hegel suggests that these ‘higher consultative bodies’ are ‘corporations’ (see Hegel, PR, §289R).

88 See Hegel, PR, §294R.

89 See Hegel, PR, §§263A, 278R.

90 Hardimon, , Hegel's Social Philosophy, p. 219 Google Scholar.

91 Hegel, PR, §288.

92 See Hegel, PR, §288.

93 Perhaps the reason why the Estates cannot propose legislation is due to Hegel's view that particular interests should be harmonised with the universal — and not the other way around. Thus, the Estates (representing particularity) need only confirm their agreement or disagreement with proposals brought before them by the universal class, the cabinet ministers (see Hegel, PR, §261R).

94 See Hegel, PR, §265.

95 Hegel, PR, §265A.

96 See Hegel, PR, §268A and Green, T. H., Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and Other Writings, edited by Harris, Paul and Morrow, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 89–106 [§§113-36]Google Scholar.

97 Hegel, PR, §274A.

98 Hegel, PR, §281A.

99 See Plato, , Laws 823a Google Scholar.

100 Plato, , Aldbiades 114b Google Scholar.

101 Plato, , Gorgias 513e Google Scholar.

102 See Plato, , Aldbiades 117c–e, 135a–bGoogle Scholar; Plato, , Republic 341c, 488a–489b Google Scholar; Plato, , Seventh Letter 351d Google Scholar; Plato, , Statesman 296e–297b, e, 299a–eGoogle Scholar. See also Plato, , Laws 639bGoogle Scholar; Plato, , Phaedrus 246a–247c Google Scholar.

103 Plato, , Republic 489a Google Scholar.

104 For a different viewpoint, see Irwin, on ‘Platonic Love and Platonic Justice’ in Irwin, Terence H., Plato's Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 311–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105 The ‘present situation’ is that Socrates has been condemned to die by the newly installed Athenian democracy (see Plato, Apology 38c and Plato, , Crito 43a–44d Google Scholar).

106 Plato, , Crito 44c–dGoogle Scholar.

107 Plato, , Second Letter 312 Google Scholar. See Plato, , Seventh Letter 325d–eGoogle Scholar.

108 See Plato, , Republic 498d–499a Google Scholar.

109 Hardimon, , Hegel's Social Philosophy, p. 215 (emphasis added)Google Scholar. Whilst Hegel is quite clear that the monarch is meant to act as a clear restraint on the powers of the bureaucracy, it is unclear how effective the monarch can be (see Hegel, PR, §§295A, 297). After all, the bureaucrats seem to have sole control over the education of future members, who form the pool of potential ministers. There is no check on their education or suitability for office beyond the monarch's decision to appoint or remove members of this pool of potential ministers.

110 Wood, Allen W., ‘Introduction’, in Hegel, , PR, p. xxiv Google Scholar.

111 See Wolff, Jonathan, An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 75, 77 Google Scholar.

112 Dahl, Robert A., On Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 70–71 Google Scholar (emphasis given).

113 Dahl, Robert A., Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

114 On jury nullification, see my ‘A Defence of Jury Nullification’, Res Publica 10 (2004), pp. 401–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; my ‘On Jury Nullification’, Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 97 (2005), pp. 169–75Google Scholar; and, more generally, my ‘The Right to Trial by Jury’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 21 (2004), pp. 197–212 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and my ‘The Future of the Right to Trial by Jury’, Philosophy Today 17 (2003), pp. 2–4 Google Scholar.

115 See Hegel, LNR, §140 and Franco, , Hegel's Philosophy of Freedom, p. 317 Google Scholar.

116 See Hegel, LNR, §149R: ‘Legislative proposals must therefore emanate from the sovereign […] the initiative for laws rests essentially with the power of the sovereign’.

117 See Hegel, LNR, §140.

118 See Hegel, PR, §284. It is important to note that this does not suggest that the relevant minister is responsible for getting the monarch to agree with him on what should become law, as this passage is equally suggestive that ministers may be held accountable if they fail to convince the monarch to avoid moving forward with a bill proposal.

119 Hegel, LNR, §149R.

120 Hegel, PR, §§297, R, 315A. See Hegel, LNR, §154R.

121 Hegel, LNR, §145R.

122 Although many Hegel scholars believe Hegel was mistaken on this point, such as Andrew Chitty in personal correspondence, I disagree with this view (see my Hegel's Political Philosophy).

123 See Christiano, Thomas, The Rule of the Many (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996)Google Scholar and Christiano, Thomas, ‘An Argument for Egalitarian Justice and Against the Levelling Down Objection’, in Campbell, Joseph, O'Rourke, Michael, and Silverstein, Harry, eds., Social Justice and the Law (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), pp. 41–65 Google Scholar.

124 See Estlund, David, ‘Beyond Fairness and Deliberation: The Epistemic Dimension of Democratic Authority’, in Bohman, James and Rehg, William (eds.), Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997)Google Scholar. For an opposing view, see Richardson, Henry S., Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning About the Ends of Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

125 I owe this choice phrase to Fabian Freyenhagen.

126 See Hegel, PR, §272A.

127 I readily grant that the justifications offered for this position differ between Hegel and Schumpeter and thank Andrew Chitty for this point.

128 See my ‘A Defence of Sceptical Authoritarianism’.

129 See Gordon, Stacy B., ‘All Votes Are Not Created Equal: Campaign Contributions and Critical Votes’, Journal of Politics 63 (2001), pp. 249–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

130 Christiano, Thomas, ‘Knowledge and Power in the Justification of Democracy’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2001), pp. 198–217 Google Scholar.

131 See my ‘Can We Justify Political Inequality?’ Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 89 (2003), pp. 426–38Google Scholar.

132 Talisse, Robert, ‘Dilemmas of Public Reason: Pluralism, Polarization, and Instability’, in Brooks, Thom and Freyenhagen, Fabian (eds.), The Legacy of John Rawls (London: Continuum, 2005), pp. 107–123 Google Scholar.

133 Hibbing, John R. and Theiss-Morse, Elizabeth, Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about How Government Should Work (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 227 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

134 By looking at their criticisms of democracy, we can bracket more controversial issues pertaining to the many nuances of their full, considered alternatives and, thus, avoid getting bogged down in questions about the usefulness or applicability of Hegel's conception of the will or worries pertaining to the ‘metaphysics’ of Plato and Hegel.

135 This article was presented at annual meetings of the Hegel Society of Great Britain in Oxford, the Global Studies Association in Newcastle, and the Classical Association in Newcastle, as well as at the Department of Politics at the University of Newcastle. The article has benefited significantly from these audiences, including most especially Karin de Boer, Sarah Francis, Tim Kelsall, Graham Long, Ali Mandipour, David Merrill, Ian O'Flynn, Vicky Roupa, Heather Widdows, Kathryn Wilkinson, and, not least, extensive comments by Andrew Chitty, Fabian Freyenhagen, Stephen Houlgate, Richard Mullender, and Bob Stern.