8 - Laws X: First Causes and the Origin of Evil

Summary

The Laws presents Plato's last and vast attempt at laying the platform for a political project, where all the citizens will have an understanding of the reasons why they should abide by certain norms. In this respect, the dialogue sustains the effort of other late dialogues to extend education to the many, and thus avail them of more solid foundations for the attainment of happiness. The Laws also lays down the groundwork for a system where political law is to be based on natural law; but establishing this point requires proving that there are norms of nature. To this effect, Plato finds it of importance to establish that there is nous – intelligence – pervading the cosmos, and that our own intelligence is akin to it. In particular, if it is the role of intelligence to grasp objective goodness, the hope is that by having all citizens acquire and use critical understanding, they will reach agreement about common values and this will in turn secure the rule of law in a way that is grounded in nature. Thus, book IV relates the etymology of nomos, law, to nous, intelligence (714a; cf. XII 957c), and presents the divine nous that ruled during the golden age of Cronus as paradigmatic for a political search. In this way, in opposition to the view that laws are merely the arbitrary rule of the stronger, the Laws presents a normative concept of law; one which should, in a desirable political system, promote the individual flourishing of virtue.