metaphor put forth by Plato in Book VI of
the Republic (488a–489d). It likens the
governance of a city-state to the
command of a naval vessel.
strong but nearsighted shipowner whose knowledge of seafaring is lacking. The quarreling sailors are demagogues and politicians, and the ship's navigator, a stargazer, is the philosopher. The sailors flatter themselves with claims to knowledge of sailing, though they know nothing of navigation, and are constantly vying with one another for the approval of the shipowner so to captain the ship, going so far as to stupefy the shipowner with drugs and wine. Meanwhile, they dismiss the navigator as a useless stargazer, though he is the only one with adequate knowledge to direct the ship's course…
- The sailors are quarreling among themselves over captaincy of the ship,
- each one thinking that he ought to be captain,
- though he has never learn that skill…
- On top of which they say it can’t be taught. In fact,
- they’re prepared to cut to pieces anyone who says it can….
- They beg him [the ship-owner] and do everything they can to make him hand over the tiller to them. [6*] Sometimes, if other people can persuade him and they can’t, they kill those others or throw them overboard.
- Then they immobilize their worthy ship-owner with drugs or drinks or by some other means, and take control of the ship, helping themselves to what it is carrying.
- Drinking and feasting they sail in the way you expect people like that to sail...
- If someone is good at finding them ways of persuading or compelling the ship-owner to let them take control,
- they call him a real seaman, a real captain, and say he really knows about ships. [Numbers added to facilitate exposition.]—Republic, 488a-d, translated by G. Ferrari.
There are at least ten criticisms of direct democracy in the famous comparison of the role of philosophy in a popular democracy to the captaining of a ship. Before I get to to those, in his notes, Ferrari suggests that 'the people' are likened to the ship-owner. This makes initial sense because they are, in some sense, the largest and strongest group. But I think it is more likely that this refers to the propertied classes (or gentlemen); after all, (a) the property of the shipowner is emphasized throughout the analogy, and (b) that the property can be seized by the masses. Even if (c) one reads the worthy (γενναῖος) as ironical, it makes more sense as a reference to the propertied than the people. This has additional benefit of making clear what I think of a more subtle point of Plato's: that a democracy also stultifies the propertied--they grow attached to goods not truth/virtue.
Okay, I think we can we summarize the ten criticisms as follows:
- Democracy generates dissensus.
- Self-rule generates overconfidence in each of us.
- The members of the demos lack [distinctive] political expertise.
- The people* deny the very existence of [distinctive] political expertise.
- The masses threaten or kill anybody who claims intellectual superiority.
- Everybody (is encouraged to) want(s) to rule. --> [6*] This can generate murderous conflict.
- The lower classes foment revolutions and steal property of others.
- With the people in control there is much rudderless pleasure.
- The majority are susceptible to flattery and demagogues.
- The masses call demagogues 'skilled.'
This calls for some comment.
On [1] that direct democracy generates dissensus is so because everybody can have a say and be in control and (so?) [6] everyone, who will have different views, wants to be in control. While there is an important point lurking here -- that people adjust their desires to what's possible --, as stated this is implausible. But all Socrates needs for the analogy to work is that sufficient people want to be in control. And that seems more plausible. It's interesting that Plato thought that the practice of direct democracy revealed the fact of pluralism. (Max Weber thinks this is a product of modernity and advanced division of labor.) In Plato this pluralism seems to be the product of the diversity and inconstancy of human desire/appetite [see 8] as such and the lack of regulation of these in a commercial democracy such as Athens.
On [2] that self-rule generates overconfidence in each of us is probably too strong. There are risk averse people. But that ruling, without external constraint (other states' power, etc.) creates overconfidence in some sense is not altogether implausible. Plato would have been able to point to the disastrous expedition to Syracuse as evidence.
Let's spot Socrates 3-4 for the sake of argument (although I return to these below). Obviously a friend of direct democracy or sortition would think this question-begging. (That's why I added 'distinctive.') On [5] Plato could fairly point to the trial of Socrates. Friends of direct democracy might argue (a la I.F. Stone) that the case of Socrates was the exception rather than the rule. On [6* & 7] much of the history of Greece as relayed by Herodotus and, especially, the (aristocratic-leaning) Thucydides, suggests an eternal return of local civil wars among the rich and poor. Interestingly enough, Athens seems to have been the relatively stable exception (presumably because the poor were subsidized by income from imperial tributes).+
In recent times, Plato's observations on [9-10] seem most prescient and relevant again. (Ahead of Trump's election, Jason Stanley drew on Madison and Plato -- but from Book VIII -- when describing the dangers of demagogues in the NYT; recall my responses here and here.]) The implications of [10] are the most interesting. Because while the core idea seems to be that the many deny the very existence of expertise in statesmanship [3-4], a demagogue can persuade them that a kind of ersatz-political craft is, in fact, the real thing. And while the rejection of expertise is bad enough, the embrace of fake-skill as the real thing corrupts -- presumably by undermining trust and by generating confusion about what it is. -- the very idea of expertise.
That is, the true skill of a demagogue consists in overturning pre-existing opinions. And this also points to the demagogue's true danger: he undermines the habits of thoughts and reasonable expectations for the worse (by [recall]) making everybody complicit in a reign of falsity. Okay, with that in mind let me sum up by way of a new presentation of [1-10]:
- Direct democracy = dissensus [disorder/disunity].
- Democracy generates overconfidence in each of us [reign of false].
- The people lack of expertise [reign of false].
- deny the very existence of political expertise [reign of false].
- They threaten or kill anybody who claims intellectual superiority [disorder/anarchy].
- Everybody wants to rule [disorder].
- The masses ferment revolutions and steal property of others [disorder].
- With the masses in control there is much rudderless pleasure [disorder].
- The masses are susceptible to flattery and demagogues [reign of false].
- The masses call demagogues ‘skilled’ [reign of false].
If we abstract from the details, all of Socrates's criticisms of direct democracy in the ship of state analogy can, then, be boiled down to two: (i) it generates disorder/disunity and (ii) a reign of the false (that is, lack of virtue). (Maybe that's too reductionistic; [5-6] both also predict murder and theft and these are, presumably, also bad simpliciter.)
So, first, in the ship of state analogy, Socrates presupposes some empirical facts about moral psychology of populations in and the normal functioning of direct democracy. And, second, Socrates also presupposes that (i) order/unity and a (ii) reign of truth are proper ends of statecraft. Obviously, much of the Republic is devoted to arguing for these presuppositions and this post is not the place to scrutinize them.
The pressing question is how much the distinctive institutions of modern liberal democracy -- separation of powers, representative democracy, disestablishment of religion, wider franchise, the establishment of compulsory mass education, the abolition of slavery -- address Plato's challenge, or have made matters worse.
*I am using 'the members of the demos;' 'the people;' 'the lower classes;' 'the majority;' and 'the masses' interchangeably for ease of presentation. (There is no sense here that 'the people' are sovereign in, say, Rousseau's sense.
+There are uncomfortable permanent issues lurking here on the role of empire making mass democracy possible.
In the way that a ship sets course to a proper goal with the aid of charts and astronomy, etc.
++
Democratic self-government does not work, according to Plato, because ordinary people have not learned how to run the ship of state. They are not familiar enough with such things as economics, military strategy, conditions in other countries, or the confusing intricacies of law and ethics. They are also not inclined to acquire such knowledge. The effort and self-discipline required for serious study is not something most people enjoy. In their ignorance they tend to vote for politicians who beguile them with appearances and nebulous talk, and they inevitably find themselves at the mercy of administrations and conditions over which they have no control because they do not understand what is happening around them. They are guided by unreliable emotions more than by careful analysis, and they are lured into adventurous wars and victimized by costly defeats that could have been entirely avoided. This is how the Republic portrays politics in a democracy:
Imagine then a ship or a fleet in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but who is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and whose knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarreling with one another about the steering—every one is of the opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation.
The captain in this analogy is the owner of the ship or fleet; he represents the demos, the majority of ordinary people. The sailors are the politicians who compete to be at the helm. It had been their incompetence, as well as that of the owner, that has brought Athens to ruin in the past:
[The sailors] throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores, thus eating and drinking. They proceed on their voyage in such a manner as can be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the good pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like it or not—the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling.
The way to avoid the serious shortcomings of democracy as well as oligarchy is the installation of the government of technocrats that will make all relevant and necessary decisions on the basis of objective analyses and unbiased deliberations. Since neither the demos nor ordinary politicians can be expected to acquire this sort of competence, it will have to be the committee of philosopher kings (and philosopher queens) that guarantees justice, public welfare, and peace.
The idea of such a dictatorship of reason has been criticized as follows: Even if one admits that expert knowledge is necessary for the government of a commonwealth, and that most ordinary people do not have a sufficient grasp of all the social, administrative, legal, and other relevant details that go into running a government, people nevertheless need not relinquish their right to appoint the officials of an administration, or to recall them, if the results of their performance seem unsatisfactory. The owner of a ship may not know how to navigate, but he or she still has the right to determine where the ship will go. Hired expert navigators may be necessary to figure out the best means of getting to some place, but the owners of the ship should still be able to determine the ends. Voters in a democracy may not know all or even any of the technicalities of running a government, but they surely can judge the results. What is essential for a democracy is not that citizens be able to understand and do everything themselves, but that they be able to determine the major outcomes and their over-all destiny as a community.
Turning the ship analogy against Plato in this way is a persuasive move, but it ultimately does not take care of Plato's challenge. For if it is plausible to argue that voters may be too uninformed to decide on the best means to reach a certain goal, then it is also plausible to argue that they may not be informed enough to choose the right ends. A serious lack of knowledge can manifest itself not only in the way a state is run, but also in the choice of destinations. What can and has to be criticized is not only a citizenry's possible ignorance of the measures that a government might take to reach certain goals, but also their ideas and expectations about where their society ought to go--what goals they want to reach as a commonwealth. The democratic election of a leader who plans to replace a capitalist democracy with a fascist warfare state, for example, is a case in point. Hitler, it is worth remembering, was elected by a democratic vote, and it is surely not irrelevant to ask whether those who voted for him did not suffer from an unacceptable degree of ignorance and lack of political education.
The democratic decision to engage in a series of expansionist wars, as sanctioned by the Athenian Assembly, is a similar case in point. What Plato witnessed as a young man was not a lack of understanding of the technicalities of governing on the part of the demos, but rather poor judgment in the choice of major goals. Major political destinies can be judged in terms of wisdom, feasibility, logic, moral responsibility, and other criteria that make the general intellectual competence of an electorate a relevant and urgent issue. It is obviously not a foregone conclusion that whatever the majority decides is also the best—or even acceptable. Both short-term and long-term expectations and decisions of a democratic polity may be quite thoughtless, ill-advised, stupid, illusory, dangerous, or outright insane. In spite of the above critique of the ship analogy, in other words, Plato's challenge to the idea of democracy stands.
Granted, then, that sound political decisions concerning means as well as ends require not only reliable knowledge of such things as economics, geography, sociology, and military strategy, but also something like moral competence, the question arises as to how this sort of preparedness can be acquired. Plato's emphatic answer is: by a sound and systematic education. No good government—democratic or otherwise--is possible without an adequate amount of knowledge and understanding. It is for this reason that education is the most central concern of Plato’s Republic.
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/PlatoRep.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptitude
Individual variation in cognitive performance: developmental and evolutionary perspectives
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427550/?report=classic
