John's review

I want to disagree, but have never actually read The Republic. After reading The Open Society and Its Enemies: Plato, Hegel, Marx (and absolutely loving it) I find myself already too biased against Plato to take it seriously.

That’s too bad, Dan. You may want to give it a shot, anyway. If you do, it may not be Popper’s Plato that you find; no matter how much you loved his reading of it. For example, as I was reading it, I kept thinking about this book by Annette Baier that I read several years ago in which she argues that individual minds reason best in certain kinds of groups. She gave a strange and interesting reading of Descartes’ Meditations. She noted that while Descartes purports to be a solitary thinker, he invents a number fictitious conversation partners, in order to help him think. Groups that value logic and have a taste for rigor ask a lot of questions, demand clarification, and hold each other accountable. It would truly be asking a lot to ask one person to do all of this himself. Don’t you agree? In this way, one could read the Republic as a highly readable communitarian logic textbook.

I'll put it on my list. A problem is that I really like Popper's Plato, without whom there'd be no heroic Karl Popper slaving away in New Zealand in the dark shadow of Hitler's rise to power.

What better villain is there than a long dead villain?

I went to a workshop on Saturday, and I was introduced to a really impressive example of deliberative decision making. It was basically a role playing exercise. They set up a situation where a really smart 8th grader, who was also an under served high-risk youth, was given an opportunity to attend a private school populated by smart and very privileged students. We were given a few details. For example, we were told that the student wanted to be an Architect, that most of the students at his neighborhood high school do not usually attend college, and that he was starting to hang with the wrong crowd and cut class, etc. Then, we were all assigned a role. They placed five chairs in the middle of the circle and each one had a sign on the back—parent, working professional who was in the Big Brother program, etc. Each of us was given a card that told us what our potential concerns might be.

We proceeded to have a conversation about what the best course of action would be for the student. At first, three of us ganged up on the student because he resisted going to the private school and wanted to stay with his friends. We wanted him to make the right decision. The parent protected him, and asked us not to tell her kid what to do. Then we tried a new strategy, we asked him some questions about what his concerns were. He said that he was afraid that everyone would be mean at the new school and that he wouldn’t have any friends, and that he didn’t want to go to a school full of snobby rich kids that look down their noses, etc. None of us were sure about this either, for all we knew, this might in fact turn out to be the case. So the whole conversation shifted direction—toward arranging a visit to the school, meeting some of the students, seeing if they were friendly, etc.

It was really interesting to see how this worked. Each role protected and advocated that certain important concerns were addressed. When a few of us ganged up on the student, we unknowing were ignoring the possibility that the student may have legitimate concerns that they had not considered. When we began asking the student questions, this turned out to be the case. We saw that a good decision required more information than we currently had, and we arranged an opportunity to secure that information.

The final decision is going to be made by the student, but the adults and other stakeholders in the child’s decision have a responsibility to make sure that the child is in a position to make a good choice—which means that the student is, as much as possible, able to ground his decision in a careful consideration of the facts and avoids irrational fears that are not supported by facts. This form of collective rationality can empower the student by giving him an opportunity to make a good decision, and it avoids being paternalistic.

I have a couple of comments:

My understanding, is that you are giving this example to illustrate how rational, collaborative decision making can take place. Specifically, in the context of Plato's question-and-answer form of political argument.

One question is whether the conversation (argument between different speakers in an attempt to find the truth) honestly and competently represents the counterargument. My understanding of the method Plato employees, mostly gained through reading other Plato dialogues, is to state some problem, have the speakers give answers, Plato then shreds their answers, and submits his own. He then fields critiques, and parries them, leaving his answer appearing to be the correct one.

This system is very weak to author manipulation. By presenting apparently strong arguments against his own position, Plato can counter them – making it appear that his position is undefeatable. That's why essay writing classes always suggest you present and defeat your opponents arguments, in order to make your own look stronger. So with Plato the question remains – to what extent is the author (really the source of all the arguments) presenting them in a manner crafted to support his love of tyranny?

Regarding your roleplay, I think it obscures the real question. I definitely see the value in first asking the student what his fears are and attempting to mollify them through a visit, maybe a play date with some of the kids, etc. Maybe that is an important distinction between authoritative and authoritarian – first attempting to convince through argument.

But, if the parent views the child's academic success as the most important thing, then even if the child doesn't want to switch schools, he should be forced to. Part of being a parent is that you do make the decisions from your better viewpoint. As a community or school representative it isn't your decision, so you job is to convince the parent of the importance of the sweet private school, and give informed advice to both.

When I say – obscure the real question – I guess I mean that as community/school figures you simply don't have all the authority, so it's slightly false to suggest that you should give up authority you don't have for giving advice and asking questions. As for the parent, yes they should try and figure out why their child is afraid, but leaving the decision in the kids hands would be an abdication of their own responsibilities.

Great Dan, I love it!

I think I see you making two points.

The first is a criticism of Plato’s rhetorical style. You believe that he presents alternative points of view as straw men, which he promptly knocks down. This may be. If you want to argue for a more nuanced and thoughtful articulation of one of those positions, I would love to hear it. How about, “justice is what is best for the stronger.” I personally feel that we can do better than that, but, if you like it, go ahead. Also, I want to remind you that I am in no way committed to accepting any of Plato’s conclusions, tyrannical or otherwise.

The second criticism that I see you making is that you don’t think that the child should have total decisional autonomy of over his welfare, even if he is making his decision with a careful consideration of the facts, and he is encouraged to eschew all of his irrational fears that are not grounded in relevant facts. Good point. The child, even in full possession of all of the relevant facts, may still have the priorities of a 13 year old. But, doesn’t this mean that the parent and other stakeholders in the child’s decision have an even deeper obligation to remind the child to fit this decision within a larger, more encompassing system of life-aims. For example, they might remind him that there is a dissonance between his long and short term goals. He cannot become an Architect if he does not go to college. If he is serious about becoming an Architect then he must be serious about going to college as well, and if he is serious about going to college, than he should participate in the program that will make sure he gets there. On the other hand, if he sees this connection, and he has seen that the private school is in fact filled with snobs that look down their noses, etc. and he sees that his assent up the ladder of success will necessarily entail sustained brutalization and humiliation, then I don’t think it would be rational to force the kid to go to the private school. Quite the contrary, I think that the new information might alter the child’s priorities, such that his long term goal of becoming an architect would no longer have the appeal that it once did. So, forcing the child to do what the parent thinks is best might in fact turn out to be most irrational with respect to the student’s best interests, etc. The parents and other stakeholders in the student’s decision have an obligation to the student to give him an opportunity to make a good choice, and if they take that choice away from the student they deprive him of his agency and his responsibility. In my opinion, an emotionally warped and psychologically unbalanced and unhappy Architect is not a successful and thriving human being, even if he is a collage graduate.

It's a tough situation to be in. He's thirteen, and going to a terrible, low-budget, high-crime public school. Cutting classes, and hanging out with a tough crowd. Who knows what he's doing when he's not in class. Then his high test scores win him a scholarship, to the nice private school across town. You've used every argument you can with your child. He's worried about mean kids, and about having the shame of always being the poor kid. Probably he will get made fun of. However, as the parent, it's your responsibility to ensure that your child is in the best possible situation.

It's true that every private school has some snobs and mean kids. Attending the private school no doubt entails some humiliation, but the schooling would also take place in a physically safe environment with the support of school counselors. The benefits are many: a simply better education, increased access to college, and connections. No matter what the child ends up wanting to do, these are helpful, positive things. There's also a good possibility that school will be enjoyable with a minimum of social problems.

Staying with the public school has many risks, and very few benefits. He might find just as much humiliation brutalization, but this time it would take place in an under-served school with no support, or on the street when he cuts class. It is possible that the child will be more accepted by his peers, but this could be a negative thing if his peers value acting-tough, causing trouble, and feeling rich. Future benefits: possibly, a feeling of personal agency, and a greater sense of community. The real cost is that later in life, when the child does know what he wants to do he will not have the grades, educational background, clean police record, or other qualifications to get there. We live in an unforgiving society, which will not change in our lifetime.

As a parent, the rule of minimizing the risk of maximum loss dictate that you force the kid to attend the private school. By all means, do whatever you can to mask the authority. Attempt to convince the kid, ask questions, come to a consensus, as long as the consensus is the right answer.

As for Plato, my uncharitable and lazy answer is in my book review.

You make a good point. The range and scope of the opportunities available to the student in our example are likely to increase significantly as the result of participating in the program. I think that this point is strong, and I think that it may provide some grounds to support the demand that that the student should participate in the program even in the absence of a desire to become an architect. If this is true, then the final decision cannot be left entirely up to the student because the student may not fully appreciate the magnitude of this change until after he participates, graduates and experiences his new range of freedom. On this point, I am persuaded.

But, what would it mean to say that a person in authority has made a good decision? Does having authority mean that the decisions one makes are legitimate? Is that what we mean by authority? This seems dubious.

I don’t think it makes sense to hold that the parent’s decision will be legitimate--come what may—-simply because she has some authority. While it is likely for the best that the student participates in this program, it still needs to be determined that this is in fact the case. A commitment to rational deliberate decision making entails a deeper commitment for securing the decision upon an adequate informational base than you seem to allow for. Deliberation about facts and the ranking of priorities may have less to do with persuading someone to accept your right answer, than it has to do with figuring out what the right answer might be, together.

I think you are wrong to minimize the value of attempting to secure an adequate informational base on which to ground this decision. It might be necessary to go to the school, and see what facilities they can offer. It might also make sense to interview another, older under privileged student that participated and graduated from the program. Are were really going to pretend that we such facts ought to have no bearing on what the right decision is going to be? There are legitimate reasons for wanting to assess what the student’s experience will be like beyond the role that this assessment might also play as an exercise in persuasion.

Inquiry that is pursued in good faith will result in the uncovering of facts that have not previously received consideration. These new facts may firm up support for participation in the program, but we must also acknowledge that proceeding in good faith entails a risk as well—-additional information may work to dissuade us from our initial position.

You have persuaded me that the student must not have the final authority to decide in this matter, but, I think that the crucial point here is that the right course of action needs to be identified and executed, and that it can be argued that there are good reasons for it, etc. You assume that this process has already occurred, and that it cannot be improved upon. I don’t.