Plato
In the Gorgias, Callicles argues that conventional virtue is a fiction designed by the weak to constrain the strong, and that the genuinely excellent person should pursue power, pleasure, and the satisfaction of desire without restraint.
Discussion Questions
- How does Socrates respond? Where do you find his response most persuasive, and where least? If a thoughtful person today were drawn to Callicles' position — and many are, even if they would not put it in his terms — what would you say to them?
- Socrates argues that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it, and that the just person is genuinely happier than the unjust person, whatever the external circumstances. Is this claim defensible? Would the Founders have accepted it? Would you?
Harvey Mansfield
Mansfield argues that the American Founders understood liberty to require virtue, and that liberty without virtue is not genuine liberty at all.
Discussion Questions
- How does Mansfield distinguish genuine liberty from the mere freedom to do as one pleases? And what does it mean, practically, for a constitutional order to "require" virtue — does it mean the government should cultivate virtue, that the people must already possess it, or something else?
Gordon Wood
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (pp. 65–70)
Wood argues a republic needs "an extraordinary moral character in the people" that a monarchy, resting on fear and force, does not.
Discussion Questions
- Is this need for public virtue a permanent feature of republican government, or was it specific to 1776?
George Washington
The Rules of Civility range from the trivial (Rule 12, on shaking the head and feet) to the profound (Rule 110, on the spark of celestial fire called conscience).
Discussion Questions
- Pick three rules that strike you as still genuinely important, and three that strike you as obsolete or quaint. What is the difference between the two categories?
- Is there a unifying principle behind the rules that survives, even if their particular application is dated? If so, what is it?