Plato and Mill on Democracy: The Responsibility Issue

Plato was not a fan of democracy.  Thus Plato was at odds with John Stuart Mill.  The irony here is that nothing may prove Plato to be more right than parenting.  In comparison to other species, it is arguable that human beings are generally worse than any other species when it comes to parenting.  

From the standpoint of evolutionary theory, good parents should give their children the resources that the children need whereby the children can take their place in the world as fully competent adults who can in turn have children. 

Well, insofar as caring and parenting is involved, the members of every other species on the plant routinely do precisely that to the extent that is appropriate.  Or so it is barring the intrusion of some force that prevents this from happening.  Human beings are the only species on the planet whose caring for their offspring is so entirely up in the air.  There are, to be sure, some truly wonderful parents.  But, alas, there are some truly horrendous parents.  

If the percentage of animals that were sloppy in caring for their offspring equaled the percentage of human beings who failed to care for their children properly, then it is arguable that a great many species would already be extinct.  Far too many human beings bring children into the world and then find just about any and every excuse not to take care of the children properly.

Alas, one of the most untoward consequences of liberty is that in point of fact parents can be mightily irresponsible in caring for their children.  This parents can do to their children without ever causing any physical harm to their children.  Arguably, Plato grasped this truth in a way that Mill did not.  

As a matter of biological instinct, it is rare for female animals to abandon their children.  True, there are instances where a male animal A will kill the infant offspring of male animal B if male animal A is now mating with the female animal with whom male B mated.  But then some male adults human beings will have sex with their step-children.

While the difference here is in one very clear sense one of apples and oranges, there is a very straightforward respect in which the human adult who has sex with his innocent step-children is light years more horrendous than the male animal who kills off the competing offspring from of the female with whom the male is now mating.  At least the animal has the excuse of being driven by sheer instinct.  Adult male human beings who sexually abuse their step children have no such excuse.  They have no excuse at all.

There are many adult human beings who often fail to provide their children with the basic training that the children need to at least be minimally competent in society.  Not so with animals who train their offspring.  For instance, a mother wild cat will unequivocally teach her offspring how to hunt for food.  However, the world is full of parents who fail to train their children adequately or who fail to see to it that their children receive adequate training.  

By and large, human beings have made far more of a mess of freedom than they put freedom to good use.  And that was precisely the view that Plato held about democracy, namely that without the adequate moral training at the outset democracy will be none other than a disaster for human beings.  

My favorite example in this regard is the extent to which hostilities exist over ethnic differences although we now know in a way that has no equal that we are all equally human beings.  If you have A-blood type and I have A-blood type, then no matter how differently we look from one another, the healthy person can share some blood with the other if the person needs it.  Yet, human beings continue elevate ethnic identity as if it constituted some significant biological difference.

A final and most disconcerting observation is as follows.  There is simply no correlation whatsoever between being free and being responsible.  And democracy has no way whatsoever in which to address the simple reality that democracy is compatible with enormous and utterly damning levels of irresponsibility.  Never on the face of the earth have so many been so free and, at the very same time, so irresponsible.  Never have so many been so free and at the same inclined to blame others for their own mistakes and foolhardiness.  

If we are veering towards a better world, that is far from obvious.  And the best way to see this is by noting that we are far from where we should be given all the information that we have at our disposal.  What Plato grasped as well as anyone, if not more fully than anyone, is that freedom without the proper moral training will mutate into none other than a form of living hell.  

© 2012 Laurence Thomas