Demophron Platonic Dialogue

DEMOPHRON

(A dialogue on Free Will)

by D.J.Lake

Scene: a path in the country near Athens, 420 BC


SOCRATES:  Good day, my young friend. How are you?

DEMOPHRON:  A little hot, and more than a little bothered, Socrates.

SOC:  Well, it is a hot day. That’s why I have come out of the city, for a stroll under the trees, by the cool waters of this stream. But why are you bothered, Demophron?

DEM:  Well – did you see me with my uncle, just now?

SOC:  Was that your uncle, that serious-looking man, with a book-scroll under his arm?

DEM:  Yes indeed, my uncle Glaukon. He was coming from the harbor – said he’d been buying a book. By Leukippos, he said. That’s some foreign philosopher, I think.

SOC:  Yes, Leukippos of Miletos, the man who believes everything is made up of atoms. Atoms are little things you can never cut –

DEM:  Don’t tell me, Socrates, please! I’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing from my uncle. Oh dear! We are neighbors as well as relatives, but – we are so different. I’ve just come from the Stadium, where I was training for the Games – he’s come from a bookshop. He’s got ever so many books at home – Anaxagoras, Herakleitos, Parmenides – chaps like that; and he talks about nothing else than their abstruse theories. And I usually can’t understand a word! Books are not in my line – and athletics are not in my uncle’s. He says he just doesn’t follow sport; and that’s true. He doesn’t know who won what at the last Olympics, he doesn’t care who might win next time! He’s not a bad chap, I suppose, but – this is what bothers me. I don’t think I love my uncle.

SOC:  You don’t? If so, it’s a pity; but don’t distress yourself. Obviously you can’t help it.

DEM:  But I should help it. He’s my late father’s brother, and you ought to love your relations. But I’m afraid I’ve never loved him. This is a sin against the gods! And I’m worrying now which god I ought to sacrifice to, in expiation of my sin.

SOC:  So, you feel guilty?

DEM: Exactly.

SOC:  Guilt – that’s an interesting idea. Shall we discuss it? Perhaps a bit of self-knowledge might make you feel better.

DEM:  I would like to feel better. But I am guilty.

SOC:  You remember the famous inscription at Delphi: “Know thyself.” It may be useful for you, my good Demophron, for us to examine whether you really are guilty of a sin, and then, if we find you are, we can further discuss what god you should sacrifice to. Here’s a fine shady tree. Let’s sit under it on the grass, and cool our feet in the stream, and then you might be a little less hot, and possibly even less bothered.

DEM:  Thank you, Socrates. I always like talking to you, because you talk common sense – not stuff about atoms, or whether the sun and moon are rocks.

SOC:  Who said the sun and moon are rocks?

DEM:  Well, I know that one. Anaxagoras, that foreign friend of Pericles. It happened when I was a boy of thirteen, so I remember – the people of Athens condemned Anaxagoras for impiety. Of course the sun and moon are gods, but this foreigner said they were only stones flying through the upper air, the sun a burning stone and the moon a cold one. With mountains on it! That was sacrilege. He was condemned quite rightly.

SOC:  So you think Anaxagoras, too, was guilty of a sin against the gods?

DEM:  Oh yes, a very grave one. He deserved to be punished. I’m sorry he escaped abroad.

SOC:  But supposing he couldn’t help saying what he did?

DEM:  Couldn’t help?

SOC:  Yes. I don’t myself say the sun and moon are stones – such physical enquiries are not my line. But some people, such as Anaxagoras, are fascinated by such things. And suppose Anaxagoras thought the evidence showed the sun and moon were stones. He had that sort of mind, gripped by astronomy – a little like your uncle. Do you still say it was a sin for him to declare what he thought?

DEM:  It was a sin for him even to think it.

SOC:  So even thoughts can be sins?

DEM:  Oh yes. To choose to think like that – a great sin.

SOC: And you are sinful because you choose to dislike your uncle?

DEM:  Oh yes. I am sinful. Because we have free will.

SOC:  Free will… Do you have free will, Demophron?

DEM:  Certainly. Everyone has.

SOC: Let us get the meaning of your freedom clear. I take it, free will means freedom to choose anything which is not physically impossible. Of course we are not free to fly, because no man can do that. But we can walk anywhere we choose to, and we can climb walls if they are low enough?

DEM:  Exactly.

SOC: A burglar, for instance, a robber, is free to climb your low wall and rob your house.

DEM:  Of course.

SOC:  Now suppose he is a really stubborn burglar and robber, he has been brought up from childhood to steal, and he is also brutal and loves causing people pain. Is he free to suddenly stop harming people, and suddenly to give away all his loot to the poor?

DEM:  I…suppose so. Yes, he is free to do that. And because he doesn’t do that, he uses his free will badly, and therefore he is guilty; and therefore if we catch him we will rightly put him to death.

SOC:  Now, if free will is a gift we all have, it must also be a gift that a good man has.

DEM:  Surely.

SOC:  Now let us imagine a man who is thoroughly benevolent, who avoids giving pain to anyone, who loves his family. Let us say, he has an aged mother, who has loved him, and he loves her. Is he free to suddenly turn on her, and strangle her?

DEM:  He would not do that, unless some god had suddenly driven him mad.

SOC:  You, Demophron, are indeed a thoroughly good man, and you have an aged mother. You are not mad, and let us suppose no god will ever drive you mad. Are you free to go home now, and strangle your mother?

DEM:  I am free, but I wouldn’t do it. It is utterly repugnant to me even to think of it. It is not in my nature.

SOC:  It seems, then, you are not free to act beyond the limits of your nature.

DEM:  Well… I’m not sure.

SOC:  Are you free to suddenly hate athletics? Are you free to suddenly fall in love with the books of Parmenides and Herakleitos, and give up sports, and spend all your time on physical science – like your uncle? And similarly, is your uncle free to suddenly hate his books, and to spend all his time at the Stadium, watching athletics?

DEM:  I’m not sure. That certainly isn’t in his nature.

SOC:  So perhaps our “free will” does not extend to acts outside our natures. Let me give you an extreme case. Suppose the gods – or the Fates – were to create a being – say, a spirit, a minor god – who is thoroughly good, and immortal, and from his creation has always been perfectly good. Could that good spirit suddenly decide to turn completely evil, and to hate the high gods, and to cause harm on earth?

DEM:  No, Socrates. Because then he wouldn’t be a good spirit, he would be an evil demon.

SOC:  If there were a spirit whom we thought was good – if we found him doing evil, what would we say about his original nature?

DEM:  That he was never, indeed, perfectly good.

SOC:  Yet I have heard just this affirmed by a traveller from Syria – that all spirits were originally perfect, but that one of them suddenly became totally evil, and this was the origin of all evil in this world.

DEM:  That seems absurd. That way, evil would suddenly appear from nowhere in the heart of a good spirit. That is no origin at all – something appearing out of nothing. And that spirit would suddenly act quite beyond his nature.

SOC:  I agree with you. So it is really nature, it is really character, which determines deeds?

DEM:  It would appear so.

SOC:  It not merely appears so, my friend, but it is so. You have just been affirming that yourself. So a good spirit, or a good man, is not free to do evil, and a truly evil man is not free to do good. I am not sure what your “free will” means. Perhaps, after all, we are not really free.

DEM:  But that is monstrous! We know we are free. Every day we choose to do one thing rather than another. When I go out of my house in the morning, I know what it feels like to choose. Very often, I choose whether to go wrestling in the Palaestra or running in the Stadium. And if I want to go from my house to the Agora, I have two routes, about equally good. At one corner, I can go straight on, by Potter’s Lane, or left, by Smith’s. Those two routes are equally long, equally short. I know I am free to take either.

SOC:  With wrestling or running, what makes you choose one rather than the other?

DEM:  Well… I suppose it depends how I feel, that morning.

SOC:  So the feeling comes before the choice?

DEM:  I suppose so – by a moment or two.

SOC:  So it is really your feeling which determines your choice, not some mysterious “free will.” As for those lanes: I know them. If you take Potter’s, you must go straight for some while, then turn left into the Agora. If you take Smith’s, you go left first, then straight. Now, tell me: which way do you usually choose?

DEM:  Well – left by Smith’s, actually.

SOC:  Why?

DEM:  I don’t know. Usually, that just feels better.

SOC:  I think I can guess why, for I have the same preference. When I have to get to some place by two sides of a rectangle, I nearly always go sideways first, then straight to my goal. It’s military training, Demophron. You and I both know what it’s like: approaching a battle, you first maneuver, perhaps sidestepping, then you head straight at the enemy. Don’t you think so?

DEM:  Why, you’re probably right. I always have a sort of feeling, at that crossroads, that I must go left first.

SOC:  “Feeling,” and “must.” That doesn’t sound much like free will, does it?

DEM:  But, Socrates, I once went by the other route – straight down Potter’s, then left.

SOC:  Why did you do that?

DEM:  I felt I would like to try something different, just for once.

SOC:  Ah, feeling again. It was your natural human character of liking for novelty. We really can’t get away from it, Demophron: feeling always comes first, not some random “free will.” Character comes before action. Even in the case of a good man or a bad man –-

DEM:  Socrates, I will take you up on that. Surely, a good man is good because he has for a long time made good choices. And a bad man has made bad choices – perhaps since he was a very small boy.

SOC:  Take it back as far as babies. I have had children, Demophron, and I can assure you, that even a new-born baby has a certain character. Some are gentle and smiling, others are always throwing tantrums. Do you agree?

DEM:  I – I suppose so. Yes, I have had a small sister and a small brother. The girl was sweet, from birth. My brother, anything but!

SOC:   So you see, we do not choose our characters. We are what  Fate has made us. Character always comes before choice – even, I imagine, in the womb. Some babies are fiercely determined to be born quickly – others, not.

DEM:  But surely, we do have some free will. I might come to a crossroads, where both left and right lanes diverge at an equal angle. Neither road is better in a military sense, or in any other way. But we must choose – and we do. Is that not free will?

SOC:  In cases like that, I always take the left road – partly because I feel it is better to have some way of quickly deciding, of not being stuck there. And perhaps I choose left again for faint military reasons – shield hand, spear hand, something like that. I agree with you that sometimes we are in a real quandary, when two courses of action seem about equally good. Should I visit a sick neighbor (a boring chap, but he is sick), or should I go walk in the agora and meet my friends? It is quite an unpleasant feeling, being in such a quandary. But you know, what really happens – when we are faced with something that looks like “free will” – we hate it. We try to get rid of our “freedom” as quickly as possible. And I know how it is with me – if the choice is at all serious, I really decide by asking myself, “Which of these two actions is really me?” And after I have chosen, I always realize that my choice was inevitable. To do the other thing would be to do violence to my nature. So, for instance, if some day a tyrant seizes power here in Athens, and forbids me to go around talking to young men about problems of choice and good and evil, what would I do?

DEM:  I think, Socrates, you would go on…

SOC: I think so too, Demophron, even if the tyrant then condemned me to the hemlock. Because it is not in my nature to stop asking and discussing these questions. I would have to say to the tyrant, “I can do no other” – even if it cost me my life.

DEM:  You are very convincing. But then, if there is really no free will, what about criminals? Hardened murderers? Without free will, they are not guilty, are they?

SOC:  No, they are not guilty of freely making an evil choice. But we can still condemn them – not for making evil choices, but for being a danger to other people. They are public enemies – like, sometimes, the Spartans. If the Spartans invade us, and try to conquer Athens, why of course we kill them, to save ourselves. But neither do the Spartans freely make an evil choice: they are warlike people, they have been trained to be so from birth. We may sometimes kill them, but we should not hate them. And so with murderers and other criminals.

DEM:  Amazing! My head reels!

SOC:  It is not really so terrible. On the other hand, if we really had some sort of random free will, it would be terrible. You could never depend on anyone – you would constantly go in fear of your life. I might suddenly decide to murder you now, Demophron – for no reason at all. A really free will must be free of compulsion by reasons. A city of people with free will would be a city of madmen – and it would destroy itself in a day. Let me give you an example of what something like “free will” really feels like. I once had a good friend – dead, now, alas – let me call him Agathon. He was indeed a good man, though of a somewhat nervous and melancholy temperament. He truly loved his wife and his children. Yet he confessed to me that occasionally he had terrible thoughts. Once, in bed with his wife, it suddenly occurred to him how easy it would be to put his hands round her throat, and strangle her.

DEM:  Surely, he was mad?

SOC: No, not mad. If he were mad, he might have done it. A madman is precisely a man with really free will, free of reasons. Agathon was not like that. But another time, he told me, he was walking with his young son, a sweet boy, near the edge of a cliff. Suddenly it occurred to him how easy and quick it would be to push the boy over. Actually, he took the boy by the hand, and fled away from the edge. At another time, he was at that same cliff, alone. He felt a powerful urge to jump over, and kill himself. It would have been so easy, just two steps more… But he loved life, and his family, and his city, so once more he fled from the spot. So, Demophron, do you really think free will would be a good thing, a great gift, if we had it?

DEM:  No, now I do not. May the gods preserve us from free will!

SOC:  Let us indeed pray to the gods to preserve us from such madness. And also, from useless feelings of guilt. Now, Demophron, do you agree that if you can’t love your uncle, and his books, and his way of life – it is useless for you to feel guilty?

DEM:  I suppose so.

SOC:  Then no sacrifice is needed. Still, Demophron, you are a really good man, and I am sure it is within your nature to be polite to your uncle when he begins to talk of Leukippos or Parmenides. That is all that is really needed. Can you do it?

DEM:  Yes, I think that is within the limits of my nature. I will try!