The Liberalism of Care: Community, Philosophy, and Ethics 9780226745497

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The Liberalism of Care

The Liberalism of Care Community, Philosophy, and Ethics

s h aw n c . f r a i s t a t the universit y of chicago press

chicago and london

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2021 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2021 Printed in the United States of America 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21

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isbn-13: 978- 0-226- 74521- 3 (cloth) isbn-13: 978- 0-226- 74535- 0 (paper) isbn-13: 978- 0-226- 74549- 7 (e-book) doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226745497.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fraistat, Shawn C., author. Title: The liberalism of care : community, philosophy, and ethics / Shawn C. Fraistat. Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2020035756 | isbn 9780226745213 (cloth) | isbn 9780226745350 (paperback) | isbn 9780226745497 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Plato. | Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712–1778. | Godwin, William, 1756– 1836. | Liberalism—Philosophy. | Caring—Philosophy. | Political ethics—Philosophy. Classification: lcc jc574.f73 2021 | ddc 177/.7—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035756 This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents Introduction 1 1. Plato on Caring for the Self and Caring for Others

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2. Plato and the Politics of Authority as Care 51 3. Rousseau on Care, Education, and Domination

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4. Rousseau, Authority, and the Caring Republic 115 5. Godwin on Care, Impartiality, and Independence 147 6. Godwin and Anarchy as Care 169 Conclusion

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Acknowledgments 209 Notes

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Bibliography 261 Index

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Introduction Our Uncaring Politics

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ur politics has lost the language of care.1 For much of Western history, it was common to talk about political life in caring terms: the conviction that we have a political responsibility to take care of one another and that this is one of the core functions of government stretches back to antiquity. But decades of emphasis on the virtues of free markets, the evils of regulation, and a deeply individualistic understanding of citizenship have all contributed to the contemporary belief that taking care of others is a “private” responsibility, one that should be left to families and voluntary associations. Arguing that the exclusion of care from politics has been a critical mistake, this book calls for a liberalism of care, arguing that care and liberalism need each other. Reclaiming the language of care is essential for addressing key practical and philosophical weaknesses in contemporary liberal democratic politics, enabling us to articulate a sense of common purpose, interdependence, and shared responsibility for every member of our communities. Care affords us a new justificatory discourse for many of the traditional policies and aims of the welfare state. It also suggests new policies and programs for realizing long-standing liberal commitments to freedom and equality. In addition to showing how care can enrich liberalism, I also argue for the importance of liberalism to practices of care. I thereby contribute to contemporary literature on the ethics of care, demonstrating why liberal ideals and political structures are essential for ensuring that persons are well cared for. I revive the tradition of care-based political theorizing through close readings of key texts in ancient and modern political philosophy, turn-

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ing to three important philosophers—Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and William Godwin—in order to expose the centrality of caring language and caring values to long-standing debates about the proper role of government as well as the rights and responsibilities of citizens. I devote two chapters apiece to each thinker, offering fresh interpretations of Plato and Rousseau and shedding new light on Godwin, a radical utilitarian philosopher widely neglected by contemporary political theorists. None of these authors are doctrinaire liberals: Plato and Rousseau sit outside the liberal tradition, and Godwin fits uneasily within it. But their political theories contain constructive insights, as well as instructive weaknesses, that usefully challenge contemporary understandings of liberalism and care, advancing the project of thinking about the two concepts together. The book reveals a Plato whose entire ethics and politics are structured around the idea of getting individuals to take better care of themselves and others, a Rousseau who believes caring values and caring practices are vital to the education of republican citizens and the mission of republican polities, and a Godwin whose commitments to freedom and equality are complemented by a deep emphasis on care and benevolence, without which a flourishing society is impossible. Through my critical engagement with their work, I lay the groundwork for a theory of care that intertwines self- care and care for others; shows how caring educative experiences can reduce domination; explores methods of civic engagement through caring conversation; articulates a care-based case against paternalism and authoritarianism; and demonstrates that caring policies, virtues, and values are vital for preserving liberal norms and institutions. In this introduction, I explain what I mean by “care” and defend my claim that liberalism cannot do without it. First, I wish to clarify what I mean by “liberalism.” 2 I understand the term to designate a family of political philosophies, originating in the seventeenth century, that is exemplified by thinkers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Immanuel Kant. This philosophical tradition’s central moral commitments are to individual freedom, equality, and economic development. Typically, liberals believe these commitments are best secured through representative government, constitutionalism, and some form of market economy. At fi rst blush, it might not seem obvious that liberalism as I have described it is or ought to be concerned with care. For contemporary liberals generally, and for American and Anglophone liberals in particular, there may be something counterintuitive about thinking of government

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as a caregiver or of a good citizen as someone who takes care of others in his or her political capacity. Yet caregiving services are among the largest public expenditures in contemporary liberal democracies, and numerous Western countries spend far more on these services than they do on their militaries. It is even stranger, then, that many today seem much more comfortable speaking of government as a defender or protector than as a provider of care. This strangeness is compounded by the fact that many of our central political debates are over how, when, and to what extent governments should provide care to citizens. The mismatch between contemporary theoretical attitudes and what our governments actually do reflects the ascendancy of “minimal liberalism,” a strand of liberal thinking that conceptualizes politics as a limited partnership between autonomous, independent adults who pursue their private business while respecting the right of others to do the same. According to this understanding, the purpose of government is to act as a neutral arbiter that enforces fair rules and adjudicates disputes. Minimal liberalism is not the only way liberals have imagined what a legitimate politics looks like—the broader tradition contains civic republican, religious, moral-perfectionist, 3 and utilitarian strands that envision thicker forms of mutual responsibility and more expansive uses of political authority for the sake of the public good. Nonetheless, it is a particularly powerful and prominent strain, both historically and in the present moment.4 Harkening back to early liberal thinkers such as John Locke, minimal liberalism’s enduring appeal is evident in its continued hold on the popular imagination and its prevalence as a structuring set of assumptions in the political theories of liberals as diverse as John Rawls, Judith Shklar, Michael Oakeshott, and Robert Nozick. A key reason for its appeal lies in the horrors wrought by political aspirations for more robust forms of citizenship and more capacious uses of state power. Given, for instance, the devastating wars of religion in the early modern period and the appalling crimes committed by twentiethcentury totalitarian regimes, there is something profoundly attractive about a politics along the lines of Shklar’s “liberalism of fear,” one that eschews promises of salvation, transformation, and perfection in favor of freedom, fairness, and social peace (Shklar 1989; cf. Rawls 1999, pp. xii and context). But there is a danger here, which is the risk minimal liberalism runs of degenerating into selfishness and apathy, of countenancing the conclusion that caring for others is something “private” that we cannot legitimately demand from one another in a political context

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(e.g., Nozick 1974, p. 167). In this view, while the state can stop me from harming you, no one can compel me to help you—that would violate my autonomy. 5 Such arguments have been employed with great effect on the political right, where they have facilitated attempts to erode the social safety net; beat back social justice movements seeking collective change on issues of sexuality, gender, and race; and combat calls for state action to mitigate environmental harms and climate change. The sense that care does not belong in politics escalates what would otherwise be mundane policy disputes over issues such as health care, unemployment insurance, and nutrition assistance into intense, protracted battles where the very fate of the republic appears to be at stake.6 These fights routinely impair the government’s ability to carry out basic functions.7 Furthermore, the supposed illegitimacy of political care impoverishes right-leaning political thought, substituting a facile libertarianism for its long-standing attentiveness to the role politics plays in sustaining communities and helping citizens acquire the moral, spiritual, and intellectual capacities they need to live well. Minimal liberalism has also shaped the political left in debilitating ways. It is not impossible to defend social services and public welfare programs on the basis of minimal-liberal commitments—many centerleft liberal politicians do precisely this, as do political theorists such as John Rawls. But in the absence of a more compelling moral vision of why your problems are my problems, why politics involves care for the vulnerable and help for the needy, these defenses will always have a certain tenuousness. They will rest upon thinner appeals to enlightened self-interest, overburdened conceptions of freedom, 8 or weaker forms of fairness, such as equality of opportunity or the principle of fair play. These appeals may work well in cases where I am individually responsible for others’ distress, would derive clear benefits from helping them, or require similar kinds of assistance myself. But they fail to activate a more robust sense of responsibility and motivate shared sacrifice. Hence their efficacy is limited when the cause of distress is diffuse or systemic (e.g., structural racism) or when I am asked to give something up for others’ sake without receiving a comparable benefit (e.g., paying taxes for Medicaid when I have private insurance). To see how minimal liberalism straitjackets left-leaning arguments, consider the following example. In response to the argument “Why should my tax money pay for your kid’s education, nutritional assistance,

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and so on when I don’t have any children of my own?” one prominent liberal response is to claim that children are “public goods” and that the taxpayer derives crucial benefits from a society in which some of children’s needs for education and the like are met at public expense (e.g., Folbre 1994). Bracketing the question of whether this argument is correct empirically, there is something troubling about the idea that the moral basis of our political obligation to ensure that children are adequately fed, housed, and educated is the return we get on our investment. It seems to me the case is much more basic: we do not want children to starve, suffer for lack of shelter, or grow up without an adequate education. Similarly, the real reason that most of us who favor public education, Social Security, disability support, unemployment benefits, and nutritional assistance for low-income families do so is because we believe it is morally important to help people meet their basic needs, address common sources of hardship, and reduce unnecessary suffering. Even so, owing to their assumptions about the political illegitimacy of compelling Person A to help Person B, minimal liberals wind up arguing that the reason we ought to pay for such programs is not the moral importance of aiding the vulnerable but the indirect benefits that accrue to the comfortable. The supposed illegitimacy of compelling altruism is one reason why the American left has had greater success arguing against unjust restrictions of individual freedom than in arguing for active measure to address systemic inequities and inequalities.9 This is especially true of the decades following the 1960s, as the center of political gravity shifted in an individualistic, laissez-faire direction and leftists who imagine political community in nonminimalist terms, such as the religious left so vital to the civil rights movement, entered a period of decline. Decades of right-wing attacks on political care, aided and abetted by timid support for caring politics on the left, have created a crisis of care that is affecting liberal democracies around the globe. My conviction that our politics is suffering from a crisis of care is informed by the work of Nancy Fraser and other scholars who use this term to refer to the lack of societal support for caregiving labor and social-reproductive work (e.g., Fraser 2016). But the crisis I am focusing on here is less about a breakdown in caregiving services themselves. Rather, I am pointing to a political crisis around caregiving services: insufficient levels of care are creating political upheavals that pose a threat to individual rights and to democratic governance. On one hand, our politics is marked by a “vertical” deficit of care, as liberal democratic governments are failing

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Introduction

to take adequate care of the governed. They have embraced economic policies that benefit the few instead of the many, and they have failed to adequately attend to the needs of the underprivileged. As a result, many citizens have come to feel that their governments and their political elites do not care about people like them. On the other hand, we are also facing a “horizontal” deficit of care among citizens themselves. The citizens of many liberal democratic countries are failing to show adequate concern and care for one another and for the noncitizen members of their communities. In the United States and in Europe, there has been an upsurge in xenophobic discourses accompanied by calls to exclude, expel, and withhold government services from immigrants and various religious, racial, and ethnic minorities. These two caring deficits fuel one another. The deficit of care among citizens makes it easier for elites to exploit divisions between them in order to dismantle the welfare state and pocket the gains. As socioeconomic problems fester, they can be blamed on minority groups, perpetuating a vicious cycle of austerity and xenophobia. We are presently witnessing the results: a populist backlash that has empowered the far right and far left in multiple countries, exemplified by the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. Currently, illiberal politicians of the right are making gains by promising to address the vertical deficit, reconnecting the government to “ordinary citizens,” while exacerbating the horizontal deficit, deepening divisions in our communities. Trump is a particularly striking example. Almost exceptionally among contemporary American politicians, Trump routinely employs the language of care in his political rhetoric. For instance, Trump’s speeches are peppered with assurances that “we will take care of our people” (Mangan 2017), and the idea that he alone will truly take care of Americans is one he invokes with some frequency. Breaking with Republican orthodoxy, Trump cites the need to “take care of our own” as justification for “tougher” trade deals and greater social welfare spending, including on universal health care (Trump 2011, pp. 70, 106); he claims to have told a crowd of conservatives, “I’m sorry, folks, but we have to take care of people who don’t have money” (Costa 2015); he addresses the opioid epidemic by promising that “we’re going to take care of those people” (Solomon 2015); and he has repeatedly asserted of his administration that “we want to take care of everybody” (Sherfi nski 2017; Kelsey 2017).10 While Trump’s rhetoric is not always consistent, and his administration’s policies have by no means lived up to these promises, this lan-

Introduction

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guage constitutes a key part of his appeal, helping him succeed in a competitive primary against Republican opponents who subscribed to the party’s traditional aversion to political care.11 What Trump’s example shows is that if liberalism does not tackle the problem of care, it will empower forms of illiberalism falsely promising that they will. A “liberalism of fear” along the lines Shklar suggests, one that is committed to the relatively minimal goals of eradicating fear and cruelty from public life, is ultimately self- destructive without a liberalism of care. Even supposing the present populist wave quickly recedes, the long-term danger remains, as the deficit of care in contemporary liberal democratic politics is a deeper underlying challenge. Repoliticizing the concept of care is crucial for addressing both parts of the contemporary care deficit, reconnecting governments to the governed and channeling the frustration felt by many into a broad concern and caring for individuals of all colors, genders, sexualities, and creeds. And the case for political care is not limited to its capacity to combat self- destructive tendencies within liberalism. Care also has a positive role to play in actuating core liberal commitments to freedom, equality, and “the pursuit of happiness.” Greater attention to caregiving practices and caring values can help liberalism make good on its claims to guarantee freedom and equality to all, to provide everyone with opportunities for education and self- development, and to afford each person material comfort and the promise of economic advancement. My call to reclaim care for politics is informed by a contemporary literature on the ethics of care. Beginning with the publication of Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice in 1982, thinkers such as Nel Noddings, Eva Kittay, Virginia Held, Michael Slote, and Sara Ruddick have outlined a care- centered ethical approach and defended it as a complement or alternative to a Kantian, justice-based approach. Many of these scholars have gone on to explore the political implications of recognizing the dignity of the caregiving activities carried out by mothers and paid professionals in the private sphere, showing that socially reproductive labor is devalued by patriarchy and neoliberalism and that the burdens of providing care are inequitably distributed (Bubeck 1995; Kittay 1998; Fraser 2016). Scholars have also highlighted the contributions care ethics can make to questions of social justice, in both national and international contexts (Robinson 1999; Noddings 2002; Held 2006; Slote 2007). More recently, authors such as Joan Tronto (1993, 2013) and Daniel Engster (2007) have begun developing care-based political theories that address

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the realities of human interdependence and the needs of vulnerable citizens. I am indebted to the arguments and insights of care ethics scholars, and I seek to build on their arguments. But I depart from the existing literature in two major ways. First, I argue in favor of liberalism. Not all care ethicists are opposed to liberalism tout court,12 but even care theories that are not hostile tend not emphasize its importance. For instance, Tronto’s political theory of care “leans more heavily on the democratic than on the liberal concerns of contemporary political life” (2013, p. 11), and Engster’s theory has only “a slight on average preference for liberal democratic institutions. . . . In the fi nal analysis, the general form of government (democracy, theocracy, or aristocracy) is less important for care theory than the mode of the government’s administration” (2007, p. 93). I think such statements overlook how essential liberalism is for caring well, not only in politics but across a broad range of caregiving practices. Consider the way that liberal values have become increasingly integrated into the theory and practice of various nonpolitical caregiving relationships, such as parent/child, teacher/student, and doctor/patient. Over the course of the past century or so, each of these relationships has moved away from more punitive, authoritarian modes of care provision to more liberal forms that exhibit a greater degree of equality between care provider and care recipient, as well as greater respect for care recipients’ values, thoughts, and desires. In keeping with this, liberal values are at least implicitly imbedded in the core virtues that the care ethics literature associates with good caregiving (Engster 2007; Noddings 2002; Tronto 1993). And liberal insights about the norms and institutions required for free and equal citizenship are vital for theorizing about care at a political level. If liberalism without care is in danger of neglecting the substantive interests of the many and the hardships of the vulnerable, care without liberalism risks authoritarianism, paternalism, and exclusion. I will show throughout how care- ethical theories that are insufficiently liberal run afoul of these problems. The second way I depart from the existing care ethics literature lies in my turn to intellectual history. Intellectual history is not a substitute for the work care ethicists have done grappling with the lived experience of providers and recipients of care, but it is a powerful, complementary tool for theorizing care in ethical and political-philosophical terms. And in my view, many care ethicists have been too quick to write off liberal thinkers of the past and the Western philosophical tradition as a whole

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as an intellectual resource.13 According to Tronto, for instance, “Questions of care have not been central to most previous thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition” (1993, pp. 3–4). She argues that “in the ancient world of democracy, care was theorized as belonging to the private sphere” as per Aristotle’s Politics (2013, p. 25; 2015, p. 1). She draws a direct link between the ancient world and “modern reconstructions of democracy” in which “this aspect of the public/private split has persisted” (2013, p. 25). She also suggests that the historical liberal tradition reflects this fundamental idea—indeed, “it was to escape from a familistic understanding of politics that modern liberalism was born in the seventeenth century” (1993, p. 169). In the same vein, Sibyl Schwarzenbach claims that “the business of care—for the political tradition of liberalism and for the last four centuries—has been considered the primary duty not only of women but of the ‘private family’” (2009, pp. 220– 21). But this view is mistaken. As I will show, questions of care are not foreign or peripheral to the Western political philosophic tradition but lie at the heart of it. By confounding the attitudes of political philosophers toward women and their beliefs about whether the family is a suitable political model with their view of political care, contemporary scholars have overlooked the fact that, historically, many sexist philosophers and opponents of a family-based understanding of the state nevertheless placed care at the center of their political reflections. There are precedents for contemporary care theory not only in early feminists and moral sentimentalists but in ancient Greek political philosophers, Roman statesmen, and early modern republicans. One even fi nds it among liberals themselves, as the minimal-liberal way of imagining politics has always been complicated and contested by other strands. Thus the history of Western political theory contains a sophisticated set of reflections about what it means to care for others well, how we should apportion caregiving responsibilities, what role the government should have in regulating and providing care to citizens, and what kinds of care citizens owe to one another. Attending to that conversation invites us to reinterpret key arguments and ideas in Western political thought, and it affords us new arguments and insights for advancing the contemporary project of constructing a more caring politics. I turn to that history in order to take a step back from the assumptions of both care ethicists and contemporary liberals, to imagine new ways that care and liberalism might fit together. The intellectual history of political care is long and impossible to

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cover in a single work. I have chosen to focus on three philosophers who demonstrate the range of care-based political thinking and advance provocative theories that illustrate my core contention that care and liberalism need each other. Although they are from different cultures and are writing in different times and places, each thinker is centrally preoccupied with care: Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin are deeply attentive to questions concerning the proper ends of government, how it ought to be structured, and how it relates to the caregiving activities that are essential to human flourishing. Furthermore, each employs the concept of care to think through important political issues with which contemporary liberalism struggles. For instance, Plato draws attention to the tension between autonomy and competence or expertise, Rousseau profoundly theorizes nondomination, and Godwin provocatively explores the relationship between care and independence. The strengths of their accounts highlight some of the surprising ways in which the concept of care might enrich liberal democratic politics. At the same time, these thinkers also illustrate my complementary contention that care needs liberalism. Plato’s epistocratic14 authoritarianism, Rousseau’s austere republicanism, and Godwin’s localist anarchism each fail as normatively attractive alternatives to a liberalism of care. As I will argue, the specific ways in which they fail underline the dangers of illiberal care and illuminate several significant problems in the approaches advocated by a number of contemporary care ethicists.

What It Means to Care I am concerned with care understood as a practice or activity, the sense of care we invoke we when talk about “taking care of” someone or “providing care to” someone. Examples of caregiving practices include childcare, medical care, the kinds of caregiving that take place between intimates, and so on. I am also focused on an ethic of care—the caring values and virtues—that are realized by means of caregiving practices and are integral to their success. In this section, I will add further specificity to these remarks, identifying the criteria that broadly distinguish caregiving practices from other activities. Having explained what I mean by care as a practice, I then explicate the nature of the care ethic that is attached to caregiving activities. Whereas earlier care ethics scholarship tended to speak of care as

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an alternative mode of moral reasoning (Gilligan 1982; Noddings 2013), much of the more recent literature shares my emphasis on care as a practice. Perhaps the most widely cited defi nition of care as an activity is the one proposed by Joan Tronto and Bernice Fischer: On the most general level, we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our “world” so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web. (Tronto 1993, p. 103)

While this defi nition captures something important about the nature of care, others have argued that it is too broad to guide the development of a moral and political theory and that it fails to differentiate paradigmatic caregiving practices, such as childrearing and medical care, from other practices that are not usually considered caring, such as farming, plumbing, and the like (Engster 2007, p. 24; Held 2006). Thus, as Tronto freely concedes, it requires additional specification (2013, p. 19). As a practice, the constitutive aim of caring activity is to improve, maintain, or palliate the condition of care recipients. The fact that care takes improving the condition of recipients as an end distinguishes it from other activities in which such benefits arise incidentally.15 For instance, when I go shopping at a local grocery store, I may in some sense improve the condition of the proprietor, but this consequence is not the end or intention of my shopping, nor is it part of what it means for me to shop well. This does not mean that actions only count as forms of caregiving when caregivers view benefiting the care recipient as an end in itself or “care about” them in a deeper sense. Imagine a jaded doctor who successfully treats patients but does so purely to make money. How does this doctor compare to one who is genuinely emotionally invested in patients’ well-being? Here it is necessary to distinguish the question of whether particular actions are instances of care from the question as to whether particular practitioners are “caring.” Both doctors are providers of care—they are both caregivers intentionally improving the well-being of their patients—but the jaded doctor is less caring in the sense that his or her ultimate motives do not reflect an ethic of care. I will explore this issue in greater depth below, when I turn from what defi nes care as a practice to the care ethic that is associated with it. I have claimed that care improves the care recipient’s condition, and

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that requires explication. What it means for something to be in a good condition varies depending on the nature of the thing in question, but most basically it involves the capacity to perform its functions well. There is an extended sense in which we sometimes speak of caring for inanimate things, as in “automotive care” or the “care instructions” on articles of clothing, but we principally use caregiving language with respect to living beings. It means something different for an inanimate object to be in a good condition than it does for a living thing. Inanimate objects have functions and can be in better or worse condition only relative to the various purposes living beings ascribe to them. A living thing, by contrast, is an autopoietic entity with functions that take the organism itself as an end; the living have their own good and are structured to pursue it. For most living things, the good in question includes survival. In beings capable of sensation, it includes avoiding pain and feeling pleasure. And for beings capable of more complex normative judgments, such as humans, it includes engaging in the activities that make life valuable and choice worthy. We determine whether a living being is in a good condition according to its capacity to realize these goods. For this reason, improving the condition of living things means supporting the capabilities they need to live well. Care ethicists have identified three principal ways in which care accomplishes this: (1) by maintaining healthy functioning, (2) by reducing pain and suffering, (3) and by fostering growth and development (e.g., Engster 2007, ch. 1; Tronto 2013, ch. 1).16 Improving a living thing’s condition in these ways is distinct from other beneficent actions one might take toward it. For example, caring for someone is not necessarily the same thing as gratifying him or her. Indeed, these aims are sometimes opposed. After all, it would not be caring for doctors to honor patients’ demands for dangerous and unnecessary medical interventions. For this reason, care lends itself to a distinction between needs, which are essential to good functioning, and wants or desires, which may not be. Where needs and wants are in tension, care is directed at meeting the former rather than satisfying the latter. For the purposes of the present inquiry, I focus on human beings and largely bracket questions concerning the care of nonhuman life and inanimate objects.17 What does it mean to care for humans specifically? Evidently it means identifying the capacities crucial for living well and addressing the needs connected to them. But distinguishing needs from wants is not a simple task, either theoretically or in practice, and care

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ethicists are divided as to how this discrimination should be made.18 It may be comparatively easy to identify what people need to survive. Matters become more complicated when one moves from bare survival to the more robust level of functioning implicit in the idea of being physically healthy. The problem is even more vexing once one includes the moral and psychological dimensions of well-being, which require not only freedom from suffering but the ability to engage in activities that make life valuable. This raises difficult questions about what such activities might be and what a good human life looks like. Yet the difficulties involved do not prevent us from identifying some of the goods human beings need to live well. While it is possible to imagine theories of care that presuppose a thicker, teleological account of human flourishing in the manner of Aristotle, most care ethicists are pluralists, subscribing to thinner conceptions that recognize that well-being can take many forms. Hence they have generally embraced accounts that focus on needs common to many valuable ways of life, such as a revised version of John Rawls’s theory of primary goods (Rawls 1999) or the capabilities theory advanced by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (Nussbaum 2000, 2011; Sen 1989).19 While Rawls’s list of primary goods and Nussbaum’s version of the capabilities approach are more minimal than a teleological description of well-being, they nonetheless include complex human needs and functions, such as the social bases of self-respect in Rawls’s case and the capacities for imagination, thought, play, and social affi liation in Nussbaum’s. Unlike most other care ethicists, Engster argues in favor of a narrower view. According to him, we should limit the defi nition of caregiving to practices that help “meet vital biological needs” and “develop or maintain . . . basic capabilities” (2007, pp. 28– 29). By contrast, he claims that “when parents choose to foster their children’s complex capabilities for religion, art, sports, and the like, they may be said to be doing something other than caring for them. . . . They are introducing their children to a particular form of the good life” (2007, pp. 27– 28). Engster arrives at this conclusion on the grounds that a thicker defi nition of caregiving would force us to consider a caregiver uncaring if he or she tried to promote a conception of the good life that we do not share. I think this reasoning is not persuasive. Scholars such as Sara Ruddick have argued that introducing children to forms of the good life is an essential part of care (1989, ch. 5), and parents and educators regularly take the inculcation of important values to be part of their caregiving function. Including this in

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the defi nition of care does not compel us to judge every caregiving practice that promotes a conception of the good life that we do not share to be “uncaring” or even inadequate. We might recognize that the caregiver means well and is “caring” in intention even if the care he or she provides is inadequate, we might recognize the care as adequate even if we consider it suboptimal, or we might accept it as embodying an alternative conception of the good life that seems valuable even though it is not our own. 20 For these reasons, Engster’s worry is not a convincing reason for excluding actions that aim at the cultivation of complex capacities from the defi nition of caregiving. Whether, how, and to what extent various agents—for instance, parents or the government—should be involved in cultivating others’ complex capacities is, of course, a separate question. I will not be defending the particulars of Rawls’s, Nussbaum’s, or Sen’s theories in this book, nor will I maintain that the government ought to compel individuals to adopt one specific conception of the good life. But I will argue that fostering complex capabilities is a legitimate goal of political care, emphasizing the capacities for critical reflection and for valuing the interests of others. Caregiving can take place one on one, in intimate settings, but the forms of caregiving I am concerned with are not limited to dyadic, faceto-face interactions. 21 At one end of the spectrum, there is “care of the self,” which consists in a single person undertaking various activities with the intention of improving his or her own condition. At the other end, care can involve large numbers of people. Tronto rightly argues that institutional and structural types of care are important in meeting individuals’ needs over the course of their lives (1993, p. 160). It makes sense, for instance, to think not just of individual doctors but of medical teams, hospitals, and even entire medical systems as providing care. The same applies, I would suggest, to some government programs and even governments as a whole. (This is not to say that everything governments do is a form of caregiving but that providing appropriate kinds of care is and ought to be one of government’s primary functions.) Nor must care always take place face to face. For example, Held argues it is possible for persons in one country to take care of persons in another country, attempting to provide for their needs out of a caring motivation (2006, p. 33). Accordingly, the notion of caregiving I will be exploring is nondyadic, including broader, systemic, and less intimate forms, as well as care for the self.

Introduction

15

I have argued that systems and institutions can provide care, and there is also a sense in which they can receive it. This type of care straddles the line between caring for human beings and caring for inanimate things. On one hand, as with automotive care, when one cares for an institution, this can only mean acting to maintain or improve its ability to carry out its characteristic functions—it does not have well-being in the same sense that a person does. On the other hand, an institution is a social construct rather than an independent physical object, and the primary way one cares for it is by interacting with people. As caring for key social and political institutions is closely connected to caring for humans, and as one of the principal political uses of caregiving historically is to urge citizens to support and maintain these institutions, I consider it relevant to the present inquiry. So far, I have argued that caregiving practices are activities that aim to improve the condition of care recipients by supporting healthy functioning, reducing pain and suffering, and fostering growth and development. As a practice, care has an associated ethic. In my view, a care ethic is not, in and of itself, a distinctive mode of moral reasoning or a fullfledged political philosophy. In contrast to care ethicists such as Gilligan and Noddings, I do not think there is a confl ict between care and “justice,” which I understand to be the moral principle that individuals ought to receive what they are due. To the contrary, I follow other care ethicists in maintaining that some forms of care are required by justice (Bubeck 1995; Kittay 1998; Engster 2007). Rather, like a “warrior ethic” or “work ethic,” 22 a care ethic is a set of values and virtues connected to a specific kind of practice. An ethic’s values are the goods that are achieved through the practice in question, and its virtues are the excellences of character (or process) that are vital to the practice’s success. 23 To subscribe to a particular ethic is not to embrace a complete account of the human good or a comprehensive moral theory. But it is to make a claim about the moral worth of the practice in question and the goods that it realizes. In keeping with this, to defend a care ethic is to argue that caregiving practices, as well as the virtues and values of care, are important components of a good life and a good society; we ought to pursue them to a greater extent and accord them more normative weight in our reflections. In terms of care- ethical values, numerous normative goods are bound up with caregiving practices. Without pretending to offer an exhaustive list, I would emphasize three I take to be especially fundamental: need

16

Introduction

meeting, relationality, and caring motivation. One foundational conviction driving care ethics is that human beings possess moral worth and that their survival and well-being are normative goods. Viewing humans as vulnerable creatures with needs that they cannot satisfy on their own, care ethicists argue that it is morally important to help meet their needs and that caregiving practices are vital to this (Bubeck 1995, p. 11; Held 2006, p. 10; Ruddick 1989, p. 18). Another central value of care ethics is relationality. Care ethicists maintain that part of what makes a human life a good one is meaningful connections to other people, and care is part of what builds and sustains such connections. Third, care ethicists value caring motivation (Held 2006, p. 32). It is morally laudable to provide care to care recipients not merely as a means to some other end, as per the jaded doctor example, but also an end in itself. This is because such care expresses respect for the cared for’s moral standing, and this respect or recognition is itself a moral good.24 In addition to these values, caregiving has several virtues associated with it. 25 Tronto and Fisher identify the core virtues of care as attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness (1993, p. 127). These virtues have been broadly endorsed by many contemporary care ethicists, and I endorse them as well. 26 One cannot care for others well without being attentive to who or what is being cared for, taking responsibility for providing assistance, possessing the competence necessary to provide care, and remaining responsive to the effects of one’s care. In my view, it makes sense to speak of these virtues both as potential character excellences and as process excellences. As character excellences, the caring virtues are active dispositions possessed by individual human beings for thinking, feeling, and acting in a manner that embodies attentiveness, responsiveness, responsibility, and competence. As process excellences, these virtues are exhibited by systems whose structures and procedures guarantee that whatever caregiving services they provide are delivered in an attentive, responsible, responsive, and competent fashion. The values and virtues of care are linked to certain emotions and character traits that are crucial for realizing them. As other scholars have noted, caregiving is connected with affects such as concern, compassion, and affection (Engster 2007, ch. 5). Ordinary English usage reflects this in phrases such as “care about,” which indicate that one has an emotional stake in someone or something. The nature of this stake is usually a desire that something go well or fare well. To care about my children is to want them to be happy, healthy, and so on—hence care’s

Introduction

17

association with love and affection. At the same time, this investment can manifest itself as concern or anxiety, a “care” in the sense of “cares and woes.” If I love someone, I might worry about how he or she is doing. Some of these affects are relevant to the present account insofar as they comprise part of the good of relationality. That is to say, feelings of love and affection are goods for the persons experiencing them and are part of what makes relationality valuable. But caring affects are also integral to caring motivation, as they are part of what motivates us to prioritize the well-being of others. 27 And I do not merely mean that love or spontaneous compassion can prompt us to perform caring acts. Emotions also play a crucial role in reflective moral judgment (Held 2006, p. 10; Slote 2007). They are part of what awakens us to the moral value of others; they inform our reasoned convictions that others warrant care as ends-in-themselves. Additionally, caring affects and dispositions underpin the caring virtues, contributing to the quality of care. We are not likely to manifest the caring virtues toward others unless we care about them to some extent. 28 Of course, different kinds and degrees of emotional investment are appropriate in different contexts. 29 We would like doctors to care about their patients and be invested in their welfare, but we do not expect doctors to love them. Thus, not all caring involves emotional intimacy; after all, doctors can care for patients they barely know, and individuals can care for strangers (cf. Engster 2007, p. 34). Similarly, a fully caring politics requires citizens who have some degree of affective interest in one another’s well-being, but this need not rise to the level of familial love or intimate friendship. To anticipate, I will be arguing in favor of mutual concern as an appropriate civic standard, as opposed to deeper calls for political love, friendship, or fraternity. To sum up: the present inquiry is concerned with care understood as a set of caregiving practices and an ethic connected to those practices. The practices in question are activities that aim to improve the condition of care recipients by supporting healthy functioning, reducing pain and suffering, and fostering growth and development. Paradigmatic examples include medical care and childcare. The care ethic associated with caregiving practices values need meeting, relationality, and caring motivation. It also identifies the virtues of attentiveness, responsibility, responsiveness, and competence as core qualities that successful caregiving requires. An ethic of care views emotions such as compassion, affection, and concern as valuable feelings that are part of the good of relationality and contribute to caring motivation. These emotions underpin the car-

18

Introduction

ing virtues as well by informing moral judgment and sustaining the dispositions human beings need to care for one another in practice. Importantly for the present study, the concept of care is also present in a number of cultures that have profoundly influenced the development of Western political thought. The English word “care” is Germanic in origin and ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European root gar-, which means “to call, cry”—specifically, it indicates a call or cry of distress. As the word developed, it came to denote a worry, burden, or trouble (e.g., “cares and woes”); a state of concern or anxiety on behalf of another being (e.g., “to care about”); and an activity of responding to distress and promoting the welfare of others (e.g., “to take care of”). Strikingly, several European languages have equivalent words that capture care’s various meanings in English, including (1) activity with a view to welfare promotion, (2) preoccupation and attention, (3) responsibility or burden, and (4) emotional investment. 30 This is the case, for instance, with ancient Greek words derived from the verb melô (“to be an object of care or thought; to be a care, be thought of; to care for, take care of, tend”). 31 This verb partakes of the preoccupation, responsibility, and welfare-promotion meanings. There are etymologically related words that designate preoccupation, such as epimelês (“careful”) and epimelôs (“carefully”); burden or anxiety, such as meletê (“care, attention; practice, exercise; care, anxiety”) and meledêma (“care, anxiety, concern”); and an activity with a view toward welfare promotion, such as the verb epimeleomai (“to take care of, have charge of; to have the management of; to pay attention to, cultivate”) and the noun epimeleia (“care, attention, diligence”). Similarly, care in the sense of “care about” is captured by nouns such as melêma (“an object of care; a beloved object; a charge, duty; care, anxiety”). As for French, the closest single-word equivalent to the English “care” is the noun soin (“care, attention; concern”; in the plural, it can also mean “medical attention or treatment”). 32 The related verb soigner (“to treat, to nurse; to look after, take care of; to do with care, take trouble over”) has a caring meaning, and phrases such as prendre soin de (“to take care of”) or avoir soin de (“to have care of”) have senses close to their English equivalents. Soigner, soin, and constructions employing soin capture the preoccupation, responsibility, and welfare-promotion valences of the English word “care.” That said, modern French tends to express the emotional investment meaning via soucier and souci or sollicitude. For this reason, some contemporary French theorists ren-

Introduction

19

der “care ethics” either as l’éthique de la sollicitude or l’éthique du care, leaving the English word untranslated. But l’éthique du soin (e.g., Bertrand 2011) and l’éthique du prendre soin (e.g., Châtel 2010) are used as well. 33 Regardless, the notion that “care” (soin) and “caring about” (sollicitude) are strongly connected is just as intuitive for French speakers as English speakers. The Larousse French dictionary, for instance, defi nes sollicitude as consisting in soins attentifs. Thus, while the concept of care that I have sketched may not be universal, I believe it is sufficiently transcultural that one can study its role in Western philosophical texts without imposing an alien bundling of meanings upon the source material. In the following chapters, I will be arguing that Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin use caregiving language in ways that dovetail with my understanding of care as a practice and that they emphasize some of the same virtues and values in their normative accounts of caregiving.

Caring across History Often dismissed as inherently authoritarian or paternalistic, caring discourse can be shown through further examination to have been employed throughout Western history across the political spectrum, on both sides of central political debates. As with concepts such as freedom and equality, many of the crucial differences between thinkers do not turn upon whether care plays a role in their political theorizing but upon how they understand care and what arguments it is used to advance. Rather than asking if various philosophers support or oppose caring political language tout court, deeper and more relevant intellectualhistorical questions include: What aspects of politics have been traditionally articulated by means of such language? How have conceptions of care differed between thinkers? And what are the connections between a given theorist’s view of political care and his or her understanding of politics generally? In this book, I demonstrate that these questions are fruitful and that attending to the role care plays in the writings of theorists such as Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin illuminates hitherto under-studied aspects of their philosophies, revealing it to be absolutely central to their ethical and political theorizing. I also maintain that a deeper understanding of care’s intellectualhistorical role will advance the project of theorizing care and liberalism together. The history of Western political thought provides us with mod-

20

Introduction

els of what a more caring and nurturing politics might look like. Different conceptions of political care are critically intertwined with historical debates over the nature of civic responsibility and essential questions as to who should rule whom, on what basis, and to what end. Examining these debates helps us think through the tensions inherent in any project of political care, which must strike a balance between common and private interests, paternalism and autonomy, and reason and affect. The intellectual-historical approach I am advocating also helps us denaturalize contemporary codings of care as low status, private, and feminine. This is a core goal of care ethicists. The fact that care is considered low status, something less honorable than properly “productive” work, justifies providing caregivers with little or no compensation. Treating care as a “private” issue prevents it from becoming a matter of public discussion that can be addressed by political means. And the cultural understanding of care as “feminine” enables an inequitable distribution of caregiving labor that places the burden disproportionately upon women. Breaking these associations would help ease the burden of women. It might also enable a caring masculinity (Ruddick 1989, pp. 42–45; Tronto 2013, ch. 3). This is desirable partially as a corollary of the former consideration—a more equitable distribution of care work will require men to care more, and this will be easier in a culture that does not perceive care to be at odds with a masculine gender identity (Mullet 1988). It is also valuable as a means of enabling men to experience the pleasures and value of care. Carol Gilligan and David Richards, among others, have documented how patriarchy also performs a kind of violence upon male subjects, preventing them from developing or experiencing the nurturing qualities that are part of a life well lived (Gilligan and Richards 2009). A society that viewed male caregiving as normal and expected would afford men greater opportunities for providing care and be more likely to implement family policies that enable it, such as paternity leave. In working to denaturalize the contemporary coding of care, many care ethicists position themselves as challenging the dominant tradition of Western political thought dating back to antiquity. As I have already suggested, this reading of Western intellectual history is mistaken. To the contrary, the idea that “caring” is low status, private, and female is relatively recent: the construction of a masculinity and a politics that does not care seems to have taken place primarily in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the rise of industrial capitalism. As other care ethicists have noted, living spaces and production spaces commingled before

Introduction

21

the eighteenth century. But commercial development and industrialization separated households from “the space of production” (Tronto 2013, p. 79). Men increasingly left the household to labor elsewhere, and commodities that were formerly produced by women within the home were increasingly produced outside of it. In addition, by the second half of the twentieth century, much of the household care work that had been the job of servants or slaves in prior centuries was now expected of housewives. It thereby became possible to view men and women as doing categorically different things, with men leaving the house to engage in “productive” work and women staying at home to perform care work. Prior to this, however, caring language was widely used in a political context and describes the work of men as well as women. Although caring is often considered a part of masculinity, many cultures differentiate the caregiving responsibilities of men from those of women. 34 Nevertheless, they are forms of care, and throughout most of Western history, they are explicitly and unabashedly described as such. Thus, attending to the ways the concept of care has been deployed historically lends powerful support to the denaturalization argument. It shows that the modern exclusion of care from realms coded as public and/or male is the exception, not the rule. One reason this has been overlooked is the ease with which three distinct questions can be conflated: (1) whether politics involves care, (2)  whether the political association differs from the family by degree or in kind, and (3) whether men and women are suited for different kinds of work. Failing to distinguish these questions leads to false inferences, such as concluding from the fact that Aristotle thinks a woman’s place is in the home that he must also believe care is feminine and private (e.g., Tronto 2013, p. 25; 2015, p. 1). 35 But in fact, while Aristotle and other Greek thinkers considered certain types of caregiving labor unsuitable for free male citizens, they did not think this about other kinds of care work. 36 Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon do not describe the gendered division of labor in terms of women who care and men who do something else, like protect, produce, or manage. Rather, both men and women care, produce, protect, and manage, but not with respect to the same tasks. 37 Similarly, whether a given thinker believes a polity is like a family tells us little about his or her attitude toward the political use of caregiving language. For example, both Plato and Aristotle are in favor of political caregiving, but they disagree about whether the polis and the

22

Introduction

family are fundamentally different associations and about whether men and women should be engaging in similar work. What is true of Plato and Aristotle is true of early liberals as well. Prominent liberals have certainly criticized overly familistic conceptions of the state. 38 For example, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government contains a lengthy attack upon Richard Filmer’s Patriarcha, which justifies absolute monarchy as an extension of fatherly rule. But this does not mean early liberals believe that care has no place in politics. To the contrary, Locke and other Whigs employ the language of care to articulate and argue for liberal political positions. 39 And all of these thinkers differ from contemporary libertarians who believe that the political association and the family are fundamentally different, that there should not be a gendered private/public split, and that care has no place in politics (e.g., Nozick 1974, p. 167). A corollary of these distinctions is that a political philosopher’s attitude toward women does not determine his or her attitude toward care in the ways one might have expected—sexism or misogyny do not predict a low estimation of care as such. Compared to Athenian men generally and to his student Aristotle, Plato is relatively egalitarian with respect to gender. But he still repeatedly claims that women are, on average, inferior to men. Nonetheless, this does not lead him to diminish the value of care; as I shall show, it is at the heart of his ethics and politics. It is the same with Rousseau, whose sexism is notorious. Rousseau criticizes the comparatively equal gender roles in Plato’s Republic, arguing that women belong at home, acting as nurturing wives and mothers. Yet care is also central to his conception of masculinity: he describes caring work as a core responsibility of good men and good citizens, and he advocates a model of manhood that embodies caring affects such as affection, sympathy, and concern. Finally, of the three thinkers I focus upon, Godwin is the most skeptical of sustained, caring relations—and yet he, the radical husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, is also the most gender egalitarian. Thus, Western intellectual history affords us a richer set of debates about care and its relation to politics than one might expect given the sexism that pervades the writings of many political philosophers. It thereby proffers greater support for care ethicists’ claims about the culturally contingent nature of contemporary ideas about care than many care ethicists themselves have appreciated. As my discussion suggests, there are many political theorists that one might profitably study on questions of care. I turn to Plato, Rousseau,

Introduction

23

and Godwin specifically for several reasons. First, caregiving practices, as well as some of the key values and virtues of care, are particularly central to their political projects. For Plato, politics is explicitly defi ned as an art of care; for Rousseau, care and nondomination are deeply linked; and for Godwin, reconciling freedom and equality with intimacy, partiality, and caring guidance is a key problem that drives his political thinking. Each addresses the kinds of care governments should provide to citizens and that citizens should provide to one another, speaking to the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the crisis of care I highlighted above. They usefully challenge the ways care ethicists and liberals have tended to think about care, opening up new possibilities for thinking about the politics of freedom, domination, dependence, and expertise. Another reason I have chosen them is because in addition to offering important positive insights, their political philosophies also contain instructive weaknesses. None of these thinkers affords us an entirely sound view of politics and care.40 Some of their ideas about care are decidedly illiberal; others are counterproductive or impractical. But their theories fail in ways that illuminate some of the shortcomings of contemporary liberal and care- ethical theories, highlighting dangers that a liberalism of care cannot afford to ignore. And on this point, they are valuable as critics of one another. Rousseau was a careful interpreter of Plato, and Godwin was a critical reader of Rousseau and Plato. Each explicitly highlights problems in the political thought of his predecessor(s), refi ning his own ideas about care in light of what he takes to be key errors. By facilitating a conversation between these thinkers, I hope to highlight the tensions, problems, and trade- offs we must grapple with in the effort to think of care and liberalism together. The remainder of the book is divided into two chapters each on Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin, along with a conclusion. Chapter  1 begins my analysis of the vital role care plays in Plato’s ethical and political thought. My argument takes a synoptic view of the dialogues but focuses particularly on the Laws, Timaeus, Republic, and Symposium. I show that, for Plato, living beings are always changing and have a natural tendency to decay and fall into disorder. He characterizes the project of protecting and promoting the good of human beings in the face of these forces as one of intelligent care, constantly describing it using caring language and invoking medical, familial, and pastoral metaphors. This concept of care is central to Plato’s ethics, and his preoccupation with encouraging people to take better care of their bodies and souls is

24

Introduction

evident throughout the dialogues. For Plato, care defi nes the way human beings ought to relate to themselves and to one another, and it is integrally connected to philosophy as a way of life, as exhibited by his account of erôs and his portrayal of Socrates. He thereby showcases what it would mean to place care at the center of one’s understanding of oneself as a moral agent. In chapter 2, I examine Plato’s argument that politics is “the art of caring for souls.” Drawing on Plato’s Republic and Laws, in this chapter, I explicate this provocative claim, demonstrating that Plato’s understanding of how human beings ought to care for one another undergirds his ideas about authority and rule. Plato posits the need for care as the ultimate rational basis of legitimate authority, and he identifies politics as a form of care in order to stress that promoting the good of citizens and meeting important needs are crucial political goals worthy of philosophical reflection. Ultimately, Plato advances a compelling theory linking care of the self to caring for others, challenges us with his vision of a caring civic culture, and provokes us with his claims about the kinds of political structures and forms of authority that are necessary to make a caring politics work. That said, Plato’s concrete political proposals are not suitable ways of addressing the problems he highlights: he does not adequately respect freedom and equality, nor is he sufficiently attentive to the dangers of domination. Therefore, the following chapters turn to Rousseau and Godwin, who further develop the notion of a caring politics in ways that are much more sensitive to these concerns. In chapter 3, I take up Rousseau’s understanding of care. He famously argues that while in the state of nature humans are free and independent, civilized human beings shatter the natural order, growing deeply dependent upon one another and perpetually at risk of domination. Yet Rousseau holds out the hope that suitably designed caregiving practices might recapture some semblance of natural harmony, equipping civilized human beings to live with one another in an interdependent but nonoppressive fashion. Through a careful reading of Emile, I demonstrate just how vital care is to achieving the type of freedom Rousseau believes is possible for civilized human beings, arguing that he forges a conceptual connection between care and nondomination with radical implications for how we ought to educate individuals for freedom. Chapter 4 builds upon the previous one, focusing on the Social Contract and Political Economy and demonstrating how Rousseau’s understanding of care impacts his view of citizenship and the proper functions

Introduction

25

of government. Rousseau contends that learning how to relate to and care for our fellow citizens well requires being subject to the right practices of care from the moment we are born. He also maintains that the formal institutions of the state that help secure freedom (democratic assemblies, courts, and so on) can only function effectively if citizens care for and about one another. Furthermore, he argues that a good state cares for citizens by helping them meet important economic, social, and psychological needs and that it requires political leaders who embody the caring values of responsibility and attentiveness. Thus care is critical to his vision of a free republic. By means of caring virtues and suitably designed accountability mechanisms that conform to what I refer to as the principle of subordinate sovereignty, Rousseau strives to facilitate salutary caregiving practices while preventing domination. Although Rousseau is a profound theorist of domination, he nonetheless advocates institutions and practices that oppress women and manage citizens through objectionably manipulative means. Hence the next chapters turn to William Godwin, for whom social and intellectual independence is a paramount good critical to care, as a thoughtful counterweight. William Godwin is a radical eighteenth- century liberal, a fierce defender of freedom and equality, and a proponent of a utilitarian conception of morality that aims to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. Although Godwin’s political theory bears a great deal of resemblance to that of the later but better-known John Stuart Mill, Godwin is a protoanarchist who goes much further than Mill in interrogating the value of intimacy and criticizing authority as a means of providing care.41 These features of Godwin’s political thought inform my selection of Godwin as a foil for Plato and Rousseau and as a touchstone for thinking about the relationship between care and liberal values. In chapter 5, I show that in Godwin’s early work, freedom and equality are so fi rmly connected to independence and impartiality that he condemned sustained caring relationships and even rejected cohabitation and marriage. But over time, he revised his views, eventually reconciling his liberal commitments with a deep appreciation for the importance of sustained caregiving relationships to human happiness, praising them as vehicles for doing good and cultivating benevolent dispositions. Focusing on the third edition of Godwin’s Political Justice, I show that his mature thought exhibits a liberal corrective to the care- ethical danger of excessively valorizing intimacy and dependence. In chapter 6, I turn to Godwin’s politics. While Godwin believes that

26

Introduction

individuals are morally obligated to do their utmost to improve the conditions of their fellows and facilitate their moral and intellectual growth, he is deeply skeptical of authority and government as effective means of caring for others. Instead, in Political Justice, he imagines a politics that is local, noncoercive, and centered on conversation. While Godwin’s faith in our ability to do without government is implausible, he captures something important about the way we might care for others politically by means of discussion rather than coercion. This, I suggest, is a fertile topic for care ethicists to consider, as we live in a time of great political divisions that caring conversations might help us heal, or at least navigate with greater mutual consideration and compassion. Furthermore, his antistatist arguments helpfully push back on the authoritarian and paternalistic streak in the history of caring political discourse, making a strong case for including specifically liberal protections in any politics of care. The conclusion returns to my overarching argument about the vital role care has played in the history of Western political thought, unpacking the implications of my interpretive chapters for the larger narratives we have constructed about the Western philosophical tradition. It also highlights key areas in which Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin speak to the current conversation about care’s place in politics. I utilize both the strengths and weaknesses of their accounts to lay the foundations for a liberalism of care. I show how, between them, the three theorists adduce important reasons why liberal democratic norms and institutional structures are vital for ensuring that political authority provides care successfully. I also build upon their ideas about education and care to argue that caring educative experiences of the right kind might combat xenophobia and prejudice. In addition, I propose caring citizenship as a mode of ethical subjectivity that provides us with new reasons to take care of ourselves, our loved ones, and our political communities.

Chapter One

Plato on Caring for the Self and Caring for Others Caring Language in Plato’s Dialogues

I

n this chapter, I argue that care is an essential component of Plato’s thought, structuring his metaphysics and ethics in consistent and interconnected ways. Care is fundamental to Platonic ontology as a way of characterizing the proper relationships among intelligence, soul, and matter. It is also central to his ethics. Plato’s preoccupation with encouraging people to take better care of their bodies and souls is evident throughout the dialogues; it defi nes the way human beings ought to relate to themselves and to one another, and it is integrally connected to philosophy as a way of life. Furthermore, as I shall show in the next chapter, care is the core goal of Plato’s politics. Both in his reflections on democratic Athens and in the utopian alternatives he envisions, he takes improving the provision of care as his core aim. Indeed, Plato goes farther than contemporary care ethicists in defi ning politics as an art of caregiving. For instance, Gorgias describes the true art of politics as care for the soul (464b, 516a– 519d., 521a), the Statesman defi nes the art of politics as “care [epimeleia] of the whole community together” (276b), and the Laws identifies the political art as “the art whose business it is to care for [therapeuein] souls” (650b).1 Plato provocatively identifies politics as a form of care in order to stress that promoting the good of citizens and meeting important needs are crucial political goals worthy of philosophical reflection; he is deeply concerned with identifying social and political arrangements that will promote the good of all and of each, across the whole scope of every individual’s life. Thus his politi-

28

Chapter 1

cal dialogues address questions of childcare, moral education, and philosophical instruction. They not only attend to free adult citizens but demonstrate political concern for vulnerable populations, such as orphans, resident aliens, and the elderly. My argument builds on the work of previous scholars who have highlighted Plato’s use of caring language in various contexts. For instance, interpreters have long noted the importance of medical metaphors in dialogues such as Gorgias and the Republic (e.g., Lidz 1995), the parental claims of the Laws in Crito (e.g., Bostock 2005), and shepherd imagery in the Statesman and the Laws (e.g., Foucault 2012). Others have highlighted the notion of caring for oneself developed in dialogues such as Alcibiades I (Foucault 2005; De Marzio 2006), and conversation as a form of civic care in Gorgias (Miller 2012). But this chapter breaks new ground in examining the use of caregiving language across Plato’s corpus, seeking to understand how he conceptualizes care in general terms and how it shapes his ethical and political philosophy as a whole. As I shall show, the language of care ties Plato’s political proposals, as outlined in the Republic and the Laws, to the understanding of nature, erôs, and human flourishing he articulates throughout the dialogues. Attending to the place of care in Plato’s thought has several interpretive benefits. For one, care sheds light on the underlying coherence of Plato’s convictions concerning political authority. According to one influential hypothesis concerning the development of Plato’s thought, the skeptical and democratic Socrates authentically represented by Plato in his early works is supplanted in later dialogues by a caricature who acts as a mouthpiece for Plato’s own dogmatic and authoritarian views (Dodds 1973; Annas 1981; and Vlastos 1981, 1991). 2 Several even propose a second shift, from authoritarianism in “middle period” dialogues, such as the Republic, to a more democratic view in “late” dialogues, such as the Laws (Dodds 1973; Vlastos 1981; Annas and Waterfield 1995, pp. xvii–xx; Bobonich 2002; and Samaras 2002). I have argued elsewhere against the claim that Plato’s thought took a democratic turn after the Republic (Fraistat 2015). The position I will be defending in these chapters is that Plato’s dialogues maintain a consistent thesis about rightful authority grounded in his conception of care. Plato posits the need for care as the ultimate rational basis of political authority and all authority generally: the purpose of authority is to provide care, and the need to provide care can justify authority. I refer to this view as “authority as care” throughout. 3

Plato on Caring for the Self and Caring for Others

29

Emphasizing the link between care and authority also has the interpretive benefit of revealing a Plato who cares for others. For many scholars, there is a disjunction between Plato’s ethics and his politics. According to one common reading, his ethical project concerns the private quest for the best way of life, embodied by the figure of Socrates. This quest is pursued through philosophical conversation and contemplation, and it takes a quietist approach to politics, participating only when strictly necessary. Its primary goal is caring for the self—that is to say, promoting the self’s own good or perfection—although it may include the good of a few friends or associates. In apparent tension with this is Plato’s political project, which contemplates the wholesale transformation of social and political life by using political authority to take comprehensive care of human beings. Here Plato envisions a public role for philosophers, asking them to occupy themselves with the pursuit not merely of their own good but with that of the community as a whole. At fi rst blush, these two projects seem to suggest contradictory answers as to whether virtue is best cultivated in private or promoted by means of public power, whether a good life includes political participation, and to what extent a philosopher should be concerned with the good of others. Many scholars who believe that Plato’s attitude toward authority changed over the course of his life argue that the ethical “Socrates” ought to be distinguished from the political “Plato.” For a number of these thinkers, it is Socrates’s conception of caring for oneself rather than Plato’s therapeutic politics that holds theoretical promise (e.g., Villa 2001). Others, such as Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom, do not posit a change of mind on Plato’s part. Instead, they resolve the tension by arguing that Plato’s political writings are, in effect, a reductio ad absurdum (Strauss 1964; Bloom 1991). In their view, dialogues such as the Republic show what would have to be true for politics to be a pursuit worthy of philosophers. And what Plato means to indicate is that those conditions are impossible and unfulfi llable; hence Plato’s political writings point back to his ethical project as the “serious” one.4 Against these scholars, I argue that Plato’s ethics and politics are not opposed, nor are his political writings satirical. Rather, caring for oneself and for others are intertwined, complementary undertakings. One cannot care for others well without taking adequate care of oneself. Nor can one realize the self’s highest good without providing appropriate care to others and receiving appropriate care from them, some of which is political in nature. It is difficult to disentangle Plato’s metaphysics (his views about the

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nature of nature); his ethics (his views about the nature of human excellence and the conditions of our flourishing); and his politics (his views about authority, rule, and sociopolitical organization). 5 This is because they are characterized by common assumptions and logics, and he presents them in conjunction: for example, he describes how motion causes bodies to grow in order to explain how a good parent or nurse ought to nurture a child (Laws, 789d; cf. Timaeus, 88c– e); he cites the behavior of good human beings to imagine how gods or the soul behave in their governance of the cosmos (Republic, 382a– e; Timaeus, 29e– 30c; Laws, 902c– 903e); and his political proposals are intimately tied to ideas about  the soul and human flourishing. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to treat these subjects sequentially in order to lay bare the connections between them, showing how the concept of care ties these domains together. I will demonstrate that Plato takes a sophisticated and nuanced approach to political life, one that is driven by a persistent concern to reconcile the demands of political community with the requirements of human well-being by means of caregiving political authority. I do not maintain that Plato’s position is entirely adequate or one we ought to adopt wholesale—indeed, I will argue his view of care is linked not only to what is most compelling and fruitful in his political writings but to what is most distasteful, such as his authoritarianism, paternalism, and defense of eugenics. Nevertheless, both the successes and the failures of Plato’s approach are instructive for theorizing the relationship between liberal democratic politics and care, and his writings pose useful challenges for contemporary care ethics. In particular, Plato raises important questions surrounding care of the self, as well as the relationships between authority, care, and expertise.

Plato’s Conception of Care There are two linguistic issues that an English study of Plato’s caregiving language must address. The fi rst is that there is no single word for “care” in Greek that Plato employs consistently. My discussion will focus primarily upon two Greek verbs and their associated nouns: epimeleomai (“to take care of, have charge of; to have the management of; to pay attention to, cultivate”) and epimeleia (“care, attention, diligence”), as well as therapeuô (“to wait on, attend on, serve; to take care of, provide for; to tend, to treat medically, to heal, to cure”) and therapeia (“a

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waiting on, service, attendance; a fostering, nurture; tending in sickness, medical treatment”).6 These terms denote caring or activities we would clearly describe as caring, although they have slightly different meanings and connotations.7 To a lesser extent, I will also highlight Plato’s use of the word trephô (“to nourish, feed, make to grow or increase, nurse, bring up, rear”) and the related noun trophê (“nourishment, food, victuals, maintenance”; “a rearing or nursing, bringing up”), which have caregiving connotations and can refer to the act of breastfeeding. It might be objected that the concept of care cannot be as critical to Plato’s writings as I claim, given that he employs several words for it rather than one. But the multiplicity of Greek terms is not a problem unique to “care.” In general, the dialogues do not employ a rigorously consistent technical vocabulary. Even a concept as central as “form” is referred to by a variety of names (e.g., eidos, idea, and morphê).8 Hence Plato scholars are often in the position of having to select a single term to denote core ideas that Plato describes in multiple ways. With respect to “care” specifically, the exact word Plato chooses depends upon the context. When he is employing doctor or physical-trainer metaphors, he is more likely to use therapeuô (e.g., Statesman, 293b– c; Laws, 650b, which is preceded by a discussion of physical training and drugs). When the metaphoric image is that of a parent or shepherd, he is more likely to use language connected to raising and rearing, such as trephô/trophê and related words (e.g., Symposium, 207b, 209c, 212a). But that there is an underlying conceptual unity is suggested by the fact that he often employs epimeleomai, therapeuô, and trephô in interconnected and interchangeable ways. For instance, epimeleomai and therapeuô are used interchangeably in Gorgias (516a– d). Plato’s Statesman initially treats trephô and epimeleomai as equivalents (261d), only to later posit care that involves feeding (trephô) as a subspecies of care—identified as both therapeuô and epimeleomai—in general (275e). And politics is defi ned both as “care [epimeleia] of the whole community together” (Statesman, 276b) as well as “the art whose business it is to care for [therapeuein] souls” (Laws, 650b). The second issue is that Plato’s use of these caregiving terms is often obscured in English translation. Sibyl Schwarzenbach’s remarks about translations of Aristotle apply equally well to Plato: English translations of the Greek epimeleia (for at least the past two centuries) never seem to translate the Greek term epimeleias as “care,” which

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In addition to the fact that some translations do not capture the caring connotations of the Greek in their English word choices, the same Greek word is sometimes translated in multiple ways within the same dialogue. This is certainly a defensible translation practice. A Greek word may lack a straightforward English equivalent, and capturing its nuances might require translating it variously as the passage seems to require. But this does mean that someone reading a Platonic dialogue in translation might not perceive that a care word, such as epimeleomai/epimeleia or therapeuô/therapeia, is being repeated frequently and is serving as a key term facilitating conceptual connections and analogies.9 To navigate this tension, I have not altered the English translations I quote below, but I provide the Greek in brackets when caring language is being employed. Doing so highlights the important work caring language is doing that less literal translations often conceal. Care as I have defi ned it refers to activities intended to improve the condition of care recipients by meeting needs connected to healthy functioning as well as proper growth and development. Plato’s use of epimeleia/epimeleomai and therapeia/therapeuô shows that he understands it in similar terms. First, these words denote a practice and not merely an affective state of concern or interest. Love (erôs), affection (storgê), and friendship (philia) are intimately tied to care as a practice but are not identical with it.10 Second, the goal of this activity is to improve the person or thing cared for: in Euthyphro, for example, Socrates points out that “care [therapeia] in each case . . . aims at the good and benefit of the object cared for [therapeuomenou], as you can see that horses cared for [therapeuomenoi] by horse breeders are benefited and become better” (13b).11 Third, care is concerned with meeting needs. Plato separates desires that are necessary and needful from those that are not (Republic, 558d– 559c). Correspondingly, he distinguishes proper

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care, which attends to true needs, from practices that tend to spurious desires. For instance, in Gorgias, Socrates draws a distinction between “servient” (diakonikê) practices that gratify appetites and those that truly provide care (therapeia) (517b– 518d).12 Whereas the former satisfy whatever desires happen to crop up in the bodies and souls of persons served, the latter aim at the good of the individuals cared for by providing them with what they truly require.13 Plato is not the only Greek writer to employ caregiving language in a political or ethical context; ancient Greek authors are more comfortable speaking in such terms than many contemporary English speakers.  But  the frequency with which Plato does so is distinctive even by the standards of his own culture. By way of example, it is instructive to compare the funeral oration delivered by Thucydides’s Pericles with the one  delivered by Plato’s Socrates in Menexenus: Pericles uses epimeleomai/epimeleia twice, therapeuô/therapeia zero times, and trephô/ trophê twice; by contrast, Socrates uses epimeleomai/epimeleia seven times, therapeuô/therapeia twice, and trephô/trophê thirteen times.14 Despite the fact that they are speaking on the same subject, commemorating fallen Athenian soldiers and lauding the city’s virtues, Plato’s Socrates makes the city’s care of its citizens and their caring responsibilities to one another much more central to his discussion.15 As I shall show, this attention to care and use of caring language is by no means limited to Menexenus but is characteristic of Plato’s philosophy as whole. In addition to utilizing caregiving language in a political and ethical context with a greater frequency than many of his contemporaries, Plato outlines a radically different conception of what it means to take good care of human beings. This is apparent throughout his corpus, with more detailed discussions appearing in “middle” and “late” dialogues. In works such as the Laws, the Statesman, and Timaeus, Plato articulates an understanding of care with a deep grounding in his metaphysics, portraying it as a necessary response to the disjunction between the good, as an object of intellection, and the world we inhabit, in which that good is not immediately realized. The picture of care that emerges (1) strives to produce the good, which he links to order; (2) opposes the natural tendencies of matter and body, which are prone to disorder and decay; and (3) emphasizes reason and philosophy as essential to good care. In what follows, I will explore this conception and show how it underwrites Plato’s beliefs about what good caregiving entails. In numerous dialogues, Plato portrays the good as something that is

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not fully manifest in the world around us. The good consists in a kind of order or proportion, but that order can only be perfect in thought. This is because material things naturally lack order and tend toward disorder over time (Statesman, 269d– e, 273b– d, 286a; Timaeus, 29d– 30b, 43b– 44c, 47e–48b, 87c– 88e; Republic, 530a– b). The phenomenon capable of instantiating the order that exists in thought into matter is soul: soul is a type of “motion capable of moving itself” and material things according to the dictates of intelligence (Laws, 896a, 897b; see also Phaedrus, 245e).16 Here is where care enters the picture—Plato’s philosopher characters utilize caring language and imagery to characterize motions of soul that promote the good of beings and inculcate order. This is evident in many of Plato’s myths, which are meant to explain how good order is created and sustained at the level of the cosmos. The cosmos is described as a living thing (Timaeus, 30c; Statesman, 269c– d) that receives care from gods, which are caring souls that are not burdened by mortal bodies of their own (e.g., Timaeus, 40b– c, 41c– d). For instance, in the Statesman, the god, minor deities, and the world-soul maintain the cosmos in good condition through their rule and “care” (epimeleia/epimeleomai).17 Similarly, Socrates’s second speech in Phaedrus asserts that soul “looks after [epimeleitai] all that lacks a soul” (246b) and that Zeus spends his time “looking after [epimeloumenos] everything and putting all things in order” (246e). The Laws’s Athenian Stranger reinforces this conceptual connection between soul, care, and order: he identifies care as a motion of soul (897a; see also Republic, 353d), argues that the “the best soul supervises [epimeleisthai] the entire cosmos” with a view to what is best (897c), and links care to order (898c).18 To be sure, Plato also uses the language of craftsmanship to characterize the connection between ordering intelligence and the objects it orders, as other scholars have noted (e.g., Vlastos 1995, p. 111). One thinks, for instance, of his description of the creator-god as a dêmiourgos (“workman, handicraftsman; a maker, author”) in Timaeus. But this language does not fully capture key elements of the relationship Plato envisions. In a simple act of production, a craftsman stamps a form upon a material, and then the crafting work is done. But living beings are not “built” and then considered “complete”; rather, their development is a process of growth that must be looked after and tended over a sustained period. Furthermore, living beings move themselves, and therefore the process of helping them achieve good order involves a level of attention, direction, and responsiveness that is not necessarily required

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for producing inanimate objects. In addition, living things are subject to aging and decay. Therefore maintaining them in a good state is better characterized as re-productive rather than productive work, since it involves continually reproducing the conditions of their existence and their flourishing.19 Because ordering intelligences must remain in a sustained nurturing relationship with living bodies and embodied souls to keep them in a good condition, Plato speaks of them not only as craftsmen but as carers (Laws, 713b– 714a, 896e, 900d– 903a, 907b; see also the mixture of caring and crafting imagery at Timaeus, 41d). 20 While Plato’s cosmologies posit the existence of caring gods, Plato believes that whatever divine care we receive does not absolve us of the need to care for ourselves. In the Statesman, this point is illustrated through a myth about the god Kronos. Like Timaeus, the Statesman’s Eleatic Stranger asserts that the cosmos naturally tends toward disorder because it has a bodily element. In an earlier time, things were kept in order by the wise god Kronos and the minor gods or spirits (daimones) he appointed to rule and care for animals and human beings. That period was a golden age, in which the needs of human beings and other animals were satisfied effortlessly. But when the golden age ended and the gods abandoned their posts, the “original disharmony” present in nature reasserted itself (Statesman, 273d). Most nonhuman animals went wild, and human beings were left weak, defenseless, and without ready access to food. To ensure our survival, the gods granted us science and the arts, which saved us: “Everything that has helped to establish human life has come about from these things, once care [epimeleias] from the gods, as has just been said, ceased to be available to human beings, and they had to live their lives through their own resources and take care [epimeleian] for themselves” (ibid., 274d; cf. Laws, 713c– 714a, 835c). In the present era, realizing the good requires knowledgeable human beings to put things in order through care. The problem is not only that the natural world is insufficiently well ordered to meet human needs without our care. It is that human beings are disorderly and require care themselves (Timaeus, 43a–44c; Laws, 672c). Plato’s philosopher characters often explicate the process of ordering and caring for human beings by depicting the self as internally divided, consisting of multiple parts with confl icting desires. Simpler images postulate a binary distinction between body and soul, attributing the base appetites that degrade us to the former and purer desires for wisdom and contemplation to the latter (Phaedo, 79b– 84b, 114d– e; cf. the “two sets

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of natural desires” in Timaeus, 88b). More complex images split the soul itself into multiple parts, such as the tripartite divisions in Phaedrus, the Republic, and Timaeus. But what is common to all of them is the notion that the self consists of parts that must be properly ordered to be in a good condition, with the component that reasons ruling the rest; individuals are encouraged to identify themselves with their reason and to view the other parts of themselves as disorderly objects that must be mastered and cared for. Plato’s cosmological picture of care, according to which the soul can utilize reason to promote good order in bodies and the parts of the soul otherwise prone to irrationality and disorder, fi nds its analogue here within each individual (e.g., Timaeus, 42c– d; Republic, 571d– 572a, 589a–b; Gorgias, 503e– 504e, 506e– 507a and context). Plato describes the process of remedying human disorder as one of caring by imparting orderly motion: “There is but one way to care for [therapeia] anything, and that is to provide for it the nourishment [trophas] and the motions that are proper to it” (Timaeus, 90c). The motions he has in mind are not random but patterned or rhythmic (ibid., 87d– 88e; Laws, 653e– 654a, 795e). Intelligence allows us to perceive patterns in motions and to understand the consequences of moving things in particular ways, which enables us to develop arts that provide care. 21 Gymnastics, for instance, identifies movements capable of producing bodily excellences, such as health, beauty, and strength (Laws, 672e– 673a; cf. 631b– c). 22 But while Plato believes it is important to care for the body, he places a higher priority on caring for the soul. 23 The Athenian Stranger argues that the soul is ordered by means of representations that move it in various ways, most crucially by inducing pleasure or pain (ibid., 653b– 654e; Republic, 583e). By exposing the soul to representations, it is possible to form positive or negative associations with various objects and ideas. Such associations give rise to habits of liking and disliking, which become settled dispositions that are difficult to dislodge (Laws, 653a, 792e, 802c– d; Republic, 377a– b, 395d). These habits in turn form the basis of the ethical 24 virtues, excellences of character that include courage, moderation, and justice. 25 Like the Republic’s Socrates, the Athenian Stranger highlights the importance of music in particular as a means of instilling harmony in souls (Laws, 653a– 654d, 700a– 701a, 790e– 791b, 795d; Republic, 376e, 401d–402a; see also Timaeus, 47d– e, 88c). 26 Plato believes that caring for souls also requires inculcating intellectual virtue. 27 In the Laws, the Republic, and Timaeus, the need to culti-

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vate intellectual virtue calls for an additional form of care beyond music and gymnastics (Laws, 965a–b and context; Republic, 521d– 522a). Like music and gymnastics, the care in question involves subjecting human beings to a kind of motion—in particular, the motions of thought proper to the intellectual part of the soul (e.g., Republic, 572a; Timaeus, 90c– d). As the Laws and the Republic explain at greater length, this care consists in the study and practice (meletê) of calculation, geometry, astronomy, and, above all, dialectic (Laws, 747a– c, 809b– 810c, 817e– 819d, 962b– 968b; Republic, 522c– 535a; cf. Timaeus, 88b– c). 28 Because one cannot act well without knowledge, anyone wishing to live a flourishing life must learn the truth concerning the highest matters of practical concern: the just, the noble, and the good. In several dialogues, Plato suggests the path to such knowledge is philosophy (e.g., Republic, 484b– d, 618b– 619e; Alcibiades I, 133b– c). There is an apparent problem with this argument, which is that Plato also asserts that philosophy does not culminate in certain knowledge. Some interpreters have argued that Plato changed his mind about this over time and that the account of the Forms and the myth of the cave in the Republic show that in his “middle period,” he believed that philosophers have unfi ltered access to absolute truth (e.g., Vlastos 1991). This interpretation does not adequately account for the fact that Plato emphasizes that philosophers are not fully wise in dialogues from every period (Apology, 21b– d; Phaedrus, 278d; Symposium, 202a– 204b; Laws, 641d). Such claims are made even within the Republic itself. For example, Socrates introduces the discussion of the cave by remarking that he does not possess knowledge of the good, only opinion, and he had said earlier that unless we have knowledge of the good, we do not really know anything (Republic, 505a–b, 506a). 29 Plato’s description of what it is like to “view the Forms” is an idealized and poeticized account of knowing, the full experience of which eludes actual philosophers. 30 Why, then, does Plato stress philosophy’s practical significance and claim that it can help us lead excellent and fulfi lling lives? The answer is fourfold. The fi rst reason is that the argument is rhetorically effective in inducing practically or politically minded individuals to care for themselves and practice philosophy. 31 The second is that while philosophy does not produce absolutely certain gains, it nonetheless contributes to our understanding of the world. 32 Despite Plato’s skeptical pronouncements, he is open to the possibility of real knowledge (Republic, 533a– d; Timaeus, 51b– e) and has theorized the conditions of soul under which

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real knowledge might appear, attaching them to the philosophic lifestyle (Republic, bk. VII; Phaedrus, 247c– 252a; Symposium, 210a– 211c; Seventh Letter, 343a– 344b). 33 While philosophy does not uncover incontestable truths, it may nevertheless improve our opinions about matters such as the just, noble, and good. As for the third, Plato argues that the very pursuit of philosophy can benefit one’s character. According to Socrates, practicing philosophy reorients the soul in a way that makes people more moderate, courageous, and just (Republic, 485d–486b). Socrates asserts that “wisdom itself is a kind of cleansing or purification” and that the purging away of our concerns with illusory goods and evils is the basis of true virtue (Phaedo, 69b– c; cf. Sophist, 226d– 231b). If opinions and desires are as deeply intertwined as Plato suggests, then this is closely related to the second point, such that the manner in which philosophy improves our opinions and our character may be very difficult to tease out in practice. 34 Fourth and finally, although philosophy begins as a search for an answer to our practical neediness, it turns out that the practice of philosophy is itself part of the answer. Plato contends that the best life is one devoted to the quest for knowledge, owing to its sublime pleasures and benefits. Someone who is a philosopher in the full sense, who combines philosophical inquiry with practical experience and full possession of intellectual and ethical virtue, is the best kind of human being (Laws, 653a–b; Timaeus, 90c– d). For this reason, the highest form of care for souls consists in instilling these qualities. In sum, Plato uses the language of care to describe an activity of soul that orders beings through patterned or rhythmic motion; care is what brings a deeper permanence to things in the world of becoming. Intelligent beings can care for bodies and souls by means of various arts, derived from their ability to discern patterns in motion and to understand their causes and effects. The assumptions that material things are naturally prone to disorder and that only deliberate, intelligent care can create and sustain order are noteworthy. It would seem to follow that confl ict between and within living beings is endemic to care, as the natural tendency of things cared for is to resist the imposition of good order and to fall apart absent constant efforts to counteract their decay. Plato’s belief that philosophy leads to the greatest wisdom of which human beings are capable has significant implications as well—philosophy becomes intimately bound up with care because it alone can grasp the deeper patterns or “forms” (morphai/eidê/ideai) needed to bring true order to embodied things. The ethical consequences of these convictions will be

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examined in the following section, where I will show how Plato’s defi nition of care informs his conception of good character and how excellent persons ought to relate to themselves and others.

Philosophers Who Care While Plato’s “middle” and “late” dialogues explore care in more elaborate metaphysical terms, his fundamental understanding of care and accompanying ideas about how it relates to intelligence, soul, and body are present in “early” works as well. Plato’s convictions about care structure his ethics: the dialogues constitute care as central to flourishing lives and relationships; in addition, his beliefs about what good care requires lead him to recast conventional Athenian ideas about what it means to be a good friend, family member, lover, and citizen. Plato does this not only through the explicit arguments his philosopher characters make but through the behavior those characters model, Socrates in particular. In this section, I will explore Plato’s understanding of what a life devoted to caring for oneself and for others involves. I will then show how Plato grounds this understanding in his account of love (erôs), showcasing the essential connections between care, philosophy, and human flourishing. Growing out of Michel Foucault’s work on ancient Greco-Roman ethics, recent decades have seen increased scholarly attention to “care of the self” (heautou epimeleisthai) as an integral component of ancient philosophy. Foucault argues that for many ancient authors, philosophy was not merely an intellectual preoccupation but an entire way of life and that life consisted, above all, in a concerted effort to take care of oneself. This care for the self, Foucault maintains, is a “certain way of considering things, of behaving in the world, undertaking actions, and having relations with other people” (2005, p. 10). It involves turning one’s attention to oneself and devoting additional time, attention, and labor to self-improvement. Foucault demonstrates that ancient philosophers routinely exhort others to devote care (epimeleia) to their bodies and souls—they must assess their own condition and take appropriate steps to improve it. Measures ancient philosophers recommend include reflecting; introspecting; assessing oneself by means of different “tests”; engaging in physical, moral, and intellectual exercises; and observing various dietary and behavioral regimens (ibid., p. 11). As Foucault rightly argues, the ancient emphasis on care of the self

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has Socratic-Platonic roots (ibid., p. 31). Plato’s Socrates presents himself as a benevolently intentioned speaker who, out of sincere concern for the well-being of his interlocutors, urges them to examine and take better care of themselves. For instance, in the Apology, Socrates claims that he approaches each Athenian “like a father or an elder brother to persuade you to care for [epimeleisthai] virtue” (31b). Similarly, in Alcibiades I, he claims to be Alcibiades’s only true lover and exhorts him to “practice some self- cultivation [epimeleian tina poieisthai]” (119a; see also 128a– 132a.). The dialogues praise self- care as an essential form of preparation for discharging one’s broader responsibilities and hence as an activity that is especially vital for those who are or will be in a position to care for others. For instance, Socrates informs Alcibiades that “you, or anyone else who is to be ruler and carer [arxein kai epimelêsesthai], not only of himself and his private business, but also the city and the city’s business, must fi rst acquire virtue himself” (ibid., 134c). But improving one’s own condition is also an end in itself that everyone ought to pursue. 35 For these reasons, Plato’s Socrates addresses himself to all Athenians and seeks to surmount the barriers preventing them from taking better care of themselves. Socrates repeatedly challenges one of the core obstacles to good care, which is the predilection for self-satisfaction and complacency. The Athenians think that they are wise when it comes to politics and practical matters, but they are mistaken—and indeed, it is the politicians, rhetoricians, and poets reputed as most knowledgeable about these things who prove the most foolish (Apology, 21b– 22e). Socrates insists that virtually none of them have given adequate thought to wisdom, truth, or the qualities of character that make human lives truly excellent (ibid., 29d). By criticizing the Athenians and exposing their ignorance, he acts as a gadfly, rousing them from their sluggish self-satisfaction and goading them to seek self-improvement (ibid., 30e). 36 In compelling his listeners to think about their own condition and question whether they are taking adequate care of themselves, Plato’s Socrates also challenges his audience’s priorities. In Alcibiades I, Socrates invites Alcibiades to consider what it means to care for the self. What, exactly, is one’s “self”? Through a series of arguments, he secures Alcibiades’s agreement that the self is to be primarily identified with the soul and that one’s body and one’s property are to be regarded as mere possessions (Alcibiades I, 129a–132a). Hence people who think they are taking care of “themselves” when they care for their bodies or material

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goods are in error—it is the soul above all to which they should attend. 37 Unfortunately most Athenians are guilty of this error, primarily concerning themselves with acquiring wealth and honors, as well as satisfying their bodily appetites. From their perspective, it is men like Socrates who neglect (ameleô) their own affairs (Apology, 31b, 36b; Gorgias, 485e). Socrates’s usual practice is to challenge this by subjecting every Athenian he meets to the following reproach: “Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputations and honors as possible, while you do not care for [epimelêi] nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?” Then, if one of you disputes this and says he does care [epimeleisthai], I shall not let him go at once or leave him, but I shall question him, examine him and test him, and if I do not think he has attained the goodness that he says he has, I shall reproach him because he attaches little importance to the most important things and greater importance to inferior things. (Apology, 29d– 30a)

As is clear from this passage, convincing the Athenians to reconsider which objects most deserve their care is central to Socrates’s philosophical mission. 38 Through his exhortations, Plato’s Socrates implores his listeners to change the way they relate to themselves. As Foucault puts it, self- care involves an “intensification” of one’s relationship to oneself, taking oneself “as an object of knowledge and a field of action” (Foucault 2012, Kindle locations 617–19). Socrates tries to show his addressees that they have more to learn about themselves—they are complex subjects who can only fully be understood through study and self-examination (e.g., Alcibiades I, 132b–133e). He also strives to convince them that their moral and intellectual condition is not fixed or immutable—they can work on themselves to improve their bodies and souls. Significantly, this transformed understanding encourages a degree of self-alienation. Things that you had once considered essential components of your self, such as your body or your appetites, are not really you—you are your soul, specifically its reasoning part. By reducing people’s propensity to identify with their bodies and “lower” faculties, Plato enables them to achieve a critical distance from themselves: their bodily needs and appetites are to be regarded merely as belongings or possessions that can be examined and improved.

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This line of argument has been criticized by interpreters as involving a kind of self- directed misogyny. In urging people to reorder themselves, Plato sometimes uses masculinist rhetoric that deplores cowardice, weakness, and softness as womanly traits; he argues that men who display them will be reincarnated as women as punishment; and the activities he judges most valuable, such as philosophy and war, require “transcending the particular affections and concrete complexities of ‘womanly’ material and domestic life” (Ruddick 1989, p. 145; see also Okin 1979, pt. 1; Elshtain 1993, ch. 1). In this view, Plato’s calls for selfcontrol involve a kind of violence toward the self that countenances indifference (and in some cases, hostility) to others. These scholars are right to criticize Plato’s degradation of the body and family life, as well as his tendency to associate women with a lesser degree of virtue. 39 But it is important to stress that Plato’s notion of self- care is not only geared toward repressing affect for the sake of warfare or contemplation. Crucially, achieving critical distance from one’s own desires also increases one’s capacity to attend to the interests and desires of other living beings. For Plato, a central goal of caring for oneself is to enable care of others. This is evidenced by the deep preoccupation with how other people are living that animates the dialogues from start to fi nish, underwriting Socrates’s gadfly behavior as well as the capacious authority of the regimes sketched in the Republic and the Laws. Plato’s philosopher characters argue that the Athenians (and most if not all other peoples, for that matter) fail to take good care of each other in myriad ways.40 This charge is raised in the Apology and is continually broached throughout the dialogues. In an exchange with Meletus that puns on his name, Socrates repeatedly accuses him of failing to care (melô) and being careless (ameleia) about improving the city’s youth (Apology, 24b– 26b).41 Elsewhere, Socrates applies this critique to Athenian child-rearing practices generally. Every father is allowed to arrange his children’s education however he pleases, which leaves many youths lacking in virtue and wisdom (Laches, 179a; cf. Republic, 558b, 560a–b).42 Furthermore, contemporaneous Greek sources of education, such as poetry and traditional religious myths, are inadequate (Euthyphro, 6a– c; Republic, 377e– 392a, 568a–b). Nor is Athenian pederasty a useful means of acculturating youths. Plato suggests pederasty is only justifiable to the extent that it improves the souls of those concerned, and this is incompatible with the bodily focus and sexual contact central to Athenian practice (Republic, 403b– c; Laws, 836c– 837d).43 Moreover, Athenians utterly fail to care for

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female citizens, confi ning them to the home and neglecting their education (Republic, 451d–457c; Laws, 780e– 781b, 804e– 806e).44 To address some of these problems, Plato’s nonaporetic works contain detailed proposals for reforming care across multiple domains. I will return to some of these proposals in the next chapter. Why are Plato and his Socrates so concerned with the care of others? The reason individuals might wish to take care of themselves is straightforward—everyone desires his or her own good, and taking care of oneself helps secure it. But the case for providing care to others is more complex, and Plato advances several arguments in its favor. For one, caring for others is sometimes required by justice. Plato’s philosopher characters routinely condemn failures to care for friends, family members, and fellow citizens in terms that imply a dereliction of duty (e.g., Menexenus, 247b; Republic, 443a; Laws, 928c, 930e). The duties in question include taking care of persons you are responsible for and reciprocating care to those who have cared for you previously. For example, Socrates claims that philosophers have a duty to “care for [epimeleisthai]” the other citizens in the best regime, and this obligation stems from the fact that it helped raise them (Republic, 520a–b; see also Laws, 717b– c; cf. Crito, 50d– 52a).45 That said, Plato never articulates a fully fleshed- out theory of our individual moral duties regarding care. This reflects the differing emphases of ancient as opposed to modern ethics, and it is also connected to the way Plato frames moral agency. As Joel Warren Lidz argues, the fact that Plato treats ethical engagement with others as analogous to doctoring leads him “to transcend the notion of universally obligatory actions in order to ask what each of us as an individual is capable of doing. Thus, a clear- cut distinction between obligatory and supererogatory acts is likely to be rejected on this ethical model” (Lidz 1995, p. 534; emphasis in original). In other words, Plato links one’s moral duties to provide care to one’s capacity to provide it.46 Hence Plato mentions an obligation to provide advice to anyone who sincerely wants to know how to conduct his or her affairs better, and this obligation hinges more upon one’s capacity to benefit others than upon the existence of some prior debt to them (Seventh Letter, 331a–b; see also Gorgias, 520d– e; Laches, 200e). This is also evident in the striking way that he interprets a contemporaneous understanding of justice, according to which justice consists in “doing what’s properly one’s own and not meddling in other people’s business [to ta autou prattein kai mê polupragmonein]” (Republic,

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433a). Plato’s Socrates does not take this to mean we should leave others alone. Rather, he uses it to argue that everyone ought to pursue the work “to which his nature would be naturally best adapted,” and for those suited to rule, this involves ruling others (ibid.). The underlying idea is that what is properly one’s own and one’s responsibility depends on one’s capacity to do good with it, a point echoed in other dialogues as well (Lysis, 210c; Alcibiades I, 133d– e).47 But while we often owe others care as a matter of duty, Plato does not see caregiving as a purely altruistic or disinterested activity, nor one that is undertaken solely or even primarily for the sake of discharging moral obligations.48 As some interpreters have argued, Plato suggests that beings who are good love goodness and therefore want the world around them to be as good as possible (e.g., Irwin 2007, pp. 109–11; Reeve 1988, p. 229; Weiss 2012). For this reason, they naturally desire the good of others and want to care for them. This shows up routinely in his descriptions of gods (Phaedrus, 246b– e; Timaeus, 30a; Statesman, 271d– e; Laws, 898c, 900d– 903c). It even figures in his account of the good in the Republic. Just as the sun “not only endows the visible things with their power of being seen, but also with their coming into being, their growth, and their nurture [kai tên genesin kai auxên kai trophên],” the good not only makes things in the world of becoming intelligible but endows them with “their very being and their being what they are” and serves as “the very cause, for all things, of all things right and beautiful” (Republic, 509b, 517c).49 The notion that goodness overflows from good beings, even from the good itself, is fundamental to Plato’s thought and is typically expressed by means of caregiving language. Thus some caretaking activities result from a surfeit or abundance of goodness—beings that have the good have a corresponding desire to see it instantiated in the world around them, and this involves conferring it upon others. But other caregiving activities are motivated by the caregiver’s need for the good. Specifically, caregiving is closely connected to Plato’s understanding of erôs (“love, desire”), the fundamental longing that drives mortal beings. This link is explored by Diotima in the Symposium. There she defi nes erôs as the desire “to possess the good forever” (206a). Everyone wants to be happy, and happiness consists in the possession of the good. She further claims that we are not satisfied to have the good in a momentary or fleeting fashion; we want to have it always (Symposium, 205a). This implies a desire to continue to exist so that we might enjoy it. Hence erôs includes a desire not only for good

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things but for immortality as well (ibid., 207a). Though all mortal beings desire immortality, their natural tendency is to fall apart over time, just like all material things. Because of this, we partake of immortality only through reproduction, which “leaves behind a new young one in place of the old” (ibid., 207d; see also Laws, 721b– c). This, Diotima suggests, is the goal of sexual reproduction. It is also the goal of the body’s basic metabolic processes: “Even while each living thing is said to be alive and the same . . . even then he never consists of the same things, though he is called the same, but he is always being renewed and in other respects passing away, in his hair and flesh and bones and his entire body” (Symposium, 207d– e). The same is true of “the things of the soul.” Not only our bodies but our manners, habits, customs, opinions, and the like are always changing and falling away (ibid., 207e– 208a; see also Laws, 732b– c). It follows that the self cannot be equated with whatever is in the body or the soul at a given moment. In this passage, there is an often- overlooked connection between erôs and reproduction on one hand and care of the self on the other. Diotima’s account contains an implicit distinction between forms of reproduction and replenishment that occur beneath the surface of our awareness (e.g., the body’s production of new blood, hair, and flesh) and those that require deliberate effort (see Philebus, 43a–b, which notes that growth occurs without awareness). The activity of “studying,” to which she refers, is an example of the latter: “What we call studying [meletân] exists because knowledge is leaving us, because forgetting is the departure of knowledge, while studying [meletê] puts back a fresh memory in place of what went away, thereby preserving a piece of knowledge, so that is seems to be the same” (Symposium, 207e– 208a). The words translated here as “studying”—meletân (a conjugation of meletaô, “to attend to, study”; also “to care for”) and meletê (“practice, exercise”; also “care, attention”)—share the same root as epimeleia/epimeleomai and have caregiving connotations. Insofar as self-reproduction requires taking deliberate action to maintain order in the self, it involves a kind of selfcare; for Plato, care refers to activity that instantiates and maintains the good in matter that tends naturally toward disorder, and intentional selfreproductive action falls under this heading. But erôs is also connected to care of others. Diotima blurs the line between self- care and care for others by collapsing the distinction between self-maintaining reproduction and the type of reproduction that produces a separate being. Because one’s body and soul are in constant

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flux, in both cases, reproduction produces a new being that is not identical with the being that is replaced. This permits her to develop an expansive conception of the self, one not confi ned to one’s body but present in a more diffuse constellation of continually reproduced and reproducing things. Because the self is not a bounded physical object, it can spill over into others: a particular “self” is in some sense present in bodies that partake of its body (i.e., its biological children), souls that share the things of its soul (e.g., its opinions, desires, habits, manners, and knowledge), and even its actions and works (e.g., deeds, laws, customs, and writings). In an account couched in the language of begetting and nurturing children, 50 Diotima identifies three avenues for reproducing ourselves by means of caring for others. The fi rst involves protecting and cultivating others in whom we are already present—our human offspring, for instance (ibid., 208b; cf. Laws, 721c). The second is to reproduce ourselves “in” others by means of caregiving activity that re- creates the things of our soul in theirs (especially wisdom “and the rest of virtue” [Symposium, 209a]). 51 The third is to provide forms of care that preserve us in others’ memories (ibid., 208c– 209e). Human beings are remembered for providing noble and beautiful benefits, such as begetting wisdom and virtue in others and performing virtuous deeds. Paradigmatic instances include spectacular acts of self-sacrifice, as well as actions aimed at “the proper ordering [diakosmêsis] of cities and households” (ibid., 209a–b). The issue here is not just that what looks like concern for others is really a kind of concern for oneself (because in caring for others a person is actually “spreading” to them and propagating him- or herself). It is that caring for oneself is much more like caring for others than one might expect. If one’s self is constantly passing away and being replaced with a newly born self that resembles it, then the only form care for the self can take is having good “children.” Hence, the central question posed by erôs, “How can I obtain the good and be with it forever?” becomes “How can I give birth to the best and longest lasting ‘children’?” On this point, Diotima argues that not all forms of reproduction are equal. Whereas some people are merely pregnant in body and give birth to biological children, others are pregnant in soul. Representatives of this latter group include poets, lawgivers, and statesman, whose “children” are poems, laws, and political deeds (ibid., 209a– e). These children, Diotima claims, are longer lasting, do a better job of preserving one’s memory, and redound more to one’s glory than human offspring; furthermore, they are better and more beneficial (ibid., 209d– e). By providing care to

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the human race, through poetic and political activity that produces wisdom and virtue, one is able to satisfy erôs to a greater extent than is possible through sexual reproduction. It might be objected that the emphasis I have placed on care overlooks the extent to which Plato thinks contemplation displaces caregiving as a concern of the best sort of lover, the philosopher. An influential interpretation popularized by Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom holds that philosophers are preoccupied by the quest for wisdom and care little for other people. In Strauss’s words, Plato believes that “being dominated by the desire, the eros, for knowledge as the one thing most needful . . . philosophers have no leisure for looking down at human affairs, let alone taking care of them” (1964, pp. 124– 25). But Plato’s dialogues do not support this conclusion, and Strauss and Bloom themselves adduce considerations that strongly undercut it. Consider, for instance, the fi nal part of Diotima’s account. There, she charts the ascent of the consummate lover from a love of beautiful bodies through a love of beautiful souls to a love of Beauty itself, the Form of the Beautiful. Diotima asserts that once the lover ascends to higher forms of loving, he loses some degree of interest in the earlier stages—the lover who moves from the love of beautiful bodies to beautiful souls, for example, comes to believe “that the beauty of bodies is a thing of no importance” (Symposium, 210c). One might suppose the lover who ascends to the contemplation of Beauty itself grows equally uninterested in being with and caring for beautiful souls. But this is not what Diotima proceeds to argue. The lover who beholds Beauty itself is not a mere spectator; he or she begets virtue, just like the other lovers. The difference is that only individuals who have seen Beauty are able to give birth to “true” virtue—those who have not produce mere “images of virtue” (ibid., 212b). Thus the passage suggests that the consummate lover remains at work producing virtue in the world, in him- or herself and others. Furthermore, the language of nurture highlights the fact that this process is ongoing and interpersonal. The lover gives birth “in” and with others and continues to nurture the offspring in common with them; doing so creates fi rm bonds of friendship that are deeper than the bonds between parents of human offspring (ibid., 209c– d). In Phaedrus, Socrates suggests that this gratitude and affection leads to a desire to provide care. In the presence of their beloved, lovers are reminded of the god they followed before their souls became embodied. For this memory of the higher things they love, they know they have the beloved “to

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thank, and so they love him all the more; and if they draw their inspiration from Zeus, then, like the Bacchants, they pour it into the soul of the one they love in order to help him take on as much of their own god’s qualities as possible” (Phaedrus, 253a–b). 52 The lover cares for the beloved not only as a vessel into which the lover’s self can be poured but as a “coparent” who helps the lover see and give birth to beautiful things. For these reasons, even philosophers have reasons to care for others. This is evident in Plato’s portrayal of Socrates, which highlights his preoccupation with the care of others and his eagerness to cultivate young men. Plato’s Socrates links the “talent for philosophy and the guidance of others [hêgemonikos tên phusin; literally, ‘leaderly nature’]” (252e), and he often assumes the role of leader or guide. In urging his listeners to seek others who can help them take care of themselves, Socrates frequently suggests he is the person best able to offer assistance, drawing his interlocutors into deeper association with him. 53 He compares his actions to those of a friend (Lysis, 223b), relative (Apology, 30a, 31b), lover (Alcibiades I, 131e; Lysis, 206c, 210e), and midwife (Theaetetus, 150d– e), claiming that he embodies the caring approach that ought to inform those roles. Both Strauss and Bloom grant this much. Bloom maintains that there are a few to whom the philosopher will actively do good out of love— these are the “young men in whom his soul delights, for they have souls akin to his own and are potential philosophers” (Bloom 1991, p. 411). Strauss similarly asserts that the Platonic political philosopher writes out of love for young potential philosophers, “the puppies of his race” (1952, p. 36). He claims that this compels philosophers to engage in a form of politics, striving to “humanize” society “within the limits of the possible” for the sake of these potential philosophers and the pursuit of philosophy (ibid., p. 17). But in doing so, Strauss argues that philosophers are acting for the sake of their “class interests  .  .  . qua philosophers” (1965, p. 143), suggesting relative indifference to the good of nonphilosophical citizens. Bloom concurs: Platonic philosophers consider the necessity to respect the interests of nonphilosophers and “care for at least a modicum of justice in the city” to be a purely instrumental good and a burdensome duty (1991, pp. 407–11; cf. Strauss 1964, p. 124). The central piece of evidence in favor of this interpretation is Socrates’s claim that philosophers would not wish to rule. It is true that Plato is keen to depreciate the goods that accompany political office, such as power, riches, and popular acclaim, which he thinks are over-

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valued by his contemporaries. In addition, passages in the Republic depict philosophers as reluctant to provide political care by serving as rulers, and Socrates barely participated in public affairs (Republic, 517c– d, 519c– e, 520a– e; Apology, 23b). That said, Plato’s attitude toward political care is more complex than it fi rst appears. 54 For one thing, holding public office is not the only way to take political care of one’s polity and fellow citizens, as evidenced by Socrates’s claim that he is one of the few Athenians “to take up the true political craft and practice the true politics” (Gorgias, 521d; cf. Xenophon 1994, I.6.15). Strauss essentially concedes this point by highlighting the political nature of Socrates’s actions and pointing to the “secret kingship” Plato wishes philosophers to exercise in actually existing cities (Strauss 1952, p. 17). Striving to effect political change by challenging people’s political and moral commitments is a form of political activity in its own right. For another thing, Plato views contemplation as the highest human activity but does not think it can wholly displace other concerns. 55 Philosophers ought not to succumb to the intoxicating nature of philosophic activity to the point of entirely neglecting their bodies (Republic, 498b– c, 535c– d; Timaeus 87c– 88b), the spirited part of the soul (Republic, 410e, 411e–412a, 592a; Statesmen, 307e– 311b), or their responsibilities to others (Republic, 520a–b). 56 Accordingly, while Socrates justifies philosophers’ abstention from direct involvement in politics in most cities, he does so on the grounds that the philosopher lacks any ally in the public arena and would be put to death if he attempted to get involved; instead, he keeps to himself and tries to lead a life free of injustice and impiety (Republic, 496c– d; cf. Apology, 31c– 32a, 36c– d). When Adeimantus remarks that living a just, pious, but purely private life is no small achievement, Socrates responds: “And not the biggest either . . . as long as he doesn’t happen to have a suitable polity; in a suitable one he himself will grow more and he’ll safeguard the things shared in common along with those kept in private” (Republic, 497a). 57 Although there is an onerous side to the provision of political care, it is also an ingredient of one’s full growth. The reason for this is that philosophers retain those elements of erôs that fi nd their expression in care for others; they are not complete without the opportunity to satisfy those passions. And to claim that philosophic erôs extends to other potential philosophers but no further is to draw an overly sharp line in the sand. Strauss concedes this point as well. According to Strauss, the Republic abstracts from erôs, the body, and

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the love of one’s own. The dialogue makes light of the obstacles these human characteristics pose to a rationally organized regime, and it overlooks them in its rarefied picture of what a philosopher is like (Strauss 1964, p. 138). It is this abstraction that makes philosophers seem more reluctant to act politically than they are in actuality, “for one might well say that there is no reason why the philosopher should not engage in political activity out of that kind of love of one’s own which is patriotism” (ibid., p. 128). 58 Given these concessions, it seems to me that the thrust of Strauss’s interpretation, according to which “the Republic supplies the most magnificent cure ever devised for every form of political ambition” (1964, p.  65), is not accurate. A preoccupation with political care is manifest in the way Socrates openly challenges the Athenian polis, and in Plato’s own political activities—Plato himself confessed a passion for politics in the Seventh Letter, 59 authored political dialogues,60 and took multiple trips to Syracuse in order to advise a tyrant. While Plato presents contemplation as the most exalted activity of which human beings are capable, one that diminishes the urgency of other concerns, it transforms the way one cares for others without wholly displacing it.61 Owing to considerations of justice, the generosity that accompanies goodness, the desire for immortality, and feelings of gratitude and affection, every type of human being has reasons to engage in caregiving. This includes the provision of political care, though not necessarily by means of officeholding. In this chapter, I have demonstrated that care is central to Plato’s ethics. Caring for oneself and others, and being cared for by others in turn, is crucial to leading a flourishing life. Successful caregiving presupposes a certain kind of relationship between the carer and the cared for: the carer must assume an attitude of attention, responsibility, and responsiveness to the cared for; the carer must understand the cared for as being in a condition that is mutable and can be improved through the assistance of the carer; and the carer must offer that assistance by discerning the patterns and rhythms that will help the cared for and acting accordingly. For Plato, the relationship between carer and cared for is characterized by an additional feature: the presence of authority or rule. The connection Plato draws between care and rule makes care a central political concept. As I shall show in the next chapter, it is one that decisively shapes his views about the nature and function of government.

Chapter Two

Plato and the Politics of Authority as Care Authority, Political Authority, and Caregiving

I

n Plato’s dialogues, authority and care are fi rmly linked. His philosopher characters argue that the adequate provision of care requires robust hierarchies and the transformation of authoritative social and political institutions. Indeed, for Plato, the primary purpose of authority is the provision of care, and the need for care can justify authority, a position I refer to as “authority as care.” In this chapter, I will exposit Plato’s understanding of authority as care as it applies to authority relations generally. I will then turn to consider its application to political authority in greater depth, showing it underpins his evaluations of different politeias (“regimes” or “constitutions”)—the fundamental structures of authority that give various polities their character. My discussion will focus specifically on his appraisal of the Athenian democracy and the alternative regimes he constructs in the Republic and the Laws. Authority, as I understand it, refers to the capacity to regulate another’s conduct rightfully across a significant sphere of jurisdiction. This presupposes some nontrivial combination of rights to issue commands, to have one’s commands obeyed, to employ coercion, and to have one’s authority supported by third parties. Plato’s dialogues clearly feature authority in this sense of the term. His writings employ terms such as archê (“supreme power, sovereignty, dominion; a magistracy, office”) and kûros (“supreme power, authority”), and they defend the establishment of relations of rule, backed by coercive force, in which one party defers to the judgment of another. In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger

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even goes so far as to assert that “in every gathering, in every community formed for any kind of action, there is always a correct ruler [archonta] in each case” (Laws, 640a) and that “anarchy [anarchian] ought to be removed from the entire life of all human beings and of all beasts that are subject to human beings” (ibid., 942c– d). In keeping with this, strong authority is present in all the political orders Plato praises, and he criticizes cities in which authority is weak or absent (e.g., ibid., 698b, 701a– c). The reason Plato is a proponent of strong authority is that he believes it is necessary for providing care. As I have argued above, Plato depicts the practice of caring for something as one of imparting orderly motion to it. In doing so, the carer must exercise some degree of power over the thing cared for, as intelligent control is required to contravene its natural tendency toward disorder and decay. Plato assumes that insofar as this process of controlling involves command, constraint, and coercion, it is a form of rule. This is true whether the cared-for object is another being or one’s own self. The connection Plato draws between authority and care is particularly evident in “middle” and “late” works, such as the Republic, the Statesman, and the Laws, but it is present in the “early” dialogues as well. Here I differ with commentators who maintain that care in the early dialogues is antiauthoritarian and limited to achieving a reflexive relationship to oneself. Dana Villa, for instance, claims that the early Socrates views care of the self as a kind of self-fashioning. In contrast to later dialogues, such as the Republic, the early Socrates does not relentlessly question others in order to recommend a determinant course of conduct to them or get them to conform to some preexisting model of human flourishing (2001, p. 29). Rather, Socrates wants citizens to lead lives they can reflectively endorse and to refrain from injustice—not “injustice” as defined by philosophic experts, but injustice as it is commonly understood by ordinary individuals and the larger community (ibid., pp. 24, 26). While a vision of care characterized by self- examination and a commitment to one’s own integrity is normatively attractive, there are reasons to doubt that it belongs to the Socrates of the early dialogues. For one, it is anachronistic to suppose Plato understands caring for the self as an individualistic or value-pluralistic project.1 As Albert Joose argues, the aim of ancient philosophers was not to form themselves into individual works of art, as one sometimes gets the impression when reading Foucault, but to transcend their individual-

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ity. That is, not only is self- care bound to a pattern that is independent from me, it also aims to make me part of a universal order that transcends my subjective me, often identified with the divine. (2015, p. 164)

Rather than counsel listeners to formulate their own moral standards and conceptions of the good life, early dialogues depict care for the self as a process of self-mastery, in which one’s appetites are subjugated and one’s irrational parts ordered according to standards that are universal. In addition, these dialogues connect care of the self to the search for authorities who know the true science of what is just, noble, and good. Like contemporary care ethicists, Plato believes that good caregivers must be competent. As Plato understands it, competence requires the possession of expertise, and expertise is the preserve of a few (Apology, 25b). For this reason, Plato’s Socrates regularly couples his exhortations to care for the self with the injunction to search for experts who can help (Laches, 184e–185a, 201a; Theages, 127d–128b). 2 This puts him at odds with the Protagorean position that human beings are equally or almost equally well equipped to judge moral and political questions. 3 Socrates’s admonition to seek advice from those few who are “expert in the care of [therapeian]” bodies and souls does not logically entail the rule of experts, of course (Laches, 185d). One can be an authority in the sense of possessing expertise without having the authority to coerce or command anyone—for instance, a food critic may have especially sound advice about which restaurants to try, but she cannot order people to go there. Even so, Plato suggests there are situations in which others require care, and authority in the more robust sense is required to adequately provide it; in such cases, authority is justified. In Lysis, for instance, Socrates asks the young Lysis why his parents, who love him, do not let him control his own possessions or his person, but instead somebody else rules, “tends [poimainei; literally, ‘shepherds’],” and “takes care of [therapeuei]” them (209a). Lysis responds that this is because he has not come of age, but Socrates counters that the real issue is his lack of expertise: In those areas where we really understand something everybody—Greeks and barbarians, men and women—will trust us, and there we will act just as we choose, and nobody will want to get in our way. There we will be free ourselves, and in control of [archontes; literally, “rule”] others. There things will belong to us, because we will derive some advantage from them. But in areas

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where we haven’t got any understanding, no one will trust us to act as we judge best, but everybody will do their best to stop us, and not only strangers, but also our mother and father and anyone else even more intimate. And there we are going to be subject to the orders of others; there things are not going to be ours because we are not going to derive any advantage from them. (ibid., 210a– c)

Ideally, there would be no need for human beings to rule one another, because each would be capable of ruling him- or herself with a view to what is best. But in fact, not everyone has the capacity to do this. The second-best thing is for individuals with better judgment to exercise authority over those who cannot adequately discern what is good: as Socrates argues in the Republic, “It’s better for everyone to be ruled by something godlike and intelligent, best of all when he has it for his own within himself, but otherwise as something imposed from outside” (Republic, 590d; see also Laws, 627e– 628a, 731e– 732b, 875c– d; Phaedo, 62d– e; Clitophon, 408a–b).4 Hence we do not allow “children . . . to be free until we set up a polity [politeian] within them just as in a city, caring for [therapeusantes] what’s best in them with what’s like it in us until we can replace it with a similar guardian and ruler [phulaka homoion kai archonta] in the child and then set him free” (Republic, 590e– 591a). Plato does not limit this argument to children, however. He maintains that some adults lack the qualities of intellect and character that will enable them to rule themselves well. In Alcibiades I, Socrates contends that “before one acquires virtue it’s better to be ruled [archesthai] by somebody superior than to rule; this applies to men as well as to boys” (135b). And for some adults, the acquisition of virtue will prove impossible. A vicious or ignorant person, Socrates argues, “ought to be a slave to that best person who has the godlike part ruling within himself” (Republic, 590c– d; cf. Clitophon, 408a–b). 5 The relations of rule Plato recommends are not generally despotic in a literal sense. Even when he uses the language of mastery and slavery, often he is not referring to actual slavery but to structures of authority that grant superordinates a high degree of control relative to subordinates (e.g., the Athenian Stranger’s discussion of free citizens as being subject to positive forms of “slavery” and “enslavement” [Laws, 701a– e, 715d, 762e]).6 The amount of relative control that Plato believes is appropriate varies depending on the persons and relationships in question. But all the practices of authority that he commends conform to the principle that it is better for some, including many

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adults, to be ruled by others on the grounds that they are unable to take adequate care of themselves.7 Plato turns to coercive authority because he believes that persuasion is only so effective as a way of caring for others. He argues that experts are likely to have difficulty convincing crowds or persuading ignorant individuals, especially in settings where they are forced to compete with speakers willing to pander to listeners instead of offering sound advice. In keeping with this, the early dialogues are not optimistic about the capacity of Socratic questioning to prompt broader moral or political change; Socrates is, after all, put to death, and the fact that he often provokes hostility and fails to persuade is repeatedly emphasized. Indeed, Plato holds that bad regimes, such as the Athenian democracy, exert a persuasive pressure on the minds of the young such that all but a few will be corrupted. In bad regimes, goods such as health, beauty, and strength lead to dangerous temptations and are therefore liabilities (Republic, 494a–496c). Not even all of those who are fortunate enough to associate with Socrates are immune to corruption (Apology, 25a–b; Alcibiades I, 135e; Republic, 549c– 550b). Hence human beings, many potential philosophers included, require supporting structures of authority if they are to live up to their full potential (Republic, 497b– c, 499b). Josiah Ober argues that Socratic rhetoric is insufficient for the soul-improving politics Plato takes to be desirable and that the Republic embodies Plato’s deeper solution (2011, pp. 212–15). In my view, Ober is correct. For Plato, the weakness of persuasion as a vehicle for care and the destructive influence of bad regimes means that good care requires transformed practices of authority. Plato’s vision is one of authority as care, and it has several important features. First, it only justifies authority where authority truly benefits the recipient of care.8 This issue is at the heart of Socrates’s dispute with Thrasymachus in the fi rst book of the Republic. Against Thrasymachus’s claim that political rule is to the advantage of the ruler, Socrates asserts that “every ruling office [archên], to the extent that it is a ruling office [archê], considers what’s best for no other thing than the one that’s ruled over [archomenô] and cared for [therapeuomenô], in both political and private rule” (Republic, 345d– e). This is similarly manifest in the Eleatic Stranger’s argument that “what is to the benefit of the citizens” is “the truest criterion of correct government of a city, the one according to which the wise and good man will govern the interests of the ruled [archomenôn]” (Statesman, 296d– e). Plato even insists that forms

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of rule that, prima facie, do not appear aimed at the benefit of the ruled, such as the rule of shepherds over sheep and masters over slaves, must abide by these terms if they are to be just (Republic, 345b, 590d). This marks a difference between Plato and Aristotle: the latter asserts that some authority relationships, such as the master/slave relationship, exist primarily for the benefit of the master and that nonhuman animals are for human use.9 Second, Plato’s authority-as- care view justifies authority even in the absence of consent. As I noted above, Plato distinguishes between caring for someone and ministering to his or her pleasures. Concomitantly, he often stresses that true care might be unpleasant for the person cared for and contrary to his or her desires.10 In Gorgias, for instance, Socrates describes care using language that invokes constraint and battle. He contrasts good care for the city, which involves “striving valiantly [diamachesthai; literally, ‘fighting’] with the Athenians to make them as good as possible, like a doctor,” with poor care, which means being “ready to serve [diakonêsonta] them and to associate with them for their gratification” (521a). He also asserts that the task of a true citizen is to redirect the city’s “appetites and not giving in to them, using persuasion or constraint [biazomenoi] to get the citizens to become better” (517b– c).11 The Eleatic Stranger pushes this notion even farther: Doctors provide the clearest parallel. We believe in them whether they cure us with our consent or without it, by cutting or burning or applying some other painful treatment. . . . In all these cases we are no less inclined at all to say they are doctors, so long as they are in charge of us on the basis of expertise, purging or otherwise reducing us, or else building us up—it is no matter, if only each and every one of those who care for [therapeuontes] our bodies acts for our bodies’ good, making them better than they were, and so preserves what is in their care [therapeuomena]. It’s in this way, as I think, and in no other that we’ll lay down the criterion of medicine and of any other sort of rule [archês] whatsoever; it is the only correct criterion. (Statesman, 293b– c; my emphasis)

Thus the Eleatic Stranger maintains that no one has any right to complain if he or she is benefited against his or her will, so long as he or she is truly benefited—consent is not essential (ibid., 296b– 297b). At the same time, Plato thinks that, in practice, it is important to ensure that subordinates are willing to be ruled and cared for.12 Hence the

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cities of the Republic and the Laws make extensive use of education and propaganda to ensure that citizens accept the regime. The reason for this is that, in the absence of voluntary acceptance, would-be “caregivers” are compelled to rule through violence and intimidation. This makes them hated and forces them to preserve their power by keeping the ruled too weak, dependent, and ignorant to rebel, which confl icts with the core aims of care: as Socrates puts it, tyrants do the “opposite of what doctors do” and “eat [their] own children” (Republic, 567a– d, 619c; see also Laws, 697d– 698a, 832c). Authority figures should rule over willing subordinates not because this is required by right but because when one relies on force and fear alone, the measures one must take to overcome opposition ultimately preclude caring well. Indeed, the practical need to secure consent often necessitates compromises that are contrary to what strict justice or right would require—for instance, the Athenian Stranger asserts that the need to prevent civil war and assuage the “discontent of the many” means that lawgivers are compelled to fi ll some public offices by lottery, even though this is an unjust and unreasonable method for selecting officeholders (Laws, 757e– 758a and context; see also 684c). Far from believing it is obligatory in principle, Plato depicts the need to obtain consent as a practical obstacle that is often a barrier to good care. Third, Plato’s authority-as- care vision is “epistocratic,” to borrow a term from David Estlund (2008). That is to say, it justifies authority only when the authority figure possesses some relevant expertise that the subordinate party lacks. By “expertise,” I mean the capacity to reach substantively correct conclusions about what ought to be done with respect to some category of phenomena. (I have chosen this term to describe what Plato has in mind over “knowledge,” “wisdom,” or “virtue” because the qualities that make one fit to command others are a complex mix of intellectual abilities, character excellences, and factual knowledge.) In addition to justifying paternalistic rule, this principle also has the converse implication that no one should be subject to someone inferior to him- or herself in expertise. As the Athenian Stranger puts it, “No law or order is stronger than knowledge, nor is it right for intelligence to be subordinate, or a slave, to anyone, but it should be ruler [archonta] over everything, if indeed it is true and really free according to nature” (Laws, 875c). As Plato points out in the Statesman, this is an essential shortcoming of law, which binds everyone universally, even those who know better than the law does (Statesman, 295c– 297a). For this reason, the Laws contains the only legal code I am aware of that apologizes

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for itself, asking citizens to forgive the lawgiver for the fact that his regulations will not always apply well to their particular situations, and also asking forgiveness for the rulers, who will not always be able to fully carry out the commands of the lawgiver “which he issued in ignorance” (Laws, 925e– 926a). I have argued that, on Plato’s authority-as- care view, authority can be justified by considerations of care when one party is able to provide effective care to another, even in the absence of consent, so long as that party possesses some kind of capacity or expertise the other lacks. Critics have objected that this conclusion does not directly follow. Estlund, for example, has charged Plato with committing the “expert/boss fallacy” of assuming that if you are more skilled or knowledgeable than me regarding some matter, then you ought to have authority over me (2008, p. 22). Granted, if I do not know some fact or lack some skill, I might have good reason to consult someone with superior expertise. But it does not follow I ought to accept whatever that person tells me. Suppose, for example, I am having car troubles, and I decide to see a mechanic. I might not know enough about cars to fi x the problem myself, but I could still be knowledgeable enough to pass judgment on the mechanic’s advice. If the brakes are not working and the mechanic tells me the cause is insufficient windshield wiper fluid, I am certainly entitled to be skeptical. Furthermore, even if I am too ignorant to pass judgment on the advice I receive, it does not follow that I am obligated to act on it. Still less does the expert I consult somehow acquire the right to coerce me. People are well within their rights to take terrible care of their cars, and mechanics do not have the authority to dictate otherwise. Though all of this is true, it does not quite bear on Plato’s argument. Differing levels of expertise do not justify authority in all instances,13 but they can when the expertise in question concerns matters central to one’s well-being, the discrepancy between the parties in question is significant, and the stakes are sufficiently high. For example, we readily grant that authority should be imposed on parties that are truly unable to manage their own affairs or are at serious risk of harming themselves or others—children and individuals with certain mental impairments, for instance. The argument that experts deserve authority holds when authority is the most effective vehicle for providing care and it is morally important that care be provided.14 If I am correct, what is troubling from a contemporary perspective is not the principle that in some circumstances, superior expertise justifies authority but the fact that Plato

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applies it to the political realm in a way that treats mentally sound adults as though they were incompetent. The reason that Plato does so is because adult human beings are not exempt from his general claim that all embodied beings tend to decay without knowledgeable care. Just as bodies begin to break down and require the care of doctors and trainers, so do good things in the soul. A consequence of this is that the education we receive as children, even a correct education in virtue, “tends to slacken  .  .  . and in the course of a lifetime becomes corrupted to a great extent” (Laws, 653c). For these reasons, we require care across the whole spectrum of our needs, throughout the entire course of our lives. Furthermore, to the extent that authority relations are necessary for providing such care, we ought to be subject to them. This is mitigated by Plato’s claim that it is better to rule oneself if possible than to be ruled from without; it is also limited by the pragmatic considerations mentioned above. But because only a few are truly wise and motions that are not guided by intelligence are not good, Plato’s conception of justified authority is not limited by a principled commitment to allowing adults to order their affairs as they please. This has profound implications for Plato’s understanding of how human societies ought to be arranged and what a good political order or politeia requires. Politeia is a critical concept in Greek political thought. This word is usually translated as “regime,” “constitution,” “polity,” or, more rarely, “republic” (e.g., the English title of Plato’s Republic, which is Politeia in Greek). It refers to the fundamental organization of political authority within a given political unit and is particularly associated with the number and selection criteria of its highest offices; for example, monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy are kinds of politeia. But the concept is broader than that. Plato and other Greek thinkers argue that the structure of political authority is connected to the kinds of lives that are possible within a given city,15 associating different regimes with different habits, dispositions, and character traits.16 Plato’s commitment to caring authority that attends to the needs of citizens and cultivates the qualities of character individuals need to live well thus presupposes the proper organization of political authority, and this decisively shapes his evaluation of different regimes. One of the regimes that most preoccupies Plato belongs to the city in which he lived. Plato was a long-standing critic of Athenian democracy, and his commitment to authority as care underpins his deepest objections. In Athens, the dêmos wields tremendous power: the Athenian

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assembly is open to all free adult male citizens, and it has the power to conduct all manner of official business by majority vote; any male citizen who wishes to address the assembly may do so, the people play a significant role in trying cases through the Athenian judicial system’s large juries, and many important magistrates are selected by lottery. Plato’s philosopher characters repeatedly insist that selection by lot and majority rule are not sensible ways to make political decisions, as only a few individuals are truly knowledgeable about political matters (Statesman, 298a– 299a; Laches, 184e; Laws, 757d– 758a). Nor can popular majorities be counted on to heed the advice of experts. In Plato’s view, the problem with an institution like the Athenian assembly is that it privileges flattery over care. By forcing experts to compete with nonexperts before a crowd, this speech situation ultimately advantages demagogues over those who are truly concerned with the well-being of the citizen body and are willing to say things that displease it (Gorgias, 502e, 515b– 517a; Republic, 558b, 562d– 563b; Laws, 700a– 701c). The Athenian courts provide crowd-pleasing orators with similar opportunities for grandstanding. As a result, the Athenians do not calibrate their punishments to improve those they punish and protect the city. Instead, they are rendered overly or insufficiently punitive by emotions such as anger and pity (Apology, 32b, 34c– 35d, 36d– e, 38d– e; Gorgias, 522b– c). Even more troublingly for Plato, the very idea of authority and expertise are undermined. Used to being pandered and catered to, the dêmos comes to believe that no one has the right to tell it what to do or how to live: from “an excessively brazen freedom,” citizens derive the “opinion that everyone is wise in everything” and become shameless as a result (Laws, 701a–b). The result is that not only are competent caregivers ignored but establishing competent caring authority within the self becomes impossible: “If anyone says that some pleasures come from beautiful and good desires and others from worthless ones, and that one should engage in and honor the former but curb and enslave the latter. . . . [The democratic man] shakes his head at all these things and insists all pleasures are alike and deserve to be honored equally” (Republic, 561b– c). In a city fi lled with such citizens, common life is reduced to entertainment, and the regime degenerates into a “wretched theatocracy” (Laws, 701a). Partially in response to Athens’s shortcomings, Plato imagines alternative regimes capable of living up to his demanding criteria. He rejects obvious alternatives such as oligarchy and tyranny—while Plato doubts

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the dêmos’s competence to care for itself, he is even more skeptical of wealthy elites and avaricious rulers (e.g., Statesman, 300e, 302e– 303b; Seventh Letter, 324c– d). Plato maintains that only a few individuals are truly capable of caring for souls and that these individuals are philosophers (Apology, 25b; Republic, 473c– d; Statesman, 292e– 293a; cf. Gorgias, 521d).17 The very qualities that make the philosophic life the proper end of care—the fact that the perfect philosopher is knowledgeable, intelligent, and has an excellent character—make philosophers uniquely suited to provide it. Hence the Republic’s Socrates argues in favor of granting political power to a philosopher elite, empowering them to rule as kings and to appoint their own successors. This proposal is a straightforward endorsement of epistocratic rule for the sake of authority as care. As Socrates puts it, it is likely that “no city or polity, and likewise no man either, would ever reach fulfi llment until by chance some necessity possesses those few philosophers who aren’t depraved, but are now called useless, to take into their care [epimelêthênai] the running of a city whether they want to or not” (Republic, 499b– c). The Laws, which outlines a “second-best” regime, is a more complicated case, and one that might appear to constitute an exception to the authority-as- care position I outlined above. Whereas the Republic’s philosopher-kings appoint their own successors, most of the Laws’s rulers are either appointed by elected officials or elected by the citizens themselves. In light of this, some interpreters have concluded that Plato has either abandoned his commitment to epistocracy or that he has changed his mind about the political competence of ordinary citizens and now believes they are capable of selecting suitably expert leaders (e.g., Dodds 1973; Vlastos 1981; Annas and Waterfield 1995, pp. xvii–xx; Bobonich 2002; Samaras 2002). Yet I believe it would be a mistake to draw either of these conclusions. Plato has not abandoned his epistocratic view of justified authority—the Laws contains numerous statements grounding the right to rule in the possession of expertise and the capacity to provide needed care (e.g., Laws, 713a– 714a, 875c– d). Nor does the Laws demonstrate that Plato has revised his ideas about the political capacity of nonphilosophic citizens. As I have argued at length elsewhere, in the absence of philosopher-kings, Plato envisions the election of magistrates as a second-best way of ensuring loyalty to the laws rather than to a particular faction within the polity, and he tries to mitigate the need for wise or exceptional rulers by means of the wisdom embodied in the laws themselves (Fraistat 2015).18

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Thus both the Republic and the Laws reflect Plato’s conception of authority as care in the structure of their regimes: they empower epistocratic elites to rule the rest of the population; they link the legitimacy of political authority to its capacity to benefit citizens; and they take measures to secure consent although this is not required by—and is sometimes even contrary to—strict justice. As I shall argue in the next section, authority as care not only shapes Plato’s convictions concerning desirable politeias but is manifest in the particular political institutions and policies he proposes in order to provide care to citizens.

The Substance of Political Care Having shown how care influences the structure of Plato’s regimes, in this section, I will show how it underpins his specific institutional and legal proposals. Plato invokes the language of care in this context for many of the same reasons he employs it elsewhere: to promote well-being by calling for increased attention, a greater sense of responsibility, and reconsideration of what true flourishing entails. As I shall demonstrate, he proposes an attendant transformation of existing practices and priorities in order to ensure that citizens are well cared for. He also takes pains to cultivate caring dispositions and behaviors among the citizen body, viewing the propensity to care for one another as essential to a desirable civic culture. To highlight the unique ways Plato’s beliefs about care affect his thinking about political institutions and policies, it is useful to compare what he advocated with contemporaneous Athenian practice. Plato’s use of caregiving language in a political context is not unprecedented in Athenian political thought. For Athenians, whether citizens took proper care of their family, friends, and dependents was a matter of public concern. The way in which citizens discharged their “private” caregiving responsibilities was considered a good indicator of how they might behave if they were granted political office (Roisman 2005, p. 56).19 One reason for this was that individuals’ affective bonds to their family and friends were thought to be particularly strong—a man capable of mistreating his own parents would certainly have no scruple against abusing his fellow citizens. 20 Another reason is that the dependents to whom the kurios, the male head of the household, owed care were under his power; his conduct toward them demonstrated how he exercised author-

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ity when entrusted with it. These concerns are evident in Athenian political and legal rhetoric, as well as in the practice of dokimasia (“examination” or “scrutiny”). Dokimasia was a formal review to which all candidates for public office were subject, and it included an official “inquiry into how the candidate treated his parents” (ibid., p. 56). Citizens had to meet similar criteria in order to speak publicly: Athenian law “debarred men from speaking in public if they had maltreated their parents . . . or squandered their patrimony” (ibid., p. 141). In addition, the Athenian polis was also concerned with the family life of its citizens and the perpetuation of oikoi (“households”) (ibid., 27n6; Roisman cites Lysias 1930, 7.41; Isocrates 1980, 7.42; Andocides 1941, 1.144–46; Lycurgus 1954, 125). The polis might step in when an oikos lacked sufficient resources, members were dead or absent, or individuals failed to carry out the tasks expected of them. For instance, Athenian law “required Athenians to provide food and lodging for their parents when they were alive and proper burial when they died” (Golden 2015, Kindle locations 1969– 77). 21 Sons who failed to do so were punished with atimia, the loss of citizenship rights (Hansen 1999, p. 101). The polis also acted to protect women and children if they lacked suitable guardians; Demosthenes mentions an Athenian law according to which the archon was expected to “take charge of [epimeleisthô] orphans and of heiresses and of families that are becoming extinct, and of all women who remain in the houses of their deceased husbands, declaring that they are pregnant. Let him take charge of [epimeleisthô] these, and not suffer anyone to do any outrage to them” (Demosthenes [1939b], 43.75; see also Demosthenes [1939a], 35.28). The Athenians showed particular concern for the families of individuals who had performed some valuable service on behalf of the polity. If a citizen died in battle, the city assumed responsibility for the upbringing of any underage sons (Hansen 1999, p. 98), and on a few occasions Athens “provided dowries for daughters of men who had served the state” (Pomeroy 2011, Kindle locations 1501– 3). As Mark Golden explains, On the ideological level, the land of Attica is sometimes described as mother and the political community as mother or (more frequently) father of all Athenians. As such, the city is concerned with the birth of children, the support of boys (at least) whose fathers were killed in war (or in restoring the democracy at the end of the fi fth century), and the dowering of the daughters of those who had earned its thanks. . . . In all these ways, both boys and girls

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are clearly regarded as the children of the polis, not the family’s alone. (2015, Kindle locations 970– 79)

Indeed, the obligation to provide care ran both ways—just as the polis was expected to care for those who performed valuable services on its behalf, Athenians often argued that the polis “deserves the support, tropheia, owed to parents in return” (Golden 2015, Kindle locations 970– 79). In Athenian political discourse, one of the principal sources of citizens’ obligations to the polis is the gratitude they owe for the care it bestowed upon them. Plato’s intervention is to take this language and amplify it, rendering care not merely an obligation to and of the polis but its central raisond’être. Plato defi nes politics itself as a form of care, even arguing that it is the architectonic art of caring for human beings. In the Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger claims that there are many artists, such as merchants, farmers, millers, bakers, gymnastic trainers, and doctors, who contend against the politician “that they care for [epimelountai] human rearing” (Statesman, 268a; emphasis in original). While these arts do provide care, the Eleatic Stranger maintains that they are ultimately subordinate to the political art. The other arts “control [archousai] neither each other nor themselves, but each is concerned with some individual practical activity of its own”; the political art, by contrast, “controls [archousan] all of these, and the laws, and cares for [epimeloumenên] every aspect of things in the city” (ibid., 305d– e; see Gorgias, 517c– 518d for a similar argument).22 In identifying the political art as architectonic, Plato’s political philosophy evinces comprehensive concern for the well-being of citizens: the political art must care for “every aspect” of things in the city; it ought to provide citizens with “all the good things” (Laws, 631b). As the Statesman clarifies, this does not mean politicians and public officials ought to perform every caregiving task themselves but that they must ensure citizens are well cared for through the creation and regulation of subordinate caring practices (305d). Even so, the degree of political responsibility Plato calls for represents a marked increase relative to Athenian practice. According to Thucydides, Pericles had praised the Athenians on the grounds that, with respect to their private conduct, they do not exercise “a jealous surveillance over each other” and do not “feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes” (1910, 2.37). The claim that Athenians do not care about the private lives of

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their fellow citizens is certainly an exaggeration, given the polis’s attention to family life and its concern with sexual propriety. Nevertheless, compared to a polis such as Sparta, and to the high level of regulation Plato believes is appropriate, the Athenians take a relatively hands- off approach. Both Socrates and the Athenian Stranger consider this a failing and castigate democratic Athens accordingly (e.g., Republic, 562c– 563e; Laws, 700a– 701c). As the Athenian Stranger argues, Whoever intends to promulgate laws for cities, and regulate how men should act in regard to public and common actions, but supposes he need not apply a degree of compulsion to the private things, supposing that each can live his daily life as he wishes, that it’s not necessary for everything to be ordered— whoever leaves the private things unregulated by law and believes the people will be willing to live with the common and public things regulated by the laws—is incorrect in his thinking. (Laws, 780a)

This is a key reason why Plato’s philosopher characters profess admiration for the Spartan and Cretan regimes, often to the detriment of the Athenian democracy (Crito, 52e; Minos, 320b, 321b; Republic, 544c; Laws, 712c– 713a). Plato’s political writings reflect his comprehensive concern through policies and institutions designed to (1) ensure the adequate provision of material goods, (2) educate citizens, and (3) manage the quantity and “quality” of the population. In Plato’s view, Athens is insufficiently attentive to the distribution of wealth, permitting a few to amass great wealth and others to fall into poverty. His philosopher characters, by contrast, repeatedly condemn both riches and poverty for their physical and psychological consequences; they pay careful attention to the problem of meeting citizens’ needs without encouraging luxury or excess (Republic, 421c– d, 422a– c; Laws, 728e– 729b). To address this problem, the Republic’s regime bans private households among the guardian class, instead substituting a system whereby they receive the goods they require on a regular basis from other citizens (416d– e). In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger does not abolish private households. Although communism would be ideal, the city he is outlining, which is named Magnesia, is being founded in circumstances that preclude it (Laws, 739c– e, 807b). Instead, he invents a second-best solution intended to guarantee that every citizen is provided for, dividing the city into 5,040 households with equal allotments of land (ibid., 739e– 740a). In order to ensure that rough

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material equality persists beyond the founding generation, he specifies that each family is to have only one heir so that allotments will not be divided. 23 He also takes care that everyone has sufficient nourishment by pooling the country’s food production and then allocating it to citizens, slaves, and nonhuman animals in suitable portions (ibid., 847e– 848c). In Magnesia, “everyone is to possess the necessities” (ibid., 774c). 24 Plato’s polities also create systems of public education, which Sparta had but Athens lacked. 25 The Athenian Stranger explains that in Magnesia, “it will not be left up to the father’s wish to decide who shall attend and whose education shall be neglected, but rather, as the saying goes, ‘every man and child insofar as he is able’ must of necessity become educated, on the grounds that they belong more to the city than to those who generated them” (ibid., 804d, 810a). Hence the Laws creates a magistrate called the “Supervisor [epimelêtês] of Education,” whose position is “by far the greatest of the highest offices in the city” (ibid., 765d– e). One of the most notable features of the Republic and the Laws is that the public education they outline is to apply to women as well as men. As the Athenian Stranger argues, “A lawgiver must be complete, and not half a lawgiver; to let the female live in luxury, spend money, and follow disorderly pursuits, while supervising [epimelêthenta] the male, is to leave the city with only about half of a completely happy life instead of double that” (Laws, 806c; see also ibid., 780e– 781b, 804e– 806e; and Republic, 451d–457c). Both Athens and Sparta deserve criticism on this score, as neither city adequately attends to the education of its female citizens. Education, for Plato, includes care for bodies, and this is a process that begins in infancy. Whereas Athens allows parents and nurses to do as they please, the Republic’s utopian city Kallipolis entrusts public officials with establishing and supervising a wet-nursing system (Republic 460c– d). The Laws tries to influence the conduct of parents through public honors and dishonors, encouraging mothers to exercise regularly while pregnant and avoid extreme pleasures or pains; it also calls for nurses to continually nurse and rock young children (Laws, 789a– 790d, 792e; cf. Timaeus, 89a–b). As the guardians grow older, the Republic prescribes the forms of gymnastics they must undergo for the sake of bodily health and regulates what foods they may consume (Republic, 404a– e). Similarly, the Laws’s imagined city Magnesia asserts control over free citizens’ diets, and it mandates gymnastic exercises to promote bodily health and prepare them to defend themselves (Laws, 674c, 775b– e, 794d– 796b, 804c– 805a).

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But above all, the Republic and the Laws are concerned with citizens’ souls. According to the Athenian Stranger, “We do not hold, as the many do, that preservation and mere existence are what is most honorable for human beings; what is most honorable is for them to become as excellent as possible and to remain so for as long a time as they may exist” (Laws, 707d). In keeping with this, Kallipolis and Magnesia take the inculcation of ethical and intellectual virtue as central political goals. Both dialogues outline musical and gymnastic educational schemes designed to foster virtues such as courage and moderation. Musical and imitative works will be subject to censorship. In the Laws, even children’s games are supervised by public officials (ibid., 794a). As for the intellect, the Republic and the Laws mandate instruction in arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy (Republic, 525a– 528e; Laws, 747a– c, 809b– 810c, 817e– 818a); in Kallipolis, this regulation applies to the entire guardian class and in Magnesia, to all free citizens. Plato does not believe all human beings have an equal capacity for virtue, and the Republic and the Laws do not attempt to educate everyone to the same degree. For instance, neither dialogue provides much detail regarding the education of its city’s laboring class, implying that this is not an important political priority. (In the Laws, the laboring class is made up of slaves and resident aliens; in the Republic, labor is carried out by a “producer” class composed of free citizens.)26 Both regimes also introduce a further division into the class that is educated. The Republic separates the guardians into a “gold-souled” ruling class and a lesser class of “silver-souled” auxiliaries or helpers (414b–415a); in its fi nal book, the Laws introduces a similar distinction between rulers in the full sense and those who are their assistants (968a). While Magnesia’s free citizens and Kallipolis’s silver souls will be taught arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, a select few will go on to receive a “more precise education” that exposes them to philosophical dialectic (Laws, 965a–b; cf. Republic 503b– 511e., 537b– d). The ultimate aim of Platonic care is to bring each individual as close to the perfect philosopher as is possible for him or her, and Kallipolis and Magnesia alone among cities take this as a central goal (Republic, 520b; Laws, 967d– 969c). 27 Plato’s concern with the well-being of citizens also leads him to advocate political management of human reproduction. In the Republic, Socrates argues that the rulers will have to attend to the mating and breeding of citizens just as we do with nonhuman animals. A dog breeder does not allow his dogs to mate indiscriminately but encourages

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the best dogs to mate more and the worst dogs less; nor does he permit his animals to reproduce when they are too young or too old but when they are in their prime (Republic, 459a–b). Kallipolis applies these principles to the breeding of human beings. Men and women who mate outside of their prime childbearing years must not “bring forth even a single fetus into the light of day, if one is conceived, and if any is forced on them, to handle it on the understanding that there’s to be no raising of such a child” (ibid., 461b– c). In addition, the regime provides its best citizens with better and more frequent opportunities to mate. The offspring of these favored citizens will be turned over to “nurses who live separately in a certain part of the city; but the offspring of the worse sort of people, and any of the others that might have been born with defects, they’ll hide away in a place not spoken of and not seen, as is fitting” (ibid., 460c). 28 Socrates assumes that citizens will for the most part give birth to children that resemble them in body and soul; individuals with “gold” souls will give birth to gold-souled children and so on. But the presumption that children will resemble their parents is defeasible, and youths ought to be reclassified if they merit a different position in the regime’s class structure (ibid., 415a– c). While the Laws permits citizens to choose marriage partners, it still provides them with advice about whom to marry with an eye toward what is best for the community (Laws, 773a– e; cf. Statesman, 310b– e). It also creates a magistracy to control population levels within and between households (Laws, 740b– d). These magistrates will keep the number of households as close to 5,040 as possible, preserving each of them as viable economic units by redistributing children from families that have too many to those that have too few, encouraging contraception or increased fertility as needed, and adjusting the overall number of citizens through immigration or colonization (ibid., 740b– 741a). The Athenian Stranger also aspires to control the “quality” of the founding generation, while acknowledging that this will prove difficult in Magnesia’s case: With regard to every herd, one who takes up the task of shepherd or cowherd or horse breeder or any other such things will never attempt to care for [therapeuein] his charges otherwise than by fi rst instituting the purge appropriate to each group. Picking out the healthy from those who are not, and the well born from those not well born, he will send the latter away to other herds and direct his care [therapeusei] to the former. He understands that his

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labor would be in vain and endless, as regards both the body and the souls, if someone didn’t carry out a purification by the appropriate means. . . . The best method is painful, like medicines of this kind, since it involves punishing with justice and retribution, and completes the retribution by means of death and exile. That is how the greatest offenders, those who are incurable and who represent the greatest harm to the city, are usually gotten rid of. But our method of purification is one of the gentler. (Ibid., 735b– e; cf. Statesman, 308d– 309b).

According to the Athenian Stranger, just as some people are sick in their bodies, some are sick (i.e., vice-ridden) in their souls. Citizens who can be cured of their body’s sickness or their soul’s viciousness must be cared for (Laws, 862c). Indeed, this is the point of the criminal justice system—it should administer punishments in order to improve people (ibid., 854d). At the same time, polities ought to do their best to exclude the incurable, not admitting such persons into the city if possible. As for incurable citizens and residents, the city ought to withhold care in the case of incurable bodies and impose death or exile in the case of incurable souls (ibid., 862e– 863a, 942a, 957e– 958a; Republic, 410a). The Athenian Stranger justifies this harsh treatment not only by arguing those who are incurably “sick” in body or soul might harm others but by claiming death is better for the “sick” themselves (Laws, 854a– 855a; see also Gorgias, 511e– 512a; Republic, 407c– e, 409e–410a; Clitophon, 408a). 29 He thereby inadvertently showcases one of the dangers with medicalizing criminal justice and judicializing medicine: while a criminal justice system whose goal is reformation and rehabilitation is laudable, linking justice or medicine to a holistic concern with well-being leads to eugenics when coupled with the conviction that some lives are literally not worth living and that this may be determined by “experts.” Plato’s regimes strive to care for bodies and souls through the direct exercise of political authority, but they also encourage citizens to take better care of one another. As was noted above, Athenian political discourse invoked caregiving language to ground the mutual obligations of polis and citizen. Plato extends this language by applying it to relations between citizens and underpinning it with legal obligations. One of Plato’s key concerns is to promote “political friendship,” a feeling of affection and a disposition to help, throughout the citizen body (e.g., Laws, 701d). Plato scholars have tended to focus on Plato’s efforts to foster political friendship by promoting consensus and conformity. While this is

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undoubtedly a key part of Plato’s approach (e.g., Republic, 423e–424a; Laws, 739c– e), the other dimension is to encourage a sense of caring reciprocity. The Republic and the Laws encourage individuals to pay increased attention to and assume a greater sense of responsibility for the well-being of their fellow citizens. The cities also try to foster a sense that one is being cared for in turn. One way Plato strives to cultivate a higher standard of mutual care is by strengthening the feelings of affection and obligation Greeks were expected to demonstrate toward close family members and extending them to a broader range of people. As Matthew Christ argues, scholars have not fully appreciated the extent to which Plato’s “presentation of ideal citizen relations provides an alternative to, and critique of, the model embraced by the Athenian democracy. . . . Plato embraces the idea that citizens should have an intimate, familial bond with one another, and in keeping with this should engage in mutual support” (2012, p. 64). 30 For instance, the Republic’s Socrates promulgates an official myth maintaining that every citizen is born from the earth; in view of this, citizens ought to regard the land as “a mother and nurse” and “take thought on behalf of the rest of the citizens as their earthborn siblings” (414e). The Athenians had their own myths according to which the city’s original inhabitants were born from the earth. Christ argues that while Athenian autochthonic myths speak of the land and its inhabitants using the language of mother and child, they do not explicitly claim that the citizens are siblings (2012, pp. 48–49, 65). Thus Plato’s emphasis on citizens’ brother- and sisterhood sets him apart. The sense of common kinship he promulgates is deepened by the city’s communistic family structure. In Kallipolis, no guardian is to know who his or her parents are but will apply the name “father” and “mother” to everyone who conceived a child around the time he or she must have been conceived; furthermore, children born around the same time must consider each other siblings (Republic, 461d– e). Having broadened kinship to embrace a much wider circle of people than is traditional, Socrates elicits Glaucon’s agreement that they are not “legislating only the names of kinship for them,” but “also the performing of all the actions that follow from the names” (ibid., 463c– d). These actions include “all the things custom calls for about respect for fathers and about taking care of [kêdomonias] parents and needing to be obedient to them” (ibid.). And in general, younger individuals will refrain from assaulting anyone older out of “fear and respect, respect on

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the grounds that it bars him from laying a hand on parents, and fear that others would come to the defense of the one who suffered it, some as sons, some as brothers, and some as fathers” (ibid., 465b). 31 Greek norms about coming to the defense of one’s family members are thereby extended throughout the citizen body. In the Laws, the private household remains intact, and the Athenian Stranger strives to buttress caring relations within the family. He does so by strengthening legal obligations to family members, subjecting households to increased oversight, and creating myths designed to encourage caring relations. According to the Athenian Stranger, newly married couples ought to be supervised by female officials, who will ensure they are behaving responsibly during their reproductive years, going “into the houses of the young people, and by exhortations and threats prevent[ing] them from doing anything wrong or foolish” (Laws, 784c). He tightens the requirements of marital fidelity considerably relative to Athens—the Athenian Stranger cracks down upon extramarital sex, which Athens permitted citizen men but not citizen women, 32 and attempts to ban pederasty (ibid., 838e– 839a, 840d– 841e). In addition, he calls for stateprovided marriage counseling: if husbands and wives are having trouble getting along, they are to be “constantly supervised [epimeleisthai]” by magistrates with the aim of reconciling them (ibid., 930a). 33 As for the parent- child relationship, the Athenian Stranger conceptualizes it in terms of mutual care and attempts to reinforce it. He argues that parents undertake “cares [epimeleias] and laborious pains” on behalf of their children, and in return children must pay back these “ancient loans” by “returning help to the ancient ones when they especially need it, in their old age” (ibid., 717c). Accordingly, the Athenian Stranger condemns “neglect [amelein]” of parents, comparing them to a living shrine that must be cared for (therapeuô) in the correct way (ibid., 930e– 931a, 931e). Anyone who neglects his or her parents ought to be reported; if a free citizen knows of the neglect but does not inform the authorities, he or she may also be prosecuted (ibid., 932d). Additional laws forbid violence toward parents and penalize bystanders who fail to prevent it (ibid., 881b– e). Furthermore, a slave who informs the magistrates of either crime will be freed at public expense (ibid., 881c, 932d). These laws hold bystanders to a higher standard than Athens did, which did not punish nonrelatives for failing to act as Good Samaritans or offer comparable rewards for informers. Like Socrates, the Athenian Stranger also expands the language of

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kinship to include nonrelatives. He maintains that “whoever exceeds us by twenty years in age, male or female, should be considered as a father or a mother” (Laws, 879c). One must not strike such a person, and someone who happens upon an elder and a younger individual fighting is legally obliged to intervene (ibid., 879d, 880b). The Athenian Stranger’s discussion of orphans is similar. In Magnesia, orphans will have legal guardians appointed for them, and those guardians are in turn supervised by the city’s highest officials, the Guardians of the Laws. The Guardians of the Laws are meant to serve as “arbitrators and fathers for the male and female orphans” and “supervise [epimeleisthai] them as if they were their own” (ibid., 926c– e; also 924a– c). The Athenian Stranger proclaims: Whoever should be the guardian of a male or female, and whoever among the Guardians of the Laws should stand guard over and supervise [epimelêtai] an orphan, shall prize the one whose fortune it is to be an orphan no less than his own children, and supervise [epimeleisthô] the goods of the ward [trephomenou] no worse than his own, or, indeed, better than his own, with a spirited zeal. Everyone is to serve as guardian keeping this single law regarding orphans. (Ibid., 928a– b)

In this spirit, the law mandates that anyone can bring a suit against someone who harms or is “careless [amelein]” in his or her treatment of an orphan, and a person convicted must pay double or even quadruple the damages. Orphans who believe that they were harmed or neglected can bring a suit against their guardians themselves within five years of reaching majority (ibid., 927d, 928b). This is accompanied by an official myth according to which the gods and the spirits of deceased parents watch over orphaned children, honoring those who treat them well and punishing those who harm them (ibid., 927a– c). Another way Plato encourages political friendship is by encouraging citizens to think of the regimes’ class systems and the circulation of goods in caring terms. 34 Both the Laws and the Republic discourage citizens from thinking of their possessions as truly “theirs,” instead promoting a stewardship mentality that treats property as a usufruct whose purpose is the care and nourishment of human beings. As I noted above, the Republic teaches its citizens that the land is their common “mother and nurse” (414e; also 470d). The philosopher-kings are informed that they are obligated “to care for [epimeleisthai] the other people and

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watch over them” in order to repay the city for its nourishment (tropheia) (ibid., 520a–b). The guardian class is to consider the producer class “free friends and providers of sustenance [tropheas]” (ibid., 547c; also 463b); the producers are to consider the guardians saviors and helpers (sôtêras te kai epikourous) (ibid., 463a). This mentality is fostered by the myth of the metals: Socrates tells the citizens of Kallipolis a “noble lie” according to which the gods fashioned each of them beneath the earth with a metal in his or her soul corresponding to one of Kallipolis’s different classes (i.e., the gold-souled rulers, the silver-souled helpers or auxiliaries, and the bronze- or iron-souled producers). The purpose of this lie is to get them to regard one another as brothers and sisters who occupy different places in the regime’s class structure by divine design, thereby encouraging them to care (kêdesthai) more for the city and one another (ibid., 417d, 519e– 520a). In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger explains that each person entrusted with a plot of land “must consider his share to be at the same time the common property of the whole city, and must cherish [therapeuein] his land, as a part of the fatherland, more than children cherish their mother” (Laws, 740a; see also 877d). 35 This is also evident in the admonition he delivers to any parent who resents the regime’s strict inheritance laws: I, at any rate, being the lawgiver, ordain that neither yourselves nor this property belong to you, but that they belong rather to your entire family, both past and future, and that to an even higher degree the entire family, as well as the property, belong to the city. Since this is the way things are, I will never voluntarily go along if someone imposes upon you through flattery when you’re sick and tottering with old age, and persuades you to make a will contrary to what is for the best; instead, I will legislate with a view to what is best for the entire city and family, and with a view to all this, will justly assign a lower rank to what belongs to each individual. (Ibid., 923a– b)36

This reproach complements an earlier passage informing every man who has just reached adulthood “that he must consider all his acquisitions and possessions as belonging to those who engendered and nourished [threpsamenôn] him; he should strive with all his power to devote these things to their service” (ibid., 717c). Caring language is manifest even in the Athenian Stranger’s discussion of commerce and artisanship. While he is wary of the corrupting

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effects of retail trade, he nevertheless argues that it is honorable insofar as it “creates evenness and symmetry in the distribution of any sorts of goods that are asymmetrical and uneven in distribution” and provides “help for all the needs, and evenness in the distribution of property” (ibid., 918b– c). Retail trade is often considered disreputable because avaricious individuals engage in it, but if it were practiced according to an “uncorrupted principle, all such activities would be honored in the guise of a mother and nurse” (ibid., 918e– 919a). 37 The Athenian Stranger similarly praises craftsmen as men who “continually take care of [therapeuontes] the country and the populace . . . by bringing into being tools and works for pay” (ibid., 920e). He thereby reinforces his constant contention that the purpose of property and the circulation of goods is not to enable some individuals to amass wealth but to nourish and support the population. One striking facet of Plato’s concern to cultivate caring relations between citizens is that it gives rise to practices of censorship. For instance, the Athenian Stranger cracks down on abusive language, punishing citizens who slander or insult others in public. Insulting jests can only be uttered by individuals given explicit legal permission to write songs about other people, and even then they must jest lightly and without passion (ibid., 935a– 936b). This constitutes a remarkably early attempt to legislate civility for the sake of care concerns rather than honor concerns: Plato’s primary intention is to discourage rancor and hateful attitudes, not to punish defamatory lies or protect personal reputations. (The Athenian does not permit offenders to escape punishment by proving their insulting statements are true, as one can in slander or libel cases.) Thus these provisions are closer in spirit to modern laws against hate speech than to prohibitions against slander, libel, and lèse-majesté. Another way considerations of care limit speech in Plato’s regimes is that they render him cautious about introducing citizens to dialectic. In the Republic, Socrates argues that philosophy can be dangerous. The regime has encouraged its citizens to care for one another by means of authoritative teachings about caring gods; these tales are not demonstrably true and in some cases patently false. In a complex analogy, he compares a citizen who believes these myths to a young man who falsely believes his adoptive parents are his birth parents. For so long as the young man believes this, he would “have more respect for his father and mother, and the rest of his apparent family, than for the flatterers, and be less apt to neglect the needy among them, less inclined to do or say anything out

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of line to them, and less likely to disobey them than the flatterers about anything major, at the time when he didn’t know the truth” (Republic, 538a–b). But if he were to learn the truth, then regarding his father “and the others made out to be his family, unless he were thoroughly decent by nature, he wouldn’t even care [melein] about them” (ibid., 538c). It is the same with the city, which similarly ensures the loyalty of youths by means of myths and falsehoods. Because dialectic unsettles opinions and undermines trust in authoritative beliefs, only those citizens who have been thoroughly tested and have reached an appropriate age, which Socrates sets at thirty, can safely be exposed (ibid., 538d– e). The Athenian Stranger evinces a similar concern with his claim that “there is a danger in imbuing the children with much learning” (Laws, 811b; see also ibid., 819a). As these passages make clear, Plato perceives a tension between caring for citizens by cultivating their intellect and encouraging political friendship, which he addresses through institutional mechanisms designed to introduce philosophy to a select few while withholding it from those he believes are unsuited. In this section, I have argued that Plato draws upon an Athenian discourse of political care but extends and transforms it. Criticizing Athenian political structures for neglecting the bodies and souls of its citizens, the Republic and the Laws outline utopian alternatives that assume comprehensive responsibility for the well-being of citizens. They strive to promote human flourishing through direct political regulation of education, reproduction, and economic distribution, as well as a carebased understanding of criminal justice. Furthermore, they cultivate a higher standard of civic care, not only encouraging but legally obligating citizens to take a greater degree of responsibility for the well-being of their fellows. In the next section, I will highlight what I take to be the strengths and shortcomings of Plato’s care-based politics and consider the implications of his political thought for developing a caring politics today.

Conclusion Care is a central category in Plato’s writings, one he uses to conceptualize such seemingly disparate phenomena as the soul’s relation to the body, an individual’s relation to him- or herself, and the way citizens relate to one another. It grounds his understanding of what constitutes

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legitimate authority, and the very heart of his political program consists in increasing the quantity and quality of care human beings take of themselves and one other. There is much of interest in Plato’s view, but there is also much to criticize. His conception of care and his concomitant political proposals do not adequately embody the care- ethical virtue of responsiveness or the liberal values of freedom and equality. While Plato is by no means oblivious to the fact that many individuals are tempted to exercise power tyrannically, he is excessively optimistic about the capacity of experts to care for their charges without being responsive to them—that is, without soliciting their input or being held accountable to them. Furthermore, he endorses strikingly invasive practices that are objectionable in themselves and seem quite likely to be abused, such as many of his regulations concerning family life, sexuality, and reproduction. Nor do Plato’s regimes afford citizens sufficient room to develop the capacity for critical thought. 38 Finally, the form of care he envisions is oriented toward a very specific vision of the good life, which leads him to devalue other lives to the point of considering some worse than death. 39 The oppressive streak in Plato’s political thought fi nds its source in the fact that he sets a high and quite narrow standard for political care, has a low estimation of most people’s ability to judge for themselves, and attaches little weight to the value of motions that are not guided by intelligence, associating them with disorderly matter or body. In my view, he is mistaken on each of these points, and the following chapters turn to Rousseau and Godwin for accounts of political care that better address them. Despite these failings, Plato’s thought contains insights that usefully challenge contemporary liberalism and care ethics regarding (1) the link between caring for oneself and caring for others and (2) the relationship among care, expertise, and authority. The connection Plato makes between caring for the self and caring for others runs counter to the atomistic, self-interested conception of the self that appears in minimalliberal theories. Plato links care to flourishing in a way that highlights our mutual interdependence and the value of caregiving activity. He argues persuasively that care contributes to the well-being not only of those who receive it but those who provide it. Caregiving activities of both the political and nonpolitical variety help us satisfy our desires to do good, express affection, discharge duties, connect to others, expand our sense of self, and leave a lasting mark on the world. Most provocatively, his account of erôs blurs the difference between caring for the self

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and caring for others, providing a metaphysically deep justification for other- oriented care. In Plato’s view, we are not in- dividuals, but divisible selves that spill over into others and are “spilled into” by others in turn. This understanding of the self undercuts the liberal tendency to valorize the “self-made man” in favor of a culture that values relationality as well as caring and being cared for turn. Plato’s emphasis on self- care also has implications for care ethicists. While a number of care ethics scholars have included care for the self in their theories of care,40 others have denied it a place. Diemut Elisabeth Bubeck even rejects the idea that care of the self counts as a form of care. Although we do sometimes say things like “I take good care of myself,” Bubeck argues that when we do so, we are referring to “a more superficial kind of activity or even only a protective attitude” (1995, p. 138). In her view, this superficial “taking care of oneself” differs from the other- oriented care that concerns care ethicists, which is a “serious and involved activity” (ibid.). I think that Bubeck is mistaken here. As Plato shows, caring for oneself can involve the kind of sustained scrutiny, attentive consideration, and attempt to improve the condition of the thing cared for that is found in caring for others. Moreover, it is a vital type of care that belongs in care theory’s vision of a caring society. For one thing, care for the self is needed to develop valuable higher- order capabilities. Despite his emphasis on authority, even Plato argues that one cannot simply impose moral and intellectual growth and the capacity for autonomous self- direction from without (Republic, 535d, 536d– e). For another thing, when capable persons do not take adequate care of themselves, this can impose an undue burden upon others. Numerous care ethicists have expressed concern about the social distribution of caregiving labor. Certain cultures readily excuse some individuals from taking care of themselves (e.g., husbands, whites), instead foisting this work upon others, who are expected to provide care in a self-abnegating, self-sacrificial manner (e.g., wives, ethnic minorities) (Gilligan 1982, ch. 5; Tronto 2013, ch. 3). It seems to me that care of the self can help address this problem. Stressing that everyone deserves the opportunity for self- care is one way for care ethics to avoid inadvertently reinforcing demands for self-abnegation in its valorization of other- directed care. And by emphasizing that individuals have a degree of responsibility to care for themselves, care theory can require privileged individuals to do more to provide for their own care than has been “traditionally” expected of them.41

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Although care of the self is important in its own right, it is also crucial for care ethics because it enables caring for others. Care ethicists have already noted some of the ways caring for oneself and caring for others are related. For example, Noddings argues that when the spontaneous impulse to care for others fails us, we can motivate ourselves to care for them out of a concern for our self’s own ethical integrity (2013, pp.  79– 80). Others have pointed out that it is difficult to care for others well if one neglects one’s own physical and psychological needs (e.g., Engster 2007, Kindle locations 438– 39). Over a prolonged period of time this becomes unsustainable, which is one of the reasons why contemporary care workers and political activists stress the need for self- care (Chahal 2017, ch. 9; Jackson 2017, ch. 8). Plato makes several contributions to this discussion. Like Noddings, Plato argues that one reason to care for others is to maintain one’s self in an ethically good condition (e.g., Republic, 442e–444a). And, like Engster, Plato argues that one cannot care for others well if one neglects oneself (Alcibiades I). But Plato’s understanding of self- care is less selfabnegating than Noddings’s, as he explores how caring for others relates to the self’s own well-being.42 Furthermore, it is more robust than Engster’s, as Plato has in mind more than maintaining one’s own basic physical and psychological health. He rightly points out that some kinds of caregiving, such as medical care, require a degree of competence that is only achievable if one trains oneself diligently. Furthermore, the ability to attend to the interests of others effectively requires a degree of self- control, which is established through self- cultivation. Thus Plato suggests that the self- care in which good caregivers engage is a matter not just of avoiding self-harm but of ordering the self and developing its capacities. This claim might make some readers apprehensive, given what Plato believes ordering the self involves. As Ruddick notes, many feminists have objected to discourses linking reason and control, which historically have served as justifications for suppressing affect, denying the body, and asserting a right to rule over Others who are supposedly at the mercy of their own base appetites (1989, p. 72). In keeping with the critiques mounted by Okin (1979) and Elshtain (1993), it seems to me that Plato’s thought is justly subject to each of these criticisms. He demands such a high level of rational self-mastery as to invite excessive self-flagellation, emotional repression, and the projection of disorderliness onto others. (On this last point, I think, for instance, of Plato’s

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myth that women are reincarnated men who failed to control themselves in previous lives. This seems like a recipe for encouraging men to deny their own disorderliness and ascribe it to women instead.) But I believe we can reject these elements of Plato’s thought while accepting the broader point that caring for others requires a degree of selfcultivation and self- control. With respect to self- cultivation, good caregivers give some thought to developing the competencies they will need to discharge the forms of care they provide. As for self- control, caregiving relationships can be frustrating and anger inducing, and they often involve power discrepancies that create opportunities to act upon inappropriate desires. Plato is right to worry that if we do not have an adequate handle on ourselves, we will wind up using, harming, or neglecting others rather than caring for them. In articulating self- cultivation and self- control as dimensions of selfcare, Plato raises a new set of policy questions for care ethics. Despite the fact that self- care is an activity in which individuals attempt to improve their own condition in various ways, it is not a purely individual project, something that each of us does in isolation. Plato rightly contends that the ability to care for oneself is a socially and politically supported capacity and one that can also be socially and politically undermined (on this point, see Ward 2015, pp. 46–47). In a contemporary context, we ought to worry about the burdens capitalist economies place on people’s attention and appetites, deliberately undermining their capacity for selfregulation in order to encourage the purchase of consumer goods. This has a debilitating impact on people’s ability to care for their physical and psychological health.43 It is critical to consider what effective sociopolitical, economic, or technological changes might enhance people’s capacity to take better care of themselves, and here care ethics might profitably be brought into dialogue with existing normative debates on the topic.44 Beyond his notion of self- care, the second key way that Plato challenges contemporary liberals and care ethicists is his treatment of the relationship among care, authority, and expertise. Plato’s vision of authority as care reminds us that one of the essential tasks of political authority is to create and maintain the societal conditions that will enable human beings to lead flourishing lives. But Plato believes that our judgments about the nature of well-being and how to promote it are not all equally sound. Nor is it easy for us to achieve society-wide consensus about what forms of care political authority should provide. Politics is rife with disagreements about the good and the just, and even when we share the

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same values, we argue about what they entail and how they should be put into practice. Even basic facts are controversial and can remain so despite widespread consensus among experts, as we see in the contemporary debates around vaccination and climate change. For this reason, the political project of promoting the well-being of citizens will always run into difficult questions surrounding paternalism: not everyone agrees about the form political care should take, and because political authority involves coercion, this means that the project of caring for citizens inevitably subjects some people to forms of power of which they do not approve. Thus measures the government takes to improve citizens’ wellbeing are invariably in tension with the good of individual autonomy. In my view, this is a dilemma that can be navigated but not transcended. Plato’s thought showcases the perils of resolving it in the direction of paternalism. His solution is to pick out the “political experts” and place them in charge, or at least to approximate this as closely as circumstances permit. Even apart from the multifarious obstacles to this and the myriad dangers it entails, many of us would reject a political system that wholly reflected our personal values and beliefs if this meant other citizens would be disenfranchised and treated like children. There are limits to how far we would wish to go in translating our own opinions into political practice: our desire to create authoritative laws, norms, and institutions that reflect the facts and values we take to be correct is mitigated not only by our recognition of our own fallibility but by the fact that part of caring for others is giving them a say and leaving them room to make their own choices. Just as considerations of care justify the imposition of authority in certain circumstances, they also justify its limitation. That said, Plato’s arguments also show why we cannot simply resolve the tension in favor of autonomy. A government may be more or less paternalistic, but a degree of paternalism is baked into the very idea of government as such. Sometimes we conceal this from ourselves by pretending liberal norms are fundamentally noncontroversial or that democratic institutions track people’s wills so closely that they do not meaningfully compromise autonomy. For instance, one strand of minimal liberalism envisions a liberal state that is neutral between competing conceptions of the good, at least in its fundamental structures and institutions (Dworkin 1978; Rawls 1999). Such a state restricts itself to supplying those goods that every reasonable person would want regardless of his or her specific values—the goods Rawls identifies as “primary goods.”

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While the desire for forms of political authority that are immune to reasonable objections is understandable, I doubt it is possible to have a nontrivial, mutually acceptable framework that can unite all of the reasonable points of view found in liberal democratic polities.45 After all, whenever theorists spell out what rights a neutral liberal state would guarantee and what services it would provide, the resulting picture is invariably controversial. To give an example, Rawls argues that governments should ensure every citizen has access to basic health care as part of a reasonable overlapping consensus (2005, Kindle location 719). The contentiousness of that proposition in contemporary American politics should give one pause. It is a reminder that when we fight for caring values, institutions, and policies, our views will not be universally shared. Thus, Plato is right not to leave matters at the identification of a fundamentally just political order but to think carefully about how to promote flourishing in the face of ongoing disagreement and confl ict. Admitting the problem and facing it squarely is vital for developing a care ethic of political contestation—that is to say, for theorizing how to engage with one’s fellow citizens even when they support measures that seem profoundly antithetical to the ideal of an equitable, caring society. Just as liberalism cannot dissolve the tension between paternalism and autonomy, neither can appeals to democracy. While Plato’s critique of democracy is overstated, he does show why it is not a perfect solution, posing a series of difficult questions about competence and expertise. Care ethicists such as Tronto stress the importance of the democratic process and the idea of “caring-with” as a way of circumventing the threat that hierarchies of judgment potentially pose to individual autonomy. She carries this to the point of refraining from advocating particular policies on the grounds that this is properly the task of caring democratic citizens (2013, p. 170). It seems to me that this degree of deference to democratic deliberation is unwarranted. Plato raises a reasonable doubt as to whether democratic debate will always fi nd itself on the right side of these issues. While majority rule is often a sound principle for deciding which views ought to prevail as a matter of law, it does not tell us which views are morally just, prudent, and so on. Similarly, it cannot settle the normative question of what it means to care for one another well. Since the truth is not whatever a majority says it is, it follows that majorities can err. This holds regarding not only the dêmos’ policy preferences but also its choice of leaders. It matters a great deal what public officials are like and what they believe, and I think it would

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be a mistake to assume that the victory of a particular candidate settles the question of whether he or she is truly suitable for the office. The rise of demagogues in the United States and various European countries, as well as the construction of illiberal democracies in Poland, Hungary, and Russia, demonstrate the importance of articulating normative standards of care by which the decisions of popular majorities can be challenged. Just as appealing to the dêmos does not settle the underlying normative questions of how we ought to care for one another, I do not think it solves all the institutional questions either. Tronto argues that care is better when it is done democratically and that flattening hierarchies improves the quality of caring (2013, pp. 156– 57). This is very often true, and many institutions and practices in contemporary liberal democracies could be improved by further democratization. But it does not hold in every case, and it only applies up to a point. It is neither feasible nor desirable to flatten institutional hierarchies completely or make the dêmos responsible for everything. And indeed, majority rule is not the only or even the primary means by which democracies make policy decisions. In addition to the fact that representative democracies largely invest elected officials rather than the dêmos itself with this function, many important public officers are not elected by popular majorities. For instance, some are appointed by elected officials or hired by administrative agencies. These officials and agencies play a profound role in shaping practices of political care, such as the US Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Veterans Affairs. This is justified by logistical considerations, but it is also important as a way to accord more weight to various kinds of experience and expertise, as well as to provide some insulation from popular control, which is desirable in certain contexts (e.g., the judiciary and central banks). Such cases show that the care- ethical virtues of competence and responsiveness sometimes point in different directions, a potential trade- off we must be mindful of when engaging in institutional design. Plato flags one other concern worth taking seriously, which is the importance of preventing a healthy, democratic skepticism toward those who claim to know what is best for others from degenerating into a blanket rejection of expertise.46 Individuals do seem to vary in their capacity to reach sound judgments about particular matters, and when unqualified persons are elevated to high office, when a political backlash against “elites” facilitates the appointment of conspiracy theorists and industry lobbyists to important administrative posts, the institutions

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responsible for providing citizens with various forms of care are gravely compromised. In pointing to the problem of expertise, Plato gives us care-based reasons for worrying about forms of political paranoia and anti-intellectualism that prevent competent governance. Care theory must continue to advocate for increased democratization, inclusion, and accountability. But at the same time, adequately caring public policies require a more complex institutional interplay involving specialized bureaucracies whose composition and condition must be attended to. This is something an excessive theoretical focus on the legislative branch and majority rule obscures. In this chapter, I have argued that Plato articulates the problem of how to construct practices of authority that promote the flourishing of citizens in a forceful and provocative way. We cannot theorize about how to properly constitute political authority without reference to the substantive normative commitments we believe such an authority ought to embody; there are certain principles that a desirable political order ought to reflect. Therefore, attempts to forge a more caring politics will have to navigate a political environment in which ideas about how, when, and why political care should be carried out are essentially contested. The result is a tension between autonomy and paternalism that any normatively attractive vision of political care must navigate. But the epistocratic measures Plato proposes are ultimately inadequate to this purpose—they do far too little to protect citizens from petty tyranny and secure them a sphere of autonomous discretion. In a word, what Plato fails to address is the problem of domination. To pursue this problem further—to think about how to create a society that cares well for citizens without dominating them—I turn in the following chapters to Rousseau and Godwin, who are much more sensitive to the necessity of constructing systems of authority that do more to prevent domination and emancipate citizens from the thoughts and desires of others; they are also more committed to an ethic of care that demands the same thing of individuals in their “private” or nonpolitical relations. This turn will be conditioned by the recognition, gained from Plato, that those goals must be reconciled with the need to ensure that citizens are well cared for, that liberal democratic norms are reproduced, and that a caring political culture is cultivated.

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lato’s failure to address the problem of domination is a key reason that this book turns to Rousseau, who further develops the tradition of care-based political thought by combining a concern to prevent domination with an emphasis on the importance of care for freedom and flourishing.1 As it is for Plato, care is central to Rousseau’s theorizing. Words such as soin (“care, attention; concern”; in the plural, it can also mean “medical attention or treatment”) and the related word verb soigner (“to treat, to nurse; to look after, take care of; to do with care, take trouble over”)2 appear frequently in Rousseau’s ethical and political writings, as do phrases such as prendre soin de (“to take care of”) or avoir soin de (“to have care of”). 3 As I shall show, this language links Rousseau’s metaphysics, ethics, and politics, forming a key part of the larger framework that ties his various projects together. That framework begins with nature. For Rousseau, nature is a beneficently organized system that exhibits a kind of care for living things. But nature’s care is thwarted by the human capacity to depart from nature and dominate others. Because a return to the state of nature is impossible, Rousseau’s educational and political theories aim to complement nature’s care with human care. Such is the “natural education” Rousseau outlines in Emile, which uses caring language and caring imagery to model ethical interpersonal relationships and describe the kind of education that can prepare individuals to live together in freedom. Providing such an education is not merely a private concern but a public one—

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for Rousseau, government is crucially involved in promoting human flourishing by educating and caring for citizens. One of the reasons for this is that many vital forms of care require authority. In Plato’s dialogues, the tight link between authority and care produces natural authority relationships that are justified in, and justify themselves by, providing excellent care to subordinates. Rousseau attempts to reconcile something like the Platonic version of authority as care with a deeper attention to the problem of domination, grounded in his understanding of nature and natural goodness. In order to accomplish this, he makes an important modification to the Platonic scheme: he introduces what I will refer to as “subordinate sovereignty,” the principle that authority relationships should be configured such that the superordinate party molds the judgment of the subordinate, even while the subordinate is formally entrusted with the fi nal say. As I shall show, Rousseau proposes formal mechanisms of consent and accountability in order to facilitate salutary caregiving relationships in both private and public life. These claims about Rousseau’s attitude toward care might seem counterintuitive considering the patriarchal and misogynistic dimensions of his thought. For many contemporary care ethicists and for other feminist critics, Rousseau exemplifies the masculinist tendency to devalue care, advocating a gendered public/private distinction in which women’s caregiving labor within the home enables the public, political role played by men: men can only fulfi ll their duties as citizens if women fulfi ll their caring duties as wives and mothers (Okin 1979; Pateman 1988, ch. 4; Elshtain 1993; Tronto 1993, p. 54; Honohan 2002, p. 97). Such, for instance, appears to be the lesson of Emile, which educates Emile for freedom even as it prepares his future wife, Sophie, for a life devoted to pleasing him (Emile, bk. V, p. 540). The charge that Rousseau denies women a direct role in politics is certainly well founded, as is the charge of misogyny (see Kofman 1988 and Weiss 1993 on Rousseau’s attitude toward women; cf. Schaeffer 1998 for a more favorable assessment). In my critical engagement with Rousseau, I will highlight the weaknesses of his account that his treatment of women reveals, a subject I take up at length in the next chapter. Yet despite his patriarchal assumptions, Rousseau is an author to whom feminist thinkers have repeatedly returned (e.g., Lange 2002). As Nancy Hirschmann puts it, although “Rousseau is among the most explicitly sexist of political theorists, the theorist that feminists most love

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to hate,” his understanding of the socially constructed nature of freedom and subjectivity makes him a valuable interlocutor for interrogating the “naturally” free, independent, and implicitly male subject of many modern political theories (2003, p. 48). I turn to Rousseau for similar reasons. It is not the case that Rousseau confines care to the home, restricts it to women, or accords it little value; to the contrary, he believes care is essential to the social construction of free agency and that it ought to be practiced in a multitude of relationships, by and for both men and women, within and outside of the home. I maintain that the specific ways he conceptualizes care and links it to nondomination are theoretically fruitful, despite his failure to show the same respect for the freedom of women that he shows for the freedom of men. My discussion of Rousseau advances my larger inquiry by showing how the concept of care could be employed by a political theory that takes a commitment to autonomy and equality seriously while also remaining attentive to the problem of domination. Care ethicists are well aware that domination is a central threat to caring relations: for instance, scholars are sensitive to the possibility of domination emerging within caregiving relationships (Held 2006, p. 11), the tendency of societies to marginalize and exploit care workers (Kittay 1998), and the need for nondomination as a political value in addition to care (Tronto 2013, p. 161). But these accounts treat domination as a kind of side constraint, something that caring relationships and caring societies must avoid; what they overlook is the capacity of care to directly address domination as a social and political problem. It is here that I believe Rousseau’s theory of care makes a critical contribution. The reading of Rousseau I provide also advances interpretive scholarship. A few scholars have noted the importance of care for Rousseau. Melissa A. Butler, for instance, claims that Rousseau endorses a sharp public/private distinction in Emile and Julie but not in works such as Political Economy, Constitution of Poland, and the Social Contract, in which the state assumes a number of caregiving responsibilities (2002, p. 213). She also highlights the fact that despite Rousseau’s endorsement of a patriarchal family structure, there are several important male caregivers present in Rousseau’s writings, including the tutor in Emile, Wolmar in Julie, and the Social Contract’s Legislator (ibid., pp. 221– 22). In addition, Brian Duff points out that Rousseau is deeply concerned with convincing men to accept their domestic responsibilities, including the responsibility to father and care for children (2011, p. 32). I will argue

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that care plays an even more central role in Rousseau’s thought, underpinning his views about how to prevent domination, cultivate desirable capacities, and structure political regimes. In this chapter, I demonstrate that Rousseau’s conception of care is tied in foundational ways to his understanding of nature. He thinks of the natural world as an orderly arrangement that exhibits care for living things. As I argue in the next section, Rousseau believes the human capacity to depart from nature frustrates the effects of its care through the rise of domination, the destructive appropriation of one living being by another.4 In the third and fourth sections, I examine Rousseau’s Emile and explicate his arguments in favor of human caregiving as an activity capable of counteracting domination and artificially reconstructing a semblance of natural harmony. I show how, on Rousseau’s view, care can educate individuals capable of pursuing their own good while simultaneously respecting and advancing the good of others. In the next chapter, I connect Rousseau’s conception of care to his understanding of authority generally and to political authority in particular. I shall argue that his writings contain a provocative account of the contribution care can make to freedom and nondomination as well as a theory of political authority that is sensitive to the requirements of a full human life and the complicated balance of dependence and independence this presupposes.

Human Care and Nature’s Care Rousseau’s conception of care differs from Plato’s in several ways that render it better able to address the problem of domination. In this section, I will address the fi rst of these differences, which is metaphysical. As I showed in the preceding chapters, Plato uses the language of care to describe an activity of instantiating the order accessible in thought into the world of becoming. Implicit in this picture is a top- down model of caregiving that associates idea, mind, and order with the caregiver and matter, body, and disorder with the care receiver. Figuring the care receiver as a disorderly object that must be shaped from the outside attaches comparatively little importance to the recipient’s own thoughts and desires. An authoritarian, paternalistic view of care is the result. But Rousseau breaks with Plato in positing a force apart from intelligence that can produce order and goodness. That force is “nature.” As I shall show, the concept of nature lends normative weight to the motions and

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impulses of living things, and Rousseau uses it to ground something like a right to freedom. The picture of care that emerges is one in which caregivers work in dialogue with care recipients, complementing their own capacity for self- direction and self- organization rather than imposing the dictates of intelligence upon them. One of the central axioms of Rousseau’s thought is that nature is good—it is central to Rousseau’s normative thinking, supplying a standard by which to judge the excellence of actions, polities, and ways of life. But “nature” is a term that Rousseau uses in several ways. He often employs “nature” in a wide sense to refer to the nonhuman world, the laws that govern it, and the physical processes that animate it—that is, to the sum of all nonhuman things and nonhuman causes. Rousseau also uses “nature” to refer to a kind of motion internal to living things. These motions are “natural inclinations,” which Rousseau distinguishes from impulses acquired as a result of habituation or circumstance; they are connected to a living being’s physical constitution and will tend to reassert themselves in the absence of constraint. 5 As Rousseau explains, one kind of natural movement is physical growth, “the internal development of our faculties and our organs” (Emile, bk. I, p. 162). There is another kind of natural motion that directs the exercise of a living being’s faculties (ibid., bk. I, p. 163)—what Rousseau calls “instinct” in the case of nonhuman animals and “original dispositions” in the case of human beings. Here nature appears as a “voice” that can “speak directly” to living things and “command” them to move themselves in certain ways (Second Discourse, pp. 95, 113). Thus nature exists within living beings both as a force that regulates their internal physical development and as a set of dispositions or instincts that guides behavior. Rousseau’s assertion that “nature is good” amounts to the claim that the various senses of nature cohere and work in concert to promote the good of living things. He even goes so far as to speak of nature itself as a caregiving agent that acts with purpose, sometimes referring to it as a mother.6 Rousseau claims that nature “wants” things a certain way (Emile, bk. II, p. 222; bk. V, p. 535) and that it often “shows its intentions” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 437), even “prescribing” patterns of conduct (Second Discourse, p. 110; Emile, bk. V, pp. 532, 558, 587). And he repeatedly suggests that it strives to care for living things: for example, nature “treats [traite] all the animals abandoned to its care [abandonés à ses soins] with a partiality that seems to show how jealous it is of this right” (Second Discourse, p. 111); “One cannot fail . . . to deplore man’s blind-

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ness, which . . . makes him run avidly after all the miseries of which he is susceptible, and which beneficent nature had taken care [la bienfaisante nature avait pris soin] to keep from him” (ibid., p. 193);7 “That is nature’s rule. . . . Do you not see that in thinking you correct it, you destroy its product, you impede the effects of its care [l’effet de ses soins]?” (Emile, bk. I, p. 173); and “Where education begins at life, the child is at birth already a disciple, not of the governor, but of nature. The governor only studies under this fi rst master and prevents its care [ses soins] from being opposed” (ibid., bk. I, p. 189). One dimension of nature’s “care”8 lies in the fit between the natural world, the growth and development of living beings, and their impulses and desires. Speaking specifically of animal life, Rousseau claims that an animal is an “ingenious machine” designed to preserve itself by making use of its natural environment (Second Discourse, p. 113). The ingenuity of animals’ design is manifest, fi rst, in the fact that they have few needs. Animals require nothing more than what is necessary for their physical preservation and the reproduction of their species. Second, nature has given them the faculties they need to obtain those necessities. Third, nature itself is present within them as a guide. It endows living beings with a form of self-love, amour de soi, that causes them to seek their preservation. And it clues them in to what is conducive to their preservation by calibrating their sensations of pleasure and pain.9 Rousseau claims that there is a natural connection between what is by nature pleasant and what is by nature good for the beings who fi nd it pleasant, which is manifest even in his comments about food.10 Nature thus establishes within each living being an equilibrium between need, desire, and capacity, and it is this equilibrium that Rousseau claims is essential to happiness: “The closer to his natural condition man has stayed, the smaller is the difference between his faculties and his desires, and consequently the less removed he is from being happy” (Emile, bk. II, p. 211). In addition to designing living beings to flourish in their natural environment, nature has done us a further kindness, which is to engineer a relatively harmonious relationship between different beings. By imbuing living things with a desire to preserve themselves and faculties they need to do so, nature puts them in potential confl ict with one another, as survival involves competition for scarce resources and this includes predation (“Letter from J. J. Rousseau to M. de Voltaire,” in Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion, p. 56).11 But nature takes pains to limit this confl ict.12 Living things are endowed with the sensation

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of pity, an innate aversion to seeing other feeling beings harmed. Pity not only restrains us from harming others ourselves; it impels us to respond to beings in distress and protect them from harms coming from other sources.13 According to Rousseau, this passion pervades the natural world. Both human and nonhuman animals give signs of it (Second Discourse, p. 130), and while feelings of pity are directed fi rst and foremost toward members of the same species, they are by no means limited to conspecifics (ibid., pp. 95– 96, 130).14 Through its pervasive role as a check governing relations between living things, pity ensures that a degree of harmony prevails in nature, moderating “in each individual the activity of love of oneself” and contributing to “mutual preservation” (ibid., p. 133). In summation, nature’s care manifests itself by establishing an equilibrium among need, desire, and capacity within and between living things. Despite these assertions about its beneficent care, Rousseau’s depiction of nature is not entirely Edenic. As I have just noted, living beings must acquire material from their natural environment in order to grow and maintain themselves, and this involves competing for resources.15 As a result, some amount of death and suffering is inevitable (“Letter to Voltaire,” p. 56). In addition, nature is limited by the fact that it operates according to general rules (ibid., p. 57; “Moral Letters,” in Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion, p. 80). There will therefore be “chance” events arising from the operation of those laws that appear unrelated to or in direct contradiction with their apparent normative goal.16 Furthermore, because nature’s providence looks to the good of the whole,17 it is concerned fi rst and foremost with the well-being of “the genera and the species,” and this sometimes comes at the expense of individuals (ibid.).18 But if nature’s care is imperfect, especially when viewed from the perspective of this or that individual, Rousseau nonetheless insists that the evils that come to us from nature are relatively small. In explaining human suffering and unhappiness, he places by far the greatest share of the blame on human agency, which disrupts and overturns the natural order.19 Rousseau believes that the key difference between humans and other animals is that while we fi nd ourselves subject to natural impulses, we have the capacity to resist them (Second Discourse, p. 114). This ability to “disobey” allows us to upset the natural equilibrium among need, desire, and capacity. And it draws us into a more destructive relation-

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ship with other beings than nature “intended.” As the opening passage of Emile proclaims, Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man. He forces one soil to nourish the products of another, one tree to bear the fruit of another. He mixes and confuses the climates, the elements, the seasons. He mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave; he loves deformity, monsters. He wants nothing as nature made it, not even man; for him, man must be trained like a school horse; man must be fashioned in keeping with his fancy like a tree in his garden. (Bk. I, p. 161)

Rousseau details the damage this does to the beings we appropriate in his discussion of domestication. Domestication is a process that subjects a living thing to experiences designed to alter its behavior so that it can live with and be useful to others. This usually harms the being in question: Nature treats [traite] all the animals abandoned to its care [abandonés à ses soins] with a partiality that seems to show how jealous it is of this right. The horse, the cat, the bull, even the ass, are mostly taller, and all have a more robust constitution, more vigor, more strength and courage in the forest than in our houses. They lose half of these advantages in becoming domesticated, and it might be said that all our cares to treat and feed these animals [nos soins à bien traiter, et nourrir ces animaux] well end only in their degeneration. It is the same even for man. (Second Discourse, p. 111)

As the last sentence of this quotation indicates, we do not limit ourselves to plants and nonhuman animals—we also domesticate fellow humans: “Man appropriates everything for himself, but what is most important for him to appropriate is man himself. . . . This man is, then, no longer the man of nature, he is the private man, the domesticated man, the man whom men have broken in for themselves” (Emile, Favre manuscript, pp. 3–4; cf. Emile, bk. I, pp. 161, 164– 66). Our domestication of one another, according to Rousseau, is a tremendous source of unhappiness; it has consequences comparable to the domestication of animals (see Second Discourse, p. 111). First, as both Emile and the Second Discourse argue, domestication makes us physically weak. Because we are not subjected to the same rigors as humans

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in the state of nature and because we do not receive the same exercise or eat the foods that are good for us, we are frail and sickly. Second, we become psychologically divided. We are habituated to act in ways that serve the good of others but not comprehensively enough to remove the contradiction between these acquired habits and our natural preference for ourselves. One result of this is the creation of a human type that Rousseau vociferously condemns, the bourgeois. 20 Finally, the appropriation of other human beings renders them dependent. When we bend others to serve our purposes, we accustom them to live in a way that cannot be maintained without the active complicity of others. The neediness this engenders makes them unhappy and drives them to appropriate others in the service of those needs, thereby perpetuating the cycle. The upshot is that freedom is crucial to a life well lived. Thanks to nature, living things generally contain within themselves the resources they need to live well: they have the faculties and impulses they require to make good use of their natural environment. And though nature’s care is not perfect, human efforts to appropriate and control others only seem to make matters worse. Given these claims, and given Rousseau’s portrait of a harmoniously organized state of nature in which human beings were free and happy, one might expect him to counsel abandoning domestication and returning to our original, “natural” state. Yet Rousseau contends that a return to savage innocence is impossible (“Observations by Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the Reply Made to His Discourse,” in Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion, p. 17). As he explains, Once man encroaches on nature’s cares [les soins de la nature] it abandons the work and lets everything be done by human art. The same plants that prosper in the wilderness die in our gardens if one neglects them there. Once an animal has been domesticated it loses its instinct along with its freedom without ever recovering it along with it. It is the same for our own species; we can no longer do without the institutions that cause our misfortunes. (Emile, Favre manuscript, p. 5)21

Now that we have corrupted ourselves, nature’s care is insufficient. At this point, if we were to refrain from attempting to mold and domesticate one another, “everything would go even worse, and our species does not admit of being formed halfway. In the present state of things a man abandoned to himself in the midst of other men from birth would be the most disfigured of all” (Emile, bk. I, p. 161). 22

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It follows that the blanket condemnation of domestication must be qualified. All too often domestication results in domination. By “domination” here, I mean the appropriation of another being to serve one’s own selfish ends. This involves subjecting the being to the dominator’s will for the sake of the dominator’s good in a way that entails the harm or neglect of the dominated being’s interests. For Rousseau, domination consists in the attempt to squash everything outside the self that is an obstacle, to make the whole world as though but a part of oneself. And unfortunately, the self-love and the neediness of civilized human beings renders dominating others a powerful temptation. But Rousseau also envisions a kind of domestication without domination—a second, caring mode of appropriating others that aims to promote the welfare of the being appropriated. Rousseau holds out the hope that proper care could form human beings able to live with others happily without trying to dominate or destroy them. This project is difficult, because even when we intend to care for others rather than dominate then, incompetently provided care results in similar harms to the care recipient. What distinguishes good care from incompetent care is that the former successfully establishes a new equilibrium between need, desire, and capacity: it takes into account what is “naturally” given, but adjusts it to the demands of the “artificial” (i.e., human-made) environment in which the care recipient operates. Thus, while all practices of domestication involve a departure from what is strictly natural, salutary practices of domestication do not depart from it completely. Nature serves as a crucial break on the order-imposing activities of would-be caregivers, one that prevents Rousseau from adopting a Platonic disregard for the “bodily” impulses and desires of care recipients. For Rousseau, the body itself contains “nature,” which strives to produce the good for the embodied being in question and continues to defi ne the kinds of flourishing that are possible for it, even under “artificial” conditions. This is important to note, as many interpreters downplay the role of nature and human nature in determining the kinds of political and educational activities that are essential to civilized humanity’s happiness. Consider, for instance, Melzer’s characterization of Rousseau’s approach: Rousseau himself, “the philosopher,” can no longer play the part of the reverent and contemplative wise man, pointing out to men their natural form, the

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path of life prepared for them by God or nature. He himself must break new paths. From now on, the philosopher must be an active and self- conscious creator, an artist of humanity and a technician of the soul. In his search for solutions, he must invent new ways of arranging men’s artificial needs, inclinations, and faculties to create new human beings with some new form of happiness. (1990, pp. 89– 90)

Other interpreters, such as Bloom (1993, p. 66), share Melzer’s tendency to describe Rousseau’s solutions in terms of the Romantic language of artistry, creativity, imagination, and spontaneity. This way of describing what Rousseau envisions is grounded in the interpretive claim that he has a historical, open- ended conception of human nature and does not believe that we fi nd our end or fulfi llment in any particular way of being; we therefore enjoy the artistic freedom to make of ourselves what we please (Masters 1968, p. 5; Melzer 1990, pp. 89– 90; Bloom 1993, p. 66; Strauss 1965, p. 271; Kautz 1997, p. 167; Strong 1994). As Strong puts it, the human is characterized precisely by the absence of a fi xed or defi nable nature (1994, p. 45), and for this reason, human beings themselves are “the source and defi nition of the human good” (ibid., p. 31). It seems to me that the “artificial” measures Rousseau’s political and educative figures employ resemble the nurturing activity of a thoughtful caregiver, who responds to and acts in dialogue with the nature of the being(s) cared for rather than the free creative acts of an artist (and as I shall show in the next section, Rousseau routinely characterizes it in caring terms). 23 While Rousseau does believe human beings are malleable in significant ways, the artistic interpretation goes too far in denying the role nature continues to play in his account of human flourishing. 24 For one thing, this interpretation misunderstands why Rousseau attaches such a central importance to freedom. It is not because man’s nature is open ended and underdetermined but because each being’s original or instinctual motions direct it in ways conducive to its own good and the good of the natural world as a whole (Emile, Favre manuscript, pp. 141– 45). That freedom’s value is not linked to an essential indeterminacy in human nature is clear from the fact that freedom is important for nonhuman animals. 25 Furthermore, the notion that human nature is essentially indeterminate is itself an exaggeration. Contra Strong and others, Rousseau’s oftcited claims about human perfectibility and his remark that no one knows man’s limits (Emile, bk. I, p. 190) do not imply that we can be altered in

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every way. It is possible to recognize certain constants in human beings that persist across time. These constants are tied to the motions and impulses that are linked to our physical makeup. Since the human body remains more or less the same even as we develop culturally, we have persistent characteristics with enduring implications for how we ought to live. Even those human faculties that are historical accretions are ultimately connected to our physical organization; whereas our nature permits us to develop the capacity for language, the same is not true of dogs or vegetables. For this reason, Rousseau often speaks of our higher faculties as “potential” faculties (e.g., Emile, bk. II, p. 211; Second Discourse, p. 127) and denies that it is possible “to conceive of some true happiness possible for any being outside of its constitution” (Emile, bk. II, p. 219). Because human beings are not complete tabulae rasae, Rousseau is able to identify enduring characteristics that are transcultural and transhistorical. As he explains, After having compared as many ranks and peoples as I could see in a life spent observing them, I have eliminated as artificial what belonged to one people and not to another, to one station and not to another, and have regarded as incontestably belonging to man only what was common to all, at whatever age, in whatever rank, and in whatever nation. (Ibid., bk. IV, p. 411)

And from what “incontestably belongs to man,” Rousseau draws numerous conclusions about the requirements of human happiness. For instance, he evidently does not think that human beings are so malleable that slavery could be bad for us today but good for us tomorrow. Another important example of this is Rousseau’s argument that the differences between the two sexes are real, are grounded in their physical differences, and shape how they ought to behave (e.g., ibid., bk. V, p. 531). The limits to human malleability are emphasized frequently in Rousseau’s thought; they are precisely what make it so difficult to solve the problem of happiness through artifice and what prevent even the wisest legislator from constructing a polity that is immune to corruption and decay. 26 Owing to these considerations, nature continues to defi ne the conditions in which civilized human beings can flourish. Thus Rousseau connects wellbeing to the possibilities defi ned by a living thing’s nature (ibid., bk. II, p. 219) and says of humans specifically that to “assign each his place and settle him in it, to order the human passions according to man’s constitution is all that we can do for his well-being” (ibid., bk. II, p. 210).

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One could grant this much and still insist that the “natural” constraints on civilized humanity’s well-being are relatively minimal. Melzer, for example, argues that Rousseau evaluates well-being in accordance with an abstract set of formal criteria, such as the degree to which the self is united and able to extend itself to other things (1990, p. 44). This, Melzer claims, sets him apart from the thicker teleological accounts of the ancients, who believe that human beings have certain activities, ends, and perfections that are marked out by nature (ibid., p. 38). Yet the difference is not as great as it fi rst appears. Formal constraints play a significant role in ancient ethical thought as well. Aristotle, for instance, begins his inquiry into the best way of life for human beings by specifying the formal criteria it would have to satisfy, such as selfsufficiency and completeness (2002, 1097a–1098b). It therefore would be a mistake to think that emphasizing the formal requirements of wellbeing is at odds with understanding it in a teleological way. And indeed, in Rousseau’s case, the formal requirements of human well-being inform a thicker teleological description of the conditions in which human beings can be happy; as Marks points out, they are sufficiently robust to lead Rousseau to a rather determinate set of recommendations about which activities and pursuits are good for us.27 Although Rousseau speaks of a happy life as one that is pleasant and relatively free of suffering, he is invested in promoting not only the subjective contentment of living beings but the full development of their faculties. 28 As Rousseau puts it, “To live is not to breathe; it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life” (Emile, bk. I, 167). In particular, Rousseau emphasizes the contributions of our capacity for love, affection, and imaginative identification with others; more cautiously, he also praises the development of reason and understanding. All these capacities serve to extend the self and attach it to other beings, which Rousseau takes to be a basic drive stemming from our natural self-love. 29 For these reasons, he claims in the Social Contract that although civilized man deprives himself of certain advantages in exiting the state of nature: He gains such great advantages in return, his faculties are exercised and developed, his ideas enlarged, his sentiments ennobled, his entire soul is ele-

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vated to such an extent, that if the abuses of this new condition did not often degrade him beneath the condition he has left, he should ceaselessly bless the happy moment which wrested him from it forever, and out of a stupid and bounded animal made an intelligent being and a man. (I.8, p. 53)30

In this passage, Rousseau argues that we are fully human only when our potential faculties are actualized. Furthermore, the possession of full humanity would be objectively preferable to a savage or animallike condition, were it not for the pains that accompany social existence. Rousseau even countenances the possibility that the development of our higher faculties is part of nature’s intention for us—in a note to the Second Discourse, Rousseau maintains that “the divine voice called the whole human race to the enlightenment and happiness of celestial intelligences” (Second Discourse, p. 202); he also claims that “man is a sociable animal by his nature, or at least made to become so” (“Moral Letters,” p.  94; Emile, bk. IV, p. 453). Regardless of how literally he intends this, it is clear that full human flourishing requires proper use of our higher faculties to form desirable attachments and that civilized humanity is capable of a greater degree of flourishing than “savage” or original human beings, if only we can learn to use our higher faculties well. It appears that substituting human care for nature’s care contains many dangers but also potential opportunities. All that said, I do not wish to give the impression that Rousseau is an Aristotelian. For one thing, while Aristotle seems to believe that is possible to integrate the various components of human flourishing into a single life, Rousseau thinks that there is a tension between them. 31 The very faculties that enable us to rise above “mere” animality and taste sublime social and intellectual pleasures ultimately make us more miserable. There are some exceptions to this. Although intellectual pursuits are bad for people generally, Rousseau argues that they are good for a few (“Observations by Jean-Jacques Rousseau of Geneva on the Reply Made to His Discourse,” p. 4; cf. First Discourse, pp. 62– 63). He also seems to believe that his own way of life solves the problem of how to live naturally in a civilized condition. 32 For most of us, however, the activities that tend to our perfection also tend to our corruption; therefore, it is necessary to strike a balance between cultivating our higher faculties and restraining them. The exact form this balance ought to take will vary depending on the circumstances, and this prevents Rousseau from unequivocally endorsing a single way of life for all human beings

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across time and space. Nevertheless, he is able to rank various ways of life and make specific recommendations about what is best for persons of such and such a character in a given set of circumstances only because he possesses a conception of human flourishing, grounded in our nature, in light of which different possibilities can be evaluated. Given the constraints of our nature, how can human beings successfully form a society in which individuals are able to flourish without dominating and deforming one another? How can we domesticate ourselves without making ourselves miserable? Rousseau suggests two alternative paths for achieving this goal. The fi rst he refers to as public education. This education takes ancient republics, such as Sparta and Rome, as its core inspiration, and it is explored at length in works such as the Social Contract and Political Economy. On Rousseau’s telling, public education prepares individuals to live with their fellow citizens by “denaturing” them. This does not mean a thoroughgoing eradication of all of their natural tendencies but rather the redirection of one core tendency: the public solution mounts a heroic assault on individuals’ natural propensity to prioritize their own well-being over the good of others. 33 It accomplishes this by habituating individuals to view themselves as parts of a larger body in which their fellow citizens are included. This solution is imperfect, because the collective sense of self this creates does not include noncitizens. 34 It is also highly demanding, because only austere and invasive republican institutions can repress our natural propensity to favor narrower conceptions of self-interest that put us in confl ict with others. In Emile, Rousseau provides a brief description of the public solution only to announce that true citizenship and the public education that accompanies it are no longer possible in the modern era (bk. I, p. 164). 35 Instead, Emile outlines a second path—a “natural” or domestic form of education that strives to create a man who can retain his natural love of self but nevertheless live in the midst of others without dominating them. Instead of “denaturing” human beings, the spirit of Rousseau’s natural solution is to promote our flourishing by working “in collaboration with nature” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 482). As he explains, “The child at birth is already a disciple, not of the governor, but of nature. The governor only studies under this fi rst master and prevents its care [ses soins] from being opposed” (ibid., bk. I, p. 189). In keeping with this, one central aim of Rousseau’s natural solution is to preserve what is natural in us from social deformation. Because other human beings tend to appropriate us

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in harmful ways, Rousseau believes it is critical to protect individuals from this and secure their freedom. He likens children to young shrubs who must be fenced off and protected (ibid., bk. I, pp. 161– 62), and he describes the initial goal of education as an essentially “negative” one of preventing distortion and domination (ibid., bk. II, p. 226). Of course, this requires more than simply isolating individuals or preventing anyone from interfering with them. Because our original motions are not suitable for us in a civilized condition (that is, because they do not adequately prepare us for life with others), even caregiving activity aimed primarily at protecting what is natural in human beings from social deformation requires considerable habituation and modification. Hence the kind of freedom that Rousseau envisions for socialized man must differ from savage man’s aimless freedom to move however he is naturally impelled. Preservation requires the intervention of others, and even adult human beings require care and guidance if they are to live together in society. In addition to this education’s preservative function, Rousseau envisions a positive role for it in actively cultivating the capacities critical to human flourishing. The ability to experience relational sentiments and form attachments affords us new pleasures, new excellences, and new avenues for extending our sense of self to include others. This positive dimension is deeply intertwined with the preservative dimension, because both involve disciplining amour-prôpre and directing it in healthy, prosocial directions. In Rousseau’s view, it is not enough to protect individuals from being deformed and enslaved by others; one must provide them with an outlet for their desire to connect to other human beings, or they will deform and enslave themselves. In the next section, I will explore Rousseau’s “natural education” in some detail, as I believe it is Emile rather than the Social Contract (and Emile’s education rather than Sophie’s)36 that embodies his deepest and most normatively attractive solution to the problem of how to cultivate human flourishing in contemporary conditions. As I shall show, caregiving practices, as well as the values and virtues of care, are central to his vision.

Emile’s Caring Education In Emile, Rousseau outlines his methods for cultivating a “natural man” capable of living a flourishing life with others, one that avoids dominat-

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ing or being dominated by them. Educative care is central to this process. There is a broad sense in which many forms of education can be described as caring, insofar as they involve an intentional attempt to promote flourishing by meeting important needs. But Rousseau’s theory of domestic or natural education is care based in an even deeper sense: (1) Rousseau defi nes education in such as a manner as to give care a central place, even going so far as to reject a conceptual distinction between care and education; (2) he stresses the moral-pedagogical value of a wide variety of caregiving practices; (3) he insists that pupils must be taught to provide care to others; and (4) he strives to cultivate in both tutor and pupil an ethic of care that includes many of the core virtues central to contemporary care ethics, such as attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness (e.g., Tronto 1993, p. 127). I shall substantiate these claims in order. Rousseau often employs the language of care, frequently using it interchangeably with the language of education. For example, Rousseau speaks of the “education of nature” (Emile, bk. I, p. 162) and then of nature’s “care [soins]” (ibid., bk. I, pp. 173, 189). He also repeatedly characterizes the tutor’s educative work as “care.”37 Rousseau is able to treat education and care as equivalents because he employs “education” to refer to any experience that develops and shapes a living thing (ibid., bk. I, p. 162). In adopting this broad usage, Rousseau rejects what he describes as the ancient (i.e., Greco-Roman) defi nition of education. The ancients, he claims, associated education with rearing and caring for children and distinguished it from instructing and teaching: they believed that “education, instruction, and teaching are three things as different in their object as are the governess, the preceptor, and the master” (ibid., bk. I, pp.  166– 67). But Rousseau insists that they were wrong to draw these distinctions; to the contrary, all these activities belong to one unified, educative caregiving practice, which ought to be presided over by a single person (ibid.). Thus Rousseau devotes considerable attention to even the earliest and most basic parts of childcare, discussing issues such as swaddling and breastfeeding at length, because these matters are critical to a pupil’s moral and intellectual development as a free agent. 38 Two core goals of Rousseau’s domestic education are to protect what is natural in Emile from deformation and to prevent him from growing up to be the kind of person who harmfully appropriates others. In other words, he must be protected from becoming a victim or an agent of domination. The care Emile receives contributes to this by making him

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strong and independent. The kind of independence that is possible for civilized human beings is not a matter of being able to do without others altogether. Rather, it is a particular kind of interdependence, one that avoids the excessive dependence on others that leads to domination of them or domination by them. 39 To promote this, Rousseau’s education limits Emile’s neediness by fostering an equilibrium between his abilities and his desires. Tutors must curb the growth of unnecessary desires and cultivate the skills, habits, and character traits children will need to live happily as adults. In addition to the capacity for reason, language, morality, and attachment, these include physical robustness and a variety of practical skills, such as knowledge of a dependable trade (in Emile’s case, carpentry) (ibid., bk. III, p. 351). At the same time, they must avoid spoiling or smothering their pupils. Excessive care prevents children from developing the ability to take care of themselves (ibid., bk. I, pp. 172– 73; bk. II, p. 256) and encourages them to view those around them as their servants (ibid., bk. I, p. 195; bk. IV, p. 381). Catering to a child’s every whim without attempting to distinguish between true needs and requests that should not be indulged encourages a dominative disposition, and it can lead to the caregiver him- or herself being dominated.40 Hence, Rousseau urges his readers to “accord children more true freedom and less dominion, to let them do more by themselves and to exact less from others. Thus, accustomed early to limiting their desires to their strength, they will feel little the privation of what is not going to be in their power” (ibid., bk. I, p. 198). This habituation underlies Emile’s later ability to regulate his own desires. The process culminates in the mature Emile acquiring the capacity for virtue, which Rousseau understands as the power to control the passions through force of will (ibid., bk. V, p. 633).41 According to Rousseau, domination is an evil both for those who are dominated and for the dominators themselves. He argues that masters are ultimately rendered dependent and servile by the power they wield over others: To lead them [those you dominate] as you please, you must conduct yourself as they please. . . . Those who come near you have only to know how to govern the opinions of the people whom you believe you govern, or of the favorites who govern you, or of those of your family, or your own. These viziers, courtiers, priests, soldiers, valets, babblers, and even babies . . . are going to lead you around like a baby yourself in the very midst of your legions. . . . You

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will always say, “We want.” and you will always do what others want. (Ibid., bk. II, p. 215)

Because the harms of domination fall upon master and slave alike, individuals who wish to be happy and free must avoid both. In keeping with this point, Rousseau’s education inoculates Emile against the temptation to dominate in order to prevent him from threatening others’ freedom and to help him secure his own. The very reception of care in childhood contributes to this process. It is the care that infants receive when they are young that fi rst prepares them to love: “The child ought to love his mother before knowing that he ought to. If the voice of blood is not strengthened by habit and care [l’habitude et les soins], it is extinguished in the fi rst years, and the heart dies, so to speak, before being born” (ibid., bk. I, p. 172; see also Marks 2007, p. 731, on this point). Care helps the child extend his self-love to others—in feeling his needs addressed by them, he comes to love them (Emile, bk. IV, p. 363). Should a child receive care, he will be “inclined to benevolence, because he sees that everything approaching him is inclined to assist him, and from this observation he gets the habit of a sentiment favorable to his species” (ibid.). Emile’s freedom is secured both by the care he receives and by the care that he is taught to provide: Rousseau’s pedagogy disciplines amour-prôpre by inculcating the capacity to care for others in turn. As many scholars have noted, in book IV of Emile, Rousseau calls for compassion toward others. Rousseau believes that compassion extends one’s sense of self to others and that self- extension is the very basis of justice and moral relations (ibid., bk. IV, p. 389). While learning to “care about” others is certainly an important part of Emile’s education, interpreters often overlook the critical role that learning to provide care plays. Selfextension is not merely a matter of sympathizing or loving—it requires active caregiving: Nurses and mothers are attached to children by the care [par les soins] they give them. The exercise of the social virtues brings the love of humanity to the depths of one’s heart. It is in doing good that one becomes good; I know of no practice more certain. Busy your pupil with all the good actions within his reach. Let the interest of indigents always be his. Let him assist them not only with his purse but with his care [ses soins]. Let him serve them, protect them, consecrate his person and his time to them. (Ibid., bk. IV, p. 406)

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This is not only because habitual caregiving cultivates the sentiment of compassion. It is because the very act of caregiving extends the self, inserting a part of one’s being into the being of another. Speaking of Emile and Sophie, their tutor declares: “How many times, as I contemplate my work in them, I feel myself seized by a rapture that makes my heart palpitate!” (ibid., bk. V, p. 674). He also refers to Emile as his child, his work, even his property (ibid., bk. IV, p. 493). The tutor acquires a “property” in Emile and becomes his “true father” through caregiving labor (ibid., bk. V, p. 589; cf. Julie, pt. 4, letter X, p. 384). Here it is not abstract pity or compassion but the concrete work of benefiting another that creates a shared sense of self. Care is what enables us to “extend amourpropre to other beings” and “transform it into a virtue” (Emile, bk. IV, pp. 409–10).42 Accordingly, Emile will not “have only that sterile and cruel pity for [others] which is satisfied with pitying ills it can cure” (ibid., bk. IV, p.  507). Instead, Emile will attempt to cure those ills himself. Once Emile grows older, the tutor encourages him to constantly work at improving the world around him, extending “his zeal and his care [son zéle et ses soins] to everything that is of primary and general utility” (ibid., bk. V, p. 622). During the period of Emile and Sophie’s courtship, Emile spends much of his time roaming the surrounding countryside, teaching farmers better farming methods, paying them to improve their own homes and land, settling legal disputes, caring (soigner) for sick peasants, protecting persons dominated by powerful neighbors, helping young people get married, and consoling women who have lost their children (ibid., bk. V, pp. 622– 23). He will imitate “those illustrious Romans who, before being admitted to public offices, spent their youth in prosecuting crime and defending innocence, without any other interest than that of instructing themselves in serving justice and protecting good morals” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 407). Even once Emile and Sophie are married, the tutor happily contemplates “how many benefactions Emile and Sophie can spread around them from their simple retreat, and how much they can vivify the country and reanimate the extinguished zeal of the unfortunate village folk” (ibid., bk. V, p. 668). Rousseau maintains that acts of care are the preferred means of discharging our desire to connect, which otherwise will ensnare us in dominative relations. There is a danger here, of course. Like all human relationships that involve vulnerability and dependence, caregiving relationships can readily become dominative if they are not carried out in

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the right ways. One prominent contemporary approach to the problem of domination—the neorepublican political theory developed by Philip Pettit and others—primarily relies upon accountability mechanisms to prevent it, and I shall tackle the questions of formal constraints myself in the next chapter. But Emile provides an important complement to formal mechanisms by showing how to combat domination through inculcating an ethic of care. To that end, Rousseau stresses some of the core virtues care ethicists have identified as critical to successful caregiving. Joan Tronto’s influential list of care virtues include responsibility, the willingness to take on the burden of helping others; attentiveness, the  ability to suspend one’s self interest and “genuinely  .  .  . look from the perspective of the one in need”; responsiveness, gauging the effect of one’s care by attending and being receptive to the reaction of the carereceiver; and competence, the moral and intellectual capacity to successfully address the needs of others (Tronto 2013, p. 35). Each of these virtues has a central place in the tutor’s care of Emile and in the care that Emile is expected to provide to others. The importance of responsibility to Rousseau is evident in his frequent chiding of parents who fail to perform their duties. He deplores the hands- off approach of fathers who prioritize “business, offices, duties” over raising their children and educating them (Emile, bk. I, pp.  174– 75),43 as well as mothers who neglect “a mother’s care [des soins d’une mère]” by failing to breastfeed or provide “maternal solicitude [sollicitude]” to their infants (ibid., bk. I, p. 170). These neglected children, left in the hands of domestics who do not experience parental love for them (ibid., bk. I, pp. 170– 71) or turned over to institutions such as “boarding schools, convents, [and] colleges,” will have lifelong difficulty forming attachments to others (ibid., bk. I, p. 175). In keeping with Rousseau’s attempts to foster a greater sense of responsibility in parents, the tutor is careful to cultivate a sense of responsibility in Emile. I have already noted some of the ways that Emile is encouraged to take responsibility for the needs of those around him in his adolescence, and even earlier in his education he receives lessons that prepare him for this. For instance, when he is a child, the tutor engages in acts of charity in front of Emile and explains to him that the rich are responsible for sustaining “all those who do not have the means of life, either from their goods or from their labor” (ibid., bk. II, p. 238). As this example shows, if the pupil is to become an adult who takes responsibility for aiding those around him, the tutor must provide the model.

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Hence Rousseau also exhorts tutors to assume a great deal of responsibility for others: Reconcile people who have quarreled; forestall litigations; bring children to their duty, fathers to indulgence; encourage happy marriages; prevent harassment; use, lavish the influence of your pupil’s parents in favor of the weak man to whom justice is denied and who is crushed by the powerful man. Loudly proclaim yourself the protector of the unfortunate. Be just, humane, and beneficent. Give not only alms; give charity. Works of mercy relieve more ills than does money. (Ibid., bk. II, p. 228)

By encouraging individuals to accept a greater degree of responsibility for meeting the needs of others, Rousseau hopes to counteract the alltoo-human tendency to harm or neglect those around us when it is convenient for us to do so (e.g., ibid., bk. I, pp. 169– 70, 175). Rousseau also stresses the importance of attentiveness and responsiveness, demanding that we consider the needs of others carefully and try to understand the world from their points of view. One of the key things that separates Rousseau’s theory of education from that of other political philosophers is that he expounds it with reference to an imaginary pupil, with his own name, background, and attributes (ibid., bk. I, pp. 176–183). The book assumes an increasingly novelistic form as it progresses, and Emile is increasingly presented as a literary character whose speech and actions are reported. Rousseau does this not only to illustrate how his educational maxims might be applied to a particular individual (ibid., bk. I, p. 181) but to model patterns of observation, empathy, and response that are characteristic of a good caregiver. Again and again Rousseau criticizes “ill- considered care [soins malentendus]” (ibid., bk. II, p. 210), lamenting the tendency of would-be educators to treat children as miniature adults instead of attempting to see the world from their point of view: “Childhood has its ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling which are proper to it. Nothing is less sensible than to want to substitute ours for theirs” (ibid., bk. II, p. 222). Similarly, Rousseau faults educators for failing to notice how their lessons are truly affecting children: “Full of what is going on in your head, you do not see the effect you are producing in theirs” (ibid., bk. II, p. 229). For instance, forcing children to utter social niceties they do not mean and perform duties they do not feel only teaches them that society values appearances and will reward deceptive behavior (ibid., bk. II, p. 223).

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A good educator is able to empathize not only with children in general but with his pupil in particular—tutors must take on the “true function of the observer and philosopher who knows the art of sounding hearts while working to form them” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 379). If it were possible, Rousseau would want a tutor who had been specifically “raised for his pupil” and was uniquely placed to understand him; he would also want the tutor to be young enough that he could share his pupil’s enjoyments (ibid., bk. I, pp. 176– 77). Unless one tries to perceive the world from the perspective of the person cared for and to pay attention to the effects of one’s care, it is likely to have pernicious results. Lastly, Rousseau highlights the need for moral and intellectual competence. Emile’s moral capacity to care for others is predicated on habits of character and sentiment that enable him to freely identify with and respond to the needs of others. As was noted above, even the earliest care Emile receives in childhood inclines him to take a benevolent view of human beings. Once he reaches adolescence, the tutor nurtures Emile’s growing interpersonal awareness and capacity for attachment to imbue him with a strong desire to reduce the suffering of others. Emile will be exposed to persons in distress in order to bring “the fi rst tenderness” to his heart, eliciting feelings of pity and compassion (ibid., bk. IV, pp. 374– 75). He will also be taught to recognize them as his equals. Rousseau claims that when we believe ourselves superior to others, we cannot empathize with them. For this reason, the tutor will speak of all human beings “with tenderness, even with pity, but never with contempt,” so that Emile “puts himself in no class but fi nds his bearings in all” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 378). The tutor fosters Emile’s intellectual growth as well, cultivating his judgment so that his care of others will be discerning and appropriate rather than presumptuous, unhelpful, or harmful (ibid., bk. IV, pp. 406– 7). To this end, the tutor places Emile in situations where he can observe diverse human beings and learn about them (e.g., ibid., bk. IV, pp. 392, 399–401, 407– 8, 514; bk. V, p. 646). He also encourages Emile to learn by “putting beneficence in action” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 409). Rousseau claims that in caring for others and “drawing from our greater and lesser successes reflections on their causes, there is little useful knowledge which cannot be cultivated in a young man’s mind” (ibid.). As a result of the care he provides, Emile will learn to “weigh and appraise” the actions of others, “their tastes, and their pleasures and to evaluate what can contribute to or detract from men’s happiness more accurately than

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can those who are interested in no one and never do anything for others” (ibid.). Rousseau’s emphasis upon the virtues and values of care helps answer the charge, levied by some interpreters, that the tutor’s power over Emile is itself a form of distortive domination (e.g., Crocker 1992; Cullen 1993; Gauthier 2006; for a more mixed assessment, see Wingrove 2000). I would readily grant that some of the tutor’s measures are controlling, unnecessary, and counterproductive, such as his very strict supervision of Emile’s sexual development (e.g., Emile, bk. IV, pp. 504– 5; bk. V, p. 589). That said, I hold with scholars who would defend his general approach against this objection (e.g., Marks 2012; Schaeffer 2014). The aim of the tutor’s education is a caring one: securing Emile’s future autonomy by preserving him; nurturing him; and cultivating his capacity for social, moral, and intellectual judgment. In keeping with this, their relationship moves toward equality and friendship over the course of Emile’s life, which is one of the tutor’s explicit goals (Emile, bk. IV, p. 402).44 And while Emile is in his care, the tutor’s fidelity to caring virtues mitigates the risk of neglecting, harming, or using him; Emile’s needs are front and center, his wishes are consulted, and his responses are carefully considered. For these reasons, Emile is cared for rather than dominated. It may seem strange to ascribe to Rousseau the opinion that the good life involves the provision of care to others. Rousseau describes his happiest moments as those he spends alone in reverie and speaks of these experiences as though they offer a much greater avenue for a pleasant, fulfi lling feeling of extension than social interaction (Reveries, “Second Walk,” pp. 15–16).45 In addition, there are other less sublime but still solitary and contemplative pursuits that are important ingredients of his happiness, such as botany, private reflection, and the free play of his imagination. All of this is true, and it partially qualifies the importance of providing care to others, much in the same way that the dignity and goodness of theoretical pursuits qualifies the importance of otherdirected activities for Plato. That said, it does not by any means eliminate it. As Rousseau explains to Sophie d’Houdetot, solitude is a complement to, not a substitute for, social relationships. Though part of solitude’s purpose is to give one the distance one needs to sever harmful ties, he also praises it as a means of increasing one’s enjoyment of the connections one ought to maintain (“Moral Letters,” pp. 96–100; see also Dialogues, p. 14). In keeping with this, Rousseau describes at length how

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he regularly longs for attachment to others and calls himself the most social of beings (Reveries, “First Walk,” p. 1). Even during the happiest and most solitary time of his life, when he was confi ned to the island of St. Peter’s, he still lived with his long-standing romantic partner, his housekeeper, and his dog, and had neighbors with whom he regularly interacted (ibid., “Fifth Walk,” p. 64). He also depicts himself as engaging regularly in acts of care, such as raising a colony of rabbits, helping peasants with their work, and arranging amusements for children, that are intended to satisfy the need for attachment he retains even in his old age (ibid., “Fifth Walk,” pp. 65– 66; “Ninth Walk,” pp. 126– 34). For Rousseau, a flourishing life has a social dimension that crucially includes acts of caregiving; providing care does not cease to be an important need because contemplation is more sublime any more than our more elevated desires do away with the need to eat. I have suggested in this section that, according to Rousseau, civilized human beings require care if they are to flourish. Without the intervention of caregiving agents, individuals will be deformed by socialization, enmeshed in dominative relations of one kind or another. Care is needed to prevent domination, to prepare individuals to maintain their own independence and to experience the independence of others without pain. And each of us, Rousseau thinks, has an interest in directly forming and indirectly supporting relations of care, because they are important ingredients of our flourishing and the flourishing of those we care about. Furthermore, Rousseau argues that one of the objects of care is to instill in others a similar capacity for moral engagement, including the ability to provide care in turn. Just as domination tends to spread outward, creating deformed people who will go on to deform others in turn, caring appropriation spreads order and the capacity to order. Thus care becomes the basis for reconstructing through artifice a simulacrum of the natural harmony that domination destroys. In the next section, I will argue that Rousseau envisions this caring education as a political one that prepares individuals for civic life and that care is central to his theory of government.

Caring Citizens The natural education Rousseau provides Emile is not merely an ethical education; it is also intended to be a form of political education. An

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influential line of interpretation, exemplified by Judith Shklar’s Men and Citizens (1969), denies this. Shklar maintains that the education Emile receives is meant to prepare individuals for relatively small and intimate social settings, such as an individual household or estate (e.g., Clarens in Julie).46 In her interpretation, individuals who are going to live as citizens of well- constituted republics must receive the Sparta-inspired public education Rousseau explores in works such as Political Economy and the Social Contract. Shklar is correct that Emile’s caring education is unlike that of Rousseau’s Spartans in key ways; indeed, I will highlight some of the advantages of Emile’s education below. Nevertheless, contra Shklar’s reading, I will demonstrate that Emile’s way of life constitutes an alternative form of citizenship rather than an alternative to citizenship and that it shows how care might enrich republican politics.47 It is clear from the outset of Emile that Rousseau believes proper domestic care and education will have profound political consequences. His early remarks about the family and the importance of breastfeeding draw a direct link between what happens in the home and what happens in the political sphere: “But let mothers deign to nurse their children, morals will reform themselves, nature’s sentiments will be awakened in every heart, the State will be repeopled. This fi rst point, this point alone, will bring everything back together” (Emile, bk. I, p. 171). It is in the home that one fi rst learns to deal with other human beings, and it matters greatly whether one receives an education in freedom or in domination. Having established a fi rm foundation, the tutor completes Emile’s political education in the last book of Emile: the tutor shows him political life, teaches him the principles of political right, and prepares him to serve his country. In book V, the tutor announces that “now that Emile has considered himself in his physical relations with other beings and in his moral relations with other men, it remains for him to consider himself in his civil relations with his fellow citizens. To do that, he must begin by studying the nature of government in general, the diverse forms of government, and fi nally the particular government under which he was born, so that he may fi nd out whether it suits him to live there” (ibid., bk. V, p. 646). In addition to observing the politics, manners, and mores of different countries, Emile and the tutor will engage in philosophical conversations about the principles of political right: Emile is taught the central doctrines of the Social Contract, which Rousseau refers to and summarizes for the reader (ibid., bk. V, pp. 649– 62). Owing to the comprehen-

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sive political education Emile is going to receive, Rousseau claims that if Emile, “at the conclusion of his travels begun and continued with this intention, does not come back versed in all matter of government, in public morals, and in maxims of State of every kind, either he or I must be quite poorly endowed—he with intelligence, and I with judgment” (ibid., bk. V, p. 649). This is not merely an academic exercise; it is designed to increase Emile’s competence to engage in civic care. In arguing that caring for others is a salutary outlet for amour-prôpre, Rousseau maintains that we should not limit ourselves to caring for single individuals. Caretaking activity aimed at the well-being of larger groups is preferable: “The less the object of our care [nos soins] is immediately involved with us, the less the illusion of particular interest is to be feared. The more one generalizes this interest, the more it becomes equitable, and the love of mankind is nothing other than the love of justice” (ibid., bk. IV, pp. 409–10; cf. Political Economy in Rousseau 1997b, pp. 7– 8).48 Although Rousseau supports intimate caring relationships, he is well aware of the dangers of parochialism: partial attachments can lead us to prioritize the needs of some in such a way as to damage or neglect others—hence the need to enlarge one’s perspective in the service of justice and equity. In keeping with this, Rousseau’s natural education extends pupils’ amour-prôpre beyond their family and friends to their fellow citizens (Emile, bk. IV, pp. 386– 87). In book V, the tutor explains to Emile that even though he has no republican fatherland, he still has political responsibilities: If I were speaking to you of the duties of the Citizen, you would perhaps ask me where the fatherland is, and you would believe you had confounded me. But you would be mistaken, dear Emile, for he who does not have a fatherland at least has a country. In any event, he has lived tranquilly under a government and the simulacra of laws. What difference does it make that the social contract has not been observed, if individual interest protected him as the general will would have done, if public violence guaranteed him against individual violence, if the evil he saw done made him love what is good, and if our institutions themselves have made him know and hate their own iniquities? O Emile, where is the good man who owes nothing to his country? (Ibid., bk. V, p. 667)

Emile has political obligations to support his country and its laws even though the general will is inoperative—the pretense that the laws of one’s

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country are binding because they are the expression of one’s own will, which is central to the argument of the Social Contract, is not invoked here. Notably, Emile’s responsibilities include the obligation to assume political office if called to do so. Like Cincinnatus, Emile must be ready to go “from the plow to the Consulate” and “fulfi ll the honorable function of Citizen in the post assigned to you” (ibid., bk. V, p. 668). Emile’s earlier caregiving activities have been a kind of preparation for this. Just after exhorting the adolescent Emile to spend his time caring for everyone around him, the tutor likens him to “those illustrious Romans who, before being admitted to public offices, spent their youth in prosecuting crime and defending innocence, without any other interest than that of instructing themselves in serving justice and protecting good morals” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 407).49 He also asks the reader rhetorically, “How many of the oppressed who would never have been heard will obtain justice when [Emile] asks for it on their behalf with that intrepid fi rmness given by the practice of virtue, when he forces the doors of the noble and rich, when he goes, if necessary, to the foot of the throne to make heard the voice of the unfortunates to whom all access is closed by their poverty and who are prevented by fear of being punished for ills done to them if they even dare to complain?” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 406). Emile is not a person who is afraid to get mixed up in politics. If I am correct that Rousseau offers Emile as a model of citizenship, how does it compare to his Spartan model? Interpreters have long divided over whether Rousseau believes Emile’s education is superior to the Spartan-style education outlined in other works. Although I believe Rousseau does regard it as such, I will not insist upon that interpretation here. What I wish to emphasize for present purposes is that, from a contemporary standpoint, the education outlined in Emile is a more attractive solution. Many of Rousseau’s critics reject his Spartan model on the grounds that it involves a “positive” conception of liberty that equates freedom with participation in democratic politics (e.g., Maynor 2003, p.  14; Shapiro 2012, p. 317; Skinner 1984, pp. 195, 217; cf. James 2013, p. 3; Urbanati 2011, p. 166), while others reject it because it seems to call for particularly extreme and self-abnegating forms of civic virtue and patriotic attachment (e.g., Pettit 2012, p. 14). As I will show, neither of these concerns applies to the solution presented in Emile. In contrast to the selfless Spartan, the form of social and political agency Rousseau envisions for Emile is not a self-abnegating one. Whereas the Spartan-style citizen loves his country “exclusive of him-

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self” and attaches little importance to his family (Emile, bk. I, p. 164), Emile emphasizes the possibility of harmonizing care and concern for oneself, one’s family, and one’s fellow citizens. Emile cares for others, but he does not forget “that his fi rst duty is toward himself” (ibid., bk. IV, pp. 406– 7). Even Emile’s care for others is not purely altruistic: the tutor reminds the reader that “all these means by which I take my pupil out of himself” give Emile “an inner enjoyment” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 410). Caring extends one’s sense of self, which Rousseau takes to be a fundamental human desire; furthermore, helping the vulnerable gives one the pleasures of sympathy and the sensation of one’s own strength (cf. ibid., bk. IV, p. 382). Rousseau highlights other benefits to caregivers as well, such as the material and emotional rewards they reap from both the object of their care and those who care about him or her in turn (ibid., bk. I, p. 180). Rousseau goes further: care for oneself and one’s family is not only compatible with but forms the very basis of caring for one’s country. Rousseau’s assertion, quoted above, that the act of breastfeeding has such profound social and political consequences rests upon his belief that the capacity to respect the independence of others depends on the care one receives in youth. The care children receive from their family members equips them to form healthy social and political attachments later. Hence Rousseau criticizes Plato’s Republic for abolishing the family, “as though there were no need for a natural base on which to form conventional ties; as though the love of one’s nearest were not the principle of the love one owes the State; as though it were not by means of the small fatherland which is the family that the heart attaches itself to the large one; as though it were not the good son, the good husband, and the good father who make the good citizen!” (ibid., bk. V, p. 537). Moreover, Emile implies that concern for one’s fatherland is compatible with concern for humanity as a whole. In contrast to the “inevitable” harshness with which citizens in the Spartan mold treat foreigners (ibid., bk. I, p. 164), Emile cares for his fellow citizens without xenophobia. Indeed, before the tutor teaches him that his fellow citizens merit special concern, Emile’s inclinations are completely cosmopolitan: “What difference does it make to me where I am? Wherever there are men, I am at the home of my brothers” (ibid., bk. V, p. 666). Since, according to Rousseau, the love of humanity is the same thing as love of justice, it follows that Emile has a deeper attachment to justice than Sparta-style citizens. Also, Emile does not equate freedom with active participation in

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democratic government. While Emile must support the laws and serve his country should it call for his assistance, public service is depicted as an important but potentially burdensome duty rather than the core constitutive ingredient of liberty or the good life (ibid., bk. V, p. 668). The tutor considers it unlikely that a man of Emile’s integrity will be entrusted with political office, given the corrupt nature of the present age (ibid., bk. V, p. 669). Nevertheless, he still has obligations to his compatriots and must serve his country if called to do so (ibid., bk. V, pp. 667– 68). Despite the fact that Emile is not raised to be a republican citizen in the mode of Cato, he will imitate Cincinnatus if necessary. Even if he is never called to office, Emile will benefit his fellow citizens regardless. He will live among them, resisting injustice, caring for the indigent, and promoting peace and harmony. In so doing, he will serve as a “benefactor” and a “model” for his fellow citizens, one with the potential to create a new golden age (ibid., bk. V, p. 668). The fact that Emile will be actively involved with those around him and might inspire a widespread social transformation distinguishes him from the prepolitical men of the fi rst golden age and the self- contained households of Neuchâtel. Rousseau maintains that demonstrating to one’s fellow citizens the right way to live is itself exercising a kind of citizenship (ibid., bk. V, pp. 667– 68), a point he is especially keen to stress in his own case (see Kelly 2003, chs. 4– 5). Strikingly, Emile’s ability to engage in and build support for nondominative relations does not hinge upon the prior existence of just republican institutions. Through the care he receives, Emile is brought to know and love true political order by “the mere appearance of order” present in corrupt polities and to become a person for whom “the public good, which serves others only as a pretext, is a real motive” (Emile, bk. V, p. 667). This means that he is able to identify injustice in the society he inhabits and to imagine alternative institutional arrangements that might prevent domination. His education thereby prepares him to act as a critic and reformer. For all these reasons, Emile presents a more attractive model of citizenship than Rousseau’s Spartan alternative. It does not require sacrificing one’s private interests and intimate relationships for the sake of the common good; rather, it argues that caregiving can discipline amourprôpre by giving us a stake in the well-being of others, eventually enabling us to generalize our love of ourselves into a just concern for the welfare of all (ibid., bk. IV, p. 389). Nor is Emile called to live a thor-

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oughly political life; he has political responsibilities to his fellow citizens, but he is not obligated to pursue a career in politics unless his country truly needs him. It seems to me Emile expresses an ideal of citizenship that is robust but more practicable than the Spartan model and much more compatible with liberal values. Moreover, it illustrates how a caring education might cultivate precisely the type of citizen a healthy republic requires—one who is capable of identifying domination, driven to respond to it, and willing to assume a degree of public responsibility for transforming social and political institutions in a nondominative direction. If good citizens care for one another and are opposed to practices of domination, it follows, on Rousseau’s view, that they must be concerned with establishing and maintaining desirable relations of authority. Criticizing philosophers who try to care for human beings by offering them lessons, Rousseau claims that “men are not governed in that way by abstract views; one makes them happy only by constraining them to be so, and one must make them experience happiness in order to make them love it” (“Discourse on the Virtue Most Necessary for a Hero” in Rousseau on Philosophy, Religion, and Morality, p. 33). As this quotation and the discussion surrounding it suggest, Rousseau believes that caregiving often requires the forms of constraint proper to authority and rule. But he is also well aware that authority is liable to become dominative if it is not limited in appropriate ways. In the following chapter, I will show how Rousseau strives to facilitate the social and political provision of care while preventing domination through his teachings about the purpose and structure of authority relationships.

Chapter Four

Rousseau, Authority, and the Caring Republic Authority and Care

I

n the previous chapter, I showed that the caring education Rousseau outlines in Emile is also a form of civic education that prepares individuals for political life. But this education, and much of the care vital to human flourishing, cannot be provided in the absence of authority. Accordingly, Rousseau introduces the principle of subordinate sovereignty—the principle that superordinates should strive to mold the judgment of subordinates but subordinates should have a degree of formal control—as a way of facilitating authoritative caregiving relationships while preventing their degeneration into dominative practices.1 In this section, I show how subordinate sovereignty defi nes Rousseau’s thinking about authority in general terms. In the second section, I turn to consider Rousseau’s treatment of political authority specifically. There I contend that egalitarian, contractual elements in Rousseau’s political thought are best understood as a response to the problem posed by domination, and the inegalitarian, hierarchical elements reflect the epistemically demanding nature of care provision: political care requires knowledge and skill, which Rousseau takes to be the preserve of a few. Both the egalitarian and inegalitarian aspects of Rousseau’s political theory are essential to realizing his ultimate goal: to eliminate domination and facilitate the desirable, caring connections between human beings that are a necessary ingredient of civilized humanity’s happiness. Having provided this account of Rousseau’s political theory, I turn in the third section to Rousseau’s treatment of women and the analogies

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he draws between the husband/wife relationship and the magistrate/citizen relationship. I argue that Rousseau’s discussion of women sheds light on his beliefs about how good caregivers use their authority, while also showcasing key weaknesses in his overall understanding of care. I develop this critique further in the concluding section. To begin, I will show how Rousseau’s conception of care informs the way he believes authority relationships ought to be arranged. While Rousseau thinks that the ultimate rationale of authority is the provision of care, his concern with preventing domination leads him to advocate caregiving practices in which thicker forms of authority are both restricted and disguised by a formally contractual or consensual structure. Rousseau’s understanding of care affects his thinking about authority on three interrelated issues. The fi rst concerns the ontological status of authority—whether authority relationships are natural or conventional. The second concerns the means by which authority figures should direct their subordinates. The third concerns the structure of the relationship between the subordinate and the superordinate. Considerations of care lead Rousseau to deny the existence of natural authority relations between adult males, argue that superordinates should govern subordinates without openly impressing their will upon them, and defend a triadic structure of authority characterized by subordinate sovereignty. In order to bring out these distinctive features of Rousseau’s view of authority and care, I will clarify his position by contrasting it with Plato’s. Rousseau endorses a version of the Platonic authority-ascare conception but qualifies it in light of his understanding of nature and amour-prôpre. As I argued in chapters 1 and 2, Plato sees care as an important activity, the provision and reception of which are crucial to a flourishing life. Plato insists that people do not judge equally well, and for this reason, the need to provide care often justifies unequal relationships in which one party supplies guidance and direction to another. This, he believes, gives authority a natural basis: the fact that some need care and others can provide it justifies the authority of the latter over the former. While the degree of authority that is justified varies depending on the situation and the extent of the discrepancy, in the limit case, subordinates ought to have virtually no say at all. In arguing this, Plato is by no means oblivious to the fact that many authority relationships are harmful and unjust. But there are a select few human beings—perfect philosophers—who deserve to rule over their fellow citizens as kings. As the Republic makes

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clear, if these few “divine” individuals could be identified and granted unaccountable rule, this would result in an ideal political order that successfully promotes the flourishing of its members. Plato admits that it is unlikely if not impossible to actualize a viable regime of this sort. Nevertheless, the thought experiment illustrates that authority has a natural basis in wisdom. This affects Plato’s political thinking even in less utopian cases. What turns on the question as to whether there is a natural basis for authority? The issue concerns the source of legitimation for authority relationships, what makes them binding and rightful. In Greek thought, that which is by nature (phusis) exists in opposition to that which is by human agreement or convention (nomos). If there were such a thing as natural authority, then there would be authority relationships that are justified by the very order of things rather than by agreement or consent. Furthermore, insofar as natural authority constitutes a true standard of which conventional authority relationships may well fall short, it could compromise our loyalty to existing arrangements. And indeed, in Plato’s thought, this is precisely what results: in every polity short of the best, conventional and natural authority will actively confl ict. This creates a tension between the wise or the lovers of wisdom and the political order they inhabit, a tension that is at the center of Plato’s political reflections. Rousseau subscribes to a qualified version of Plato’s position. He clearly embraces the fi rst part of the view, that the primary purpose of authority is the provision of care. All of Rousseau’s model authority figures, including Emile’s tutor, 2 Wolmar in Julie, and the Lawgiver in the Social Contract, use their authority to promote the well-being of others by meeting important needs. They do so with attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness, and they are described in caregiving terms. 3 Rousseau even partially accepts the second component, that considerations of care justify the imposition of authority. He grants the existence of natural authority in some instances, namely, between parents and children, and he does so for reasons of care. The family, Rousseau claims, is sanctioned by nature, and so are the hierarchies that comprise it. He makes a major break with the Platonic understanding of authority as care, however, in his explicit denial that any “man has a natural authority over his fellow-man” (Social Contract, I.5, p. 44). Rousseau attacks the notion of natural authority between adult males because he believes that any such authority relations not established by consent will lead to domination; the only authority relationships com-

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patible with the principles of the natural order are ones established by suitable agreements.4 Rousseau argues that since man’s “fi rst law is to attend to his own preservation, his fi rst cares [soins] are those he owes himself, and since, as soon as he has reached the age of reason, he is the sole judge of the means proper to preserve himself, he becomes his own master” (ibid., I.2, p. 42). We have certain cares we owe ourselves, cares that are “specially entrusted” to us by nature;5 we can never abdicate this responsibility totally, nor can we alienate parts of it lightly. Rousseau does believe there is a natural basis for some forms of authority, where the rule of others is truly conducive to the well-being of the person ruled. For instance, he claims that there is a natural basis for paternal authority, grounded in the fact that children need (besoin) their father to preserve them. But “as soon as that need [besoin] ceases, the natural bond dissolves. The children, exempt from the cares [soins] they owe the father, the father exempt from the cares [soins] he owed the children, all return equally to independence” (ibid.). Thus, while there is a natural, authority-as- care justification for familial authority, it does not apply to adult men. On similar grounds, Rousseau also opposes the Platonic view that the wise possess natural authority. He attacks Aristotle’s claim that some are fit to rule and others to be ruled on the grounds that Aristotle mistook the cause for the effect; slaves are fit to be slaves only because they have been habituated to slavery (ibid., I.2, p. 43). This mistake, Rousseau argues, leads to the conclusion that rulers are gods or peoples are beasts. Such was the opinion of Caligula, who conducted himself accordingly (ibid.). And the “same reasoning Caligula made as to fact, Plato made as to right in defi ning the civil or royal man he seeks in his book on ruling [i.e., the Statesman]” (ibid., II.7, p. 69). It is crucial to note that while Rousseau rejects Plato’s defense of the natural right of wise human beings to rule, he does not do so on the grounds that people judge equally or almost equally well. Rousseau follows Plato in recognizing the existence of wise individuals with exceptional judgment. A man like this is a rule unto himself and “does not need laws” (Emile, bk. II, p. 223). Rousseau even suggests that such a man is uniquely fit to occupy high office, in a passage reminiscent of the Republic: May Kings not disdain to allow into their councils the men most capable of advising them well. . . . May learned men of the fi rst rank fi nd honorable asylum in their courts. May they obtain there the only recompense worthy of

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them: that of contributing by their influence to the happiness of the people to whom they will have taught wisdom. Only then will one see what can be done by virtue, science, and authority, animated by noble emulation and working together for the felicity of the human race. But as long as power is alone on the other side, intellect and wisdom alone on the other, learned men will rarely think of great things, Princes will more rarely do noble ones, and the people will continue to be vile, corrupt, and unhappy. (First Discourse, p. 64; cf. Republic, 473c– d)

Yet unlike Plato, Rousseau does not grant, even in principle, that wise men have the right to forcefully remake the political order they inhabit or wield power unaccountably.6 Two reasons account for the difference between Rousseau and Plato on this point. The fi rst concerns a disagreement about the goodness of “nature.” As I have shown, Rousseau argues that there is a good fit between the internal and external movements of living things and their physical environment. In the state of nature, nature itself does the caring. Human care is barely necessary, and authority not at all. Plato, by contrast, depicts the natural world as comparatively indifferent or hostile to the good of living things. Their disagreement here is manifest in several places.7 For example, while Rousseau’s state of nature is characterized by a self-sustaining harmony, Plato’s golden age myths feature authority. The reason Plato’s golden age was so idyllic is that the god Kronos guided the cosmos and sent minor gods or spirits to rule human beings directly. When the gods abandoned their posts, things degenerated—nonhuman animals became ferocious and life extremely difficult. Thus, the natural world, for Plato, is not simply harmonious; it must always be modified by intelligent artifice for it to be good.8 The same applies to living things. Their instincts and impulsive movements are not by nature good. To the contrary, many of these impulses are bad for them, and they live better when they are subject to intelligent correction. That is why Plato believes that the essential dynamic of more knowledgeable beings regulating less knowledgeable beings and putting them in order by means of authority is immediately justified, independently of convention, as a necessary means of promoting the good. When it comes to the natural world, Rousseau is more of a teleological thinker than Plato. The second reason Rousseau and Plato disagree is that Rousseau does not think good and wise men are masters of their own desires.

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Because Rousseau believes that self-love is so deeply embedded in human beings in the form of amour de soi and amour-prôpre, he thinks that it is less susceptible to purification and moderation by contemplative activity than Plato does.9 Plato claims that the taste for contemplation makes philosophers insensitive to the pleasures of ruling, and this is a key part of what justifies the rule of philosopher-kings in the Republic (e.g., 485d– e). Against this, Rousseau maintains that even contemplative human beings retain a deep-rooted, other- directed neediness— philosophy cannot bring amour-prôpre under control.10 Thus, the social needs of wise men—for love and, especially, for admiration—make them just as liable to dominate as other human types (Emile, bk. IV, p. 428). Hence Rousseau claims: If we [Emile and the tutor] were Kings, we would no longer be beneficent. If we were Kings and were beneficent, we would do countless real evils without knowing it for the sake of an apparent good we believed we were doing. If we were Kings and were wise, the fi rst good thing that we would want to do for ourselves and others would be to abdicate our royal position and become again what we are. (Ibid., bk. V, p. 660)

Not only do Rousseau’s differences with Plato cause him to argue that authority relationships between adults can only be rightful if they are initiated by the consent of both parties; they also have important consequences for the way Rousseau thinks authority ought to be exercised. Amour-prôpre and the desire for extension make domination a permanent temptation in human relations but one that is particularly dangerous in the context of authority relationships. According to Rousseau, the pleasure of seeing another carry out one’s will is considerable. Consequently, it is easy for even the best-intentioned individual to slide from a determination to benefit his subordinates to desiring fi rst and foremost to see himself obeyed.11 Conversely, the feeling of being commanded gives rise to resentment. If someone “is bent to obedience, he does not see the utility of what he is ordered, and he attributes it to caprice, to the intention of tormenting him; and he revolts” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 364). People on the receiving end of commands are liable to experience the will of superordinates as a hostile power, even if the will is benevolent. This inclines subordinated parties to disobedience and expressions of hostility, which in turn offends the amour-prôpre of the superordinate: if someone is used to being “obeyed, as soon as something resists him, he sees in it a

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rebellion” (ibid.). The dynamic that emerges propels the relationship toward increasingly destructive forms of domination and resistance. Nevertheless, civilized human beings require structures of authority for the sake of their own good and for the common utility. What, then, enables “a man” to commit himself to others “without harming himself, and without neglecting the cares [soins] he owes himself?” (Social Contract, I.6, p. 49). Part of Rousseau’s response, as I showed in the preceding sections, is to propose caring education as a way of facilitating mutually beneficial forms of interdependence. But the other crucial part of his solution is to limit the permissible structures of authority relations. One way Rousseau does this is by rejecting commands as the primary means of regulating others.12 The pleasures of commanding are corrupting, and the pains of being ordered about by a foreign will engender hatred and rebelliousness. Yet authority cannot serve its function if the superordinate is left without any means for directing the subordinate’s judgment. Rousseau’s solution is twofold: (1) the judgment of subordinates ought to be molded, rarely by commands, but by subtle forms of manipulation the subordinates do not perceive; and (2) to the extent that imperatives are issued, they ought to derive (or, in some cases, simply appear to derive) from the will of the subordinate. The fi rst point aims to disguise the superordinate’s will such that it does not appear to be an act of will at all. With respect to governing a young child, Rousseau recommends concealing one’s will completely: “Command him nothing, whatever in the world it might be, absolutely nothing. Do not even allow him to imagine that you might pretend to have any authority over him” (Emile, bk. II, p. 223). Rousseau’s counsel is particularly extreme here because he wishes to prevent young children from thinking of themselves as relational beings before they have reached a certain age. But even later, once the tutor’s authority is brought to the adolescent Emile’s explicit attention, the tutor stresses that his fi rst care after establishing his authority “will be to avoid the necessity of using it” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 496)—that is to say, of exercising it in ways that remind Emile that he is a subordinate. Rousseau suggests that a good superordinate surreptitiously concocts situations that lead subordinates to judge in the manner that the superordinate desires. Because “there is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom” (ibid., bk. II, p. 257), the lessons the tutor imparts to Emile are made to seem as though they come “from the very order of things” (ibid., bk. II, p. 237), from nature rather than the tutor. Rousseau sug-

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gests a similar use for God in the Social Contract. One may represent one’s will as coming from a supernatural source in order to persuade others to act in certain ways. The second method is to color one’s will with the will of one’s charge. By obtaining the subordinate’s consent to the superordinate’s authority, the superordinate’s commands can be plausibly presented as proceeding from the subordinate’s will. “The master’s amour-propre must always leave some hold for the disciple’s” in order to secure the subordinate’s investment in the relationship—the subordinate must feel his will is active and that the superordinate recognizes it (ibid., bk. IV, p. 404).13 Hence when it comes time for the tutor to openly establish his authority over Emile, he only does so with Emile’s consent. On one hand, this reduces the superordinate’s discretion, as it forces him to take the will of the subordinate party into account. On the other hand, it actually increases his effective control by disposing the subordinate to regard the relationship positively. Being commanded against one’s will diminishes the feeling of gratitude that persons well cared for are otherwise liable to experience, and this gratitude is one of the great buttresses of de facto authority: “If, therefore, gratitude is a natural sentiment, and you do not destroy its effect by your errors, rest assured that your pupil, as he begins to see the value of your care [le prix de vos soins], will be appreciative of it . . . and this will give you an authority [une autorité] in his heart that nothing can destroy” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 388).14 The purpose of both methods is to prevent the subordinate from experiencing the superordinate’s attempts to mold him as a hostile imposition by a foreign will. The fi rst method conceals the fact that the superordinate’s will is a will, and the second that it is foreign. These measures solve the problem posed by the tendency of amour-prôpre to poison authority relationships by preventing the subordinate from experiencing the pain of being commanded. It also prevents the superordinate from fully experiencing the temptation to dominate by denying him the pleasures of unrestricted command. The superordinate is limited by the need to secure the subordinate’s consent formally, if not to every decision, then at least to continuing the authority relationship. Thus, the subordinate’s will remains present in the relationship as a check on the superordinate. This right of the subordinate to check the superordinate is one the subordinate cannot fully abdicate, even if he wanted to:

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To say that a man gives himself gratuitously [i.e., entirely and without condition] is to say something absurd and inconceivable; such an act is illegitimate and null, for the simple reason that whoever does so is not in his right mind. . . . Is it not clear that one is under no obligation toward a person from whom one has the right to demand everything, and does not this condition alone, without equivalent and without exchange, nullify the act? (Social Contract, I.4, pp. 45–46)15

Ultimately, the subordinate must retain the fi nal say.16 This leads Rousseau to reject a dyadic master/slave structure of authority in favor of a triadic model,17 which I refer to as “subordinate sovereignty.” It designates a configuration in which a subordinate is guided by a superordinate but retains a degree of control over the superordinate at the same time. One striking aspect of subordinate sovereignty is that subordinate and superordinate must understand the relationship differently if it is to function effectively: the subordinate must believe the superordinate is not a master; the superordinate must recognize his responsibility to guide the judgment of the subordinate but do so in a way that obscures that this is what is taking place. Rousseau tries to produce this disjunction in his rhetoric; he attempts to cultivate both mindsets at once by encouraging subordinates to be jealous of their rights while simultaneously urging superordinates to work around them secretly. This, I would suggest, is what leads to many of the apparent contradictions in his treatment of authority. It might seem that the subordinate’s “sovereignty” is no more than a clever ruse intended to secure his obedience. However, this is not the case: the power of the subordinate to refuse to initiate, dissolve, and/ or in various ways influence the conduct of the authority relationship is real. This allows subordinates to escape authority relations that have become dominative. It also helps prevent those relations from becoming dominative in the fi rst place; since subordinates have the capacity to dissolve the relationship, superordinates must take their judgment into account if they want to maintain it. This might not seem like much of a hindrance, given the degree to which the subordinate is subtly manipulated. Yet though the means by which superordinates serve the interests of their subordinates rely to a considerable extent on the artful, even deceptive, management of their experiences, the subordinates’ judgment that their interests are being served is not produced through deception.

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The subordinate retains the ability to judge whether the superordinate is caring adequately and to influence or even dissolve the relationship if it seems oppressive. Rousseau conceptualizes authority relationships generally in accordance with the principle of subordinate sovereignty.18 As was shown above, he insists that tutors must gain their charges’ explicit consent to their authority—the pupil is a subordinate sovereign, formally capable of dissolving the relationship and thus in some sense the ultimate authority, even though the real power rests with the tutor. Similarly, with respect to political authority, the principle leads Rousseau to propose a tripartite schema of subject, magistrate, and sovereign. Magistrates are superordinates who rule the citizens in their capacity as subjects, but the citizen body also possesses ultimate authority in its capacity as sovereign (ibid., III.1, p. 83). Rousseau ultimately subscribes to a version of authority as care, grounding authority relationships in the need to provide care. At the same time, he breaks with Plato’s position, modifying it in light of his understanding of nature and amour-prôpre. In this section, I have shown that Rousseau stresses the conventional nature of authority between adult men, the need to avoid regulating the judgment of others primarily by means of a command/obedience dynamic and the principle of subordinate sovereignty with respect to authority relations generally. In the section that follows, I shall explicate Rousseau’s understanding of political authority in particular, examining how he incorporates the principle of subordinate sovereignty into his theory of popular sovereignty and the role of political elites.

The Politics of Subordinate Sovereignty Thus far, I have discussed the major goals of care for Rousseau (preserving the partial independence of human beings while cultivating their higher faculties, especially their capacity to form orderly relationships with others), and I have shown how, according to him, effective care of this sort can only be provided by authority relationships that meet certain criteria. In this section, I will explore the implications of the preceding discussion for Rousseau’s conception of political authority as he outlines it in the Social Contract and the Discourse on Political Econ-

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omy. I intend my argument here to clarify the relationship between the democratic and elitist elements in Rousseau’s political theorizing and to serve as a corrective to the common tendency to overlook the latter (Riley 2001; Barber 1984) or construe them as betrayals of the former (Gauthier 2006). Against these interpretations, I will show that these elements correspond to the two different parts of an authority relationship structured according to the principle of subordinate sovereignty, and their presence in Rousseau’s political theory is explained by the fact that political authority must assume a particular structure if it is to provide care effectively. In keeping with this, I will argue that the contractual imagery in Rousseau’s political thought corresponds to the consensual or contractual component he defends as an integral part of all authoritative caregiving relationships. As many readers of Rousseau have recognized, one important task of political authority is to stamp out the relations of domination that will inevitably arise between civilized human beings if left to their own devices. According to Rousseau, citizens who have disproportionate wealth or other social advantages will tend to acquire disproportionate amounts of power. Owing to amour-prôpre, they will use that power to press others into their service and dominate their fellows. A central goal of properly constituted political authority is to prevent this by stopping individuals from becoming dangerously dependent upon—hence liable to dominate and be dominated by—one another. At times, Rousseau writes as though this requires stamping out all forms of subpolitical dependence, such that each adult citizen depends entirely upon the state and not at all upon anyone else (e.g., Social Contract, I.7; cf. Emile, bk. I, p. 164). But as other scholars have noted, the forceful way Rousseau sometimes announces particular principles or desiderata often belies a deeper moderation; that is to say, the policies and institutions he advocates employ those principles in a less extreme fashion, balancing them against competing goods and goals (e.g., Reisert 2003, pp. 190– 91). And in this case, Rousseau envisions much more complex forms of caring interdependence than it might appear at fi rst glance. For one thing, Rousseau believes it is counterproductive, even morally wrong, for political authority to assume total responsibility for certain forms of care that are properly the province of nonpolitical actors; in contrast to Plato, Rousseau does not believe political authorities can entirely replace the caregiving functions of parents (Emile, bk. V, p. 537).

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Nevertheless, political authority is of paramount importance to Rousseau because it is tasked with managing all other relationships of authority and care within the polity.19 For Rousseau, the type of care with which political authority is concerned is relatively comprehensive in scope, like the care a parent provides a child; it aims to promote the well-being of citizens across the full range of their needs. Thus, while Rousseau argues there are very significant differences between polities and families, a point I will return to below, he nonetheless maintains that they are comparable on this point: the family is “the fi rst model of political societies; the chief is the image of the father, the people are the image of the children, and all, being born equal and free, alienate their freedom only for the sake of their utility” (Social Contract, I.2, p. 42). He also asserts that “the functions of the father of a family and of the foremost magistrate” should “aim at the same goal”—the “chiefs” of both associations share “an obligation to make each happy” (Political Economy, p. 5). Accordingly, Rousseau uses caring language to describe magistrates, claiming that the function of good and wise rulers is “to prevent, cure, or palliate [prévenir, guérir ou pallier] that multitude of abuses and evils always ready to crush us” (even as he doubts that “all their care [leurs soins]” will be sufficient to remedy all of the ills of our civilized condition) (Second Discourse, pp. 202– 3). Completing the picture, Rousseau likens a well-run state to a happy family: If children are raised in common in the midst of equality, if they are imbued with the laws of the state and the maxims of the general will, if they are taught to respect them above all things, if they are surrounded by examples and objects that constantly speak to them of the tender mother [i.e., the fatherland] that nurtures them, of her love for them, of the invaluable good she bestows on them, and of what they owe her in return, let us not doubt that this way they will learn to cherish one another as brothers, . . . and one day . . . become the defenders and fathers of the fatherland whose children they will have been for so long. (Political Economy, pp. 21– 22)20

In keeping with this analogy, Rousseau expects good governments to mirror, complement, and in some cases supersede traditionally familial responsibilities. For instance, Rousseau insists that the education of children should not be left to their father’s “lights and prejudices,” and that “public education under rules prescribed by the government, and under magistrates established by the sovereign is . . . one of the funda-

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mental maxims of popular or legitimate government” (ibid., p. 21). 21 This system of public education, which includes games and exercises, is intended to promote bodily health, help citizens acquire desirable character traits, and inspire them with love and affection for one another and the state (e.g., Government of Poland, pp. 187, 191). 22 Rousseau also endows magistrates with the responsibility of ensuring the system as a whole is beloved: “When citizens love their duty, and the trustees of the public authority sincerely try to foster [nourrir] this love by their example and their efforts [leur soins], then all difficulties vanish” (Political Economy, p. 15). 23 In addition, Rousseau makes the state responsible for citizens’ material well-being. The “aim of the political association . . . is the preservation and prosperity of its members,” and the surest sign of this is “their number and population” (Social Contract, III.9, p. 105).24 To multiply the number of citizens and promote their prosperity, “it is not enough to have citizens and to protect them; it is also necessary to give thought to their subsistence; and to provide for the public needs is a clear consequence of the general will” (Political Economy, p. 23). 25 Rousseau is clear that this does not mean “fi lling the granaries of individuals and exempting them from work” (ibid.). As per his thoughts on children’s education, he objects to “spoiling” individuals by granting their desires without demanding effort from them. Rather, the goal of his political economy is to keep “plenty within their reach” (ibid.). Accordingly, he praises Geneva’s system of public granaries as a way of securing an adequate food supply, and he outlines multiple ways a wise administration might temper the multiplication of needs and prevent large economic inequalities from arising (ibid., p. 27). To ensure that everyone can “live, and no one get rich,” Rousseau’s “Plan for a Constitution for Corsica” even contemplates complete government regulation of intrastate trade (“Plan for a Constitution for Corsica” in The Plan for Perpetual Peace, Kindle locations 2935– 65). Yet despite the ways in which polities and families resemble one another—despite the fact that both political authority and parental authority are concerned with the provision of comprehensive care— Rousseau nonetheless insists that there are crucial differences between them. For one thing, the family and the polity differ greatly in size. The fact that political authority must minister to a much larger number of people complicates its task. Additionally, the exercise of political authority requires more virtue of character. Rousseau argues that fathers

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have a natural affection for their wives and children that inspires a genuine concern for their well-being. There is no comparably strong natural impulse capable of inspiring political authorities with a love of their subjects: whereas in the family “the father’s love for his children repays him for the cares [soins] he bestows on them,” in the state, “the pleasure of commanding takes the place of the chief’s lack of love for his people” (Social Contract, I.2, p. 42). But this pleasure is dangerous, tending toward domination. Far “from the chief’s having a natural interest in the happiness of private individuals, it is not uncommon for him to seek his own happiness in their misery” (Political Economy, p. 4). 26 The problem posed by amour-prôpre and its tendency to transform authority relationships into sites of domination is particularly acute for political authority. For these reasons, Rousseau’s understanding of how political authority ought to be arranged is quite complex, and his reflections have long been a source of interpretive controversy. On one hand, the Social Contract contains features that are thoroughly democratic: Rousseau claims that political authority must be fi rst established by a contract that requires unanimous consent; once the contract is established, the adult male population must be regularly assembled to exercise the functions of sovereignty, which include the right to approve or veto legislation, depose sitting government officials, and reform or abolish the existing form of government. 27 At the same time, it contains elitist, even antidemocratic, elements as well: though Rousseau defends direct democratic exercise of the legislative power, he is against it with respect to the executive—the government ought to be composed of representatives, not administered directly by the people; also, though the people are said to always want the common good, Rousseau claims that they are to some extent dependent upon elites to enlighten them in order for them to see it; fi nally, the political system as a whole is said to depend upon a founding lawgiver with exceptional qualities, who persuades—even tricks—the citizens into accepting his laws. Why does Rousseau seem to place so much faith in popular sovereignty and the competence of the majority while at the same time envisioning a clandestine role for elites? I would suggest that the democratic elements in his thought are a consequence of the ethically demanding nature of political authority. Owing to the danger of domination, Rousseau aims to minimize the discretion of particular wills, prevent the unaccountable rule of a few, and ensure that political authority is exercised in a general and impersonal way. Because “no particular will can be or-

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dered in the social system” (Emile, bk. II, p. 216n), because our natural self-preference precludes there being anyone who, when granted political power, could consistently will whatever is most conducive to orderly and harmonious relations between citizens without succumbing to the temptation to dominate, Rousseau turns to the notion of a general will. 28 Like nonpolitical authority relationships, political authority must conform to the principle of subordinate sovereignty in order to avoid the dangers of amour-prôpre. Citizens must be vested with ultimate authority, even as they are governed by magistrates. Yet this raises the following question: If it is relatively easy to ascertain the will of an individual subordinate, what ought to count as the will of a subordinate group? Rousseau’s answer is that it is necessary to fi nd a will that is general with respect to the group’s members—that is to say, one that looks to the good of each and all without being partial to any particular individual(s). The general will, Rousseau claims, can be ascertained by majority vote, assuming the population is adequately informed, deliberates in private, and is not divided by faction. 29 Hence political sovereignty ought to be exercised in a direct- democratic fashion. Though popular sovereignty is necessary in order to prevent rulers from dominating the rest of the population (Social Contract, III.18), it is inadequate by itself as a means of providing care. Rousseau’s doctrine of the general will is intended as a way of regulating and supplementing, not replacing, caregiving political activity carried out by an elite. For this reason, Rousseau retains a need for an epistocratic or elitist element in his thought. Some interpreters have attempted to ignore or downplay the epistocratic aspects of Rousseau’s political philosophy; Barber, for instance, reads Rousseau as a participatory democrat and a critic of representation (1984, p. 200). Others acknowledge the epistocratic elements but consider them temporary. Patrick Riley (2001) is a representative proponent of this view. According to Riley, the central problem of Rousseau’s thought is “to fi nd a form of nonauthoritarian educative authority that will ‘make men what they ought to be’ without (permanently) depriving them” of freedom (ibid., p. 126). Rousseau’s answer is the general will, which absorbs and internalizes the expert knowledge that initially made epistocratic measures necessary (ibid., pp. 125, 146). In what follows, I shall show that these readings are mistaken. The epistocratic features of Rousseau’s political teaching are neither temporary nor superfluous but integral parts of a system designed to facilitate the provision of care and prevent domination.

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To some extent, the need for a political elite is dictated by practical considerations. The general will cannot see to everything in the state. Although the people, in their capacity as sovereign, must be entrusted with legislative power, Rousseau argues that the executive power is separate and ought to be exercised by a smaller body. Thus, states must select magistrates to apply the laws and perform executive functions. While some of his justifications for this are logistical, Rousseau’s deeper concern is epistemic. As he explains, The People subject to the laws ought to be their author; only those who are associating may regulate the conditions of the society; but how will they regulate them? . . . How will a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wills because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out an undertaking as great, as difficult as a system of legislation? By itself the people always wills the good, but by itself it does not always see it. The general will is always upright, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened. It must be made to see objects as they are, sometimes as they should appear to it, shown the good path which it is seeking, secured against seduction by particular wills, bring together places and times within its purview, weigh the appeal of present, perceptible advantages against the danger of remote and hidden evils. (Social Contract, II.7, p. 68)

The correct exercise of political authority, especially in more complex societies, requires considerable knowledge and skill. Political authorities are responsible for providing care to large groups of people, and this involves reordering and redirecting passions so that they serve the common good. It is impossible to accomplish this without significant expertise, including detailed knowledge of human nature and the natural world. 30 Rousseau insists that the knowledge necessary for exercising political authority well is the purview of a few. The problem is that no individual or small group of individuals can be trusted to will the common good: Individuals see the good they reject, the public wills the good it does not see. All are equally in need of guides: The fi rst must be obligated to conform their wills to their reason; the other must be taught to know what it wills. Then public enlightenment results in the union of understanding and will in the social body, from this union results the smooth cooperation of the parts, and finally the greatest force of the whole. (Ibid., II.6, p. 68)

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Rousseau’s apparent solution to this problem is entrusting the responsibility of enlightening the population to the regime’s founding lawgiver, who propounds a set of laws but does not rule himself. Rousseau describes the lawgiver as a godlike genius who saw “all of man’s passions and experienced none of them, who had no relation to our nature yet knew it thoroughly, whose happiness was independent of us and who was nevertheless willing to care for ours [s’occuper du nôtre]” (ibid., II.6, pp. 68– 69). 31 The lawgiver’s task is to care for us by proposing laws that will enshrine desirable habits, beliefs, religious observances, economic practices, and governmental structures conducive to the flourishing of the citizen body. According to Rousseau, before a population is formed by excellent laws, it is incapable of judging well on its own. Yet scholars have debated whether the people are still dependent on the judgment of political elites once the lawgiver has done his job. At times, Rousseau makes it sound as though magistrates do no more than administer laws that the people approve (ibid., II.6, p. 68). This would seem to support Riley’s (2001) interpretation discussed above. But Rousseau also makes it clear that the need for talented rulers increases in proportion to the deficiency of the founding lawgiver’s efforts, the growing complexity of the socioeconomic and political order, and the corruption of the people (e.g., Political Economy, p. 15; “Plan for a Constitution for Corsica,” Kindle locations 3241–42). It is not the people’s need for wise political leaders that is temporary but, rather, its ability to do without them—it exists for a limited window of time after the lawgiver completes his work. Further complicating this picture, the apparently hard-and-fast distinction between magistrates who rule but do not legislate and a lawgiver who legislates but does not rule is far less absolute than it fi rst appears. Even in a noncorrupt polity, magistrates have much more discretion than the Riley and Barber interpretations would allow. Rousseau maintains that the form of government that is “best and most natural” is one in which the wisest govern the multitude, “so long as it is certain they govern it for its advantage and not for their own” (Social Contract, III.5, p. 93). The way to ensure this, Rousseau argues, is to allow the people to elect officials known for their probity, enlightenment, and experience (ibid.). Here Rousseau is suggesting that a polity can only function well if it is administered by individuals with political expertise. 32 And indeed, he ultimately grants magistrates far more power than his more minimal formulations seem to imply. First, their mandate is more capacious—in addition

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to implementing the laws, magistrates are also responsible for preventing abuses and reinforcing citizens’ love of the laws by subtle and often manipulative means (Political Economy, p. 11). Second, when they execute the laws, they do much more than mechanically apply preestablished general rules to particular situations. Rousseau entrusts magistrates with functions a contemporary reader might think of as legislative, such as the power to declare war, administer public funds, order certain kinds of taxes, and arrange for public education (Social Contract, II.2, p. 58; Political Economy, pp. 21–22, 26, 35– 37). What is more, Rousseau allows magistrates to perform functions he identifies as legislative in some instances: “The commands of chiefs . . . may be taken for general wills as long as the sovereign is free to oppose them and does not do so” (Social Contract, II.1, p. 57). He even suggests that it will be necessary sometimes to suspend the laws by popular consent and temporarily delegate authority to a supreme magistrate, as per the Roman practice of dictatorship (ibid., IV.6). Finally, he imagines a privileged role for magistrates in shaping legislation: while all citizens may vote, the government confines “the right of voicing opinions, proposing, dividing, discussing [motions]” to its members alone (ibid., IV.1, p. 122).33 He also seems to approve of attempts to bias the decisions of popular assemblies in the direction of those with a better capacity to judge political matters, as is evident from his tacit endorsement of the subtle ways Roman statesmen granted disproportionate legislative influence to the elite (ibid., IV.4, pp. 130– 35). Rousseau’s conception of political authority, then, conforms to the principle of subordinate sovereignty. The democratic elements in Rousseau’s political thought function in part to constrain superordinates and thereby prevent domination. But they are not intended to eliminate hierarchies of judgment; rather, just as in other authority relationships, they facilitate them by coloring the actions of superordinates with the will of the subordinates. In keeping with this, Rousseau also repeats his advice for superordinates to engage in manipulation when they need to circumvent the subordinates’ judgment. Magistrates, Rousseau claims, ought to carefully hide their tracks: “At least this much is certain, that the greatest talent of chiefs consists in disguising their power in order to render it less odious, and to lead the state so peacefully that it appears not to need leaders” (Political Economy, p. 11). As the preceding discussion demonstrates, Rousseau’s political authority figures are not merely devices for setting into motion an egalitarian republican system that thereafter runs itself but rather an inte-

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gral component of caring political authority. The general will solves the problem of locating a will that is orderly with respect to all the members of the polity: a political body governed by the general will is united in much the same way as an isolated human being in the state of nature. But political bodies are composed of individuals whose natural self-preference remains a constant threat to orderly relations with others. Care is needed to redirect amour-prôpre and keep citizens in a condition of unity; this, in turn, requires a degree of knowledge and skill possessed only by a few. Furthermore, insofar as individual human beings, and not merely the polity as a whole, remain objects of moral concern, care is necessary in order to cultivate the proper development and exercise of their higher faculties. Subordinate sovereignty is Rousseau’s answer to the question of how political caregiving can take place in the face of amour-prôpre and the powerful human tendency to regard the independence of other beings with anger and pain. By providing care in the form of laws and regulations intended to manage the economy of affections within the polity, subordinate sovereignty allows human beings to cohabitate without harming one another and cultivates the formation of affective ties between them. Also, it enables those individuals who “love order” and desire connection with others to achieve it in a way that is productive. By denying the right of the wise to interfere in politics without the consent of their fellow citizens but nevertheless articulating ways for them to act politically, Rousseau fi nds a new place for them—not as philosopherkings, but as a certain kind of authority figure capable of assuming a  place in a social and political order that includes the entire citizen body. Yet while Rousseau’s principle of subordinate sovereignty modifies Plato’s conception of authority as care in a way that combats the risk of technocracy, it contains its own dangers as well. In the next section, I will turn to the ways in which subordinate sovereignty fails as a wholly satisfactory solution to the challenge of facilitating care without domination, which are nowhere more manifest than in Rousseau’s treatment of women.

Care and Women In the preceding section, I argued that Rousseau utilizes the principle of subordinate sovereignty in designing caregiving political authority

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structures. By entrusting the lawgiver and magistrates with various political responsibilities while simultaneously holding them accountable to a subordinated but ultimately sovereign citizen body, superordinates’ talents and wisdom can be safely harnessed without exposing citizens to domination. In this section, I will argue that this is also one of Rousseau’s strategies for imagining women’s place in his social and political thought. Scholars have rightly noted and condemned Rousseau’s defense of the patriarchal family, but many have overlooked important differences between his justificatory strategy and the kinds of arguments more typically employed by patriarchy’s proponents. 34 Instead of arguing from the purportedly natural inferiority and childlike nature of women, as Aristotle does, Rousseau perversely applies the principle of subordinate sovereignty. He justifies the power of husbands over their wives by figuring wives as superordinates who use their authority to provide salutary forms of care, subject to the subordinate sovereignty of their husbands. This move does not render Rousseau’s patriarchal apologetics any more plausible. But I examine it here because it sheds light on how he envisions the superordinate role while also showcasing the weaknesses of the principle of subordinate sovereignty and Rousseau’s understanding of care as a whole. Given many of his principles, it is perhaps surprising that Rousseau takes a strong stand in favor of patriarchy. The patriarchal tradition typically justified female subordination by arguing that, by nature, women are physically, morally, and intellectually inferior to men and that their proper work consists in taking care of men and children. 35 Yet as other scholars have pointed out, Rousseau argues that many of the characteristics we take to be “natural” are in fact historically and socially constructed (Okin 1979, pp. 122– 24). In an early essay, “On Women,” he applies this argument to claim that women’s supposed inferiority is merely an artifact of their position in contemporary society. 36 Even in the Second Discourse, he argues that there is little that distinguishes the lives of men and women in the original state of nature. In addition to problematizing the notion that men are naturally superior, he does much to undermine the idea that hierarchies between adults are natural. He paints a general picture of nature that supplies a normative ground for freedom and limits the ways in which humans may rightfully exercise authority over each other. The patriarchal family would seem to violate many of these strictures by granting men relatively unchecked and unaccountable power over women. Yet despite these elements in his thought, Rous-

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seau ultimately reaches a “surprisingly tedious conclusion” concerning women’s proper role (Elshtain 1981, p. 158). In his published writings, Rousseau expresses a deep commitment to the patriarchal family, and in works such as Emile, he endeavors to reconcile this position with his condemnation of domination. At times, Rousseau appears to defend patriarchy in a very conventional way, by taking the common patriarchal position that essentially identifies women as natural servants. 37 In Rousseau’s general account of the natural world, living beings are entrusted fi rst and foremost with the care of their own good and only secondarily that of others. Yet he seems to exempt women from this, asserting that “woman is made specially to please man” (Emile, bk. V, p. 532). Rousseau arrives at this conclusion from the premise that women have more need of men than men do of women, 38 because they are naturally weaker (ibid., bk. V, pp. 532, 537) and because “nature has charged” them with the burdens of pregnancy and the early care of their offspring (ibid., bk. V, pp. 535– 37, 616; cf. Political Economy, p. 4). Hence “by the very law of nature women are at the mercy of men’s judgments, as much for their own sake as for that of their children” (Emile, bk. V, p. 539). 39 Thus, Rousseau contends: The whole education of women ought to relate to men. To please men, to be useful to them, to make herself loved and honored by them, to raise them when young [les élever jeunes], to care for them when grown [les soigner grands], to counsel them, to console them, to make their lives agreeable and sweet—these are the duties of women at all times, and they ought to be taught from childhood. (Ibid., bk. V, p. 540)

Just as nature intends for women to take care of men, women are also meant to be subject to them. The fact that man is charged fi rst and foremost with his own preservation grounds a right to freedom that he can only alienate under certain consensual conditions. Hence freedom and the capacity to resist domination are central to their education. But women are altogether different. As girls, they “have—or ought to have— little freedom” (ibid., bk. V, p. 545). They are to learn from an early age how to patiently endure being ruled and even abused: “Woman is made to yield to man and to endure even his injustice. You will never reduce young boys to the same point. The inner sentiment in them rises and revolts against injustice. Nature did not constitute them to tolerate it” (ibid., bk. V, p. 577).40 Rousseau argues that women are properly subor-

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dinate both to particular men (their fathers and husbands) and to men in general in the form of public opinion.41 He reasons that if women are suspected of sexual impropriety, their husbands might question whether their children are truly theirs, and this will dissolve the family (ibid., bk. V, pp. 535– 36; Political Economy, p. 4). Therefore, women must both be and appear to be above reproach (Emile, bk. V, p. 536). As a way of ensuring this, Rousseau praises the ancient Greek practice of shutting married women up “in their houses,” limiting “all their cares [tous leurs soins] to their households and their families. Such is the way of life that nature and reason prescribe for the fair sex” (ibid., bk. V, p. 542). The notion that women are made to submit to men, care for them, and endure even their injustice is something that, to the best of my knowledge, Rousseau does not claim about any other living thing, including nonhuman animals. It suggests a view of women as beings uniquely intended for a form of servitude, appealing to their supposedly natural characteristics as reasons for subjugating them.42 Hence Okin emphasizes its similarity to Aristotle’s argument that some people are slaves by nature and criticizes Rousseau for applying this argument to women after he had already savaged its application to men in the Social Contract (Okin 1979, p. 127). Similarly, Carole Pateman notes that the sexual contract is a marked exception to Rousseau’s stricture “that any relationship that resembles slavery is illegitimate, and no contract that creates a relationship of subordination is valid” (1988, p. 76). Despite remarks suggesting a view of women as natural servants, Rousseau is unwilling to fully endorse it. Alongside his calls for female subjugation, Rousseau also puts forward a view of women as men’s equals,43 even their natural governors or masters. Owing to “an invariable law of nature which gives woman more facility to excite the desires than man to satisfy them,” the male sex “appears to be master but actually depends upon the weaker” (Emile, bk. V, p. 534). Female power is such that, without the check imposed on women by social conventions regarding modesty, men would be “tyrannized” by them and “would see themselves dragged to death without ever being able to defend themselves” (ibid., bk. V, p. 533). Rousseau links women’s capacity to control men not only to their ability to excite sexual desire but to a “peculiar cleverness” (ibid., bk. V, p. 547). He thinks that women have a natural talent for manipulation—they discern particulars with greater clarity than men and are better able to arrange circumstances to their

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advantage without appearing to (ibid., bk. V, pp. 546–48, 562– 65, 639). For these reasons, he informs women that “the fate of your sex will always be to govern ours” (Second Discourse, “To the Republic of Geneva,” p. 89; see also First Discourse, p. 52n and Emile, bk. V, p. 560). In claiming that women are naturally subject to men but also ought to rule them, Rousseau acknowledges he is making claims that could appear contradictory (Emile, bk. V, p. 590). But he resolves the contradiction with an appeal to the principle of subordinate sovereignty. Explaining that “there is quite a difference between arrogating to oneself the right to command and governing him who commands,”44 Rousseau contends: She [the wife] ought to reign in the home as a minister does in a state—by getting herself commanded to do what she wants to do. In this sense, the best households are invariably those where the woman has the most authority. But when she fails to recognize the voice of the head of the house, when she wants to usurp his rights and be in command herself, the result of this disorder is never anything but misery, scandal, and dishonor. (Ibid.)

Here he casts wives as superordinates in a subordinate sovereignty relationship. Like the magistrate, the wife exercises authority, but without appearing to and without usurping the right of the subordinate party to exercise formal control in his capacity as “sovereign.” Rousseau also compares wives to tutors, likening the power Emile’s wife Sophie will exercise over him to the power once wielded by his educator. In the tutor’s words: “Dear Emile, a man needs advice and guidance throughout his life. . . . Today I abdicate the authority you confided to me, and Sophie is your governor from now on” (ibid., bk. V, p. 674). Shklar notes Rousseau’s claims about female power, and she asserts that in his judgment, the authority of women “is no blessing” (1964, p. 929). Shklar is right to detect resentment in Rousseau’s account, but he nonetheless considers female authority to be a necessary and desirable part of his system, however much he might deplore its supposed “abuses.” According to him, the power women exercise over men is nature’s intention, and it is something he actively encourages (Emile, bk. V, pp. 546–47; First Discourse, p. 52n). Hence he praises “the ambition of the women of Sparta, which was to command men” (Emile, bk. V, p.  572)45 and urges Sophie to embrace her governing role (ibid., bk. V,

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pp. 673– 74). Just as in the case of other superordinates, the purpose of constraining female authority is not to eliminate it but to make it safe, so that it can provide care without becoming dominative. In keeping with this, Rousseau imagines women using their constrained authority to take care of men in ways reminiscent of his other superordinate figures. Like other superordinates, women provide epistemic benefits—they have access to knowledge and talents that their subordinates lack and that work to the advantage of all when they are harnessed by a suitably structured authority relationship. Because, in Rousseau’s view, women are more discerning than men and have a better grasp of particulars,46 they are able to complement men’s epistemic advantages regarding more general and abstract matters.47 And like Rousseau’s other superordinates, women have the responsibility to carefully attend to subordinates’ needs. Rousseau’s ideal materfamilias takes care of the physical and emotional well-being of other household members and of guests. He illustrates what he has in mind by describing a hostess managing a dinner party: The man [i.e., the host], knowledgeable about who gets along with whom, will seat them on the basis of what he knows. The woman, without knowing anything, will make no mistakes about it. She will have already read, in their eyes and in their bearing, everything about who belongs with whom, and each guest will fi nd himself placed where he wants to be. . . . Even though the master of the house may have forgotten no one when he passed around the food, his wife goes further and divines what you look at with pleasure and offers you some. In speaking to her neighbor, she has her eye on the end of the table; she distinguishes between the guest who does not eat because he is not hungry, and the one who does not dare to help himself or ask because he is awkward or timid. On leaving the table each guest believes that she has thought only of him. (Ibid., bk. V, p. 562)

Rousseau’s perfect housewife not only ensures that the basic needs of others are met but manages emotions, providing each guest with the sense that he has been individually attended to, and structuring interactions between guests to facilitate pleasant socializing. This is a task she also performs with respect to other household members, using her natural “female cleverness” at manipulating the passions of others to soothe and pacify (ibid., bk. V, p. 548). While the wife’s emotional management of others can involve mun-

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dane efforts to “please,” at a deeper level, this female function resembles the magisterial task of harmonizing the passions with the requirements of social and political order. Rousseau’s ideal women employ “coquetry in the interests of virtue and love to the benefit of reason” (ibid., bk. V, p. 674), utilizing sexual desire and the domestic affections as resources for maintaining familial and political life. It is the wife who “serves as the link between [children] and their father; she alone makes him love them and gives him the confidence to call them his own. How much tenderness and care [de tendresse et de soin] is required to maintain the union of the whole family!” (ibid., bk. V, p. 535). Women play a similar role in linking men to a republican state (ibid., bk. V, p. 570)—this is a point scholars such as Elizabeth Wingrove (2000) have detailed at length, showing how Rousseau operationalizes sex and gender to manage desire in the service of republican ends.48 Thus Rousseau is not simply advancing the common patriarchal argument that women play an important role in republics because their labor in the home frees men up to do other things.49 It is not just their capacity to provide useful service but their ability to manipulate and manage the passions that makes them essential: “It is for you [women] to maintain always, by your amiable and innocent dominion and by your insinuating wit, the love of the laws in the State and concord among the citizens” (“To the Republic of Geneva,” p. 89). Rousseau’s desire that women simultaneously govern and obey produces a similar disjunction in his rhetoric that is apparent in his discussions of other subordinate sovereignty relationships. On one hand, the rights of the subordinate sovereign are emphasized, and the superordinate is presented as lacking the authority to contravene the sovereign’s will. On the other hand, the superordinate is informed that he or she has more power and discretion than the subordinate understands and that if he or she exercises it clandestinely for the good of the subordinate, this will redound to the benefit of both. 50 In this case, Rousseau’s efforts to protect male sovereignty result in claims emphasizing and perhaps even consciously exaggerating female inferiority. Okin doubts whether Rousseau entirely believes all of his assertions about women in Emile, suspecting that Rousseau’s real justification for male sovereignty is not that nature immediately authorizes it but that social life ultimately requires it—it is consistent with nature but not directly enjoined by it (1979, p. 130; see Kofman 1988 for a similar view). I consider it likely that Rousseau’s rhetoric in Emile deliberately elides this distinction in order to buttress male power and deny a foothold to his opponents, who would point to

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the cultural contingency of female subordination as evidence that the sexes can and should be equal. 51 Needless to say, there are problems with Rousseau’s attempts to fit women into his larger sociopolitical project as yet one more example of caring governors who obey. By treating men as the subordinates, Rousseau justifies their formal control over women as a defensive measure, a way of protecting them against female domination. He thereby shifts the question away from whether women are dominated in the home to whether they are dominating. And he endeavors to avoid the charge that he has made women servants by arguing they are men’s equals, even their masters, so long as they perform their proper role and do not “usurp” the place of men. One suspects there is something disingenuous about Rousseau’s appeal to subordinate sovereignty here and that he is going through these contortions in order to reconcile his general principles with misogynistic impulses connected to his own ambivalent experiences of female power (on this last point, see Shklar 1964, p. 929; Okin 1979, p. 159; and Elshtain 1981, p. 159). But whatever his underlying motivations, the way Rousseau applies subordinate sovereignty to the husband/wife relationship certainly countenances the oppression of women in practice. In Rousseau’s other subordinate sovereignty relationships, it makes sense to emphasize the vulnerability of subordinates and to worry less about the possibility that superordinates will themselves be dominated. Magistrates and tutors have the power to quit; they have the backing of other authority figures, such as the state apparatus and parents; and they usually have superior physical force at their disposal. But in a patriarchal order, it is men rather than women who generally possess these advantages. 52 It is implausible to think that wives’ “guile” and “charm” will always protect them from abuse at the hands of their husbands, and it is equally ridiculous to suppose that a more egalitarian relationship would lead to women tyrannizing over men. These objections not only apply to Rousseau’s treatment of relations between men and women but are indicative of broader flaws in how he imagines caring authority. The division between “women” and “men” to some extent reflects Rousseau’s general tendency to divide human beings into two types, with two corresponding psychologies. On one hand, there are the caregiving authority figures, who are wholeheartedly engrossed in producing the good of others. On the other hand, there are the “patients” of authority. The former are skilled, perceptive, and full of guile; they derive their satisfaction from the salutary use of their

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power over others. The latter are simple, direct, and innocent; they derive their satisfaction from the enjoyment of their freedom. Both types require each other: the caregiving authority figures need “patients” to express their love of order, their desire for self- extension, and/or their affection for others; the “patients” need caring authority figures to guide their  judgment and mold them so that they are able to use their freedom well. But as his discussion of women highlights, there are several problems with this scheme. The fi rst is that it results in underattention to the needs of the superordinate caregiver. This is particularly stark in the case of women, whose needs and desires take an obvious backseat to those of their male “charges.” But in general, good caregivers are presented as fully engrossed in the well-being of their charges, and comparatively little weight is given to their desires, their own need for independence, and their need to be cared for in turn. Indeed, Rousseau repeatedly imagines good caregivers as possessing implausibly few needs and desires of their own. The Lawgiver and Wolmar, for instance, have few passions beyond a “love of order” and a largely disinterested concern with the well-being of others. Care ethicists have pointed out that expecting caregivers to be primarily altruistic and to fi nd whatever fulfi llment they need in their work functions as an oppressive ideology that precludes sufficient attention to their well-being. Rousseau may be justly faulted for this, concentrating the bulk of his attention on the patients of care, who are never asked to give much thought to the needs of their caregivers. The second problem concerns the dangers of Rousseau’s two-pronged rhetoric. Rousseau strives to cultivate subordinate sovereigns with a proud sense of independence. They are told they are free and that those who wield power over them are only justified doing so if it conforms to their will. To hammer the point home, the pretensions of superordinates are attacked, and their illegitimate claims to thicker forms of power are unmasked. In the case of women, Rousseau’s attacks proceed to the point of proclaiming their natural inferiority. With respect to authority relations generally, this is not the full story: Rousseau is trying to render subordinates more vigilant against domination, even as he indicates to superordinates that their power is much greater than subordinates realize, assuming they wield it secretly and skillfully. Rousseau gives voice to both perspectives and expects us to figure out how to balance them. But there is a profound risk implicit in this rhetorical approach. Subordinates are never fully brought to recognize their need for governance—

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the whole scheme turns upon them not realizing it. Thus there is a danger that they will take Rousseau’s warnings about magisterial usurpation or female domination too seriously and too far. 53 Rousseau himself does not want “a Republic where the people, believing it could do without its magistrates or only allow them a precarious authority, would imprudently have retained the administration and civil affairs and the execution of its own laws” (“To the Republic of Geneva,” p. 82). And yet it is no surprise that Rousseau’s name has been long associated with direct democracy and populism, as well as the fanaticism of the French Revolution and Robespierre’s civil religion. To be clear, I am not faulting Rousseau for the mere fact of being misunderstood but for encouraging misunderstanding by means of a rhetorical approach that follows directly from the necessary misunderstanding at the heart of subordinate sovereignty. The third problem with subordinate sovereignty is the essentially manipulative role it gives to the superordinate. The cost of admitting the need for competent caregivers to regulate the judgment of others while insisting that rule can only be exercised covertly is the requirement that authority figures engage in demanding amounts of manipulation. It is not just to require of women that they assume the burden of stage-managing their husbands’ lives, nor is it just to require this of educators. And ultimately, it is not good for subordinates either. I have defended Rousseau against the general charge that his superordinates are actually dominators: I do not think the tutor dominates Emile, nor do I believe his theory countenances wives dominating husbands or magistrates dominating citizens. But the degree of manipulation he advocates is nonetheless excessive and morally objectionable. For one thing, extensive management of others’ experiences risks discovery, which would destroy the trust between superordinates and subordinates. For another, systematic manipulation, even when it is successful, denies manipulated parties the ability to make real choices, to develop their critical faculties, and to arrive at an estimation of things not biased by the deliberate machinations of others. How can subordinates learn to rule themselves, much less learn how to wield authority over others, if they have spent their lives with the true nature of authority concealed from them? While I do not deny that authority figures occasionally need to engage in a little theater, present facts selectively, or even lie, extensive manipulation is not a better alternative to tolerating some amount of authority with a more transparent command/obedience dynamic. For all the reasons I have identified, sub-

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ordinate sovereignty is not an entirely adequate answer to the problem of authority generally or political authority specifically. In the chapter’s conclusion, I will consider the implications of its weaknesses for evaluating Rousseau’s work as a whole.

Conclusion What are we ultimately to make of Rousseau’s understanding of political authority and its relation to care? I would suggest that Rousseau’s political project contains several attractive elements. Rousseau takes seriously the need to care for others and makes a compelling case for the contributions caregiving and receiving care make to a flourishing life. In doing so, he helps us appreciate the ways in which we are enmeshed in caring relationships with our friends, family members, fellow citizens, and the species generally. By taking explicit note of these relationships and recognizing their value, we might increase our sense of responsibility for others and deepen our love for and gratitude to them. Furthermore, Rousseau draws our attention to the way that relations of care are intertwined with practices of authority. Many important kinds of caring and being cared for directly involve and/or indirectly depend upon hierarchies of judgment established by authority relations. Insofar as we have an interest in seeing ourselves and others cared for, we are necessarily invested in establishing, maintaining, and reforming desirable practices of authority. Rousseau also usefully contributes to our thinking about the way those desirable practices of authority relate to the problem of domination. The principle of subordinate sovereignty is a helpful starting point for thinking about how to structure caring relations that involve significant power discrepancies: it acknowledges that individuals require forms of care that necessitate authority or rule, but it emphasizes that superordinate caregivers are in danger of harming their charges unless they are constrained to track the needs and interests of persons cared for. Rousseau thereby provides a care-based rationale for formal accountability mechanisms. In addition, Rousseau’s substantive account of domination has crucial advantages over a purely formal or procedural one. Here a brief comparison with Philip Pettit’s paradigmatic theory of domination is instructive. According to Pettit, someone is dominated if he or she is potentially subject to the arbitrary interference of another (1999, p. 22).

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Pettit maintains that interference is arbitrary when it does not track the interests or ideas of the ruled as the ruled themselves understand them (ibid., pp. 22, 36, 55). That is to say, an act is arbitrary “by virtue of the controls—specifically, the lack of controls—under which it materializes, not by virtue of the particular consequences to which it gives rise” (ibid., p. 55). I am dominated if someone possesses the capacity to interfere with my choices at his or her pleasure; even if that person interferes in benevolent ways that promote my well-being, I am still dominated insofar as he or she is able to act with impunity. Pettit is clearly right to worry about preventing oppression and the abuse of authority. Yet he sidesteps an important aspect of the problem. Because he defi nes domination as the absence of controls, domination is, on his account, a matter of how wills are related to one another, without particular reference to the substance of those wills. If the substance of what interferers do is irrelevant, it would seem that all interferees who lack control are subject to domination. Feminist critics have argued that this applies poorly to children: loving parents interfere with their children in ways that do not accord with their thoughts and opinions; these children do not appear to be dominated despite their relative lack of control (Friedman 2008, pp. 252– 57; Costa 2013, pp. 928– 29). Others have objected to the idea that control could be sufficient to prevent domination. Just as Pettit’s conception of arbitrary interference ignores the substance of what the interferer does, it also ignores the substance of what the interferee believes. For Pettit, interference is arbitrary when it fails to track the interests of the persons interfered with as those persons understand them; it is unnecessary to inquire whether interferees’ beliefs about their interests “are true or real or valid, by some independent moral criterion” (2008, p. 117; see also 2012, p. 49). But if persons have internalized dominative norms, they may misjudge their own interests. David Michael Harbour raises the example of a contented slave, who believes that his master’s authority over him ultimately serves his interests, perhaps because “he has been conditioned by his unjust treatment” (2012, p. 194). Even if procedures were instituted forcing the master to track the slave’s interests as the slave understands them, this would not address the problem, given his conviction that his interests are served by a relationship in which he is brutally abused. In contrast, Rousseau theorizes domination alongside care in a way that makes possible a substantive understanding of domination. On Rousseau’s account, domination is not the same thing as the absence

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of formal accountability. (Although the absence of formal accountability almost invariably leads to domination.) Rather, domination is a sustained relationship involving the damaging appropriation of one being by another. To dominate something is to appropriate it for your use, without regard to its own ends or interests. But its ends and interests are potentially knowable, grounded as they are in its nature and its circumstances and not purely a matter of the being’s subjective assessment. This enables us to identify forms of domination that are not necessarily recognized as such by the persons being dominated. It also makes possible a theory of domination that can address human beings who are unable to fully articulate their interests (such as children or individuals with severe mental impairments) and speak to environmental concerns; because the natural as such is an object of value, even creatures that lack an autonomous will deserve protection from domination. 54 At the same time, of course, we should proceed carefully here—Rousseau’s discussion of women’s “nature” inadvertently demonstrates how purportedly “objective” accounts of other beings’ interests and needs can be skewed in harmful ways. This is not a reason to uncritically defer to individuals’ own subjective assessments, but it is a reason to be very attentive to those assessments and to be cautious in contravening them. Rousseau’s account of domination also contributes to the care ethics literature by showing how the virtues and values of care might shape nondominative citizens. As I argue above, care ethicists have generally noted the importance of nondomination in a caring society as a kind of side- constraint but have not sufficiently appreciated the direct contributions care can make to nondomination. Being properly cared for and learning to care for others in turn equips us to respect the freedom of others. It also disposes us to proactively care for them, refusing to neglect fellow citizens or permit third parties to dominate them. Thus care is crucial for cultivating republican citizens who will support caring political institutions and resist dominative practices. Yet despite its many strengths, the Rousseauian framework has critical flaws. The way Rousseau applies the principle of subordinate sovereignty to politics manages to be too democratic in some respects and insufficiently democratic in others: too democratic because Rousseau makes it dangerously easy for the people to sack their leaders or discard the existing regime, putting these questions to a vote every time the popular assembly meets (Social Contract, III.18); insufficiently democratic because he restricts political wisdom to the preserve of a few

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and excludes women from politics altogether. These problems are linked. It is precisely because the people have such capacious powers in their capacity of sovereign that they require so much manipulation in their capacity as subordinates. If we move beyond the binary relationship Rousseau posits between a public that wills the good it cannot see and an elite that sees the good it cannot will, we might imagine more complex relationships between publics, institutions, and officials, in which a variety of epistemic contributions from a variety of sources combine to produce sound policy. And if we jettison his assumption that males simply cannot abide being governed by a foreign will, we might reconcile the need for accountability with a more transparent and honest command/obedience dynamic that is not so reliant on surreptitious state management. Finally, despite the emphasis Rousseau places on freedom, he has far too little regard for the freedom of women, and in general he places insufficient trust in people’s ability to order their own affairs and to manage their relationships with others. This is connected to his exaggerated sense of the dangers posed by amour-prôpre. It is his conviction that amour-prôpre is radically dangerous and must be brought under control by authority that underpins the more controlling, deceptive, and invasive measures he advocates. Given the fact that Rousseau and Plato propose caring institutions and practices that afford insufficient space for critical reflection and self- determination, the next chapter turns to William Godwin as a thoughtful counterweight. Godwin makes a strong case for the importance of private judgment in politics; his writings, I will argue, are a useful exploration of the extent to which the cultivation of individual reason and moral judgment can take the responsibility for providing care to others out of the hands of political authority.

Chapter Five

Godwin on Care, Impartiality, and Independence Care and Godwin’s Radical Liberalism

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he previous chapters explored Plato’s and Rousseau’s political philosophies, showing how care structures their ethics and politics at a fundamental level. Both theorists offer important insights that advance the project of constructing a liberalism of care, such as Plato’s challenging account of political expertise and Rousseau’s theory of nondomination. At the same time, their writings show insufficient regard for central liberal commitments to equality and autonomy, advancing conceptions of political care with dangerously authoritarian and paternalistic dimensions. In this chapter and the one that follows, I turn to William Godwin, a radical liberal and philosophical anarchist whose account of politics strives to reconcile liberal commitments to equality and autonomy with substantive concern and care for the well-being of individuals.1 As I have noted, care ethicists have criticized liberalism on a variety of grounds. Scholars argue that liberals draw a distinction between public and private spheres in a manner that depoliticizes the distribution of caregiving labor; understand freedom as requiring independence, which obscures the reality of human interdependence and deprecates the value of caring relationships; and conceive of political justice as a set of fair, impartial rules, in a way that precludes holistic concern with the particular situations and needs of concrete individuals. Such considerations inform Engster’s verdict that “liberalism can provide only partial support for many caring policies, and whatever support it does provide can

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always be challenged from within the liberal tradition on the grounds that it infringes individual freedom” (2007, p. 18). Godwin’s political philosophy is a helpful touchstone because his liberal values lead him to radical claims that, at fi rst blush, would seem to underscore all of care ethicists’ and feminists’ deepest concerns. In Godwin’s early work, freedom and equality are so fi rmly connected to independence that he condemns sustained caring relations, rejecting cohabitation and marriage. In addition, he is extremely critical of the idea that the state should provide care to citizens: despite the fact that he never used or embraced the label, Godwin’s commitment to individual autonomy and his skepticism of authority are so extensive that he is considered one of the founding fathers of anarchism. 2 But Godwin’s thought is not nearly as inimical to care as it fi rst appears. With respect to cohabitation and marriage, he revised his views as his thought matured, eventually reconciling his liberalism with a deep appreciation for the importance of caregiving relationships to human happiness, praising them as vehicles for the cultivation and exercise of moral agency. Furthermore, while he rejects government-provided care, this is not because he thinks we have no social and political obligation to care for one another but because he believes the use of political authority is ultimately counterproductive. Indeed, he argues that we have a capacious responsibility to care for one another by other means, and the equitable distribution of caring labor is central to his vision of political justice. Godwin is a thinker whose criticisms of other views are more persuasive than his own positive proposals; while he is, for instance, a perceptive critic of Plato and Rousseau, he tends to carry his genuine insights to implausible extremes, especially in the fi rst edition of Political Justice. I turn to him not for an account that is correct but for one whose strengths and weaknesses are fruitful. While I will be arguing that Godwin goes too far in rejecting rule and authority as means of providing care, he usefully articulates the reasons why liberal virtues, such as independence, impartiality, and the capacity for critical reflection, which flow from a specifically liberal conception of freedom and the human good, are vital to care well provided. By defending those virtues in terms of their contribution to good care, he goes beyond the minimal liberal accounts I considered in the introductory chapter, which are more concerned with formal fairness than substantive well-being. And in doing so, he also challenges care- ethical accounts that denigrate those liberal virtues, such as the moral-partialist account of care favored by Noddings

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and maternalistic accounts of care proffered by Ruddick and Held. He thereby highlights key reasons why care ethics and liberalism can and ought to inform one other. In this chapter, I will begin by unpacking the foundations of Godwin’s ideas about care, highlighting a central tension in his thought: his respect for independence and impartiality on one hand and his commitment to benevolence and capacious care on the other. Then, in the chapter that follows, I will examine the implications of Godwin’s convictions about care for his politics, showing how he attempts to replace authority with conversation and political institutions with care for one’s neighbor.

Godwin’s Moral Foundations Like Plato’s and Rousseau’s, Godwin’s understanding of care is ultimately grounded in his conception of human nature and the natural world. It is impossible, after all, to care for something without some understanding of what it means for that being to be in a good condition (i.e., what its needs and capacities are). Yet Godwin is more opposed to the notion that human beings have a well- defi ned nature than Plato and Rousseau are. Godwin disagrees with Rousseau’s claim that nature is a caring force embodying normative principles that ought to orient human beings. He inclines instead toward the Platonic view that matter is chaotic and must be brought to order by reason. But Godwin is even more skeptical than Plato about nature’s normative content; contra Plato, Godwin rejects the claim that self-love and the desire for immortality are natural human drives that deserve to be indulged. 3 In the end, the only natural fact that Godwin believes possesses normative significance is love of pleasure and hatred of pain. For this reason, he adopts a utilitarian understanding of morality and conception of care that aims at the promotion of pleasure. As I will show, Godwin’s conviction that human beings are shaped almost entirely by their environment gives intelligent caregivers an especially decisive role in ensuring that individuals are equipped with the qualities of character and intellect they will need to live well. Also, his belief that some pleasures are more excellent than others enables him to develop a specific conception of the good life toward which caregiving practices should aim. To understand Godwin’s rejection of nature as supplying a robust standard for care, it is useful to contrast his position with Rousseau’s.

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Rousseau and other natural right thinkers claim that human beings are naturally endowed with certain desires or impulses that have normative weight and that it is by nature “right” to follow them. Their normative value follows from the fact that God or nature instilled them in us in order to promote our own good and the good of the whole.4 The plausibility of this argument turns on the assumptions that (1) the desires in question are innate and (2) the natural order exhibits evidence of beneficent design. Godwin rejects both claims. He argues that the natural order is mysterious, and we cannot understand it well enough to discern its ordering principles: “We know too little of the system of the universe, are too liable to error respecting it, and see too small a portion, to entitle us to form our moral principles upon an imitation of what we conceive to be the course of nature” (PJ, VII.1, p. 326). Furthermore, the small portion of the universe that we are familiar with is not obviously arranged to realize any particular end. Contra Rousseau, it does not seem designed to promote the well-being of living things. 5 Godwin argues that the sheer amount of senseless suffering in the natural world makes this argument impossible to accept: All nature swarms with life. This may, in one view, afford an idea of an extensive theatre of pleasure. But unfortunately every animal preys upon his fellow. Every animal, however minute, has a curious and subtle structure, rendering him susceptible, as it should seem, of piercing anguish. We cannot move our foot, without becoming the means of destruction. The wounds infl icted are of a hundred kinds. These petty animals are capable of palpitating for days in the agonies of death. It may be said, with little licence of phraseology, that all nature suffers. (Ibid., IV.11, pp. 455– 56)6

He concludes that the natural order is indifferent to the needs of human beings and other living things.7 Therefore, we ought to have no compunction about reordering it for our purposes, subjugating it by means of science and the arts: “Matter, or, to speak more accurately, the certain and unremitting laws of the universe, will be the Helots” of the future (ibid., VIII.8, p. 503). Just as the natural world lacks any clear purpose or ordering principle, Godwin similarly doubts that human beings have a nature to which they are obliged to conform, although he does not reject this position entirely. Godwin concedes there is a kernel of truth to the argument that we ought to behave in whatever way is “natural” for us. He contends that

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there are three things “which can be said to compose the nature or constitution of man” and must be taken into account in deciding how we ought to behave: “our external structure, which itself is capable of being modified with indefi nite variety; the appetites and impressions growing out of that structure; and the capacity of combining ideas and inferring conclusions” (ibid., I.5, p. 84). First, our external structure—that is to say, the human body—imposes various limitations upon us. We cannot go without food, we cannot survive at certain temperatures, and so on. Godwin readily grants that it is important to “consider our external structure, so far as relates to the mere question of our preservation” (ibid., I.5, p. 85). Second, there are appetites, such as hunger and thirst, that arise from our physical makeup and are essential to our preservation. Because they can neither be extirpated nor safely ignored, Godwin maintains that “we ought to accommodate ourselves to hunger and the other appetites which are common to our species” (ibid., I.5, p. 83). Third, Godwin claims that reason is natural to human beings. And this is another aspect of human nature we cannot ignore. It would be absurd to try to systematically counteract the faculty of reason, “since it is only by some sort of reasoning, bad or good, that we can so much as adopt any system” (ibid., I.5, p. 84). It is by means of reason that we compare different feelings and decide which to follow (ibid., “Summary of Principles,” p. xxvi), so even the determination to act unreasonably would necessarily involve reasoning. Insofar as our bodies, a few of our basic appetites, and our capacity to reason are “natural” and must be taken into account when determining how we ought to live, Godwin concedes that the maxim “follow nature” makes a certain amount of sense. Yet the truth contained in that maxim “is extremely darkened by the phraseology in which it is couched,” and its defenders frequently extend it unreasonably (ibid., I.5, p. 85). If proponents of this view mean that we ought to indulge whatever appetites human beings commonly experience, then it is a pernicious maxim. Many of our appetites tend toward immorality and excess, and “the mischief with which they are pregnant is to be corrected, not by consulting our appetites, but our reason” (ibid., I.5, p. 83). If proponents of this view mean that we ought to follow our instincts, Godwin denies that we have any instincts (ibid., I.4, p. 31; I.5, pp. 83– 84).8 He argues at length that the human mind has no innate ideas, principles of judgment, or habits (ibid., I.4, pp. 27– 35). This, in turn, leads him to attack the two principles that Rousseau claims are innate and anterior to reason: (1) love of self and

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(2) pity, the natural aversion to seeing any sensitive being perish or suffer (Second Discourse, “Preface,” pp. 95– 96). Godwin denies that human beings naturally experience self-love or are driven by an innate desire for self-preservation. He argues that when philosophers claim that we naturally love ourselves, what they are referring to is our inborn inclination to seek out pleasurable stimuli and avoid painful ones. But, he claims, the “approbation of pleasure, and dislike of pain” is really “only the faculty of perception under another name” (PJ, I.4, p. 34). Love of pleasure and hatred of pain are simply part and parcel of being an animal endowed with perception and sensation. This natural preference does not presuppose any particular attitude toward the self, nor is it accompanied by specific instinctual behaviors; therefore, to label it “self-love” is to mischaracterize it. As for the desire for self-preservation, Godwin asks what this desire entails: “Must we not understand by it, a preference of existence to nonexistence? Do we prefer anything but because it is apprehended to be good? It follows, that we cannot prefer existence, previously to our experience of the motives for preference it possesses” (ibid., I.4, p. 34). Godwin claims that the desire for self-preservation requires an understanding of life and death, two ideas that are quite complex and do not develop immediately. Furthermore, it presupposes that we have become attached to our own existence through the pleasure that existing affords us. Godwin maintains that it is the desire for and experience of pleasure that teaches us to love life and fear death; as he explains, a “child desires pleasure and loaths pain, long before he can have any imagination respecting the ceasing to exist” (ibid., I.4, p. 34). Therefore, love of pleasure is basic, but love of one’s own existence is not. Here Godwin makes a major break not only with Rousseau but with Plato as well.9 Godwin also denies that pity is an innate principle. Some thinkers, Godwin notes, have contended that it must be natural because “it seems to arise with greater facility in young persons, and persons of little refi nement, than in others” (ibid., I.4, p. 34). It is true that we are often pained by the sufferings of others “independently of any labored analysis,” but Godwin ascribes this to the fact that “cries of distress, the appearance of agony or corporal infl iction, irresistibly revive the memory of the pains accompanied by those systems in ourselves” (ibid., I.4, p. 35). That is to say, pity arises from the recollection of our own painful experiences occasioned by witnessing the suffering of others (i.e., “Your pain hurts me, because it reminds me of when I have been in pain”). Godwin takes pity

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to be a primitive response that is not accompanied by any real benevolence or active reflection. Hence, pity fades as we mature, once “longer experience and observation enable us to separate the calamities of others and our own safety . . . more accurately than we could be expected to do previously to that experience” (ibid., I.4, p. 35).10 In sum, Godwin believes that nature has little to say about what we ought to make of ourselves. He emphatically opposes the notion that the natural order is a harmonious arrangement whose physical principles have binding moral analogues; he denies that various human propensities, such as self-love and pity, are innate instincts that reflect nature’s “intentions.” What is more, Godwin argues that nature imposes few practical limitations upon what we can make of ourselves. Having rejected the idea that we have any instincts or innate principles of judgment, Godwin charges those who make extravagant claims about what we are “naturally” like with a version of the charge Rousseau levies against Hobbes: they take the accidental characteristics of human beings as they exist in the present to be essential features linked to our physical makeup.11 This is a grievous mistake: most behaviors commonly said to be natural, such as warring or worshipping God, are learned.12 The truth, Godwin insists, is that we are extraordinarily malleable, and almost everything depends upon education and environment.13 For this reason, Godwin speaks of children as “a sort of raw material put into our hands, a ductile and yielding substance, which, if we do not ultimately mould in conformity to our wishes, it is because we throw away the power committed to us, by the folly with which we are accustomed to exert it” (ibid., I.4, pp. 47–48).14 This reasoning undermines a Rousseauian case for natural freedom grounded in the goodness of beings’ natural impulses, instead granting caregivers a capacious mandate to mold their charges. If human nature and the natural world are extraordinarily malleable, how, then, should we shape them? According to Godwin, the proper criterion is pleasure: “Pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, constitute the whole ultimate subject of moral enquiry” (ibid., III.3, p. 201). Though Godwin does not explain his reasoning here at length, the preceding discussion illuminates how and why he arrives at this conclusion. All moral and ethical theories ultimately fall back on a set of fundamental assumptions about what is good or right and what is bad or wrong. These assumptions are posited as axioms, self- evident truths incapable of demonstrative proof, that form the building blocks of more complex normative judgments. Another feature of these axioms is that they are

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held to be true independently of and prior to human volition—they are not products of the human will but, rather, a set of moral facts that condition what it is appropriate for the will to choose.15 It is precisely the search for such facts that led ancient Greek philosophers to distinguish between what is good by nature and what is good according to convention and to conclude that the former is superior to the latter. Godwin implicitly accepts this reasoning and believes that there must be some natural fact about what is good and bad. Yet he takes himself to have shown that the “natural facts” to which other philosophers have pointed in order to ground their normative theories are either: (1) not facts (e.g., the claim that the natural order is a harmonious arrangement with embedded teleological principles) or (2) not natural (e.g., the claim that self-love and pity are innate). What is a natural fact is that all beings capable of perception fi nd “pleasure is agreeable and pain odious, pleasure to be desired and pain to be disapproved” (ibid., III.3, p. 146). These, he argues, are the only innate desires that immediately result “from the nature of such beings, independently of any arbitrary constitution” (ibid.). In addition, Godwin asserts that every other human desire is ultimately reducible to them: “There is nothing desirable, but the obtaining of the one, and the avoiding of the other. All the researches of human imagination cannot add a single article to this summary of good” (ibid., III.3, p. 201). As a result of Godwin’s arguments concerning human nature and the natural world, pleasure is the only normative criterion left standing. But this does not lead him to counsel selfish hedonism. Rather, he contends that it is only “just and reasonable” for human beings to contribute “so far as it lies in their power, to the pleasure and benefit of each other” (ibid., III.3, p. 146), embracing a utilitarian conception of morality that advocates promoting the greatest happiness of all. He claims that “the true object of moral and political disquisition, is pleasure or happiness” and that “morality is nothing else but that system, which teaches us to contribute upon all occasions, to the extent of our power, to the wellbeing and happiness of every intellectual and sensitive existence” (ibid., “Summary of Principles,” p. xxi; II.5, p. 159). In keeping with this, he defi nes justice in utilitarian terms: “Justice is a principle which proposes to itself the production of the greatest sum of pleasure or happiness” (ibid., “Summary of Principles,” p. xxv). Yet his utilitarianism departs in several critical respects from the more familiar utilitarian position advanced by Jeremy Bentham.16 In

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contrast to Bentham, Godwin recognizes a qualitative distinction between the values of different pleasures.17 According to Godwin, there are two types of pleasure: “The primary, or earliest, class of human pleasures, is the pleasures of the external senses. In addition to these, man is susceptible of certain secondary pleasures, as the pleasures of intellectual feeling, the pleasures of sympathy, and the pleasures of selfapprobation” (ibid., “Summary of Principles,” p. xxiii). Godwin argues that these “secondary pleasures are probably more exquisite than the primary: or, at least, the most desirable state of man, is that, in which he has access to all these sources of pleasure, and is in possession of a happiness the most varied and uninterrupted” (ibid.).18 Using his hierarchy of pleasures, he ranks different ways of life according to both the quantity and the quality of the pleasure they produce. At the bottom of his scale he places the peasant and the artisan, who labor for a living and therefore lack the ability to enjoy their freedom or cultivate their minds. On the next rung, Godwin places the wealthy man of leisure. This man enjoys all the pleasures of the palate and never lacks for amusement. He “tastes the pleasure of liberty; he is familiar with the gratifications of pride: while the peasant slides through life, with something of the contemptible insensitivity of an oyster” (ibid., IV.11, pp. 445–46).19 Next after this life, Godwin ranks the contemplative man. This person has a greater range of enjoyment than the preceding two—he admires the beauties of nature, enjoys solitude, and partakes in the pleasures of study. In comparison to this man, the peasant and the wealthy man are “only a better sort of brutes” (ibid., IV.11, p. 447). Yet the contemplative man’s life is still inferior to the fourth and final life Godwin sketches, the man of benevolence. According to Godwin, “Study is cold, if it be not enlivened with the idea of the happiness to arise from the cultivation and improvement of sciences. The sublime and pathetic are barren, unless it be the sublime of true virtue, and the pathos of true sympathy” (ibid.). Indeed, “There is no true joy, but in the spectacle and contemplation of happiness. There is no delightful melancholy, but in pitying distress. The man who has once performed an act of exalted generosity, knows there is no sensation of corporeal or intellectual taste to be compared to this” (ibid.). Moral pleasure is the highest form of pleasure available to us. For this reason, the best human life is the life of benevolent action, informed by rational contemplation. Also, unlike Bentham, Godwin claims that both consequences and intentions are critical to assessing the moral worth of particular acts and

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particular persons. Godwin defi nes virtue as “any action or actions of an intelligent being, proceeding from kind and benevolent intention, and having a tendency to contribute to general happiness”; an act is not virtuous if either good intention or good consequences are lacking (ibid., II.4, p. 149). Nor, by extension, can someone be virtuous unless he or she usually acts in a virtuous way. This account presupposes that benevolent or altruistic intention is genuinely possible, and this marks yet another difference between Godwin’s and Bentham’s utilitarianism. Bentham is a psychological egoist, meaning that he believes that all human behavior is self-interested and that even apparently altruistic acts are ultimately driven by selfish concerns. Rejecting this position, Godwin argues that no one will deny that “it is possible for a man to sacrifice his own existence to that of twenty others” (ibid., IV.10, p. 428)—human beings can and have done this. An act of this nature, Godwin claims, possesses several recommendations to the person performing it: “the advantage to arise to twenty men; their tranquility and happiness through a long period of remaining existence; the benefits they will not fail to confer on thousands of their contemporaries, and through them on millions of posterity; and lastly his own escape from uneasiness, and momentary exultation in an act of virtue” (ibid.). Those who maintain that human beings act only from self-love are compelled to assert that “the last consideration only is of any value with him. . . . He engages in an act of generosity, without one atom of true sympathy, and wholly and exclusively influenced by considerations of the most selfish description” (ibid.). This implausible assertion, Godwin claims, rests upon a confusion. If I desire your welfare, it follows that I will be pleased when you do well. But it does not follow from the fact that your welfare gives me pleasure that this pleasure is the cause of my desiring it. Rather, it is because I desire it in the fi rst place that I feel pleasure when you are benefited: “It is because I wish my neighbour’s advantage, that I am uneasy at his misfortune. I should no more be uneasy about this, than about the number of syllables contained in the present paragraph, if I had not previously loved it for its own sake” (ibid., IV.10, pp. 429– 30). Godwin concludes that genuine altruism is possible and that human beings are not purely egoistic. Godwin’s utilitarianism decisively shapes his understanding of what a morally good agent is like and how moral goodness relates to caring practices and caring values, such as attentiveness, responsibility, and competence. Because he believes morality consists in promoting the

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greatest happiness of everyone, he argues that every individual has a capacious responsibility for the well-being of his or her fellows and the species as a whole. In Godwin’s view, all of our activities, even the ways we choose to spend our leisure time, ought ultimately to be consecrated to this purpose. 20 And because he is not a psychological egoist, his proposals for promoting public utility do not have to take the Benthamite route of crafting systems that, by means of rewards and punishments, steer selfish individuals toward collectively utility-maximizing behavior— indeed, he is expressly critical of this approach (e.g., ibid., IV.10, p. 436; VI.9; VII.1– 5). 21 Rather, Godwin’s ambition is to change the very character of individuals and render them deeply other oriented. He believes it is possible to cultivate benevolence and teach people to genuinely desire the good of others for its own sake; this is good not only for society overall but for each altruistic person him- or herself, owing to the qualitatively superior pleasures of moral beneficence. As I will demonstrate in the following section, when Godwin provides examples of what such a person is like, he routinely presents someone who is thoughtful and reflective about what is right and good, who is receptive to those who ask for assistance, and who is vigilant in seeking out others to aid. Godwin’s solution to contemporaneous social and political evils is not an elaborate set of institutions but the cultivation of caring individuals.

The Dangers of Caring In my remarks above, I have highlighted some of the features of Godwin’s thought that dispose him to take a positive view of caring practices and values. I will elaborate further in this section, explicating how he utilizes caring language to describe moral agency and moral action. But, as I will show, there is a tension here; other elements in Godwin’s conception of the good life cut strongly against the kind of social, interdependent vision of a good society embraced by many care ethicists in favor of a more independent and atomized set of arrangements. I will then explain how he refi ned his position over time to deal with this tension. Godwin’s views about care and caregiving relationships are complex and changed over the course of his life. In some respects, Godwin is an emphatic proponent of care. As is evidenced by his ranking of lives, Godwin believes that the good life has a defi nite shape, 22 but he denies that beings possess some inner principle that will cause them to unfold

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well. 23 Furthermore, nothing guarantees that beings will be automatically exposed to the environmental influences that will lead them to it. Hence, Godwin stresses the need for intelligent agents to intervene in order to promote the good of living things. This is central to his conception of what it means to be a moral individual, and he is apt to describe this activity in caring terms. Godwin’s caring morality is evident in his account of education. Godwin concedes that inherited natural differences seem to play an important role in determining how nonhuman animals turn out. But even in the case of nonhuman animals, “education and care on the part of man seem to be nearly indispensable, if we would not have the foal of the fi nest racer degenerate to the level of the cart-horse” (ibid., I.4, p. 41). Hence education and care are all the more necessary for human beings, who are much more susceptible to environmental influences. 24 In the passage above, “education” and “care” are coupled as though they might be distinct, but like Rousseau, Godwin defi nes “education” in a capacious manner that intertwines them: “Education may be regarded as consisting of various branches. First, the personal cares which the helpless state of an infant requires. . . . Secondly, food and other necessary supplies. . . . Lastly, the term education may be used to signify instruction” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 512). For Godwin, education refers to a comprehensive caregiving practice, one that includes but is not limited to the narrower sense in which we usually understand the word (i.e., as consisting solely in instruction). Thus he blurs the terms, as in his account of Madame de Genlis’s educative “care” of the Duke of Orleans’s children (ibid., V.2, pp. 17– 20). This is especially pronounced in his essay collection The Enquirer, which treats the topic of education at greater length.25 There he deplores the fact that, presently, “talents of the mind, like the herbs of the ground, seem to distribute themselves at random. The winds disperse from one spot to another the invisible germs; they take root in many cases without a planter; and grow up without care or observation” (Enquirer, pt. 1, “Essay V,” p. 26). He believes many are capable of genius if they receive “a very early care” (ibid., pt. 1, “Essay III,” p. 13). But the foundations of education are “seldom laid with sufficient care” (ibid., pt. 1, “Essay VII,” p. 53), for genius requires “great care in the training, and the most favourable circumstances to bring it to perfection” (ibid., pt. 1, “Essay III,” p. 15). Godwin holds out the hope that human beings might nonetheless successfully reduce education to a system that produces good results reliably.

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In addition to employing caring language to describe intelligent agents acting benevolently, Godwin conceptualizes moral agency in general in ways that dovetail with the concept of care as I have defi ned it. That his understanding of morality involves benefiting others is clear; in addition, Godwin places a great deal of emphasis on responding to and remedying vulnerability by meeting important needs. Stressing the careethical value of responsibility, Godwin deplores the neglect with which so many are treated, arguing in favor of a capacious mandate to seek out and assist vulnerable individuals. 26 According to Godwin, we must employ all of our powers and possessions so as to maximize the greatest happiness of all. 27 It follows that whenever we are in a position to help someone meet an important need, we must do so: “Does a person in distress apply to me for relief? It is my duty to grant it, and I commit a breach of duty in refusing” (PJ, II.2, p. 133). 28 Indeed, he goes further, demanding persistent efforts to improve the condition of the less advantaged: Seeing the great disparity there is between different conditions of human life, he [i.e., the benevolent moral agent] ought constantly to endeavor to raise each class, and every individual of each class, to a class above it. This is the true equalisation of mankind. Not to pull down those who are exalted, and reduce all to a naked and savage equality. But to raise those who are abated; to communicate to every man all genuine pleasures, to elevate every man to all true wisdom, and to make all men participators of a liberal and comprehensive benevolence. (Ibid., IV.11, p. 448)

Like Rousseau’s Emile, Godwin’s benevolent man is constantly at work aiding those around him. But Godwin’s benevolent man is even more vigilant, selfless, and ambitious in his efforts to care for others. Godwin also emphasizes the care- ethical value of competence, arguing that we have the duty to cultivate our minds and our talents in order to contribute to the welfare of others. Like Plato, Godwin proposes a stewardship model of the self that intertwines self- care and care for others. He argues that “in the same manner as my property, I hold my person as a trust in behalf of mankind. I am bound to employ my talents, my understanding, my strength and my time, for the production of the greatest quantity of general good. Such are the declarations of justice, so great is the extent of my duty” (ibid., II.2, p. 135). Accordingly, one has an obligation to practice care of the self. One must cultivate one’s body and

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mind, to maintain them “in the utmost vigour, and in the best condition for service” (ibid., II.2, p. 134). 29 This involves a kind of self- disciplining and habituation: the man “whose heart overflows with kindness for his species, will habituate himself to consider, in each successive condition of social intercourse, how that occasion may be most beneficently improved” (ibid., IV.3, p. 294). Furthermore, Godwin embraces a care-ethical distinction between needs and “artificial wants” (ibid., VIII.3, p. 455). According to Godwin, benevolent action requires more than enabling others to do as they please, instead requiring a more far-reaching effort to cultivate them. Godwin notes that the insight that pleasure is the only good might seem to justify a kind of hedonic relativism. Someone might say, “Pleasure is the proper object of my pursuit; I best know what pleases me; and therefore, however opposite is the plan of my conduct to your conceptions, it is unreasonable and unjust for you to interfere with me” (ibid., IV.11, p. 442). But Godwin rejects this conclusion. If pleasure is the only good, then we have “the most cogent reason for studying pleasure, and reducing it to a science, and not for leaving every man to pursue his own particular taste, which is nothing more than the result of his education, and of the circumstances in which he happens to have been placed, and which by other lessons and circumstances might be corrected” (ibid., IV.11, p. 442). 30 Accordingly, he assails unnecessary superfluities; he also objects to those who are content with too little, leaving their intellectual and moral faculties underdeveloped. To the latter sort of person, Godwin would have us say: You are satisfied with an oblivion of all that is eminent in man; but we will awake you. You are contented with ignorance; but we will enlighten you. You are not brutes: you are not stones. You sleep away existence in a miserable neglect of your most valuable privileges: but you are capable of exquisite delights; you are formed to glow with benevolence, to expatiate in the fields of knowledge, to thrill with disinterested transport, to enlarge your thoughts, so as to take in the wonders of the material universe, and the principles that bound and ascertain the general happiness. (Ibid., III.7, p. 241)

As these quotations suggest, Godwin countenances a great deal of concern for and attention to the welfare of others, which includes a duty to judge whether they are taking adequate care of themselves and to interpose oneself where appropriate. 31 At the same time, Godwin harbors reservations about caregiving. He

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recognizes that acts of care often take place in the context of sustained caregiving relationships, and he worries about the tendency of those relationships to compromise the independence of their participants. For one thing, Godwin believes it is important for individuals to be capable of physical independence, in the sense of being able to manage their own basic needs without requiring constant assistance. Godwin points out that people accustomed to receiving excessive amounts of care are less able to develop the talents or capacities that will allow them to contribute to their own happiness and the happiness of society as whole. In an amusing passage, Godwin quotes at length from Madame de Genlis, who educated the children of the Duke of Orleans and describes their spoiled condition when they fi rst entered her care: Neither he [the Duke de Valois, the future king Louis Philippe I] nor his brother has the least regard for any body but themselves; they are selfish and grasping, considering every thing that is done for them as their due, and imagining that they are in no respect obliged to consult the happiness of others. . . . They are in an uncommon degree effeminate, afraid of the wind or the cold, unable to run or to leap, or even so much as walk at a round pace, or for more than half an hour at a time. The duke de Valois has an extreme terror of dogs, to such a degree as to turn pale and shriek at the sight of one. . . . The eldest, who was eight years of age, never came down stairs, without being supported by the arm of one or two persons. (Ibid., V.2, p. 18)

Given the obvious incapacities that result from being overly cared for, Godwin stresses the importance of avoiding caregiving practices that perpetuate this kind of dependence. Godwin is also concerned with social independence, the ability to take pleasure in solitude. As he puts it, We ought to be able to do without one another. He is the most perfect man, to whom society is not a necessary of life, but a luxury, innocent and enviable, in which he joyfully indulges. Such a man will not fly to society, as to something requisite for the consuming of his time, or the refuge of his weakness. In society he will fi nd pleasure. . . . But he will resort with a scarcely inferior eagerness to solitude. (Ibid., VIII.8, pp. 505– 6)

Godwin thinks that solitude is attended by its own particular enjoyments and that one is happier for being able to appreciate them. Periods of sol-

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itude also make it possible to fully enjoy the company of others without becoming irritated. 32 Most importantly, some amount of solitude is necessary in order to benefit others—all too often men are “obliged to sacrifice or postpone the execution of [their] best thoughts,” their projects that might be of great social utility, because they are “obliged to consult the convenience of others” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 501). Thus, Godwin objects to sustained caregiving relationships that require us to live with and remain in constant contact with others, such as those found in the “traditional” family. This is connected to another of his worries, which is that sustained intimate relationships can compromise intellectual independence. Godwin believes that “in order to the human understanding’s being successfully cultivated, it is necessary, that the intellectual operations of men must be independent of one another” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 506). Progress depends upon human beings thinking through matters on their own and not simply parroting the opinions of others. To be sure, Godwin is keen to emphasize that “conversation, and the intercourse of mind with mind, seem to be the most fertile sources of improvement” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 505). But he thinks that conversation is most improving when it consists in “that happy collision of understandings” that results from persons with different perspectives comparing and arguing over their views (ibid., III.6, p. 232). If we are constantly together with others, we are too apt to assimilate common opinions or engage in groupthink (ibid., VIII.8, p.  506). We need some degree of distance from other people, both emotionally and physically, in order to have time alone with our thoughts and formulate our own opinions. There is another sense in which Godwin believes caring relations can distort our judgment. He suggests that sustained intimate relations jeopardize our ability to act as impartial moral agents. Strictly speaking, engaging in caregiving relationships with particular individuals is not logically incompatible with valuing the good of everyone. Nevertheless, Godwin worries that intimate relationships make impartiality psychologically difficult, because they exacerbate the human tendency to show preference to friends and loved ones over strangers, as well our penchant to feel grateful and indebted to those who have benefited us (ibid., II.2, pp. 129– 30). Godwin stresses that the greatest happiness of all is the only relevant moral criterion, and that familial connections, private affections, and past favors we have received are spurious considerations. He asks his readers to imagine a scenario in which Archbishop Fénelon’s

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palace is in flames and they are faced with the choice of saving either the archbishop or his valet (ibid., II.2, pp. 126– 27). Given that Fénelon is an accomplished writer who will do much more to contribute to the happiness of humankind, Godwin maintains that the right thing to do is to save the archbishop. 33 And, he adds, it is immaterial whether the valet is one’s father, brother, or benefactor (ibid., II.2, p. 128). 34 Justice demands “the impartial treatment of every man” and is “no respecter of persons” (ibid., II.2, p. 126); there is no “magic in the pronoun ‘my,’ that should  justify us in overturning the decisions of impartial truth” (ibid., II.2, p. 128). Taken together, these considerations lead Godwin to describe a radically different set of arrangements for providing care to human beings that would obtain in an ideal society. He rejects cohabitation and “the present system of marriage,” fi nding both practices incompatible with the physical, social, and intellectual independence he believes is essential for human happiness (ibid., VIII.8). 35 Instead, Godwin argues in favor of a new conception of marriage as a purely voluntary association that can be ended by either party at any time, one in which infidelity is not a legal issue and need not terminate the marriage unless the spouses wish it. 36 He recognizes that these changes would have revolutionary implications for the education and rearing of children (ibid., VIII.8, p. 511). In contrast to the sustained caring relations children have with their parents in a “traditional” family, Godwin imagines a future society in which childcare and education are provided on a much more ad hoc basis, by a much wider range of people, including individuals without kinship ties. He expects that the “personal cares which the helpless state of an infant requires” will still “probably devolve upon the mother,” but he adds a crucial caveat: “unless, by frequent parturition, or by the nature of these cares, that be found to render share of the burden unequal; and then it will be amicably and willingly participated by others” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 512). As for “food and other necessary supplies,” the benevolence of others will ensure that these “will easily fi nd their true level, and spontaneously flow, from the quarter in which they abound, to the quarter that is deficient” (ibid.). Finally, regarding instruction, children will not receive this from their parents exclusively or from a specially appointed tutor but from “every man, in proportion to his capacity” who “will be ready to furnish such general hints and comprehensive views, as will suffice for the guidance and encouragement of him who studies” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 513). All these claims are meant to undermine the notion that

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children are to be cared for exclusively by means of sustained, intimate caregiving relations with their parents. Even though Godwin is a critic of private or domestic affections, it is important to note that his alternative is not an impersonal or bureaucratic one. He does not envision a society composed of isolated individuals minding their own business, with common matters attended to by formal institutions. Rather, he believes personal and societal happiness is best cultivated by means of person-to-person relations involving the direct provision of important goods, as well as significant scrutiny and frank criticism of one another’s actions and ideas. To this end, Godwin emphasizes a certain kind of neighborly relationship as an integral part of a just society. The figure of the neighbor appears frequently in Political Justice. It is a word with religious overtones and can have an expansive meaning, and no doubt the frequency with which Godwin employs it reflects the common moral and religious discourse of his time. But whereas much of that discourse uses “neighbor” as though it were a synonym for “anyone” or “everyone,” Godwin’s references to “neighbours” are frequently literal: he uses it to refer to individuals who live in relatively close proximity, who know one another personally, and who have multiple interactions with each other over a period of time. Neighbors in this sense are important to Godwin because they afford us opportunities for concrete benevolent actions without the drawbacks that attend deeper forms of interdependence and intimacy. I might have regular contact with a neighbor, enough that we could grow reasonably well acquainted and lend each other appropriate care and assistance. At the same time, the neighbor is not someone I am so close to that I cannot impartially assess his merits and deserts (nor is it impossible for him to assess mine). In keeping with this, one of the purposes of the Archbishop Fénelon fi re example is to explain the sense in which the maxim “that we should love our neighbour as ourselves” is true: it is true in the sense that, morally, we should not treat anyone—friends, benefactors, family members, or even ourselves—as worth more than a neighbor (ibid., bk. II, p. 128). Here and in other places, Godwin posits the kind of benevolent, impartial, but caring relationship we can develop with our neighbors as a paradigmatic model to which other caring relations should conform. 37 There is a pronounced tension, then, between Godwin’s endorsement of caregiving acts and his apprehensions regarding sustained caregiving relationships. On one hand, we are obligated to do everything within our

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power to meet the needs of everyone and promote the happiness of all. Our duty to others is not limited to providing them with material goods but includes an obligation to reason with them about their conduct in order to foster moral and intellectual excellence. Yet, on the other hand, our ability to care for others judiciously and impartially is imperiled by intimacy and dependence. In the fi rst edition of Political Justice, Godwin resolves this tension in the direction of advocating perfect disinterestedness and independence. As Godwin later remarked, that edition contains an “unqualified condemnation of the private affections” (Collected Novels and Memoirs, 1:54). Godwin subsequently came to believe that this was a serious error. His 1798 work Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman contains a very clear statement to that effect: A sound morality requires that nothing human should be regarded by us as indifferent; but it is impossible we should not feel the strongest interest for those persons whom we know most intimately, and whose welfare and sympathies are united to our own. True wisdom will recommend to us individual attachments; for with them our minds are more thoroughly maintained in activity and life than they can be under the privation of them, and it is better that man should be a living being, than a stock or a stone. True virtue will sanction this recommendation; since it is the object of virtue to produce happiness, and since the man who lives in the midst of domestic relations, will have many opportunities of conferring pleasure, minute in the detail, yet not trivial in the amount, without interfering with the purposes of general benevolence. Nay, by kindling his sensibility, and harmonising his soul, they may be expected, if he is endowed with a liberal and manly spirit, to render him more prompt in the service of strangers and the public. (Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ch. VI, p. 90)

In keeping with this, while all three editions of Political Justice evince skepticism about cohabitation and marriage, and all three imagine a more diffuse network of caregivers meeting the needs of children, the tone and nature of this solution have shifted substantially by the time of the third edition. The fi rst edition rejects marriage without qualification and even suggests that in a perfect society, it might be the case that no one would know “who is the father of each individual child,” as “such knowledge will be of no importance” (PJ [1793], VIII.6, p. 852). Furthermore, in the

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fi rst edition, Godwin does not seem to expect sexual relationships to be sustained, and he talks about reproduction in clinical terms: “Reasonable men then will propagate their species, not because a certain sensible pleasure is annexed to this action, but because it is right the species should be propagated; and the manner in which they exercise this function will be regulated by the dictates of reason and duty” (ibid.). Indeed, the fi rst edition advocates neighborly—but hardly more than neighborly—relations with everyone: “All attachments to individuals, except in proportion to their merits, are plainly unjust. It is therefore desirable, that we should be the friends of man rather than of particular men, and that we should pursue the chain of our own reflexions, with no other interruption than information or philanthropy requires” (ibid., p. 848). By the third edition, Godwin has removed these passages. His considered position is that the private affections are compatible with his conception of justice, accepting that intimate caregiving relationships with friends and family are, in ordinary circumstances, an acceptable way of discharging one’s moral obligations. 38 Moreover, he thinks that there is an important epistemic reason for attending to loved ones fi rst—these are the people we know the best and are in the best position to effectively aid. 39 He also argues that intimate caregiving relationships play a critical part in the moral development of individuals. According to Godwin, we are not initially motivated to benefit others for their own sake. At fi rst, we think only of removing the discomfort that their suffering engenders in us or of the esteem we might garner by helping them. But frequent and habitual acts of benevolence teach us to regard the good of others as an end in itself, and this is something we learn in the context of partial caregiving relations. It is only after “having habituated ourselves to promote the happiness of our child, our family, our country or our species” that we are at length “brought to approve and desire their happiness without retrospect to ourselves” (PJ, IV.10, pp. 426– 27). In addition, Godwin came to believe that intimate caregiving relationships are valuable not only as a vehicle for meeting important needs but for the affection and feelings of friendship to which they give rise. The experience of such feelings is itself an important ingredient of the good life;40 this proposition is defended with increasing force in Godwin’s later writings, as in his 1799 novel St. Leon, published a year after the third edition of Political Justice. The preface notes the contradiction between the novel’s “eulogium” of the domestic affections and the ap-

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parent harshness with which they are treated in Political Justice. Godwin explains that for a long time he has longed for the occasion to revise some of his earlier statements and directs his readers to the passage from Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman that I quote above (St. Leon, preface, p. liii). Also, his essay collection Thoughts on Man contains an especially strong statement according to which a caretaking dynamic is vital to love and friendship. There he claims that the paradigmatic loving relationship is parent/child and that their bond is the ornament “of the world, and the spring of every thing that makes life worth having” (Thoughts on Man, “Essay XV,” p. 263).41 Thus Godwin ultimately concluded that acts of care and sustained caregiving relationships are essential for promoting human happiness. Accordingly, the third edition of Political Justice rejects “traditional marriage” but not marriage tout court, and it is explicit in its expectation that men and women would generally form long-term but not necessarily lifelong partnerships (PJ, XIII.8, p. 509). This is a prediction rather than a prescription. The third edition does not attempt to mandate, either legally or morally, a specific family structure or division of caring labor to which individuals are obliged to conform. Godwin believes an enlightened society will include a variety of arrangements for meeting the needs of vulnerable individuals, including children, and that these will be worked out by concerned parties on a case-by- case basis. Yet he does expect partiality, domesticity, affection, and long-standing ties will often characterize those arrangements, and he encourages all these qualities in the later editions of Political Justice as well as his subsequent work. This is not to say that, by the third edition, all of Godwin’s concerns about caregiving relationships vanished. While he shares Plato’s and Rousseau’s goal of extending the care and concern we demonstrate toward our intimate relations to a wider swath of people, Godwin continues to emphasize the converse as well: we need to bring the benevolence, equanimity, and impartiality we are able to demonstrate toward our neighbors into our intimate relations. Furthermore, Godwin remains well aware of the fact that caregiving can be carried out badly, in ways that harm persons cared for and foster dependence. His solution is to advocate caregiving practices that put the cultivation of individual autonomy and the capacity for critical reflection at their center. As I argued in the preceding chapter, Rousseau also believes that successful caregiving requires stamping out pernicious forms of dependence. This leads

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him to embrace authority relationships governed by an ethic of care and structured according to the principle of subordinate sovereignty. Godwin, by contrast, argues that human happiness is incompatible with authority. In the next chapter, I will outline Godwin’s arguments in favor of an unlimited right of private judgment and examine his contention that authority generally—and political authority in particular—have little place in the provision of care.

Chapter Six

Godwin and Anarchy as Care The Evils of Authority

G

odwin acknowledges that we are needy beings who require the care of others. In addition to requiring assistance to obtain material necessities, we need help to form sound judgments and to acquire the qualities and capacities necessary for happiness. Accordingly, Political Justice envisions an important role for wise caregiving figures.1 The work abounds with intelligent individuals seeking out and responding to persons in need, such as “judicious superintendents” (PJ, I.4, p. 36), “skilful parents” (ibid., I.4, p. 37), “preceptors” (ibid., I.4, p. 47; V.2, p.  15; VII.3, p.  457), “true politicians” (ibid., II.6, pp. 181– 82), and proselytizing “champions” of truth (ibid., I.5, p. 88; IV.1, p. 253; VI.7, p. 296) who devote their time and resources to persons “needing superintendence and supply” (ibid., II.2, p. 132). Even in the case of Madame Genlis and the spoiled princes, an anecdote meant to illustrate care that is coddling and excessive, it is the uncommonly talented Madame Genlis herself who, on Godwin’s telling, subsequently corrects the princes’ defects by dint of her “care” (ibid., V.2, pp. 19– 20). The effective provision of many forms of care is thought, by Plato and Rousseau, to involve authority: authority is necessary because care sometimes requires coordination and constraint. But Godwin rejects this view. He believes that authority is not only unnecessary but inimical to care. Hence he looks forward to a gradual diminution of authority relationships as society progresses, ultimately culminating in the abolition of government. What Godwin advocates instead is a beneficent social order that attends to important needs but is maintained entirely by consent and conversation. For him, free and equal conversation emerges

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as a crucial form of care—engaging others in dialogue is the primary way to cultivate other people’s capacities and foster their moral and intellectual improvement. To explain how he arrives at this conclusion, I will begin by considering his critique of authority. Authority, in Godwin’s view, fails to secure the fundamental moral entitlements of human beings. In Political Justice, Godwin differentiates between two kinds of rights, which he refers to as “active” and “passive.” An “active” right is the right “in certain cases to do as we list,” whereas a “passive” right is a right to the “forbearance or assistance” of others (ibid., II.5, p. 158). Godwin vigorously attacks the notion that human beings possess any active rights. He does so on the grounds that moral considerations outweigh everything else; at every moment, we must act to promote the greatest happiness of “every intellectual and sensitive existence” (ibid., II.5, p. 159). It follows that there is no sphere of conduct in which we are morally entitled simply to do as we please (ibid.). However, Godwin does believe that human beings have passive rights, which are basic moral claims that others must respect because doing so maximizes utility. Godwin identifies two passive rights that are particularly important and ground all of the others: the fi rst is “the right of private judgment,” and the second is “the right each man possesses to the assistance of his neighbour” (ibid., II.5, pp. 168– 69; II.6, p. 170). The meaning of the latter right is plain enough from the preceding chapter: we owe one another as much care and assistance as considerations of utility demand. As for the former, what Godwin means by “the right of private judgment” is the right of each human being to judge matters for him- or herself and to act according to his or her own determinations within the “peculiar sphere appropriate to each individual” (ibid., II.6, p. 170). Godwin believes that authority is incompatible with these passive rights: it infringes upon the right of private judgment, and it is a pernicious means of rendering assistance to human beings. Authority, according to Godwin, is “the proper correlative of obedience” (ibid., III.6, pp. 230). Something may be said to have authority over me if I ought to obey it. This defi nition leads Godwin to a broad understanding of what counts as “authority,” which he identifies as having three primary forms: (1) the authority of reason, (2) the authority of confidence, and (3) the authority of force (ibid., III.6, p. 231). The fi rst of these refers to reason’s claim to determine our conduct, the second refers to the authority exercised over us by someone to whose judgments

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we defer out of confidence that he or she is likely to judge better than we are, and the last refers to the authority exercised by someone who is able to coerce us. Godwin claims that when we employ the word “authority” in ordinary speech, we most often intend something like the authority of confidence. 2 That said, we also use the word “authority” in the other two senses, sometimes even jumbling all three of them together. The authority of reason is the only species of authority that Godwin defends. According to him, reason is the faculty that informs us how best to maximize utility, and thus it ought to determine our judgment in all things. 3 At fi rst glance, Godwin’s insistence on the authority of reason might seem to undermine rather than support a right of private judgment. After all, Plato moves from the premise that reason ought to regulate human affairs to the conclusion that the most reasonable human beings should rule the less reasonable. Godwin, however, denies this. He insists that individual and societal happiness are best promoted if every person obeys only the authority of his or her own reason, rejecting the claim of others to steer him or her by means of force or confidence. Godwin does concede that the authority of force has a small claim to influence our actions. If someone threatens us or promises us a reward for acting in a certain way, this affects the utilitarian calculus: The most exalted morality, indeed, that in which the heart reposes with the most unmingled satisfaction, relates to the inherent and indefeasible tendencies of action. But we shall be by no means excusable, if we overlook, in our system of conduct, the arbitrary awards of men. Nothing can be more certain, than that an action, suppose of inferior moment or utility, which for its own sake might be right to be performed, it may become my duty to neglect, if I know that by performing it I shall incur the penalty of death. (Ibid., III.4, pp. 228– 29)

If, for instance, someone threatens to harm me if I publish a pamphlet and that causes the net harm of publishing to exceed the harm of not publishing, then I am morally obligated to refrain. That said, Godwin rejects the claim that might makes right in any deeper sense. Though a man who threatens me does have some claim to influence my actions, this is no different from “the modification of my conduct which might be due in the case of a wild beast” (ibid., III.4, p. 231). While we might rightly respect the authority of force on some occasions, we ought to minimize the use of force as much as circumstance

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will permit (ibid., III.6, p. 229). Threats and punishments are inappropriate means of promoting societal utility, and their proliferation inhibits the development of the capacities for reflection and moral action that are vital for collective progress. For one thing, the authority of force inhibits the cultivation of moral virtue. If people are accustomed to refrain from immoral deeds because they are afraid of being punished, they fail to develop the capacity for genuine moral action, which requires altruistic intention. For another, the authority of force inhibits intellectual progress. Someone might punish me with the aim of teaching me that my conduct is wrong, but I am much more likely to believe the punishment was unjust and that the punisher had recourse to violence because he or she lacked good arguments (ibid., II.6, pp. 179– 80). Furthermore, if I am punished for acting in a certain way, “the punishment acts, not only retrospectively upon me, but prospectively upon my contemporaries and countrymen” (ibid., II.6, p. 177). It has a chilling effect on others, who become afraid to hold proscribed views, express their sentiments frankly, and act according to their own judgments. Thus, the authority of force “is inconsistent with all generous magnanimity of spirit, all ardent impartiality in the discovery of truth, and all inflexible perseverance in its assertion. Countries, exposed to the perpetual interference of decrees, instead of arguments, exhibit within their boundaries the mere phantoms of men” (ibid., II.6, p. 178). Bad though the authority of force is, Godwin believes that the authority of confidence is even worse. The authority of confidence “is that which depends for its validity upon the confidence of him with whom it prevails, and is where, not having myself acquired such information as to enable me to form a judicious opinion, I yield a greater or less degree of deference to the known sentiment and decision of another” (ibid., III.6, p.  231). Godwin claims that when I surrender my powers of judgment to another out of confidence, this constitutes a more fatal compromise of my moral and intellectual faculties than being forcibly coerced. As he puts it, Whatever I submit to from the irresistible impulse of necessity is not mine, and debases me only as it tends gradually to shackle the intrepidity of my character. . . . But, where I make the voluntary surrender of my understanding, and commit my conscience to another man’s keeping, the consequence is clear. . . . I annihilate my individuality as a man, and dispose of my force as an animal to him among my neighbours, who shall happen to excel in imposture

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and artifice, and to be least under restraint from the scruples of integrity and justice. (Ibid., III.6, p. 232)

According to Godwin, we do not become any wiser ourselves by deferring to wise men. There is a vast difference between accepting a proposition on authority and truly understanding it. If, for example, I am told that the three angles of a triangle add up to 180˚ and that I ought to believe this because Euclid has proved it, “I am nevertheless uninformed” (ibid., II.7, p. 174). Having heard that a proposition is true does not amount to knowledge without a fi rm grasp of the reasons how or why it is true. Nor can the authority of confidence make us more virtuous.4 If I routinely repose my confidence in another, I fail to develop my moral and intellectual powers. My fellows are denied whatever arguments, insights, or innovations I might have come up with if I had endeavored to think for myself. The authority of confidence thus fails as a means of cultivating individuals, instead inhibiting their development and the possibility of collective progress. 5 But if not by means of authority, how are we to ensure that human beings receive the care they require and develop their talents and capacities? Godwin’s answer is that these goals can be achieved through free and equal conversation. He grounds this argument in two of Political Justice’s central claims: the propositions that (1) truth is omnipotent and that (2) the voluntary actions of men originate in their opinions. Truth is omnipotent, according to Godwin, because the very nature of the human mind guarantees that it will ultimately triumph over error. Godwin does not doubt reason’s competency to progressively uncover factual and normative truths (e.g., ibid., I.5, pp. 94– 95). Invoking the successes of the natural sciences, Godwin maintains that a science of morality is equally possible and equally prone to perpetual improvement (ibid., I.8, pp. 118–19). In addition, he contends that truths, once discovered, are readily perceived to be truths by those to whom they are communicated (ibid., I.5, p. 86). This proposition, Godwin claims, “is so evident, that it needs only be stated, in order to be universally admitted. Is there anyone who can imagine that, when sound argument and sophistry are fairly brought into comparison, the victory can be doubtful?” (ibid.). If the progress of the natural and normative sciences is inevitable and the truths they uncover are irresistible when adequately communicated, it follows that truth will inexorably spread: “Every new convert that is made to its cause . . . is a fresh apostle to extend its illuminations through

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a wider sphere. In this respect it resembles the motion of a falling body, which increases its rapidity in proportion to the squares of distances” (ibid., I.5, p. 89). In Godwin’s estimation, truth has the force of gravity. The second doctrine concerns the motivational efficacy of perceived truths. Godwin maintains that the theoretical truths disclosed by moral science will be readily translated into practice as soon as they are sufficiently understood. One might argue that people could apprehend that a particular statement is true and nevertheless fail to act in accordance with it: someone might know what morality demands of him or her and nevertheless fail to act morally, especially if he or she stands to benefit. Godwin counters that our voluntary actions proceed from the opinion that a particular course of action is good. If sure knowledge that a given act is good is present to our understanding, then we are bound to behave accordingly (ibid., I.5, pp. 57– 61). Therefore, as the progress of moral science increases our knowledge of the principles by which human beings ought to regulate their actions, it will also improve our conduct. Moral and scientific truths are discoverable, communicable, and motivationally sufficient once they are understood. Thus moral and intellectual improvement can be effected through conversation alone. The task of educating a child, for instance, can be readily accomplished in this way: “Speak the language of truth and reason to your child, and be under no apprehension for the result. Show him that what you recommend is valuable and desirable, and fear not but he will desire it. Convince his understanding, and you enlist all his powers animal and intellectual in your service” (ibid., I.4, p. 43). The power of conversation is even sufficient to enlighten an entire nation: “Let the press fi nd its way into Persia or Indostan, let the political truths discovered by the best of the European sages be transfused into their language, and it is impossible that a few solitary converts should be not made,” who will in turn enlighten their countrymen (ibid., I.6, pp. 97– 98). As optimistic as Godwin is about the future progress of science and spread of moral enlightenment, he recognizes there are important obstacles to the discovery and dissemination of knowledge. Hence he speaks repeatedly of “the cultivation of truth” (e.g., ibid., IV.5, p. 305), recognizing that its propagation requires careful effort. Specifically, he believes that it requires conversation of a certain sort,6 and the type of conversation he has in mind is caring in multiple senses. For one thing, he argues that good conversation partners communicate with the aim of benefiting their interlocutors. According to Godwin, “I cannot have intercourse

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with a human being, who may not be the better for that intercourse” (ibid., IV.4, p. 312); accordingly, everyone must constantly endeavor to “study and promote his neighbour’s welfare” by means of sincere conversation (ibid., IV.6, p. 339).7 Furthermore, this caring intention must be apparent in one’s manner—one must exhibit caring affects. Godwin is well aware that arguments can give rise to feelings of anger and irritation that preclude a reasoned exchange of ideas. To prevent this, an effective communicator must possess sufficient urbanity, energy, and patience to “conciliate the good will” and “engage the attention” of his or her addressees (ibid., I.5, pp. 87– 88). Above all, good communicators demonstrate that they are not motivated by a desire to scold, humiliate, or triumph over their interlocutors. It is necessary that “even in expostulation and censure, friendliness of intention, may be eminently conspicuous. There should be no mixture of disdain and superiority. The interest of him who is corrected, not the triumph of the corrector, should be the principle of action” (ibid., IV.6, pp. 340–41). Thus effective communicators are “not more distinguished by impartiality and demonstrative clearness, than by the mildness of their temper, and a spirit of comprehensive benevolence” (ibid., IV.3, p. 296), as well as “kindness” and “generous concern” (ibid., IV.6, pp. 328– 29).8 Like other caring relations Godwin praises, he insists that productive discussions take place person to person, stressing the importance of each individual communing with his or her “neighbour” (e.g., ibid., IV.3, p. 296; IV.6, p. 331). While reading can impart knowledge, “books, to those by whom they are read, have a sort of constitutional coldness. . . . But conversation accustoms us to hear a variety of sentiments, obliges us to exercise patience and attention, and gives freedom and elasticity to our disquisitions” (ibid., IV.3, p. 295). He also maintains that conversations work best in smaller settings. Godwin argues that exchanging speeches before an audience is a poor way to disseminate truth, as crowds incentivize grandstanding and conformity (ibid., IV.3, pp. 293– 97). Instead, he asserts that “discussion perhaps never exists with so much vigour and utility, as in the conversation of two persons” and “may be carried on with advantage in small and friendly circles” (ibid., IV.3, p. 296). In addition to depending upon caring affects for its success, conversation is also the principal means for cultivating such affects. According to Godwin, “There is at present in the world a cold reserve, that keeps man at a distance from man” (ibid., IV.3, p. 294). We are accustomed to withhold our true thoughts from one another, entrapped by forms of polite-

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ness and fears of causing offense. As a consequence, we “communicate for ever, without anyone telling his neighbour what estimate he forms of his attainments and character, how they ought to be employed, and how to be improved” (ibid.). The result is that we do not know what others truly think of us, and “men meet together with the temper, less of friends, than enemies. Every man eyes his neighbour, as if he expected to receive from him a secret wound” (ibid., IV.6, p. 333). But were we all to combine an intention to benefit one another with perfect frankness and sincerity in our conversation, it would transform social relations: “I should not conceive alarm from my neighbour, because I should be conscious that I knew his genuine sentiments. I should not harbour bad passions and unsocial propensities, because the habit of expressing my thoughts, would enable me to detect and dismiss them in the outset” (ibid., IV.6, p. 336). This in turn would produce “good humour, kindness, and benevolence” (ibid., IV.6, p. 333).9 Indeed, “If our emotions were not checked, we should be truly friends with one another.  .  .  . Thus every man would be inured to the sentiment of love, and would fi nd in his species objects worthy of his affection” (ibid., IV.6, pp. 335– 36). While conversation is an important way of caring for others, it also calls for (and calls forth) care of the self. Conversations are give and take, and just as I might benefit others by sharing my ideas and opinions, so they might benefit me. Also, the very desire to communicate my sentiments to others is a spur to self-improvement. Godwin believes that intellectual endeavors are cold and unsatisfying without “something of social feeling” (ibid., IV.5, p. 311). What excites me “to the pursuit of discovery” is the hope of subsequently communicating those discoveries (ibid., VI.6, p. 332). Furthermore, in communicating my ideas, I refi ne them: from “the act of telling my thoughts, I derive encouragement to proceed. Nothing can more powerfully conduce to perspicuity, than the very attempt to arrange and express them” (ibid., IV.6, p. 332). Because intellectual progress is intimately connected to pleasure and virtue, because “sublime and expansive ideas produce delicious emotions,” the desire to converse and communicate fuels personal growth and promotes one’s own happiness (ibid., IV.5, p. 308). Owing to Godwin’s faith in conversation’s ability to cultivate wisdom, virtue, and benevolent affects, he does not believe the authority of force and of confidence are necessary for meeting important needs. Whereas Plato and Rousseau had assumed that care requires inequality and constraint, Godwin sees no tension between promoting the flourishing of

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others and the values of freedom and equality. This is manifest in his educational proposals: This plan [Godwin’s pedagogical scheme] is calculated entirely to change the face of education. The whole formidable apparatus which has hitherto attended it, is swept away. Strictly speaking, no such characters are left upon the scene as either preceptor or pupil. The boy, like the man, studies, because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of his own invention, or which, by adopting, he has made his own. Every thing bespeaks independence and equality. The man, as well as the boy, would be glad in cases of difficulty to consult a person more informed than himself. That the boy is accustomed almost always to consult the man, and not the man the boy, is to be regarded rather as an accident, than any thing essential. (Enquirer, pt. 1, “Essay IX,” p. 71)

The pupil learns nothing but what he desires to learn; the instructor is not to be thought of as a superior but as a knowledgeable friend whom the pupil willingly involves in his inquiry. Godwin further concludes that if free and equal conversation is adequate to produce intellectual and moral virtue, then force and confidence are not necessary for establishing a just distribution of material resources. Practices of caregiving that involve material goods follow theoretically and practically from the rational apprehension of moral knowledge; enlightened individuals will willingly act so as to ensure that “food and other necessary supplies . . . fi nd their true level, and spontaneously flow, from the quarter in which they abound, to the quarter that is deficient” (PJ, VIII.8, p. 512). Thus, in Godwin’s future society, the primary engine of care is conversation, and the “authority” of reason completely supplants “authority” in the usual sense of the word. In the following section, I will consider the implications of this for political authority in particular.

Political Authority, Care, and Anarchy Godwin argues that “the universal exercise of private judgment is a doctrine so unspeakably beautiful, that the true politician will certainly feel infi nite reluctance in admitting the idea of interfering with it” (ibid., II.6, pp. 181– 82). At the same time, he notes that it has been traditionally assumed “that there are occasions, in which it becomes necessary,

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to supersede private judgment, for the sake of the public good, and to control the acts of the individual, by an act to be performed in the name of the whole” (ibid., III.1, pp. 183– 84). Therefore, communities “in all ages and countries” have created governments designed to subordinate individual judgments to a central power that secures the well-being of everyone (ibid.). In what follows, I will explore Godwin’s arguments for thinking that, ultimately, government fails at this task and that human happiness will be best served by abolishing political authority entirely. Like Godwin’s treatment of authority generally, his political philosophy contains elements that, at fi rst blush, seem to point in the direction of an authority-as- care view. Godwin notes that the effects of political authority are wide ranging and extensive. Government “insinuates itself into our personal dispositions and insensibly communicates its own spirit to our private transactions” (ibid., I.1, p. 4); it is also the most decisive influence, capable of overturning whatever education that parents and teachers attempt to impart and giving shape to the entire social order (ibid., I.4, p. 49).10 Therefore “the happiness of mankind is essentially connected with the improvement of political science” (ibid., VI.3, p.  249). In addition, Godwin argues that the political order’s responsibility for its members’ well-being is total: “What is it that the society is bound to do for its members? Every thing that is requisite for their welfare” (ibid., II.2, p. 137).11 The proper function of political authority appears to be the provision of care to its subordinates. Accordingly, he characterizes the central task of politics as “care of the public welfare” (ibid., V.8, p. 74) and describes politicians as “persons to whom the care of the general welfare is confided” (ibid., VI.3, pp. 241–42). Even its responsibility to protect individual judgment is described as “the office of taking care that no man exceeds his sphere” (ibid., III.4, p. 218). Furthermore, Godwin seems to embrace the view that the ability to provide care is the appropriate criterion for determining who ought to be entrusted with political authority: the “men who shall most ardently qualify themselves for the care of the public welfare” should “be secure of having the largest share in its superintendence” (ibid., V.8, p. 74).12 In the fi rst edition of Political Justice, these convictions lead Godwin to contradict himself about the utility of government. Early parts of the book speak as though suitably constituted political authority has a positive role to play in promoting human flourishing. However, as he was writing, Godwin came to believe that even the best government harms citizens more than it helps them—it is counterproductive from a caring

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perspective. Thus the later parts of the first edition reject political authority altogether, a position that Godwin takes consistently in the second and third editions.13 In what follows, I will explain why Godwin ultimately rejects an authority-as- care-based justification of political authority. First, I will explore his opposition to the Platonic contention that political authority can provide care if it is wielded by the wise. Then I will discuss his reasons for rejecting Rousseau’s belief that political authority can provide care if it is structured in accordance with the principle of subordinate sovereignty. As I argued in chapter 2, Plato’s political philosophy involves an authority-as- care view that figures the political association as a vehicle for providing excellent care to citizens. Because only a few individuals with philosophic natures have the qualities of character and intellect needed to provide excellent care, it is good and right for them to possess political authority. The Republic outlines a regime in which human beings of this description rule directly, and the Laws describes a secondbest regime in which they rule indirectly, by means of written speeches. Political Justice refers to Plato several times, and Godwin composed the work with Plato on his mind; his private diary and a handful of references within Political Justice make it plain that he was reading Plato’s dialogues as he was writing it.14 Even where Plato is not explicitly mentioned, Godwin grapples with many of the arguments and assumptions central to Plato’s position. Godwin emphatically rejects the autocratic rule of the wise, and Political Justice contains pointed objections that strike at the very heart of Plato’s view. Godwin notes that one of the justifications thinkers have offered for political authority is the argument that some individuals are not well equipped to rule themselves and would live better subject to the authority of others. Godwin believes it is this argument that has served historically as the strongest foundation of government: “The strong hold of government has appeared hitherto to have consisted in seduction. However imperfect might be the political constitution under which they lived, mankind have ordinarily been persuaded to regard it with a sort of reverential and implicit respect” (ibid., IV.1, p. 248). This reverence  and respect have been “assiduously inculcated upon mankind in all ages and countries” in order to imbue rulers with the authority of confidence and thereby secure the obedience of subjects (ibid., III.6, pp. 234– 35). But, according to Godwin, this confidence is entirely unwarranted.

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Godwin takes up the argument, frequently advanced by Plato, that just as there are expert craftsman who know more than uninstructed persons about how to practice their arts, there are also moral or political experts who are better equipped to make political decisions. Godwin admits that there might be instances in which we ought to repose our confidence in others: there are some tasks, such as building a house or even educating a child, that one should delegate to others if they know better how to carry them out (ibid., III.6, p. 235).15 But he argues that politics does not admit of expertise to the same degree. Political wisdom may vary between individuals, but not sufficiently to mark out “any man, or set of men, to preside over the rest” (ibid., III.4, p. 215). And even supposing that some human beings were eminently wiser than others with respect to political matters, this would not be a sufficient reason for excluding the less wise from sharing in political decision making. After all, politics involves questions of general justice, and such questions “are equally within the province of every human understanding” (ibid.,  III.6, p. 235). Godwin asserts that “it would be wrong in an affair of such momentous concern, that any chance for additional wisdom should be rejected; nor can we tell, in many cases, till after the experiment, how eminent any individual may be found, in the business of guiding and deliberating for his fellows” (ibid., III.4, p. 215). Furthermore, giving each individual a share in public decision making is the best way to prevent “partiality and cabal” (ibid.). And most importantly of all, “To give each man a voice in the public concerns comes nearest to that fundamental purpose . . . the uncontrolled exercise of private judgment. Each man will thus be inspired with a consciousness of his own importance, and the slavish feelings that shrink up the soul in the presence of an imagined superior, will be unknown” (ibid., III.4, pp. 215–16). Godwin thus rejects the idea that differences in political judgment could ever justify turning political authority over to unaccountable “experts.” Godwin also rejects the approach Plato takes in the Laws, where law is used as medium for embodying and conveying the wisdom of absent or departed men. Plato himself recognizes many of the imperfections of law, but whereas he thinks that these imperfections are an acceptable price to pay for political order, Godwin disagrees. Godwin points out that lawgivers “have not the faculty of unlimited prescience” (ibid., VII.8, p. 400) and cannot possibly provide for every circumstance. In order to come up with a legal remedy for situations that legislators did not anticipate, it is necessary to either introduce new laws or distort exist-

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ing ones to fit the occasion. The result, Godwin claims, is a labyrinth of laws that are patchy, ambiguous, self- contradictory, and extremely difficult for a layperson to understand (ibid., VII.8, pp. 399–402). The idea that this tangled mess embodies some kind of ancestral wisdom is, in Godwin’s view, an absurdity: Law we sometimes call the wisdom of our ancestors. But this is a strange imposition. It was as frequently the dictate of their passion, of timidity, jealousy, a monopolizing spirit, and a lust of power that knew no bounds. Are we not obliged perpetually to revise and remodel this misnamed wisdom of our ancestors? To correct it by a detection of their ignorance, and a censure of their intolerance? (Ibid., VII.8, pp. 406– 7)

If our ancestors are no wiser than we are, that might seem to countenance continuous revolution and constant updating of the laws. But that course of action simply perpetuates the fundamental mistake of attempting to join authority to wisdom. Godwin argues that “if men can be found among us, whose wisdom is equal to the wisdom of law, it will scarcely be maintained, that the truths they have to communicate, will be the worse, for having no authority, but that which they derive from the reasons that support them” (ibid., p. 407). Both the direct rule of the wise and their indirect rule by means of wise laws are unnecessary and counterproductive methods for attempting to provide care to citizens. Therefore, the foundations of Plato’s political project are fundamentally misguided. Rousseau follows Plato in subscribing to an authority-as- care view that holds the central purpose of political authority to be the provision of care and the promotion of human flourishing. But in contrast to Plato, Rousseau is much more attentive to the tendency of authority relationships to become oppressive and stifle the natural goodness of their participants. Godwin cites Rousseau as one of his major influences (PJ, preface, p. ix) and references him throughout Political Justice. Though Godwin has a great deal of admiration for Rousseau, he is also sharply critical of Rousseau’s views on political authority.16 His criticisms of Rousseau roughly fall under two headings: (1) objections to the caring role Rousseau envisions for tutelary authority figures and (2) a rejection of the notion that authority can be good or rightful if it is constrained by the formal consent of subordinates. Godwin readily perceives that Rousseau’s conception of caring au-

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thority has frequent recourse to dishonesty and manipulation.17 Godwin takes up Rousseau’s claim in the Social Contract that a wise lawgiver must trick citizens into accepting his laws by appealing to divine authority. Godwin objects that to “terrify or seduce men into the reception of a system, the reasonableness of which they were unable to perceive, is surely a very questionable method for rendering them sober, judicious, and happy” (ibid., V.15, p. 130). He doubts that it is possible to “persuade a society of men to adopt any system, without convincing them that it is their wisdom to adopt it. It is difficult to conceive a company of such miserable dupes, as to receive a code . . . but upon this single recommendation that it is delivered to them from the Gods” (ibid., V.15, p. 131). It would require a tremendous amount of skill to deceive them initially18 and to subsequently maintain the deceit.19 And even if someone so skilled happened upon a group of people who were so foolish, Godwin denies that an individual who “had most at heart the welfare and improvement of the persons concerned” could possibly benefit them by teaching them “to reason ill” and “unnerving their mind with prejudice” (ibid., V.15, p. 131). The system of political imposture praised by Rousseau divides men into two classes, one of which is to think and reason for the whole, and the other to take the conclusions of their superiors on trust. This distinction is not founded in the nature of things; there is no such inherent difference between man and man, as it thinks proper to suppose. Nor is it less injurious, than it is unfounded. The two classes which it creates, must be more and less than man. It is too much to expect of the former, while we consign to them an unnatural monopoly, that they should rigidly consult for the good of the whole. It is an iniquitous requisition upon the latter, that they should never employ their understandings, or penetrate into the essences of things, but always rest in a deceitful appearance. (Ibid., V.15, pp. 136– 37)

Deception is incompatible with the improvement of human understanding and prevents the free, frank discussions essential to political and social improvement. Thus, Godwin wholeheartedly rejects the idea that individuals might be able to care for one another most effectively by means of manipulative authority.20 Whereas Rousseau thinks that political authority can avoid becoming dominative or oppressive so long as the judgment of the citizen body is suitably respected, Godwin denies that the kind of consent political au-

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thorities can obtain in practice is sufficiently robust, and that even robust consent would be morally significant. In a chapter entitled “Of the Social Contract” (ibid., III.2, p. 188), Godwin takes up the arguments of social contract theorists and critiques them at length, showing that they still abridge the right to private judgment. He begins by arguing that the provisions social contract theories contain for obtaining popular consent do not adequately do so. Supposing a group of people were to convene and form a contract establishing a government, Godwin asks whether this contract is meant to bind their descendants as well or if it binds them alone (ibid.). If the former, Godwin counters that “little will be gained for the cause of equality and justice, if our ancestors, at the fi rst institution of government, had a right indeed of choosing the system of regulations under which they thought proper to live, but at the same time could barter away the understandings and independence of all that came after them” (ibid., III.2, p. 188). If the latter, Godwin objects that it would be unreasonable for this initial act of consent to bind parties for an indefinite length of time, force them to go along with regulations they did not clearly understand, or compel them to abide by future policies they did not anticipate (ibid., III.2, pp. 191– 92). Rousseau’s remedy, which is to call for regular assemblies in which the people are asked to approve new laws and are given the opportunity to throw out the existing government, is in Godwin’s view a superficial one (ibid., III.2, p. 192). The people are not given any real alternative other than indiscriminate admission or rejection, and votes in popular assemblies are usually undertaken “in a tumultuous and summary matter” that does not leave sufficient room for deliberation and informed participation (ibid., III.2, p. 193). He further rejects the idea of “tacit consent” propounded by Rousseau and other social contract theorists, which claims that individuals give their implicit consent to political authority simply by dwelling in its territory. Godwin objects that many people are unable to transport themselves to another country and that individuals might passively acquiesce to political authority for a variety of reasons, including fear, that do not in any way imply approval or consent (ibid., III.2, p. 189). Thus “tacit consent” is a morally meaningless fiction, one that obscures what are in fact harmful impingements of the right to private judgment. Godwin thinks that no one can consent to a social contract on someone else’s behalf, that simply remaining within a country’s territory is not enough to establish tacit consent, and that even express consent to some laws cannot bind us to those we have not agreed to or subsequently

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change our minds about. He sees all social contract arguments as essentially relying on the same basic sleight of hand—they attempt to ground one’s obligation to submit to laws and policies with which one does not agree and to which one did not consent by arguing that one actually agrees with and/or has consented to them. This, he thinks, is pure sophistry: “If government be founded in the consent of the people, it can have no power over any individual by whom that consent is refused. If a tacit consent be not sufficient, still less can I be deemed to have consented to a measure upon which I put an express negative” (ibid., III.2, p. 194). 21 But Godwin’s deeper and more fundamental criticism of the social contract is that even explicit consent, fully informed and fairly obtained, cannot legitimate political authority. This criticism follows from his rejection of promise making and critique of active rights. The social contract is, in essence, a promise: I promise to obey the government and assume the responsibilities of a citizen; I make this promise on the condition that my government and my fellow citizens promise to guarantee me certain rights in return. But Godwin thinks that it is morally incumbent on individuals to break promises whenever considerations of utility require it (ibid., III.3, pp. 196– 205). Hence any promise an individual might make to obey the government could not be morally binding. Furthermore, this promise (like all promises) tends to prevent individuals from continuing to reflect actively on the propriety of their actions. It stifles social progress and encourages a pernicious deference to authority. Another component of Godwin’s rejection of the social contract follows from his critique of active rights and his endorsement of each person’s passive right to the assistance of his or her neighbors. Social contract thinkers claim that legitimate government arises from an original contract in which free and equal individuals alienate their rights to the government. But on Godwin’s view, no one has any active rights that are theirs to alienate. Rousseau maintains that each individual has a natural right to live, the evidence for which is the fact that nature provides living beings with a natural love of self. The right to judge matters for oneself and act accordingly derives from this: if individuals have a right to live, then they must also have a right to judge and to do what is necessary for their own preservation. 22 Godwin, by contrast, rejects the notion that we have active rights to life, liberty, or property. He denies that we have an active right to life, because we may be called to forfeit our lives should the greatest happiness of all require it (ibid., II.5, p. 167; see also II.2, pp. 138– 39). He also denies that we have an active right to liberty.

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We are obligated to think about how to promote the happiness of others at all times, even in the way we structure our moments of leisure.23 We are not even at liberty to neglect our own happiness: “No man, if he were alone in the world, would have a right to make himself impotent or miserable” (ibid., II.5, p. 166). Finally, Godwin denies we have any active right to property. Whatever comes into my possession “I have no right to dispose of at my caprice; every shilling of it is appropriated by the laws of morality” (ibid., II.5, p. 168) and must be employed in whatever way would produce the greatest happiness of all. 24 Thus, far from having a natural right to make use of our life, liberty, and property in whatever manner we please, “we have in reality nothing that is strictly speaking our own. We have nothing that has not a destination prescribed to it by the immutable voice of reason and justice” (ibid., II.5, p. 162). Each person holds his or her property and “person as a trust in behalf of mankind” (ibid., II.2, p. 135). It follows that we do not have any active rights that we may permissibly transfer to a central government that subsequently acts in our name. 25 Godwin even goes so far as to deny governments possess any legislative power at all. Reason declares what laws human beings should follow; government is, strictly speaking, executive, because its only function is to execute the laws that reason enjoins (ibid., III.5, pp. 221– 22). We do not have the right to set the terms of political association according to our liking, nor to abide by them if reason and morality demand otherwise. As I have shown, Godwin denies the proposition that the need to provide care is sufficient to justify authority and that authority can be tamed by giving it a contractual and/or clandestine character. Even at its best, deferring to political authority instead of judging matters for oneself has the pernicious consequences outlined above. Furthermore, Godwin expects that human beings will increasingly realize this over time, and the ability of governments to support themselves by means of confidence will diminish: “In proportion as weakness and ignorance shall diminish, the basis of government will also decay” (ibid., III.6, p. 238). As enlightenment spreads, individuals will become unwilling to defer to anyone else, and political authority gradually fall into disuse. The result, Godwin thinks, will be the dissolution of government: “With what delight must every well informed friend of mankind look forward, to the auspicious period, the dissolution of political government, of that brute engine, which has been only the perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and which . . . has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated with its

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substance, and no otherwise removable than by its utter annihilation!” (ibid., V.24, p. 212). Godwin’s criticism of government’s roots in the authority of confidence seems plausible with respect to monarchy and aristocracy. As faith in the superior political judgment of kings and nobles has vanished, so has their political power. But the claim that all government depends upon unfounded faith in those governing might seem inapplicable to democratic regimes. After all, in a democracy, the people participate in government—citizens have the right to voice their opinions, elect the officials who represent them, and/or vote directly on government policy. Furthermore, democratic deliberation that is truly inclusive, in which individuals are permitted to state their opinions and argue without threat of coercion, might seem to embody precisely the sort of free and equal conversations that, for Godwin, are the engine of mutual care. Doesn’t democracy, then, have a credible claim to be grounded in the authority of reason rather than misplaced confidence? Godwin acknowledges these considerations, and he has much kinder things to say about democracy than other forms of government. He even grants that by delegating power to an elected assembly, one might “secure many of the pretended benefits of aristocracy, as well as the real benefits of democracy” by entrusting national affairs to “persons of superior education and wisdom: we may conceive them, not only the appointed medium of the sentiments of their constituents, but authorised, upon certain occasions, to act on their part, in the same manner as an unlearned parent delegates his authority over his child to a preceptor of greater accomplishments than himself” (ibid., V.14, pp. 121– 22).26 Despite the fact that Godwin concedes there is logic to such an arrangement, he still believes that democracy is vulnerable to many of the same objections as other regimes and that even “representative government is necessarily imperfect” (ibid., p. 122). Even under a democratic regime, the relationship between the government and the governed falls short of the morally improving relations that obtain between free and equal conversation partners. In democracies, one’s intellectual and moral development is stifled not by a king but by one’s representatives and the popular majority. As Godwin argues, In reality, all questions that are brought before such an assembly [that is, a popular assembly], are decided by a majority of votes, and the minority, after having exposed, with all the power of eloquence, and force of reasoning,

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of which they are capable, the injustice and folly of the measures adopted, are obliged, in a certain sense, to assist in carrying them into execution. Nothing can more directly contribute to the depravation of the human understanding and character. It inevitably renders mankind timid, dissembling and corrupt. He that is not accustomed, exclusively to act upon the dictates of his own understanding, must fall inexpressibly short of that energy and simplicity of which our nature is capable. (Ibid., V.23, pp. 201– 2)

In a democracy, minorities are compelled to go along with—and, in some cases, help implement—policies with which they disagree. Thus, all governments, even democratic ones, prevent people from acting in accordance with their own judgment. This affects our ability to act in whatever way we think is best. It also affects the very judgments we form in the fi rst place, by encouraging the formation and expression of certain opinions while simultaneously discouraging others. In democracies, Godwin points out, this can happen subtly. The majority in a democratic assembly claims to speak for the whole polity, and this creates an illusion of unanimity, which might deter the expression of certain views in the public at large (ibid.). Also, in democracies, people tend to group into parties. When individuals fi nd that it is in their best interest to profess a certain party line, they start to all think and say the same things (ibid., V.23, p. 203). Thus parties and majorities take the place of kings in warping and constraining individuals’ judgment. Godwin concludes that “all government corresponds, in a certain degree, to what the Greeks denominated a tyranny” (ibid., V.23, p. 205). It might seem that government of some sort is nonetheless necessary, given the fact that human beings can be violent and unreasonable. Godwin acknowledges this. But even if considerations of public safety justify some amount of government, we must not suppose that rulers thereby acquire any authority of confidence. Godwin advises his readers to comply with their governors “where the necessity of the case demands it; but criticize while you comply.  .  .  . Obey; this may be right; but beware of reverence. . . . Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim on your attention” (ibid., III.6, p. 230). The only authority to which government is entitled is the authority of force. And even that entitlement is quite minimal; Godwin argues that public security requires considerably less political authority than is commonly supposed. According to Godwin, it would be best for people to live in small districts or parishes. This is not surprising, given his emphasis on neighbor-

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to-neighbor relations as a central vehicle of care and benevolence. If political units were very small, it would be considerably easier to dispense with laws and deliberative assemblies. 27 Although some violent offenders would remain, Godwin claims that they could be adequately dealt with by juries assembled as needed (ibid., V.22, p 198). He concedes that this might be insufficient as a means of dealing with foreign threats. In emergencies involving the threat of external invasion, the best course of action would be to convene a larger assembly capable of speaking for multiple districts (ibid., V.23, p. 207). But he thinks such measures will be less and less necessary as reason and morality spread throughout the world: At fi rst, we will suppose, that some degree of authority and violence would be necessary. But this necessity does not appear to arise out of the nature of man, but out of the institutions by which he has been corrupted. Man is not originally vicious. . . . Simplify the social system . . . ; render the plain dictates of justice level to every capacity; remove the necessity of implicit faith; and we may expect the whole species to become reasonable and virtuous. (Ibid., V.24, pp. 210–11)

Godwin believes that, as people learn to cultivate their judgment, as science progresses and enlightenment spreads, there will be less need for government. And because government produces the very vices that seem to justify its existence, the more we dispense with it, the less we will have need of it. Godwin holds out the hope that, eventually, we may be able to do without any kind of political authority or coercion at all.28 One might object that, even if people are perfectly willing to help others, authority of some sort will be necessary to coordinate common undertakings. Godwin grants that more complex forms of cooperation require compromise and coordination, and this prevents individuals from acting solely in accordance with the dictates of their own understanding. But he sees this as a reason not for accepting authority but for simplifying tasks such that they do not require it. 29 Godwin calls for ending “all supererogatory cooperation” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 502) that requires authority. He hopes that social and technological progress will increase our ability to accomplish more demanding undertakings without complex coordination, in our labors30 and even in our amusements. 31 The future society that Godwin thinks is inevitable is a utopian order in which fully self-governing individuals live their lives in harmony

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and help one another voluntarily, subject to no force other than the force of the better argument. Godwin shares Plato’s and Rousseau’s view that political authority depends upon confidence and is incompatible with the unfettered exercise of private judgment. But Godwin believes that reason is competent to uncover normative truths, that these truths can be communicated persuasively, and that they demonstrate the value of providing care to others. As a result, he thinks that the “the annihilation of blind confidence and implicit opinion” will eventually lead to “an unforced concurrence of all in promoting the general welfare” (ibid., III.6, p. 238). In the future, no coercion or extensive cooperation will be needed to see that important needs are met, as conversation and voluntary benevolence will suffice—Godwin’s vision is one of anarchy as care. In the next section, I will consider the implications of Godwin’s arguments for contemporary liberal democracy.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have outlined how Godwin’s understanding of care relates to his view of authority. Examining his objections to authority, I have shown that Godwin believes securing each person an unfettered right of private judgment is the best way to promote individual and social utility. Godwin reconciles the right of private judgment with his conviction that we are obliged to do our utmost to meet one another’s needs by highlighting the power of conversation and the moral potential of neighborly relations. In Godwin’s view, free and equal conversation alone is sufficient to inculcate wisdom and virtue, as well as to inspire individuals with the caring disposition that will lead them to attend to others without complex coordination or coercion. I expect most readers will share my assessment that many of Godwin’s assumptions are overly sanguine and that there are good reasons for thinking that political authority is desirable. He presumes that moral truths are readily accessible to reason, that they can be easily communicated, and that those who have apprehended them will have no difficulty behaving in a morally upstanding fashion. Yet moral philosophy has so far failed to produce a durable body of knowledge analogous to the natural sciences, and it seems quite improbable that reason is capable of identifying a single best way for human beings to conduct themselves. Even supposing it could, moral matters do not admit of demonstration

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in the same way as mathematics. I therefore very much doubt that moral knowledge could be communicated in a manner that would garner universal assent. I also fi nd it difficult to imagine a plausible future in which morally upstanding behavior will be ubiquitous. People do not always adopt moral principles that lead them to behave in upstanding ways, nor are we always able to live up to whatever moral principles we hold. For these reasons, I do not share Godwin’s confidence in the possibility of a peaceful and harmonious anarchical society. Insofar as we remain subject to deep disagreements and there are still individuals who behave violently or oppressively toward others, government is necessary as a vehicle for employing the authority of force for the sake of the common good. In addition, the authority of confidence deserves a greater place in politics than Godwin grants it. Barring extreme catastrophe, I doubt the societies we inhabit will eventually simplify themselves in the manner Godwin envisions. And if we continue to live in sociopolitical orders that are large and complex, we will necessarily have to repose our trust in some smaller number of individuals to oversee various aspects of its operation. I maintain that a well- organized government with qualified leaders, one that includes mechanisms designed to ensure popular selection of key officials, promote democratic accountability, and provide appropriate forms of care, would be deserving of that trust and would do a better job of protecting individuals and ensuring their important needs are met than anarchy on the one hand or more authoritarian forms of political organization on the other. Despite these weaknesses, there is much that is valuable in Godwin’s thought. Feminists have rightly criticized a number of liberals for presupposing the existence of adults who are free and independent but failing to critically examine the caring relations that sustain and reproduce those citizens; instead, those relations are depoliticized and relegated to the familial or private sphere. Although Godwin shares liberal commitments to freedom and equality and emphasizes the importance of various kinds of independence, he does not commit the same mistake. Godwin objects to a social distribution of caring labor that would put the burden upon individual households (and upon particular individuals within those households). Instead of assuming that women and servants will do the lion’s share of the caregiving, he argues in favor of a fair distribution, and he envisions neighbors and friends playing a much larger role in ensuring that the needs of vulnerable individuals are met. Moreover, the trust he places in the ability of individual men and women to

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work out suitable arrangements through conversation and consent has potentially emancipatory implications. His emphasis on freedom and equality opens the door to a wide variety of family structures and caring relationships, ruling out state efforts to prescribe and legally enforce “traditional” family roles. This shows that while what I have been referring to as “minimal liberal” accounts have comparatively little place for care in their theories of politics, the same is not true of liberalism as a whole—some liberal perfectionists and utilitarians, such as Godwin, are much more attentive to questions of care. Godwin’s focus on the right kind of conversation as a means of care is helpful as well. 32 It is normatively attractive because it does not require coercion and takes place between equals; it also puts the cultivation of critical faculties by means of argument and debate at the center of what it means to care for human beings. I have already suggested that Godwin is wrong to think conversation is a sufficient substitute for organized political power. But by the same token, it would be a mistake to think that organized political power is a sufficient substitute for conversation. There are qualities of intellect and of character that conversation alone can cultivate, and Godwin is right to emphasize the contributions patient, calm, and kind engagement can make to human well-being. In an increasingly angry and divided political climate, this is a useful reminder. So too is his argument that this requires self- care: it is difficult to participate effectively in such conversations unless one cultivates in oneself the caring qualities they require, and doing this work is important for staving off the self- certitude and self-righteousness that are all too tempting in a heated political climate. 33 In addition, Godwin makes a provocative contribution by emphasizing neighbor to neighbor as a paradigmatic caring relationship. He thereby challenges care ethicists, such as Ruddick, Kittay, and Noddings, who have taken mothering as their paradigm. As the mother / young child relationship is one characterized by a great deal of dependence, intimacy, and partiality, maternalists have tended to emphasize these qualities as goods and to deplore liberal atomism and individualism. In my view, the maternalist position overvalues these qualities, which are less appropriate in the context of other caring relations, including relations between citizens. 34 Godwin reminds us that independence, nonintimacy, and impartiality have their place too. Contra the maternalist emphasis on dependence, his vision is one in which capacities for various types of independence—physical, social, and intellectual—are key ingredients

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of the human good. To value independence is not to reject caring interdependence tout court. Rather, independence and interdependence sustain one another. Promoting the capacity for relative independence can and ought to be a goal of caregiving relationships; after all, parents, educators, and doctors do not care for their charges with the aim of keeping them dependent but hope to facilitate different kinds of independent functioning. Conversely, having the ability to function without requiring constant assistance—being able to contribute to our own physical and material upkeep, manage our own emotions, and think for ourselves— improves our capacity to assist others in turn. Also, regarding intimacy, Godwin points out that less intimate ties have their own texture as well and that some of the qualities manifest in caring interactions with neighbors and acquaintances, such as impartiality, politeness, and disinterested benevolence, are valuable in their own right. He forces us to consider the extent to which some of these qualities should be cultivated and brought into our more intimate relationships, where all too often we give ourselves license to behave rudely and carelessly. And fi nally, whereas the maternalist approach stresses partiality, Godwin emphasizes the need for impartial moral judgment. Noddings’s theory of moral obligation prioritizes those who are near and dear to us but has trouble accounting for duties to more distant others. In Godwin’s view, the fact that every human being possesses moral value means that everyone is in principle worthy of our care and assistance. Of course, it is neither possible nor practical for us to attend to everyone, and thus more partial caregiving relationships remain an appropriate way of discharging our broader moral obligations. But this is only true if we are careful to step back and view our caring efforts in a broader context, making sure that we are not prioritizing the interests of our intimates to such an extent as to do injustice to others. I am far from insisting that Godwin’s model of care strikes a perfect balance between dependence and independence, intimacy and nonintimacy, partiality and impartiality. But his theory points to profitable insights a politics of care can draw from also attending to care in less intimate contexts, from acknowledging that promoting the capacity to function with a degree of independence is an important goal of caring relations and from remaining awake to the dangers of parochialism. Ultimately, Godwin makes a compelling case that everyone deserves his or her own “space,” in both metaphoric and literal senses. However much we value interdependence, individuals deserve opportunities to

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recover from socializing and from the sometimes taxing work of caring for others. Additionally, intellectual independence—the capacity to think for oneself and to critically interrogate one’s own values, ideas, and projects—is a valuable kind of freedom that political caregiving ought to protect. This is a reason, I think, why specifically liberal protections are essential to political care, such as freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and freedom of association. As I noted in the introduction, Tronto’s political theory of care focuses on democracy rather than liberalism (2013, p. 11), and Engster is relatively agnostic as to the form of government: whether it is democratic, theocratic, or aristocratic matters less than whether it is administered in a way that meets basic needs (2007, p. 93). But if Godwin is right that a degree of independence is important, and I believe he is, then there is something necessarily missing from the forms of political care provided by Sparta-style republics, illiberal democracies, autocracies, and theocracies. Indeed, as I have argued, this is a key reason Plato’s and Rousseau’s republican polities ultimately fall short of providing sound political care, excessively compromising the capacity for critical thought and subordinating individuals to the state. While Plato and Rousseau are correct to see a deeper confl ict between autonomy and flourishing and to acknowledge that the authority of confidence and force have an important role to play in political life, Godwin’s antistatist, antiauthoritarian, and antipaternalist arguments are a useful corrective to illiberal accounts of political care that risk smothering and dominating citizens.

Conclusion Introduction

I

began this book with the assertion that our politics suffers from a lack of care, one that we can only address with a political philosophical approach that tries try to think of care and liberalism together. I further maintained that increased attention to care’s place in the history of political thought will advance this project. Arguing that the intellectual history of care has been largely overlooked, I have focused on Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and William Godwin, whose divergent perspectives illustrate the range and richness of care-based political discourse. They utilize the language of care not only in their descriptions of practices considered private and feminine but as an idiom for conceptualizing a variety of social and political activities, some of which were “traditionally” thought to be masculine. All three thinkers employ caring language to illustrate the way governments ought to relate to their citizens and citizens to one another; highlight the dispositions and competencies good citizens must acquire, as well as the cultivating activities that will enable them to do so; and explain the link between individual self-interest and the interests of others. In this conclusion, I wish to highlight the aspects of their political theories that are most salient for a liberalism of care. I will consider some of the core disagreements as well as the points of overlap between these three philosophers, focusing on key areas in which Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin speak to current conversations about care’s place in politics. As I shall argue, Plato’s provocations about the need for caring expertise, Rousseau’s thoughts about care’s centrality to freedom as nondomination, and Godwin’s arguments about the place of independence within

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caring forms of interdependence all contribute to the project of building a more caring politics today.

Plato versus Rousseau versus Godwin While Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin offer strikingly different accounts of the relationship between politics and care, their views overlap on several critical points. Each philosopher emphasizes the fact that human beings require care in order to lead flourishing lives. For Plato and Godwin, this results from the deficiencies of the natural order. Nature brings us into the world weak and vulnerable, and it does little if anything to help us. Therefore, our well-being—indeed, our very survival—depends on the care of intelligent beings. Although Rousseau attributes our neediness not to the natural world but to the new desires we develop through socialization and civilization, the conclusion he draws is the same. Contemporary human beings are endowed with needs that they are unable to meet on their own. While this is obviously true of children, it also applies to adults. Despite the fact that adults are better able to satisfy their needs without assistance and can procure some of the goods they require through mutually beneficial exchanges, many needs cannot be met in these ways. (This results from the nature of certain needs as well as the fact that not every individual possesses sufficient goods to trade.) Hence, all of us require varying types and degrees of care from others, from cradle to grave. As to the reasons human beings ought to provide care, the three thinkers agree that caring is often morally mandatory. Both Plato and Rousseau identify an obligation to provide care to those from whom one has received it. The duty to show gratitude and reciprocate benefits ought to motivate acts of caregiving toward our parents, friends, loved ones, fellow citizens, and polity insofar as they have cared for us.1 Another crucial rationale for caregiving, Plato and Rousseau argue, is that it promotes the flourishing of caregivers. Because caring for others often earns their gratitude and fosters a sense of obligation, providing care is a prudent way to ensure that one will receive it in turn. More importantly, caregiving satisfies a deep-seated need. Plato and Rousseau posit that each human being has a natural longing to perpetuate and extend his or her being.2 This desire, they claim, can be partially satisfied by providing care, which allows caregivers to see themselves at work in

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and through others without dominating or tyrannizing them. 3 Godwin agrees that providing care is both a duty and a benefit to the care provider, though he does so on different grounds. Against Plato and Rousseau, Godwin denies that love of one’s own being and the desire to see it extended is natural. For Godwin, what all living beings naturally love is neither themselves nor their own pleasure but simply pleasure. Once we realize that pleasure qua pleasure is good and that all beings with sensation are capable of experiencing it, we fi nd ourselves rationally obligated to promote the greatest happiness of all, and providing care is an indispensable part of this task. Godwin also came to believe that the feelings of love and affection that accompany caregiving relationships are themselves important sources of pleasure. Thus, for all three philosophers, both receiving and giving care are essential to human well-being. They also evince significant agreement about the kinds of care human beings require, as they take a similar set of capabilities to be integral to human flourishing. Each thinker recognizes that we have material needs, such as the need for food and drink, that derive from our physical makeup. But Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin condemn superfluous consumption and luxury. They believe that material goods should be regarded as slight compared with social, ethical, and intellectual goods. Thus care ought to look not only to basic physical needs but also to our capacities for friendship, love, virtue, and critical reflection.4 Of course, providing all the care human beings require is a complex undertaking that necessitates a division of caregiving labor. Care is time- consuming and burdensome, and there are limits to what any single person can do for others. In addition, some forms of care, such as medical care, require special expertise, and different kinds of care can require different character traits. For example, Rousseau maintains that politics is much more ethically demanding than parenting—he thinks that while many people are capable of being good parents, few possess the degree of self- control necessary to govern others well. 5 In addition to these capacity requirements, care often requires in- depth knowledge of particular individuals and their circumstances and sometimes emotional ties with the person(s) cared for. Hence, Rousseau argues that loving bonds between parent and children are vital to the success of parental caregiving, and he rejects Platonic communism on that basis. This is not to say that we can neatly divide human beings into two groups: those who need care and those who provide it. Rather, we require care in some

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areas and are capable of providing it in others, and our needs and capacities change over the course of our lives. Given the fact that human beings are differently situated vis-à-vis their need for and ability to engage in caregiving, a flourishing society presupposes an organized scheme for providing care and allocating caring responsibilities. This, the three philosophers agree, is in principle the goal of the political association and, by extension, political authority. (Even Godwin, who advocates the gradual abolition of government, begins from the premise that it ought to do everything it can to improve the lives of its citizens.)6 As a result, their understandings of politics share certain common features: the purpose of political units is to promote the well-being of members; polities must consider the whole scope of citizens’ needs, material, social, and intellectual; property holders should think of themselves as stewards who hold their goods as a public trust; one of the most important criteria for fi lling political offices is the moral and intellectual capacity to care for the public welfare; and principal civic virtues include a sense of mutual responsibility and concern, while civic vices include parochialism and neglect. Despite these similarities, they hold radically different ideas about the appropriate structure and usage of political authority. Plato’s epistocratic version of authority as care is in part a product of the great value he attaches to intelligence and the comparatively little value he attaches to the natural motions of bodies. Coupled with the assumption that individuals vary considerably in their capacity to discern what true wisdom requires and subsequently carry it out, this leads him to conclude that the wisest human beings ought to govern the less wise. Plato does recognize two countervailing considerations that preclude the absolute dictatorship of wisdom. The fi rst is that, for the sake of political friendship, regimes must make concessions to popular prejudices. The second consideration is that no human being is perfectly wise. Given that we are fallible, we must leave room for discussion, dissension, and the possibility of political reform. However, Plato believes that open discussion is dangerous when the wrong people engage in it and therefore renders it the prerogative of an epistocratic elite. Rousseau, by contrast, fi nds a deeper ground for autonomy in the goodness of living things. Sensitive beings have an innate worth that does not derive from their usefulness to others, the subjective value they attach to themselves, or their capacity for excellence. This innate worth

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is manifest in the natural order’s concern to endow living beings with a love of self that spurs them to preserve themselves, while also imbuing them with pity to prevent them from harming others more than selfpreservation requires. Because nature has endowed living beings with instincts and passions that direct them to behave in ways that are good, their natural motions have a presumptive claim to remain unimpeded. This is one of the reasons that Rousseau envisions an important role for subordinates in determining the conduct of caregiving relationships. (The other consideration that is decisive for him is his belief that there are extremely few, if any, human beings capable of the ethical perfection of Plato’s philosopher-kings.) Rousseau therefore advocates authority relationships designed in accordance with the principle of subordinate sovereignty in order to reconcile the inequalities present in many modes of caregiving with respect for autonomy. While Godwin believes that caregiving is a critical activity, he denies that authority is needed to provide it. Godwin follows Plato in attaching little value to the natural world, and he goes much further than Rousseau in stressing the malleability of human beings. According to Godwin, because humans have no fi xed nature, there is no limit to what we can make of ourselves. As a result, he is much more optimistic about the possibility of educating everyone to a degree of ethical and intellectual excellence that Plato believed was possible only for a select few. What is more, Godwin argues that reason is so efficacious and truth so persuasive that this state of affairs can be brought about without force or coercion. Indeed, he insists that authority can only inhibit our progress by preventing individuals from engaging in free discussion and exercising their critical faculties. In their differing accounts, each philosopher outlines a sophisticated conception of care that contributes to contemporary care ethics. Plato articulates a deep connection between care of the self and caring for others, linking care to fundamental human desires and showing what it would mean to place care at the center of one’s understanding of oneself as a moral agent. In addition, his political thought contains a profound exploration of the tension between our particular moral commitments on one hand and political friendship on the other. Plato maintains that there are values, such as goodness, justice, and beauty, that are accessible in thought and imperfectly instantiated in the world around us, and he believes that a good political community is one that lives by those values successfully. At the same time, he maintains that we understand

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the good, the just, and the beautiful differently. The fact that we do not agree threatens our ability to act collectively and abide by a common set of rules. Living together therefore requires striking a balance between insisting upon one’s own normative commitments and compromising in order to get along with others; this delicate task is one that Plato strives to internalize into his conception of political care. The implausible and unattractive nature of the ideal regimes he proposes highlights why, for us today, an authoritarian, epistocratic resolution of this tension is untenable. At the same time, his arguments have enough force to show that we cannot entirely do away with the idea of political expertise or with what Godwin calls the authority of confidence. Vox populi is not vox Dei; individuals really do possess different competencies and are not equally capable of discharging public responsibilities well. Hence the care- ethical value of competence cannot be realized politically without a more complex set of institutions for integrating disparate knowledges and competencies than defenders of simple-majoritarian or direct democracy allow (e.g., Barber 1984). A good liberal democratic regime will contain suitably tempered technocratic elements, in the form of professionalized administrative bureaucracies, appointed judges, and so on. Not only must these technocratic elements be worthy of trust; the public must be willing to trust them. Otherwise, the epistemic advantages they provide will be lost, and public life will be shot through with paranoia, conspiracy theories, and pseudoscience. It is a crucial challenge for care ethics, then, to theorize how to integrate expertise and the authority of experts into a system that respects equality and autonomy, one that precludes increased democratization as a cure-all. As for Rousseau, he forges a conceptual connection between care and nondomination that has radical implications for civic education. He shows that the formal institutions of the state that help secure freedom (democratic assemblies, courts, and so on) can only function effectively if citizens care for and about one another. In addition, the connection he draws between care and nature captures something important about the moral value of living beings. It seems to me that human beings and at least some other animal species do possess an innate value that generates an accompanying right to carry out their life processes. Not only does the innate value of living things place moral constraints on the ways in which others may use or appropriate them; in some cases, it creates a responsibility to attend to their needs and help them achieve their ends. It thereby provides a moral basis for opposing domination, pro-

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moting caregiving, and securing autonomy for subordinates within caregiving relationships. I do not believe Rousseau’s attempts to ground that moral value in a teleological view of nature is persuasive, nor do I claim to possess a fully fleshed- out alternative. But I think his appeal to sensation and basic awareness is on the right track and that this move has a crucial advantage over doctrines that locate the value of living beings in “higher- order” capabilities, such as speech, rationality, or the ability to form life plans. In contrast to those “Platonic” accounts, Rousseau’s position readily applies to nonhuman animals, children, and persons with significant mental disabilities. In addition, because he ties together care, nature, and domination in sophisticated ways—such as the way he understands the problem of “domestication”—Rousseau’s thought might have more to offer ecofeminism and environmental applications of care ethics than is usually acknowledged. Finally, Godwin’s political writings advance several forceful arguments in favor of caregiving practices that preserve and extend the capacity for social and intellectual independence. Plato’s and Rousseau’s political solutions require instilling reverence for political authority in the majority of citizens. Because they believe that this reverence is threatened by critical reflection, they discourage the practice of science and philosophy by all but a select few. Godwin persuasively argues that these fears are overblown. The differences between individuals are not as great as Plato and, to a lesser extent, Rousseau suppose; they are certainly not extensive enough to justify the division of humankind into two classes, one that may safely be taught to think for itself and one that may not. Owing to the social, moral, and intellectual goods that accompany reflective agency, its widespread cultivation is not only compatible with but a vital component of caring for others. He emphasizes frank conversation as a form of care, as open discussions between equals are morally and intellectually improving. If Godwin is overly sanguine about the power of discussion to change people’s minds, he is certainly correct that conversations can stimulate moral and intellectual growth. In addition, Godwin demonstrates an admirable degree of respect for the ability of individuals and communities to provide care by means of a diverse set of arrangements. In contrast to those liberals who check their commitments to freedom and equality at the front door, Godwin carries his values into the home, dethroning patriarchy and the nuclear family in favor of a plurality of caring relationships established by mutual consent, ones that include neighbors and nonkin. While Godwin’s faith in our ability

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to do without government is implausible—government must continue to play a role in regulating, coordinating, and supporting caring relations— his critique of Plato and Rousseau, his embrace of consent-based family structures, his emphasis on conversation as a source of care, his stress on the importance of independence amid interdependence, and his identification of neighborly relations as a site for exercising and cultivating moral capacity are persuasive and normatively attractive. Thus all three theorists’ understandings of care contain insights of benefit to contemporary political theory and practice.

The Liberalism of Care From a contemporary vantage point, it is all too easy to imagine a twenty-fi rst century characterized by ever-increasing inequality, one in which political power is increasingly privatized and made to serve the interests of a powerful few. Technological progress might lead to greater numbers of people competing for fewer jobs, and environmental degradation could affect the habitability of large swathes of the globe. These developments in turn could cause mass migrations that fuel xenophobia, racism, and political polarization. Such a future is not only likely but inevitable if we double down on the notion that one’s real responsibilities are to oneself and one’s own, that one’s safety and one’s fortune must be purchased at the expense of others, and that freedom means resisting collective efforts to address collective problems. These views are all too pervasive in countries such as the United States, and surmounting them requires a more caring conception of politics that reconnects governments with the governed, attending to the needs of citizens and residents as well as fostering a culture of care. As I noted in the introduction, there continues to be a lively debate over which human needs deserve political attention and on what basis, with some care ethicists focusing on a more limited range of basic needs (e.g., Engster 2007) and others upon a more expansive set inspired by the capabilities approach formulated by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen.7 But this has not prevented care ethicists from broadly endorsing a number of policy objectives. These include increased support for the most vulnerable members of society, especially children, the poor, the sick and injured, and the elderly and disabled (Noddings 2002; Engster 2007; Tronto 2013); many have also emphasized the needs of caregivers

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and care workers, such as parents, teachers, and providers of medical care (Kittay 1998). However much political support we ought to give to developing more complex capacities, individuals in countries such as the United States are not sufficiently supported even in meeting their basic needs for goods such as education, nutrition, housing, and health care, and addressing this fact is an urgent political problem. In claiming that our polities need to do a better job of helping people meet important needs, I am not arguing for direct state provision of all the various goods individuals require; the end goal of a caring politics is not a totalitarian nanny state. What the political association is ultimately responsible for is constructing and maintaining a social environment in which those needs are met, and in some cases that is better accomplished by providing political support to nonstate actors. This might take the form of public-private partnerships, public funding for nongovernmental organizations, and/or a supportive regulatory environment. After all, the three philosophers studied here, especially Rousseau and Godwin, show that state intervention has its costs, particularly in most direct and coercive modes. State interference can (1) be misguided in its aim; (2) be ineffective or counterproductive even when its aim is good; (3) crowd out valuable social relationships; (4)  cause unhappiness by compelling individuals to act contrary to their own desires and values; and (5)  prevent individuals from engaging in forms of self-help that have certain goods associated with them or lead to the development of valuable capacities, such as the capacity for independent judgment. If we truly desire the welfare of others, we must think carefully, responsibly, and responsively when contemplating state intervention for the sake of caring ends. This is to say that whether and to what extent the state should involve itself in meeting this or that need is to an important degree an empirical question concerning whether noncounterproductive action is possible, which among the available solutions would be most effective, and what the trade- offs would be. As Rousseau and Godwin highlight, democratic and liberal checks on political authority are integral to ensuring that such questions are considered carefully: democratic deliberation and accountability, as well as legal protections for individual and minority rights, are important mechanisms for preventing dominative behavior and ensuring care is well provided. Thus the very goal of care supplies a logic for subjecting political caregiving to various formal and informal constraints. Indeed, liberal democratic institutions reflect a deeper shift in how we under-

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stand the harms of paternalistic and authoritarian methods of “caregiving,” one that has been mirrored by transformations in other caregiving relationships, such as parent/child, teacher/student, and doctor/patient (cf. Tronto 2013, pp. 164– 65). Over the course of the past century, each of these relationships has moved away from more punitive, authoritarian modes of care provision to more democratic and deliberative forms that exhibit a greater degree of equality between care provider and care recipient, as well as greater, liberal-inspired respect for care recipients’ values, thoughts, and desires. These changes are necessary to help ensure that caring relations truly promote human well-being.8 Beyond greater political support for meeting important needs, a caring politics requires a broader transformation of contemporary political culture. As Plato and Rousseau make plain, formal institutions and policies designed to promote the well-being of citizens must be supported by caring attitudes among public officials and the citizen body generally. Otherwise, they will not function properly or will prove politically impossible to sustain. In the United States, one of the challenges to a liberalism of care is the notion that political care is somehow illegitimate. This is underpinned by a popular right-wing narrative according to which government involvement in social service provision is a “communistic” idea dreamed up for the fi rst time in the nineteenth century (e.g., Goldwater 1964, ch. 8). Figuring care as intrinsically alien to liberalism and the Western political philosophical tradition undermines existing caregiving programs and escalates routine policy disputes over matters such as government-provided health insurance into overheated crises in which bills such as the Affordable Care Act are figured as mortal threats to freedom and the republic. As Plato and Rousseau show, this right-wing narrative is false. Care has been considered a fundamental feature of republican governance since the beginning of Western philosophy. Even Godwin’s thought demonstrates how readily the premises of a liberal utilitarianism support these types of policies if some of his assumptions about the harms of authority and the sufficiency of conversation are tweaked—as other liberal utilitarians such as John Stuart Mill did (see Mill, Principles of Political Economy, especially the third edition and those subsequent). In addition to accepting the legitimacy of political care, the liberalism of care requires another shift in the culture of contemporary liberal democracies. Many of these polities are presently characterized by a kind of parochialism that causes individuals to approve of caring policies if

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and only if they help people “like them” and to otherwise employ state institutions in ways that harm or neglect out-groups. This attitude is one of the principal drivers of far-right populism, and it plays a more general role in undermining support for social welfare spending that is perceived as primarily benefiting “others” (e.g., women, noncitizens, or ethnic minorities). It seems likely that this mentality is exacerbated by deprivation and that people who are struggling themselves or perceive their in-group to be struggling may be more susceptible to xenophobic appeals that blame out-groups for their suffering.9 If so, successfully implementing caring policies that assist these individuals might also reduce the attraction of the far right. But I doubt this alone will be sufficient, given the success of xenophobic rhetoric in reducing support for political care even in times of general economic prosperity (for example, in the United States, the racialized hostility to welfare and resulting reforms that took place in the 1990s or the way hostility toward Muslims has affected the politics of Denmark and Sweden). Hence I believe it is necessary to take a page from the three philosophers studied here and theorize the kinds of educative experiences that might equip citizens to care more about the interests of others, including those who do not resemble themselves. Rousseau suggests that the capacity to relate to others in caring, nondominative ways is facilitated by having been properly cared for oneself. Specifically, children must feel themselves supported by others without being subjected to arbitrary forms of authority that breed anger, resentment, and a feeling of powerlessness. These negative experiences encourage children either to shrink into themselves or to engage in dominative behavior as a method of self-assertion. For this reason, measures designed to reduce domination in schools and at home, such as antibullying campaigns, pedagogical methods that prioritize student autonomy, better training for teachers and other caregivers for identifying and responding to child abuse, and more robust support for child welfare services, are valuable both as methods for mitigating significant harms and as means of fostering a more caring culture generally. Just as being protected from dominative behavior strengthens our capacity to care for others, so too does receiving caring treatment—so long as it is not so excessive as to inhibit the development of our own capabilities or so obsequious as to create the impression that others are there to serve us. As a society, we ought to encourage parents and educators to approach childcare from this perspective and provide children with

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the resources they need to do so. Rousseau and Godwin also argue that we grow better at caring for others by making a practice of doing so habitually, not only within our families but with friends and neighbors as well. In addition to urging individuals to become more involved in their communities, to volunteer, and to seek out opportunities to get to know and converse with their neighbors, national and community service programs (Tronto 2013, p. 172), as well as educational programs such as Martha Nussbaum’s call for compassion education (Nussbaum 2001), might prove valuable ways to encourage people to engage in more caring practices in the course of their daily lives. One goal of these educative experiences is to encourage individuals to adopt a set of caring attitudes and aptitudes that they will exercise across multiple domains—political, social, and familial. The aim is to inspire individuals with a broad sense that caring for others is morally important; that caring virtues such as responsibility, responsiveness, attentiveness, and competence ought to be cultivated; and that caring affects, such as compassion, sympathy, and tenderness, are valuable and enriching. Fostering these attitudes requires revising cultural assumptions about masculinity and femininity, the relationship between public and private life, and the connection between one’s self and others. On the fi rst point, building a more caring society involves challenging a toxic understanding of masculinity that excuses men from the responsibility of providing care on the grounds that it is “effeminate” and degrading. As Plato’s, Rousseau’s, and Godwin’s works evince, at various points in the past, men were understood as providers of care, and tender, nurturing affects were considered masculine. Furthermore, many “masculine” tasks were considered caring—culturally endorsed male forms of participating in politics, friendship, and family life were often conceptualized and described in caring terms. Thus, there is overwhelming historical evidence in favor of the feminist argument that there is nothing “natural” about the idea that care is intrinsically feminine. Introducing more individuals to that history and exposing them to different understandings of gender roles might promote the development of a masculine identity more compatible with caring ideals. It is also crucial to challenge the idea that care ought to be limited to the private sphere. All three thinkers identify ways that caring values and virtues contribute to political life, demonstrating the importance— indeed, the rich history—of incorporating qualities sometimes dismissed as “private” and “feminine” into politics. The need to care and be cared

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for is one of the fundamental reasons we associate with one another, and government is a central means of regulating and providing the care that human beings require. Good governments are those that promote the interests of the ruled, and this is impossible without the care- ethical virtues of responsibility, attentiveness, responsiveness, and competence. Republics require citizens with the capacity to look beyond their narrow interests and concern themselves with the public good. This capacity draws upon and reinforces habits and dispositions cultivated by giving and receiving care in smaller circles of association. And, as Godwin points out, the reverse is true as well: the qualities of patience, kindness, and curiosity we might cultivate in less intimate interactions—including our civic relations—can improve our ability to conduct ourselves better in our more intimate roles. Furthermore, constructing a liberalism of care requires rethinking the relationship between oneself and others. Most care ethicists hope to foster a greater sense of interconnectedness with and responsibility to others. Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin all suggest reasons we might wish to adopt such a perspective. At a metaphysical level, they blur the boundary between self and other; at an ethical level, they draw a connection between one’s own happiness and the happiness of other people. Rousseau and Godwin claim that practicing benevolence and sympathy produces pleasure for caregiving agents. Also, Plato and Rousseau argue that care can be a salutary form of self-assertion, of experiencing one’s own agency in the world. I think they are right to acknowledge this need, and to attempt to discipline and direct it, rather than to make selfless, agapistic engrossment in the welfare of others the sole foundation of caring. Perhaps individuals may approach this with respect to their closest intimates, but in wider circles of associates this demand is psychologically difficult if not impossible. Demanding that care be agapistic and all- engrossing also casts it as self-sacrificial obligation rather than a rewarding component of a good life.10 In encouraging people to integrate caring activity to a greater degree in their daily lives, it is prudent to emphasize the self-regarding benefits in addition to its other recommendations.11 This way of thinking helps satisfy another objective of care ethicists, which is to avoid encouraging individuals to martyr themselves. Care ethicists are well aware that in a variety of times and places, women and other marginalized groups have been subjected to a cultural imperative to care for others even at significant cost to their own well-being,

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and they do not want “caring” to function as a pernicious ideology (e.g., Bartky 1990). Here I think Plato’s notion of caring for the self is useful, insofar as it connects one’s interests to the interests of others without denying the importance of attending to one’s own well-being as well. Rousseau’s idea of extending the self to others functions similarly. The education of Emile models a way of conceptualizing oneself in relation to others that encourages us to view other people’s happiness as important to our own, without counseling neglect of oneself or domination of others. The same is true of Godwin, whose capacious account of our moral responsibility to others is complemented by a recognition of the need for social and intellectual space. As some care ethicists have argued, a caring society is also one in which human beings rethink the relationship between themselves and the natural world (Held 2006; Noddings 2013, ch. 7). Nonhuman animals and other living beings are due at least some degree of moral consideration. Furthermore, unchecked exploitation and domination of nature is dangerous for human beings themselves. This is true in the obvious sense that we are threatened by polluted air, unsanitary water, and extreme weather patterns. But I think it also true that in infl icting certain kinds of damage upon other living things, we commit a kind of moral violence against ourselves—see, for example, a provocative study linking the presence of slaughterhouses in a given community with higher rates of violent crime (Fitzgerald, Kalof, and Dietz 2009; see also Lebwohl 2015). For these reasons, the need to adopt more ecologically friendly policies is evident, and promoting such policies might be facilitated by encouraging individuals to adopt a more caring attitude toward nonhuman life. I believe there are ways to teach this. One might, for instance, design curricula that not only teach students about nonhuman animal and plant life but give them hands- on opportunities to interact with them; for innovative pedagogical approaches along these lines, see Shelton- Colangelo, Mancuso, and Duvall (2007). Political and cultural change on the level I have described is very difficult. But the challenges that confront us in this century make it imperative that we try. Furthermore, the virtues and values of care ought to inform the very spirit in which we pursue such changes. It is one thing to commit oneself, in the abstract, to the notion that our politics should always be more inclusive, deliberative, and subject to contestation. It is another thing to encounter, in concreto, determined opposition to one’s deeply held political commitments from people who appear, from one’s

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own perspective, to be prejudiced, irrational, or perverse in their beliefs. Such encounters can be deeply frustrating, and it is easy to grow angry, censorious, and dismissive. The answer to negotiating such tensions cannot be as simple as convincing oneself that one’s opponents have equally valid perspectives. While it is important to question one’s own beliefs and critical to remain open to others’, individuals are not entitled to “alternative facts,” and not every course of action is moral. If we cannot abandon our own commitments and we cannot always persuade others to abandon theirs, then creating a more caring politics will involve a political struggle to enact caring policies in the face of determined opposition. I do not think we should shy away from the fight. But the values of care ethics can guide the way we engage with political opponents, forcing us to question whether we are truly being attentive to the needs of others, whether we are really taking responsibility for meeting them, and whether we are really being responsive to their concerns. And when one’s own political allies have the upper hand and one’s policy preferences are being enacted into law, it is imperative to keep taking a step back, keep engaging with one’s opponents, and keep trying to ensure that caring intentions remain central to one’s efforts. If we cannot all agree, we might at least demonstrate mutual concern in a way that moderates some of the antagonisms roiling contemporary democratic politics. Ultimately it is my hope that, by cultivating a greater degree of social and political responsibility; strengthening our commitments to pluralism, freedom, and equality through caring engagements with others; and fostering a generalized concern with helping individuals to develop their capacities and meet important needs, we might overcome the forces of parochialism, neglect, and xenophobia and create a more caring society. This will require the efforts of many, as republics do not take care of themselves.

Acknowledgments

T

his book would not have been possible without the support of numerous colleagues, friends, and family members. Steven Smith has been indispensable from this project’s inception, consistently generous in his comments, criticisms, and advice. Bryan Garsten has been an incisive reader of crucial assistance throughout, and Karuna Mantena was instrumental in shaping this project’s direction. I would also like to thank Sharon Krause, who played a vital role in its revision, as well as to Tamara Metz and Joseph Reisert, whose participation in a book conference on the manuscript was immensely helpful. I owe a huge debt to Neil Fraistat, Kimberly O’Neill, Tatiana Neumann, and Celia Paris; their comments were invaluable and their willingness to read countless drafts a testament to human endurance. I am further indebted to conversations with Cameron Ballard-Rosa, Teresa Bejan, Rob Blair, Erica De Bruin, Madhavi Devasher, Lucy Martin, Luke Mayville, Sam Rosenfeld, Claire Sagan, Rachel Silbermann, Will Smiley, and Paul Testa. Their thoughts enriched this project, and their friendship helped sustain it. Versions of several chapters were presented at the American Political Science Association’s, the Midwest Political Science Association’s, and the New England Political Science Association’s annual meetings. I want to thank everyone who participated in those sessions for providing me with feedback. I would also like to thank the editorial staff of the American Political Science Review and four anonymous reviewers for their comments on my fi rst published article on care in Rousseau’s thought, “Domination and Care in Rousseau’s Emile,” as well as the journal for its permission to reprint material from that article in chapter 3. This book would not have been possible without research support

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from the Institute of Humane Studies and the Charles Koch Foundation, and I am grateful for their generous assistance. I am also indebted to Brown University for hosting me for a two-year research fellowship during which much of the revision work was accomplished. Finally, in a book about care, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the friends and family members who inspired this work and supported me throughout. I would like to dedicate this book to Neil Fraistat, Pamela Wessling, Rose Ann Cleveland, Ann Fraistat, and Grant Cloyd—I love them all dearly, and I could not imagine a more caring group of people.

Notes Introduction 1. My concerns about the uncaring state of contemporary liberalism are expressed in this introduction with particular reference to the United States, as this is the case I know best. But many liberal democracies are facing similar crises of care, evidenced by a disjunction between political elites and democratic publics, the weakening of the welfare state, and the failure of existing political vocabularies to combat rising intolerance. These problems represent a broader challenge for liberal democratic politics and liberal political thought. 2. In the United States, “liberal” is often used narrowly to designate the political center-left. But I am using the term in its more capacious philosophical and historical sense. Not only New Deal Democrats but also many US conservatives, including laissez-faire libertarians, are liberal by this defi nition. 3. Scholars use the term “perfectionism” to refer to those who believe politics ought to promote flourishing, where this is defi ned in terms of characteristic ends, activities, and excellences that make a human life not only pleasant but admirable and choiceworthy. This view is strongly associated with Aristotle; liberal versions of it appear in the works of contemporary virtue ethicists (e.g., Alaisdair MacIntyre) and the autonomy- centric perfectionism of Joseph Raz. 4. Most conspicuously, minimal liberalism underwrites “neoliberalism,” one of its manifestations. The term “neoliberalism” is understood variously by different authors, but I take it to refer to a pro–free market version of liberalism that developed in the postwar era, reacting against the social liberalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the expansion of the welfare state. It was forcefully advocated by libertarians of the right, including thinkers such as Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises and politicians such as Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul. But many of its ideas and arguments found their way into “mainstream” conservatism, a transition marked by the rise of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In the 1980s and 1990s, the

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American and British center-left followed suit and shifted in a neoliberal direction, exemplified by Bill Clinton and the New Democrats, as well as Tony Blair and New Labour. 5. In keeping with this, minimal liberals often describe political life using metaphors drawn from economic life and from games, embodied in such claims as these: the state is formed by a contract; the state is like a company (e.g., Nozick 1974); laws are like the rules of a game (e.g., Rawls 1999, pp. 306– 7); political authorities are like judges, umpires, or referees (Friedman 2002, p. 15); and so on. There is no presumption that people choose to play games or make business deals for altruistic reasons or to promote the common good. Rather, each participant anticipates some benefit to him- or herself (profit, perhaps, in the business case; pleasure in the case of games) and agrees to abide by the relevant rules in order to secure that benefit. 6. For instance, the Affordable Care Act has been characterized as an unprecedented expansion of government power that will take us down the road to serfdom. Strikingly, this argument is advanced as though extensive government provision of health care (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Affairs medical system) did not already exist. This pattern seems to repeat itself every time a new caregiving program is considered. 7. Controversies over entitlement programs, as well as government agencies responsible for health, safety, and environmental protection, have been at the center of government shutdowns in 1995, 1996, and 2013. 8. A common liberal move is to argue that the goal of liberalism is freedom, that freedom involves the opportunity to exercise one’s autonomy, and that because this presupposes the possession of certain goods, the state is justified in providing certain services. I think it is a mistake to try to justify the familiar panoply of goods and services provided by the modern welfare state in terms of freedom. We wind up having to defi ne “freedom” such that being free also means being healthy, adequately educated, and so on, which stretches the meaning of the word. Furthermore, it is morally important for the government to promote health and education over and apart from their contributions to freedom. Consider Norman Daniels’s argument that we have a right to quality medical care because medical problems interfere with autonomy. As he puts it, impairments of “normal species functioning” interfere with our ability to pursue our “life plans” and individual conceptions of the good (Daniels 1985, pp. 27– 28). But as Carl Knight and Andreas Albertsen point out, this argument makes it difficult to justify palliative care, as its goal is not to cure an underlying condition and restore normal functioning but to mitigate suffering (Knight and Albertsen 2015). This is a problem because it seems unjust to withhold palliative care from terminal patients on the grounds that it cannot restore their “freedom.” Also, it is hard to see how Daniels’s account can justify the provision of health care to severely disabled individuals who are not capable of “normal species functioning”

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and/or cannot pursue their own conception of the good in the Rawlsian sense (ibid.). In my view, health is important in its own right, even apart from its contribution to free agency, and the fact that it is a basic good essential to well-being is a reason for providing health care to individuals. 9. To illustrate the distinction I have in mind, it is one thing to stop de jure school segregation, a battle that has been won; it is another to implement policies such as busing that would promote meaningful racial integration, which the United States has largely failed to accomplish. 10. This is not to say that Trump really wants to take care of “everybody.” He is quite clear that he intends to exclude certain groups. Trump’s tendency to demonize out-groups facilitates the effectiveness of caring language with his base by dampening one of the sources of right-wing resistance to caregiving programs, which is the sense that they benefit Others who are undeserving (e.g., Quadagno 1994; Gilens 1999; Neubeck and Cazenave 2001). The challenge for liberals is to overcome the vertical and horizontal deficits of care at the same time, advocating for a more caring politics while avoiding exclusionary appeals. 11. According to Yascha Mounk, 2016 data from the American National Election Studies revealed that “those who voted for Trump in the Republican primaries, more than those who supported his competition, said that they ‘don’t have any say about what the government does,’ that ‘public officials don’t care much what people like me think,’ and that ‘most politicians care only about the interests of the rich and powerful’” (2018). 12. For a thoughtful exploration of the fraught relationship between care ethics and liberalism, see Held (2006), ch. 5. 13. Care ethicists have generally positioned themselves as breaking with the dominant modes of Western political theorizing. That said, they have identified a few historical antecedents in early feminists, such as Mary Wollstonecraft (Engster 2001); moral sentimentalists, such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Francis Hutcheson (Baier 1987; Tronto 1993; Slote 2010); and American pragmatists, such as William James (Hamington 2004). Tronto has also noted the importance of care (Sorge) to Martin Heidegger’s thought (2013, p. 19). 14. The term is David Estlund’s; an epistocrat is someone who defends the idea of “rule by the knowers” (Estlund 2008, p. 7). 15. Engster makes a similar point, distinguishing caregiving practices, which meet developmental needs “directly,” from other activities that may do so indirectly (2007, p. 29). 16. In some cases, these goals may confl ict. For instance, maintaining healthy functioning might require a medical procedure that will cause some pain. But such a procedure could nevertheless be judged caring if the benefits outweigh the harm involved. (In addition, a good caregiver would attempt to minimize trade- offs to the extent this is feasible; e.g., a caring surgeon would administer an anesthetic before operating.)

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17. This is not because these subjects lack political relevance. I think that there are politically salient forms of care for inanimate objects (e.g., maintaining public infrastructure). Also, humanity’s relationship to nonhuman life and the natural world is clearly a political issue. I set them aside because these issues are complex and deserve their own detailed treatment. For a care ethicist who has already begun exploring the ethic’s implications for nonhuman life and inanimate things, see Noddings (2013), ch. 7. 18. For a highly influential discussion of the politics of need interpretation, see Fraser 1987. For an overview of this issue in the care ethics literature, see Tronto (2013), p. 162. 19. Kittay (1998) addresses and revises Rawls’s theory of primary goods at length. For care ethicists inclined toward the capabilities approach, see Tronto (1993, p. 140) and Engster in earlier work (2001; cf. 2007). On the debate about needs and well-being within the care ethics literature, see Tronto 2013, p. 162. 20. In addition, different kinds of caregivers are responsible for different kinds of care: physical trainers are not expected to provide love and emotional support to their trainees, teachers are not responsible for curing diseases, and so on. Any assessment of whether a particular caregiver has done a good or adequate job will depend upon the nature of his or her relationship with and responsibility to the care recipient. 21. I thus disagree with those care ethicists such as Nel Noddings (2002) and Diemut Bubeck (1995) who have privileged dyadic, face-to-face care provision in their account of care’s ethical value. (This is not to say these two authors have ignored the larger social, political, and institutional context in which caring occurs: Bubeck’s account leaves room for the welfare state to facilitate care by funding face-to-face caring interactions, and Noddings’s more recent work also stresses less intimate forms of caring [e.g., 2013, preface].) 22. For a useful discussion of the differences between a care ethic and work ethic, see Tronto (2013), pp. 82– 87. 23. In addition to the care ethicists cited above, my defi nition here is informed by MacIntyre (1984). My understanding of virtue is not limited to what we might think of as “moral” virtues. It includes many other forms of excellence (e.g., intellectual virtues, which are not strictly moral in character). 24. The respect I have in mind here can be a product of moral judgment rather than a spontaneous “natural” impulse. On this point, see Nodding’s (2013) distinction between “natural care” and “ethical care.” The former refers to acts of care we are prompted to provide by natural impulse, such as the love parents typically feel for their children. The latter involves a reflective judgment that this or that person deserves care. One might reach such a judgment out of a sense of duty or moral conviction, even in the face of some internal reluctance to provide the care required. Noddings argues that these two are linked and that in learn-

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ing to care for others ethically, we draw upon our experiences of naturally caring relations. 25. It is not entirely possible to separate caring values from virtues, because some of the excellences vital to successful caregiving are also valuable qualities in their own right. I suspect this is why Tronto’s list of caring values, which includes “attentiveness, responsibility, nurturance, compassion, meeting others’ needs” (1993, p. 3), contains two items—attentiveness and responsibility—that she also identifies as virtues. 26. Siding with Held rather than Slote, I take a care ethic to have characteristic virtues, but I do not consider care ethics a species of “virtue ethics” (Held 2006; Slote 2001). The moral emphasis of care ethics is on meeting needs and sustaining caring relations rather than perfecting the character of caregivers. Accordingly, the caring virtues are not intended as a complete account of the qualities possessed by a morally ideal human being. Rather, they are the qualities essential for caring well. 27. I am skeptical that it is psychologically possible to recognize the wellbeing of others as an end in itself out of a pure sense of duty actuated by rational reflection. But even supposing that it is, few of us live up to this idealized Kantian vision of moral agency in practice, as Kant himself readily granted. 28. I am not making the strong claim that it is impossible to provide good care to someone if we do not care about him or her at all. But “taking care of” in the absence of any “caring about” is more difficult and more likely to result in suboptimal outcomes. Medical burnout, for instance, involves feelings of depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and aversion to patients, and these feelings are correlated with poorer patient outcomes (Shanafelt et al. 2002; Nantsupawat et al. 2016; Russell 2016). When the virtues of care are not practiced and the appropriate caring affects are not present, the quality of care is generally impoverished. 29. One can readily imagine scenarios in which an overly strong emotional connection between a caregiver and someone he or she cares for would be an obstacle to good care, such as a romantic relationship between a psychiatrist and one of his or her patients. On other hand, there are cases where strong emotional connections are important and insufficient emotional attachment might be an impediment, such as the relationship between parents and children. 30. This includes Latin. The Latin noun cura and the related verb curo are not etymologically related to the English word “care” but nonetheless have all these meanings. Cura can refer to attention (whence the English “curious”), concern, management, or a sorrow or burden. Like “care,” it can denote medical care and is the root of the English word “cure.” Similar to the English “carefree” or “without a care,” cura is also used to form compounds that mean one is unburdened or free from anxiety, such as se (“without”) + cura = securus (the source of

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the English “secure”), as well as the phrase benefi cium sine cura (“benefice without care”), which is the basis of the English word “sinecure.” Also, cura can refer to “the cares of love” or even the loved object itself. 31. Here and throughout, English defi nitions of Greek words are drawn from Liddell, Scott, and Morris Whiton (1879). 32. The French to English dictionary consulted throughout is MerriamWebster’s French-English Translation Dictionary (2009). 33. I think what it is at issue here is that soin is not a perfect translation of care as it is understood by Gilligan and those who defi ne it as a mode of moral reasoning. But it is a good translation of care understood as an activity or practice, which is the defi nition I am employing. 34. In a cross- cultural study of masculinity, David Gilmore claims that male care is often “less direct, less immediate, more involved with externals; the ‘other’ involved may be society in general rather than specific persons” (1990, p.  229). Furthermore, the character traits connected to male caregiving are sometimes different from “what we Westerners normally consider the nurturing personality” (ibid., p. 230). That is to say, male caring for family, friends, and polity sometimes involves aggressiveness, competitiveness, and so on. But it would be a mistake to overemphasize this—male care work is often described using nurturing language and associated with tender affects as well. 35. Tronto qualifies her remarks about care being something private and feminine with the observation that, historically, there have been more publicoriented male forms of care, but these have involved “caring about” and “taking care of” rather than “care-giving and care-receiving” (1993, pp. 114–15). It is undoubtedly correct that, historically, high-status care work was disproportionately carried out by men. But some of it was quite hands- on and intimate, such as medical care and religious pastoral care, and the language of affect and intimacy also surrounds the provision of political care at many points in history. For this reason, it is still misleading to ascribe to the Western tradition as a whole the relatively recent cultural assumption that men, if they care at all, ought to do so in ways that are more distant, less affective, and less private. 36. Athenians are quite explicit in identifying traditionally male forms of care as care: epimeleomai, therapeuô, and trephô are common in discussions of politics as well as men’s household responsibilities. For example, the central lesson of Xenophon’s Economics is that successful household management depends on knowing which pursuits to care for and how to care for them (e.g., Economics in Xenophon 1921, 4.1). Xenophon’s Socrates condemns the illiberal arts, on the grounds that they do not leave enough time to join in the taking caring of (sunepimeleisthai) one’s friends and polis (ibid., 4.3). Rather, he argues that one should care for agriculture, like the Persian king (ibid., 4.4–11). Aristotle claims that good fathers “care” (melei) for their children, and are responsible for their

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nurture (trophês) and education (paideias) (Nicomachean Ethics, 1160b–1161a; the English quoted is from Aristotle 2002; the Greek from Aristotle 1894). 37. Xenophon’s Ischomachus argues that men and women are equally caring: “Because both must give and take, he [i.e., the god] granted to both impartially memory and care [epimelian]; and so you could not distinguish whether the male or the female sex has the larger share of these” (Economics, 7.26; see also 7.22; the English quoted here is from Xenophon 1979; the Greek edition consulted is Xenophon 1921). He takes the relevant distinction to be whether they do their work within the home or without: “Since both the indoor and the outdoor tasks demand labour and care [epimelias], God from the fi rst adapted the woman’s nature, I think, to the indoor and man’s to the outdoor tasks and cares [epimelêmata]” (ibid., 7.22; see also 7.20– 21, 30, 35– 36, and 3.15). Similarly, Plato’s Athenian Stranger describes Athenian practice as giving ruling and protective work to men and as well as women but with women confi ned to the home: “‘Bringing all our goods together within some one house,’ as the saying goes, we give to women the responsibility of acting as stewards, setting them to rule over the shuttles and everything having to do with spinning” (Laws, 805a– 806a). Aristotle invokes the same idea with his claim that “household management differs for a man and a woman as well, for it is the work of the man to acquire and of the woman to guard [phulattein]” (Politics, 1277b; the English quoted here is from Aristotle 2013, and the Greek from Aristotle 1957). 38. That said, historical liberal opposition to familistic political metaphors can be easily overstated. Seventeenth- century Whigs were less exercised about metaphors comparing rulers to fathers than they were about doctrines deriving the right of kings to rule from paternal right. Hence they sometimes employ familistic metaphors themselves. For instance, in his Essay on Toleration, Locke expresses the wish that “civil magistrates  .  .  . may, like fathers of their country, direct all their counsels and endeavours to promote universally the civil welfare of all their children” (2003, p. 251). As Gordon Wood points out, one of the reasons for insisting on a stark distinction between polities and families was to protect patriarchy in the home while assailing it in politics. But when ideas of parenthood changed in the eighteenth century and “parents themselves became limited monarchs, then even good whigs had no trouble in equating familial and political authority” (Wood 1993, p. 157). 39. To provide a few examples, Locke grounds our natural rights in God’s care for us (Locke 2003, “First Treatise,” §56, 87, 93, 156); uses caring language to explain the purpose of political authority (ibid., “Second Treatise,” §107, 110, 143, 162, 164– 65, 209); and argues that care of the body, but not care of the soul, is the legitimate business of government (ibid., “Essay on Toleration”). Locke may be an important ancestor of the minimal-liberal view that does not give care a place in politics, but his own position is more complicated.

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40. Plato, Rousseau, and Godwin do not engage with all the issues a contemporary care theory would need to address—for instance, they conceptualize political care in a predominantly national or subnational context, but today it is also necessary to think about political care in global and international terms. I do not take up this issue at length, which has been ably treated by care ethicists such as Robinson (1999), Held (2006), and Engster (2007, ch. 4). My reason for focusing on care within polities rather than between them has to do with my particular concern in this work to address the way crises of care threaten the very foundations of liberal democratic government and to propose the liberalism of care as a solution to this problem. 41. For instance, Godwin does not, as Mill does, assume enlightened despotism is appropriate for children and “childlike” peoples; see Mill, On Liberty, ch. 1.

Chapter 1 1. English-language quotations from Plato’s Laws are drawn from Thomas Pangle, trans., The Laws of Plato (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); the Republic, from Joe Sachs, trans., Republic (Focus, 2007); and all other Platonic dialogues as well as Plato’s letters are from John Cooper, ed., Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997). Where I have quoted Plato in Greek, the edition consulted is John Burnet, ed., Platonis Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903). 2. Scholars who subscribe to a developmental view of Plato’s writings do not agree upon a single periodization scheme. Dialogues typically identified as “early” include the Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Lysis, and Protagoras. There is also a relative consensus that there is a group of late dialogues: the Laws, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Critias, and Philebus (Kraut 2013; Irwin 1995, pp. 11– 13). But there is a great deal of disagreement concerning the dating of the others; for treatments of this issue, see Debra Nails (1995) and Charles Kahn (2003). 3. This view bears a resemblance to Joseph Raz’s (1986) service conception of authority. But Raz’s service conception is broader: it justifies authority where it helps people better comply with “the reasons which apply to them” (p. 72). Of the potential reasons that apply to individuals, the authority-as- care position is focused on promoting well-being specifically. 4. See also Jean Elshtain’s claim that Plato’s highest aim “is not, fi rst and foremost, the creation of a total system of justice but to save the souls of a few good men” (1993, p. 22). 5. For Plato, “politics” comprehends a wider sphere than it does for some modern political philosophers. Plato does not envision a distinct “social” realm

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or “civil society” that is transfamilial but nonpolitical. Furthermore, while he does distinguish between “private” life within a household and public or “common” life, he repeatedly insists that private matters should be subject to political regulation and that the political art is the art of ruling human beings in both spheres. Hence Plato views questions of authority and of social organization generally as political issues. 6. I also highlight terms related to epimeleomai/epimeleia and derived from the same root, such as melô (“to be an object of care or thought; to care for, take care of, tend”), meletaô (“to care for; to study, prosecute diligently; to practice, exercise”), and ameleô (“to be careless, heedless, negligent; to neglect, have no care for, slight”). 7. For instance, epimeleomai and the noun epimeleia connote managing or taking charge of another, but therapeuô can mean attending to someone from an inferior or servile position. (Indeed, a related word, therapôn, means “servant” or “attendant.”) That said, therapeuô does not always connote servility; it can also refer to authoritative medical care, and Plato frequently employs it in this fashion. 8. Ancient readers of Plato were alert to this fact; see, for instance, Laertius (1925, pp. 3.1.63– 64). 9. For example, care is absolutely central to Plato’s Alcibiades I. The core subject under discussion is what it means to take care of oneself and others. This is obvious in the Greek, where epimeleia appears seven times and epimeleomai twenty-three. Yet W. R. M. Lamb’s (Plato 1955) English translation of Alcibiades I obscures this. The noun epimeleia is translated as “care” only once (132c) and is otherwise rendered as “industry” (123d) and “pains” (124b, 124d, 128b, 129a). Similarly, the verb epimeleomai is translated as “take care” once (132c) but elsewhere becomes “taking pains” (120c, 123d, 127e, 128a– c, 132b, 135e), “tendance” (121d), and “to be curator” (134c). A reader might well miss the fact that there is a single concept under discussion throughout the entirety of the dialogue. 10. Storgê/stergô and philia/philô are sometimes translated as “care,” but usually in the sense of “caring about” (i.e., having a concern for). This distinguishes them from epimeleia/epimeleomai and therapeia/therapeuô, which refer to taking or having care of (i.e., practices of attending and need meeting). 11. See also Socrates’s statement in Alcibiades I: “And when you make something better, you say you’re taking proper care [orthôs epimeleisthai] of it” (128c). Similarly, in Gorgias, Socrates maintains that a good caretaker (epimelêtês) improves that which he cares for, and then he argues that Pericles took bad care of human beings because he made the Athenians worse (516a– b). 12. In the same fashion, as Roslyn Weiss notes (2012, p. 157), the Socrates of the Euthyphro distinguishes between care (therapeia) and service; he uses the adjective hupêretikê (“belonging to, suited for serving”) to describe the lat-

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ter kind of work (Euthyphro, 13b– d). The distinction is that care benefits or improves the thing cared for, whereas service contributes to some plan or design of the person served by putting the servant at his or her disposal (ibid., 13d– e). For a contemporary care ethicist who draws a similar distinction between care and service, see Waerness (1984). 13. Socrates claims “that there are two practices for caring for [therapeuein] a particular thing, whether it’s the body or the soul. One of them deals with pleasure and the other with what’s best and doesn’t gratify it but struggles [diamachomenon] against it” (Gorgias, 513d). 14. The Greek edition of Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War consulted here is H. Stuart Jones and J. E. Powell’s (1942). 15. Franco Trivigno (2009) notes this language in Menexenus and argues that Socrates’s ironic praise of Athens’s care for its citizens underscores the ways in which it actually falls short. I will delve into Plato’s critique of care in Athens below. 16. As Timaeus puts it, “It is impossible for anything to come to possess intelligence apart from soul,” and thus the god “put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, and so he constructed the universe” (Timaeus, 30a– b). 17. The Statesman’s Eleatic Stranger frequently intertwines rule, care, and order: “The god began to rule and take care of [epimeloumenos] the rotation itself as a whole” (271d); the god appoints spirits to rule and shepherd human beings, who cause chaos when they let go of the “parts of the cosmos that belonged to their charge [epimeleias]” (272e); and the cosmos is initially able to “set itself in order” by “taking charge of and mastering [epimeleian kai kratos echôn] both the things within it and itself” (273b). 18. I am not arguing that every element of Plato’s religious myths is literally intended. To the contrary, at least some of his statements about the gods are motivated by social and political considerations and are not meant to be true descriptions. Nevertheless, I maintain that they point to a relationship Plato postulates among intelligence, soul, and body that he does intend seriously. Furthermore, he is well aware that the gods serve as models that human beings imitate; in describing them as “caring,” one of his aims is to encourage humans to do the same (e.g., Laws, 713b– 714a). 19. This is true of some inanimate objects as well. Just as contemporary English speakers do, the Athenians sometimes employ caregiving language with respect to inanimate objects in order to describe activities of sustained tendance and repair, such as practices of ongoing maintenance. 20. Plato blends crafting and caring in ways that might seem strange to a contemporary English speaker (or to a Greek who distinguishes production and praxis as sharply as Aristotle). See, for instance, the discussion of weaving in the Statesman, which identifies it as the art concerned with the care (epimeleia)

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of clothes, involving both their production and their maintenance or treatment (therapeia) (281b– c). In that dialogue, care language is used to facilitate analogies between the care of herds, cities, people, and clothing. Because Plato understands care as a practice that relates ordering intelligence and irrational material in many contexts, he can use care language to analogize activities a contemporary reader might tend to think of as quite distinct. 21. Plato suggests that, among animals, this ability is unique to humans. As the Athenian Stranger argues, “The other animals . . . lack perception of orders and disorders in motions,” but the gods have “given us the pleasant perception of rhythm and harmony” (Laws, 653e– 654a). 22. Timaeus classifies medicine alongside gymnastics as a curative motion: “The motion induced by physical exercise is the best of those that purify and restore the body. Second is that induced by the rocking motion of sea travel or travel in any other kind of conveyance that doesn’t tire one out. The third type of motion is useful in an occasional instance of dire need; barring that, however, no man in his right mind should tolerate it. This is medical purging by means of drugs” (Timaeus, 89a– b). 23. This idea is ubiquitous in Plato’s dialogues. The Athenian Stranger asserts that “of the total three things that every human being is serious about, the serious and correct caring [epimeleian] for money ranks third and last, for the body somewhere in the middle, and for the soul fi rst” (Laws, 743e; see also 726a– 728e). Likewise, Timaeus claims the body and soul must be cared for (therapeuô) in a manner that keeps them in proportion to one another, but he is clear that the soul, especially the “divine” or intellectual part of the soul, is the most important part (Timaeus, 90a– d). On this point, consider the following passage in the Republic: “‘So then, Glaucon,’ I said, ‘is it also the case that those who instituted educating people by music and gymnastic exercise didn’t institute them for the purpose that some imagine, to care for [therapeuointo] the body with one and for the soul with the other?’ ‘For what instead?’ he said. ‘They’re liable,’ I said, ‘to have instituted both for the sake of the soul above all’” (410b– c). See also Phaedo, 82d. 24. Here and throughout, I use “ethical” in the sense of “pertaining to character.” In keeping with this, the phrase “ethical virtues” refers to the qualities that make a person’s character excellent. The qualities in question include the character traits one needs to go about one’s business well, such as the ability to behave moderately with respect to pleasures. This differs in important ways from what a contemporary English speaker might mean by ethical virtue, which seems more closely related to acting in an altruistic fashion and honoring one’s obligations. 25. The Greek word commonly translated as “virtue” is aretê. This is potentially misleading, because the English word “virtue” has a strong moral conno-

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tation that is not always present in the Greek. The term can be used to describe any excellence, moral or otherwise; hence “excellence” might be a better translation. In this chapter, I will use “virtue” and “excellence” interchangeably. 26. For Plato and other ancient Greeks, “music” has a broader meaning than it does in contemporary English: it includes song, dance, theater, poetry, and representative arts generally. 27. For the sake of clarity, I am drawing a sharper distinction between intellectual and ethical virtue than one fi nds in Plato’s works. The reason Plato does not clearly and consistently differentiate them is because the four cardinal virtues—wisdom, moderation, justice, and courage—are mutually implicated in one another, and each virtue has both intellectual and ethical dimensions. (His tendency to treat the “real” as opposed to merely “popular” virtues as forms of knowledge further blurs the distinction; e.g., Laws, 710a– b, 967e– 968b). That said, Plato does recognize that there are intellectual virtues capable of standing apart from ethical virtues—for example, being clever and having a good memory (Republic, 535b; Laws, 689c– d, 747b– c). 28. The Laws does not explicitly identify this art as dialectic, but it is clear from the passages cited here that the Athenian Stranger has dialectic in mind. He stresses the need to be able to give a reasoned account or proof, to perceive the intelligible structure underlying perceptible things, and to converse about them competently. These are identified as the essential features of dialectic in other dialogues (e.g., Republic, 532a– 535a and context). 29. The same apparent contradiction occurs in the Symposium. An earlier statement (Symposium, 204a– b) explicitly denies that philosophers are wise, but the conclusion of Socrates’s speech makes it sound as though philosophizing culminates in the knowledge of Forms (ibid., 211c– 212b). It is not possible to assign the “dogmatic” and the “skeptical” aspects of Plato’s thought to separate periods. 30. To the extent that philosophers view the Forms, it is in a confused and partial way that prevents the full acquisition of wisdom (see Phaedrus, 247c– 250c; compare Republic, 518a and context). In the cave myth, beholding the sun does not immediately equip one to return to the city and judge shadows well. That is a skill that must be acquired separately, through experience (Republic, 520b– c). The primary practical benefit of philosophy is less the acquisition of certain knowledge than improved powers of perception and understanding. A philosopher “sees” better, is more “awake” than other human beings (ibid.), but does not possess perfect wisdom. 31. Plato’s philosopher characters, such as Socrates and the Athenian Stranger, present philosophy to figures such as Glaucon, Alcibiades, and Kleinias as though it could improve their ability to engage in politics (Republic, 484a– d; Alcibiades I, 132b; Laws, 960b– 966d.). 32. In some dialogues, this is expressed through the concept of “true” or

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“right opinion,” a mode of knowing in between knowledge and ignorance. These are opinions that are correct even though one cannot give a full account of them (e.g., Meno, 97b–100b; Symposium, 201e– 202a). In the Symposium, this mode of knowing is paired with philosophy, which similarly operates in the region between knowledge and ignorance (204a– b). 33. Josiah Ober claims that it is ambiguous whether Socrates himself has seen the Forms or has merely identified the “hypothetical preconditions from which someone else might gain access to true knowledge” (2011, p. 241). In my view, the reason for this ambiguity is that Plato believes the experience of wisdom itself is ambiguous. It is always open to human beings to doubt what—and whether—they know. 34. It would be hard to say in each instance whether a person’s opinions changed because philosophy affected his or her character or the person’s character changed because philosophy affected his or her opinions. Philosophy could also be at work on both at once. According to Alcibiades’s testimony in the Symposium, the source of philosophy’s effect on the soul is unclear, and the experience of being improved by it is thoroughly disorienting (215d– 216b). 35. While Foucault maintains that Plato envisions caring for oneself as an elite activity, I side with scholars who believe he intends it for everyone (e.g., Villa 2001). Foucault argues that only men like Alcibiades, “young aristocrats destined to exercise power,” need to care for themselves, because they will not be able to discharge their future social and political responsibilities well unless they take action to improve their condition (2005, p. 82). But while Socrates does use this argument to persuade Alcibiades to care for himself, he never suggests that only young aristocrats like Alcibiades are obliged to do so; in fact, he says the opposite (“Actually, every human being needs self- cultivation [epimeleias]” [Alcibiades I, 124d]). Furthermore, Foucault himself concedes that his interpretation contradicts the picture of care offered in the Apology, in which Socrates claims he spends his time exhorting young and old, citizens and noncitizens to care for themselves (2005, p. 37). There are multiple examples of this in other dialogues; for instance, Socrates exhorts Crito and the others present in Phaedo to care for themselves, and some of these men are noncitizens (115b). In Laches, he suggests that he and the fully grown men he is addressing ought to educate and take care of themselves (epimeleian poiêsômetha), as well as the boys Aristides and Thucydides (201b). That said, Socrates does not think that everyone is equally competent to care for him- or herself or can be improved to the same extent. 36. Socrates takes a similar rhetorical tack in Alcibiades I, attempting to puncture Alcibiades’s inflated sense of himself so that he will realize his need for care (118b–124c). 37. See also the Apology on this point: “I went to each of you privately and conferred upon him what I say is the greatest benefit, by trying to persuade him

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not care for [epimeleisthai] any of his belongings before caring [epimelêtheiê] that he himself should be as good and wise as possible, not to care for the city’s possessions more than for the city itself, and to care for [epimeleisthai] other things in the same way” (36c). 38. See also: “For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not care for [epimeleisthai] your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul” (Apology, 30a– b). 39. Plato takes the view that women are, on average, weaker and worse than men. But he also draws no categorical distinction between men and women’s work; he would allow women to engage in warfare, politics, and philosophy, which is a dramatic departure from contemporaneous Athenian practice (e.g., Republic, 451d–455e; Laws, 805d– 806c). For Plato, the body and the domestic sphere are not as strongly associated with women as they are for most Athenian males and for Aristotle. 40. Foucault argues that the project of self- care is in fact made necessary by the failure of others to care for us well. For Foucault’s Plato, care of the self is a remedial response to the defects of Athenian education, “which is compared extremely unfavorably with Spartan education, with its unremitting severity and strong integration within collective rules” (2005, p. 44; see also pp. 36– 37, 82). On Foucault’s reading, if Alcibiades and youths like him had been properly educated, they would not need to make a special effort to care for themselves. I think there are good interpretive reasons to doubt Plato views care of the self as a purely remedial project (see the discussion of the Symposium below). But Foucault is certainly correct that Plato is critical of the Athenian approach to education. 41. Meletus’s name is etymologically related to melô (“to be an object of care or thought; to care for, take care of, tend”). This word is the root of epimeleia/ epimeleomai. 42. Contrasting the Athenian approach with the great pains the Persian king takes to educate his heirs, Socrates says: “But, Alcibiades, your birth [geneseôs], your upbringing [trophês], and your education [paideias]—or that of any other Athenian—is of no concern [melei] to anybody, to tell the truth—nobody, that is, except perhaps some man who may happen to be in love with you” (Alcibiades I, 122b). 43. As Foucault puts it, Plato thinks that the “love of boys in Athens cannot fulfi ll the task of instruction that would be able to justify it and give it a foundation” (2005, p. 44). 44. See also Protagoras (342d), where Sparta is commended for educating its women. Although Socrates is speaking ironically in his praise of the Spartans here, the good qualities and practices he attributes to them are genuine desiderata, as the Republic and Laws make plain.

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45. The notion that the polis is like a caring parent whose care must be reciprocated by citizens is a common Athenian trope. Plato’s Socrates adapts it by invoking it here as a reason philosopher-kings must rule in Kallipolis but at the same time excusing philosophers from this duty in regimes that fall short of the best. Of course, this does not preclude the possibility that philosophers might wish to provide political care for other reasons. 46. In addition, one’s caring obligations depend on the role(s) one inhabits as well as the kinds of relationships one has with others. There is a striking affi nity between this aspect of Plato’s approach and the arguments advanced by many contemporary care ethicists (e.g., Gilligan and Noddings) in favor of a morality that is sensitive to context and relative to particular roles and relationships. This is because Plato and many care ethicists begin their ethical inquiries with the questions “What constitutes a good human being, and how would he or she behave in the typical roles and relationships that human beings must navigate?” rather than the Kantian question “What are the universal duties that each human being owes other rational agents?” 47. In Plato’s view, this defi nition of what is properly one’s own often confl icts with custom or legal convention. Socrates argues against the idea that customary or legal defi nitions of what is one’s own ought to prevail as a matter of right, pointing out that it would be unjust to return a madman’s weapons to him even if they are legally his (Republic, 331d). On this point, see Cicero’s distinction between the citizen’s right and “the wise man’s right,” as well as his claim that “nature decrees that nothing belongs to anyone except the person who can handle and use it” (Cicero 1998, The Republic, p. 14). 48. In the Seventh Letter (331a– b), Plato not only recognizes an obligation to provide guidance to others when they sincerely request it but also claims he is happy to do more than duty requires. 49. To the extent that it lacks personality and intentions, the good is not a caregiver per se. Nonetheless, it has a caregiving quality insofar as it instantiates the ideas or forms apprehensible in thought into the world of becoming and grants things a degree of Being. This is the core metaphysical idea Plato expresses by means of caregiving language, as I showed in the preceding section. For this reason, the good is described as a caregiver whenever it is personified as the god, and it is compared to the nurture-granting sun. 50. In addition to Diotima’s repeated references to “children,” words derived from trephô appear throughout this discussion, e.g., ektrephein (Symposium, 207b), sunektrephô (209c), and threpsamenô (212a). 51. This is part of the reason a consummate lover ought to “love and care for [kêdesthai]” those who are decent in soul and “seek to give birth to such ideas as will make young men better” (Symposium, 210c– d). Other reasons include affection and gratitude. 52. See also Socrates’s claim that philosophers will “seek for their own a boy

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whose nature is like the god’s [that the philosopher worships]; and when they have got him they emulate the god, convincing the boy they love and training [rhuthmizontes] him to follow their god’s pattern and way of life, so far as possible in each case” (Phaedrus, 253b). 53. Occasionally Socrates claims to possess a form of expertise his listeners need: he says he is the only true practitioner of the political art in Gorgias (521d), maintains he is a master of “erotics” in the Symposium (177d– e, 198d; Theages, 128b), and claims the art of intellectual midwifery in Theaetetus (149a, 210c– d). At other times, he presents himself as an ignorant fellow seeker, yet by exhibiting his powers of inquiry, Socrates leads his interlocutor to conclude that if he is going to have any hope of caring for himself adequately, he will require Socrates’s assistance (Alcibiades I, 135d– e; Charmides, 175b–176d; Laches, 200e– 201c). In Alcibiades I, Socrates assumes both postures at different points. He implies that he is uniquely qualified to teach Alcibiades how to rule the Athenians (e.g., “I hope to exert great influence over you by showing you that I’m worth the world to you and that nobody is capable of providing you with the influence you crave . . . except me—with the god’s help, of course” [105e]), but he also poses as an ignorant inquirer who stands in need of education (e.g., “What I’ve said about the need for education applies to me as well as to you,” “Every human being needs self- cultivation [deometha epimeleias; literally, ‘we stand in need of care’], but especially the two of us,” and “So let’s work it out together” [124c– e]). 54. See also Roslyn Weiss’s (2012) nuanced and persuasive treatment of this issue in the Republic. Weiss takes the view that Plato ultimately endorses a model of philosophizing, exemplified by Socrates, that is centrally concerned with the good of others. 55. Remarks deprecating nonintellectual desires as merely human or necessary (e.g., Republic, 581e) are balanced by passages stressing the importance of indulging them in a way that is licensed by the wise part of the soul (ibid., 586d– 587a, 588e– 589b). 56. For Bloom, Socrates’s claim that philosophers are not eager to govern and must be compelled points to a fundamental incompatibility between what is good for the philosopher as an individual and what is good for the city as a whole (1991, p. 411). But Plato is perfectly comfortable with the idea that one must sometimes be compelled to do what it is good for one to do—even liberation from the cave is described in terms of compulsion (ibid., 514a– 516a). Hence there need not be any contradiction between the claim that philosophers will be reluctant to rule (ibid., 519c– 520e) and that ruling is part of the philosopher’s full growth (ibid., 497a). 57. See also: “No city or polity, and likewise no man either, would ever reach fulfi llment until by chance some necessity possesses those few philosophers who

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aren’t depraved, but are now called useless, to take into their care [epimelêsthênai] the running of a city” (Republic, 499b; my emphasis). 58. In support of this point, Strauss cites the Apology, in which Socrates says: “I shall treat in this way anyone I happen to meet, young and old, citizen and stranger, and more so the citizens because you are more kindred to me” (30a). Bloom’s interpretation lacks this qualification. 59. In the Seventh Letter, Plato claims to have been interested in politics from youth and to have refrained from political activity owing to the obstacles he encountered rather than indifference (324b– 326b); the language there recalls the passage from the Republic (496c– d) referred to above. 60. As other interpreters have argued, Plato’s dialogues themselves constitute a political intervention. For an ancient opinion to this effect, see Cicero (1998, The Republic, p. 7). For a recent account, see Allen (2013). 61. Ultimately, even Diotima’s claim that the consummate lover loses total interest in beautiful bodies is exaggerated. In the Phaedrus, Plato describes a kind of erôs that has both base and noble elements (256a– e). He does not altogether disapprove of it; perhaps he does not think that even the most morally upstanding philosopher will be able to totally sublimate his or her “base” desires. After all, he occasionally shows Socrates experiencing such urges. For example, see Charmides, 155d, where he catches a glimpse inside Charmides’s cloak and becomes “inflamed”; or consider the example of Socrates allowing Alcibiades to spend the whole night with his arms wrapped around him, beneath Socrates’s cloak (Symposium, 219c). This is presented as an example of Socrates’s indifference to Alcibiades’s charms, but his failure to send Alcibiades away suggests a circumscribed indulgence. Compare Xenophon 1979, vol. 4, Symposium, 27– 28.

Chapter 2 1. Foucault seems to take this view of Alcibiades I, which he believes is distinct from what Plato usually has in mind when his characters exhort others to care for their souls. According to Foucault, Alcibiades I is concerned with the soul as a subject rather than the soul as a substance (2005, p. 57). In other words, there caring for the self aims at grasping one’s soul in its own particularity and establishing a reflexive relationship to oneself rather than trying to improve the soul by ordering it according to some model of psychic health. I side with scholars who question the textual basis of this reading and reject Foucault’s interpretation as relying on modern ideas about subjectivity that do not appear in ancient sources. But even if Foucault were right about Alcibiades I, it would constitute a rare exception to the general picture of caring for oneself offered in Plato’s dialogues.

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2. For another “early” version of this argument, see Laches: “It is . . . necessary to investigate fi rst whether any one of us is an expert in the subject we are debating, or not. And if any one of us is, then we should listen to him even if he is only one, and disregard the others. But if no one of us is an expert, then we must look for someone who is” (184e–185a). 3. See the debate between Socrates and Protagoras in Protagoras. Here it is also worth pointing out that the dialogues invoke Socratic ignorance not only to justify skepticism toward established authority and conventional ideas but also to justify deference to them (e.g., Apology, 29b; Euthyphro, 4e; Phaedrus, 229e– 230a; Laws, 732a– b; cf. Alcibiades II, 146d and context). Socrates’s skepticism does not lead him to moral relativism or antiauthoritarianism. 4. See also: “Now the best of the motions is the one that occurs within oneself and is caused by oneself. This is the motion that bears the greatest kinship to understanding and to the motion of the universe. Motion that is caused by the agency of something else is less good” (Timaeus, 89a). 5. Similarly, in Alcibiades I, Socrates asserts that “it’s appropriate for a bad man to be a slave, since it’s better” (135c). On this point, see also the Statesman’s claim that the political art brings those “who wallow in great ignorance and baseness . . . under the yoke of the class of slaves” (309a). Finally, consider Laws, 808d– e. 6. More specifically, Plato uses master/slave metaphors when speaking of relations in which the superordinate party has extensive discretion over the subordinate, directs the subordinate by means of commands instead of persuasion, and does not require the subordinate’s consent. 7. See also: “Because my dear Alcibiades, when an individual or a city with no intelligence is at liberty to do what he or it wants, what do you think the likely result will be? For example, if he’s sick and has the power to do whatever he likes—without any medical insight but with such a dictator’s power that nobody criticizes him—what’s going to happen? Isn’t it likely his health will be ruined? .  .  .  And in a ship, if someone were free to do what he liked, but he was completely lacking in insight and skill in navigation, don’t you see what would happen to him and his fellow citizens? . . . Likewise, if a city, or any ruler or administrator [archais kai exousiais], is lacking in virtue, then bad conduct will result” (Alcibiades I, 134e–135b). 8. One could interpret this in a strong sense, to mean that the subordinate party must be benefited on every occasion, or in a weaker sense, where the subordinate just needs to benefit with sufficient frequency, to a sufficient degree. Presumably Plato has the weaker sense in mind, since even excellent rulers will make mistakes, and their authority would only be justified on a case-by- case basis if one took the stronger view. 9. Despite claiming that slavery is beneficial for “natural” masters and slaves alike, Aristotle admits that the relationship aims primarily at the good of the

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master and that the slave benefits in a secondary or “accidental [kata sumbebêkos]” way (Politics, 1278b; see also 1333a). On animals existing for human use, see ibid., 1256b. To the best of my knowledge, Plato’s philosopher characters never suggest that human beings or nonhuman animals ought to be ruled for the ruler’s benefit. Timaeus does claim that plants are for human use, but he does not say this of animals (Timaeus, 77b– c). 10. In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger remarks: “Of course, the many command their lawgivers to establish such laws as the populaces and the majorities will accept voluntarily, just as if someone were to command gymnasts or doctors to do what is pleasant as they care for [therapeuein] and cure [iâsthai] the bodies they care for [therapeuomena]. . . . Yet in fact it is often the case that one must be contented if someone can make bodies strong and healthy with only modest pain” (684c). 11. I would stress the invocation of “constraint [biazomenoi]” here as a reason to think that Plato is relatively consistent in his belief that persuasive speech alone is insufficient as a means of providing care—biazô often refers to force or violence. See Joshua Miller’s (2012) interpretation of civic care in Gorgias for a more optimistic reading of conversation’s potential. 12. Bloom takes consent to be a necessary concession to the power of the nonphilosophic many (1991, p. 312). While Bloom is correct that Plato believes consent is necessary for practical rather than principled reasons, I believe he errs in arguing that the philosopher needs to win the consent of others primarily so that they will not harm him or her. Rather, the deeper issue is that one needs the consent of others in order to help them. To care for someone else effectively, the carer must do so in a manner that the cared for perceives as helpful. Otherwise the carer will encounter resentment and resistance that is likely to frustrate his or her caring intentions. If the carer and cared for understand the latter’s best interests differently, then there is a tension that must be navigated. If, per Bloom, a philosopher’s primary concern was his or her own safety, this would not be an issue for Plato. Philosophers would simply refrain from the difficult, risky endeavor of trying to get others to do what is in their “true” best interest. 13. Clearly Plato does not wish to argue otherwise. Socrates admits that the artisans he converses with know more than he does about specific arts (Apology, 22d), but this does not give them authority over him in any deep or significant sense. 14. There is a significant difficulty here. Even if the need for care generally justifies the authority of “experts” over “nonexperts,” the account provided above does not explain what entitles a particular expert to authority over a particular nonexpert. In other words, supposing considerations of care justify the authority of parents, what explains the fact that I only have authority over my own children and not anyone else’s? In addition to the general justificatory principle, one would need a theory of responsibility to determine individual rights

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and duties regarding the caring regulation of particular others. I cannot discuss this issue here, except to note that a care-based justification for authority is not uniquely problematic in this regard. See Simmons (1981, pp. 31– 38) for a discussion of the “particularity” issue in the contemporary normative literature on authority; for two attempts to resolve it, see Klosko (2008, ch. 4) and Estlund (2008, pp. 147– 51). 15. Consider for instance, books VIII and IX of the Republic, which relate each of five regime types to the kinds of people that typify them. 16. The regimes are associated with these qualities both in the sense that individuals will tend to support the regime corresponding to their character and that each regime will encourage people to develop its corresponding character traits. 17. This does not mean that philosophy is a sufficient condition for being a truly outstanding ruler, merely that it is a necessary one. Socrates suggests that the perfect ruler ought to have certain traits that are not part of the philosophic lifestyle per se (e.g., practical experience in politics and good looks [Republic, 520c, 535a– b]). 18. There is considerable continuity between the Laws’s attitude toward the political capacity of ordinary citizens and that of other Platonic dialogues. In keeping with earlier dialogues, the Laws contains passages that are critical of democracy (e.g., Laws, 648c, 698b– 701c), which recall those found in Gorgias (517b– 519d), the Republic (557a– 563e), and the Statesman (292e, 297b– 299a). Like Socrates and the Eleatic Stranger, the Athenian Stranger maintains that the majority of people are not competent to care for others in the deepest sense and that, in a democracy, political power flows to demagogues willing to flatter the dêmos rather than individuals concerned with what is truly beneficial for the polis. 19. “For he [the legislator] believed that the man who has mismanaged his own household will handle the affairs of the city in like manner; and to the lawgiver it did not seem possible that the same man could be a rascal in private life, and in public life a good and useful citizen; and he believed that the public man who comes to the platform ought to come prepared [epimelêthenta], not merely in words, but, before all else, in life” (Aeschines 1919, 1.30– 31). 20. Andocides claims that those who consider Alcibiades a lover of democracy are not considering his private life as evidence of his character (Andocides 1941, 4.13), arguing that someone who behaves reprehensibly toward his family will also behave terribly toward his fellow citizens because people have more regard for their family members than for strangers (ibid., 4.15). Golden (2015, Kindle location 2030) notes the following passage in a speech by Aeschines: “The man who hates his child and is a bad father could never become a safe guide to the people; the man who does not cherish the persons who are nearest and dearest to him, will never care much about you, who are not his kinsmen; the man

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who is wicked in his private relations would never be found trustworthy in public affairs” (Aeschines 1919, 3.78; see also 1.28). 21. The obligation to care for parents was taken so seriously that “it was open to anyone to bring a prosecution under this law, and those who did so were exempt from the usual penalties imposed on plaintiffs who withdrew their case or failed to win one-fi fth of the votes and from the usual limitation on speaking time” (Golden 2015, Kindle location 1969). 22. As an architectonic form of care, the Statesman analogizes the political art to weaving, “the greatest of all those sorts of care [epimeleiôn] that exist in relation to woolen clothing” (281c). 23. As Thanassis Samaras remarks, these provisions are radically conservative. Comparable restrictions on inheritance and the sale of land hardly existed anywhere in Greece during Plato’s lifetime (Samaras 2010, p. 179). The Athenian Stranger also tries to prevent households from acquiring unequal amounts of wealth by forbidding citizens from buying or selling land, possessing gold or silver, paying dowries, or lending at an interest (Laws, 741b– 742c). While the regime will permit a degree of material inequality, no one will be allowed to possess less than the initial land allotment, nor will anyone be permitted to acquire more than four times this amount (ibid., 744d– e). 24. This claim comes with an edge. The Athenian Stranger presupposes that Magnesia is so well ordered that no deserving person will go “totally uncared for, and as a result arrived at a condition of utter beggary” (Laws, 936b). He concludes that any beggars in Magnesia are beggars through some fault of their own and ought to be expelled from the city accordingly (ibid., 936c). 25. As Foucault notes, Plato contrasts Athenian education “extremely unfavorably with Spartan education, with its unremitting severity and strong integration within collective rules” (2005, p. 44; see also pp. 36– 37, 82). But while Plato admires Sparta’s concern for the character of its citizens, he certainly criticizes the regime as well; for instance, he condemns its restricted emphasis on martial virtue and failure to educate women (e.g., Republic, 544c– 549b; Laws, 630d, 666e– 667a, 780d– 781c, 805e– 806d). 26. The enslavement of the producer class is one of the features that marks the transition from the best regime to the second-best regime, according to the Republic (547c). For the interpretive controversy over whether the Republic’s city includes any slaves at all, and if so, in what capacity, see Brian Calvert’s (1987) useful overview. 27. The Republic states clearly that these few are being trained to be philosophers. While the Laws is more circumspect, it has a similar aim in mind: the Athenian Stranger asserts that a true guardian of the laws must be able to grasp the real defi nition of a thing (964a), “to look to one idea from the many and dissimilar things” (965c), and to give demonstrations through arguments

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(966b). These passages recall Socrates’s description of dialectic in the Republic, and it is evident that philosophy is under discussion from its explicit mention at Laws, 967d. 28. Scholars disagree as to whether Socrates is arguing the “offspring of the worse sort,” those “born with defects,” and children conceived by elderly couples should really be deposited elsewhere (e.g., Viljoen 1959) or this is a euphemism for infanticide (e.g., Ojakangas 2016, Kindle locations 3924– 26). The best evidence that Socrates is not proposing infanticide comes from the summary of the Republic’s regime in Timaeus, according to which “the children of the good parents were to be brought up, while those of the bad ones were to be secretly handed on to another city . . . and that these children should be constantly watched as they grew up, so that the ones that turned out deserving might be taken back again and the ones they kept who did not turn out that way should change places with them” (19a). But the Timaeus passage does not explicitly address the fate of “deformed” children or those conceived by the elderly. 29. Socrates claims that a good doctor does not tend to those whose bodies are incurably diseased, and gets Glaucon to agree to “establish by law in the city a medical art” that will care for those whose bodies are fundamentally sound but will “allow all those so lacking in body to die off” (Republic, 409e–410a). See also: Won’t we claim that for bodies diseased internally throughout, [Asclepius] made no attempt to bleed off a little of this and pour in a little of that according to regimens, to produce a long bad life for a human being, in order for him to beget, in all likelihood, other offspring with such lives, but that he didn’t believe he ought to treat someone who lacks the power to live in his established course of life, since it wouldn’t be profitable to that person or to his city? (Ibid., 407d– e) 30. See also S. Sara Monoson’s (1998) argument that this is one of the aims of the Menexenus, which puts forward the family as a civic ideal. 31. Socrates even tries to use an expanded sense of kinship to moderate the ferocity of international disputes, encouraging the view that all Greeks are kin and thus “natural friends” (Republic, 470c). In keeping with this, war between Greek cities should be considered civil war, and each side ought to refrain from devastating the land, which is their “nurse and mother”; knocking down houses; and enslaving one another (ibid., 469c, 470d, 471a– b). Instead of trying to destroy other Greeks, Kallipolis’s goal is to bring its “opponents back to their senses,” reconcile with them, and induce “moderation” in them (ibid., 471a). 32. In Athens, it was taken for granted that a master might have sex with his slaves (Golden 2015, Kindle location 1292). It was also widely accepted that a married man might visit prostitutes or take a concubine (ibid., Kindle location

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1277). While it was permissible for male citizens to have extramarital sex, female citizens were held to a different standard. An Athenian woman who lost her virginity before she was married was roundly condemned and could even be sold into slavery by her father (Pomeroy 2011, Kindle location 1387). Once a female citizen was married, she was expected to maintain strict fidelity to her husband. See also Samaras (2010), p. 185. 33. Should reconciliation fail, the couple is permitted to divorce (Laws, 930a). 34. I believe this is the answer to Vlastos’s (1995, pp. 112–13) question as to how Plato can invoke the idea of reciprocity without the idea of equality—he believes it is possible to exchange care without being equals. For example, the classes in Plato’s Republic provide care to one another but in different ways. 35. Like Trevor Saunders (Plato 2004), Pangle translates therapeuein as “cherish” here. Since therapeuô refers to active tending, I prefer Benjamin Jowett’s (Plato 2006) and R. G. Bury’s (Plato 1968) decisions to translate it here as “tend.” 36. This is followed by a promise to care for the departed person’s belongings: “But you, being gracious and well disposed toward us, proceed along the way which you’re now going, according to human nature; we’ll take care of [melêsei] the rest of your belongings, looking after [kêdomenois] them to the very best of our powers—not looking after some but not others” (Laws, 923b– c). 37. Magnesia will “contrive medicine for these things” by means of regulation and education, entrusting retail activities to resident aliens rather than citizens. In addition, it subjects them to supervision by the Guardians of the Laws and officials such as the market regulators, city regulators, and field regulators (Laws, 919b– 920c). 38. The cities outlined in the Republic and the Laws deliberately encourage the false belief that many of their provisions are god given and bombard their citizens with propaganda. It is hard to see how these citizens can develop the critical faculties that are central to the liberal understanding of free agency and are, in my view, a core component of the human good. Although Plato himself values these faculties and both the Republic and the Laws offer deeper forms of philosophic education, his inegalitarian assumptions mean this is reserved for a select few and will not be available to most. 39. While death may well be preferable to life in some circumstances, I strongly object to Plato’s refusal to provide care to those who are incurably ill, his proposal to send away or perhaps even kill infants born with deformities, and his justification of capital punishment on the grounds that death is better for the criminals themselves. 40. Care ethicists whose theories make a place for self- care include Noddings (2002), Engster (2007), and Ward (2015). Tronto maintains that care is essentially other oriented, but she thinks that Foucault’s “care of the self” satisfies this criterion, because he shows “what seemed to be most self-regarding was in

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fact socially mediated and created. His view does not negate the point that I have made: care is always directed outward, even when it is the activity of making the self conform to socially established norms” (1993, p. 203). I do not think this is quite right. In my view, it is truer to say that caring for the self is directed inward, even though it may involve others, and that it aims fi rst and foremost at improving the self’s condition. This may involve an attempt to conform to socially established norms, but that is not the primary intention. Indeed, self- care can just as readily result in a self more willing to challenge prevailing norms or social conventions. Thus, Tronto’s claim that care is always other oriented must be adjusted for her account to include care for the self in the full and proper sense. 41. Lizzie Ward (2015) flags a danger here, pointing out that the concept of “self- care” has sometimes been deployed in policy contexts as a neoliberal ideological tool for undermining the welfare state and placing the onus of care back on individuals. The recognition that a fully caring society would still expect people to assume responsibility for meeting many of their own needs should not be used to justify shirking collective obligations to care for one another. 42. For a thoughtful critique of the self-abnegating aspects of Noddings’s theory, see Bubeck (1995), pp. 174– 80. 43. Insofar as these burdens may be distributed unevenly across race, class, and gender lines, there are issues of distributive justice here as well. Consider the problem of food deserts, areas in which the relative absence of healthy food options and abundance of unhealthy alternatives make it difficult for people to regulate their diets. 44. Regarding this problem of how to encourage people to take better care of themselves, recent treatments include Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge (2008), Ruth Grant’s Strings Attached (2011), and Sarah Conly’s Against Autonomy (2013). 45. The problem is compounded if one also includes unreasonable points of view, of which there is no shortage. 46. For a classic statement on this tendency in American politics, see Hofstadter 1963.

Chapter 3 1. This chapter contains material from Fraistat (2016), reproduced with permission. Citations to English translations of Rousseau’s works refer to the following editions: Christopher Kelly and Allan Bloom, eds., Emile or On Education (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2010); Roger D. Masters, ed., The First and Second Discourses (New York: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 1964); Victor Gourevitch, ed., The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Christopher Kelly and Roger D.

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Masters, eds., Rousseau, Judge of Jean- Jacques: Dialogues (Hanover, NY: University of New England Press, 2010); Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché, trans., Julie, or the New Heloise (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 1997); Christopher Kelly, ed., Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain, and Related Writings (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2012); Christopher Kelly, ed., Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2007); and Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters, and Peter Stillman, eds., The Confessions and Correspondence, Including Letters to Malesherbes (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 1995); Christopher Kelly, ed., The Plan for Perpetual Peace, On the Government of Poland, and Other Writings on History and Politics (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2005); and Charles E. Butterworth, ed., The Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992). The French edition of Emile consulted is Emile; ou de L’éducation (Rousseau, 2011). 2. Like the English verb “care” and Greek therapeuô, soigner is frequently but not exclusively medical. Rousseau employs it in both the medical sense, e.g., “A peasant falls ill; he [Emile] has him cared for; he cares for him himself [il le fait soigner, il le soigne lui- même]” (Emile, bk. V, p. 623) and in a more general, nonmedical sense, e.g., “devoting so much care to childhood [soigner l’enfance]”(ibid., bk. V, p. 618) and the claim that women must “care for [men] when grown [les soigner grandes]” (ibid., bk. V, p. 540). 3. To a lesser degree, I will also highlight the verbs nourrir (“to feed, to nourish”; “to breast-feed”; “to provide for”; “to nurse, to harbor”), s’occuper de (“to deal with, handle, take care of”), and guérir (“to cure, to heal”). 4. My discussion of Rousseau occasionally cites the Favre manuscript, an early draft of Emile. It might be objected that Rousseau should not be held to statements which he did not incorporate in the published version—perhaps there is a reason he cut them. It seems to me that Rousseau’s editing process strives for pithiness, and his drafts are useful because that pithiness sometimes comes at the cost of clarity. (Consider, for instance, the way the Geneva manuscript illuminates key ideas in the Social Contract.) To err on the side of caution, I have only cited the Favre manuscript on points that Rousseau makes explicitly in the fi nal draft or in other published works; citations to those works are provided. 5. As Rousseau puts it, Nature, we are told, is only habit. What does that mean? Are there not habits contracted only by force which never do stifle nature? Such, for example, is the habit of the plants whose vertical direction is interfered with. The plant, set free, keeps the inclination it was forced to take. But the sap has not as a result changed its original direction, and if the plant continues to grow, its new growth resumes the vertical direction. The case is

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Notes to Pages 88–89 the same for men’s inclinations. So long as one remains in the same condition, the inclinations which result from habit and are the least natural to us can be kept, but as soon as the situation changes, habit ceases and the natural returns. (Emile, bk. I, p. 163)

6. In the Confessions, Rousseau claims that in the midst of his reveries, he would sometimes cry out: “Oh nature, oh my mother, here I am under your protection alone; here there is no clever and deceitful man who comes between you and me” (bk. XII, p. 539; O nature! ô ma mère! me voici sous ta seule garde; il n’y a point ici d’homme adroit et fourbe qui s’interpose entre toi et moi). See also: “Completely tender mother that you believe yourself to be, it [nature] is a better Mother than you are” (Emile, Favre manuscript, p. 9). 7. For instance, Rousseau claims that nature took “precautions to hide” the dangerous art of metallurgy from us (Second Discourse, p. 152). 8. Whether Rousseau truly regards nature as a caregiving agent or is merely speaking figuratively here is a complex question. Scholars such as Allan Bloom (1993), Roger D. Masters (1968), Arthur Melzer (1990), Marc Plattner (1979), Leo Strauss (1965), and Tracy Strong (1994) argue that he departs from an ancient, teleological view of nature in favor of a mechanistic, nonteleological conception. Accordingly, they interpret language suggesting that nature has agency and intentions as figures of speech or exoteric exaggerations. In keeping with a number of recent works that challenge this interpretation, such as Marks (2005) and Williams (2008), I hold the view that Rousseau understands nature as an ordered whole with defi nite substantive implications for how we ought to live. Accordingly, I think that Rousseau’s nature “cares” (or, at least, expresses God’s care) in a more literal sense. But readers need not follow me on this point to accept my core claim that, for Rousseau, human agency disturbs the natural equilibrium among need, desire, and capacity that is otherwise characteristic of most living things. 9. Pleasure and pain are nature’s tools for directing those beings to care for themselves: “Pain and pleasure were the only means by which to attach a sentient and perishable being to his self-preservation, and these means are managed with a goodness worthy of the supreme Being” (“Letter to M. de Franquières,” in The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, p. 279). See also: “Whatever the cause of our being, it has provided for our preservation by giving us the sentiments suitable to our nature” (Emile, bk. II, pp. 294; see also pp. 362– 64 and bk. IV, p. 453). 10. “The supreme goodness, which has made the pleasure of beings capable of sensation the instrument of their preservation, informs us what suits our stomach by what pleases our palate. Naturally there is no doctor surer for man than his own appetite; and, regarding its primitive state, I do not doubt that the foods

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it then found most pleasant were also the healthiest” (Emile, bk. II, p. 294). See also: “I was persuaded, as I still am, that any pleasant-tasting natural product cannot be harmful to the body, or is so, at least, only through excess” (Reveries, “Seventh Walk,” p. 102). In this passage, Rousseau’s belief is apparently vindicated, as he describes ingesting pleasant-tasting berries he is later told are poisonous. Despite their harmful reputation, Rousseau “got off with no more than a little worry” (ibid.). 11. According to Rousseau, “The system of this universe, which produces, conserves, and perpetuates all thinking and feeling beings ought to be dearer to [God] than a single one of those beings; he can, therefore, despite his goodness, or rather by his very goodness, sacrifice something of the happiness of individuals to the conservation of the whole” (“Letter to Voltaire,” p. 56). 12. Rousseau’s Savoyard Vicar makes grander claims about the degree to which cooperation is baked into the natural world. He asserts that despite the fact that the universe is ultimately mysterious, what seems evident from observing its parts is “the intimate correspondence by which the beings that compose it lend each other mutual assistance” (Emile, bk. IV, pp. 435– 36; see also “Fiction or Allegorical Fragment on Revelation,” in Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion, pp. 64– 65). He cites, for example, the physical structure and diversity of plants as evidence of nature’s intention to permit them to grow together: “The seeds can take root and grow next to each other, the leaves do not extend over the earth in the same way, and do not stifle each other” (Emile, bk. IV, p. 437). 13. The Second Discourse affords multiple examples of this: (1) “Man’s fi rst language . . . is the cry of nature. As this cry was elicited only by a kind of instinct in pressing emergencies, to beg for help in great dangers, or for relief in violent ills” (p. 122). This suggests a natural capacity to respond to such cries, for otherwise they would be useless. (2) Natural man does not always refuse “his fellow-men services he does not believe he owes them” (p. 128). (3) The anguish experienced by Rousseau’s version of Mandeville’s imprisoned man is, at least in part, caused by the fact that he is “unable to bring help to the fainting mother or to the dying child” (p. 131). (4) Rousseau claims pity “carries us without reflection to the aid of those whom we see suffer” (p. 133).

14. Hence Rousseau’s “natural man,” Emile, “dislikes both turmoils and quarrels, not only among men, but even among animals” (Emile, bk. IV, p. 407). 15. This is because particular bits of matter cannot be employed by multiple living things at the same time—thus there is confl ict and predation. Whereas

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matter limits the goodness of the universe in Plato’s cosmology owing to its intrinsic tendency toward disorder, for Rousseau, it is a limiting factor because it cannot be endlessly shared. 16. Rousseau claims that it was nature’s intention that our potential faculties should develop only to the extent necessary to meet the demands of our immediate environment (Second Discourse, p. 127), but a series of chance events enabled us to invent certain arts, such as metallurgy, that eventually removed us from our natural condition (ibid., p. 143). 17. Speaking of God, the “Author” of nature, Rousseau claims that “his Providence is only universal. . . . He is content to preserve the genera and the species, and to preside over the whole without being disturbed by the manner in which each individual spends his brief life” (“Letter to Voltaire,” p. 57). 18. In a particularly brutal example of this, Rousseau’s nature practices eugenics: “Nature treats [children] precisely as the law of Sparta treated the children of citizens: it renders strong and robust those who are well constituted and makes all the others perish, thereby differing from our societies, in which the State, by making children burdensome to their fathers, kills them indiscriminately before their birth” (Second Discourse, p. 106). Despite Rousseau’s apparent approval of eugenics as a form of care for a citizen body or a species, he backs away from this suggestion in Emile, claiming that a father owes his children “the same care and the same tenderness” even if they are sickly or disabled (Emile, bk. I, p. 180). That passage nonetheless describes such children as “useless,” and Rousseau apparently regards the task of caring for one as a poorer use of his “talent” than educating someone who is able and healthy (ibid.). 19. Rousseau claims that “man,” “nature’s masterpiece,” disfigures nature and becomes “its destroyer” (Emile, Favre manuscript, p. 5). See also man as “the tyrant of himself and of nature” (Second Discourse, p. 115). 20. “He who in the civil order wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of nature does not know what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself, always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be either man or citizen. He will be good neither for himself nor for others. He will be one of these men of our days; a Frenchman, an Englishman, a Bourgeois. He will be nothing” (Emile, bk. I, p. 164). 21. For similar statements, see Second Discourse, pp. 111, 202, and “Letter from J. J. Rousseau to M. Philopolis,” in On Philosophy, Morality, and Religion, p. 47. 22. See also: “The man of nature has disappeared, never to return, and the one who distances himself the most from nature is the one whom art neglects the most” (Emile, Favre manuscript, p. 5). 23. Compare Ruddick’s remarks about the way nature and maternal care intersect:

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In protective love, the natural is, before any moral of judgment of it, what is given.  .  .  . To identify the natural with the given does not mean that protecting mothers accept whatever is natural. Mothers fight their babies’ diseases and sooth their emotions. . . . Yet mothers cannot deny what is natural. Their children are nothing before they are natural, and their growing is a work of nature. When children thrive, it is nature that thrives— always, to be sure, within a particular sociohistorical, culturally interpreted context, but nature nonetheless. Mothers might be said to negotiate with nature on behalf of love. (1989, pp. 76– 77) 24. This is true not only of Rousseau’s domestic solution but even of his public solution, the contours of which are heavily shaped by nature despite Rousseau’s references to “denaturing.” According to the Social Contract, “What makes the constitution of a State genuinely solid and lasting is when what is appropriate is so well attended to that natural relations and laws always agree on the same points, and the latter as it were only secure, accompany and rectify the former. But if the Lawgiver mistakes his object, if he adopts a principle different from that which arises from the nature of things . . . then the laws will be found imperceptibly to weaken, the constitution to deteriorate, and the State will not be free of turmoil until it is either destroyed or altered, and invincible nature has resumed its empire” (II.11, pp. 79– 80). 25. In addition to what was said about domestication above, consider the example of the birds in Julie’s aviary (Julie, pt. IV, Letter XI, pp. 390– 91), Rousseau’s remarks about wanting animals to love him “in freedom” (Confessions, bk. VI, p. 196), and his characterization of his dog as “my friend, not my slave, we always had the same will but he never obeyed me” (“Third Letter to Malesherbes,” in Confessions, p. 579). 26. Because of the importance of our physical nature, Rousseau expresses an interest in developing a science of moral behavior that would teach us “how to force the animal economy to favor the moral order it so often troubles” (Confessions, bk. IX, p. 343). One could not develop such a science if the body’s effects on behavior were not predictable (i.e., if human beings’ actions were historically and culturally determined to the point that natural impulses could not be identified). 27. On this point, see Marks’s critique of Melzer (2005, pp. 82– 83). 28. “The happiness of the natural man is as simple as his life. It consists of not suffering: health, freedom, and the necessities of life constitute it. The happiness of the moral man is something else” (Emile, bk. III, p. 324). 29. Amour de soi inspires us to try to “extend our being” by “attaching our affections to beings who are foreign to us”: according to Rousseau, “It is very natural that a person who loves himself should seek to extend his being and his

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enjoyments and to appropriate for himself through attachment what he feels should be a good thing for him” (Dialogues, p. 112). This longing to extend one’s self to others resembles Platonic erôs, and it has crucial implications that I will develop below. For a book-length exploration of the relationship between Platonic erôs and Rousseau’s concept of self- extension, see Cooper (2008). 30. See also Rousseau’s claim in the Geneva Manuscript that life in the state of nature had crucial shortcomings: This perfect independence and this unregulated freedom, even if it had remained associated with ancient innocence, would always have had one essential vice, and been harmful to the progress of our most excellent faculties.  .  .  . The earth would be covered with men amongst whom there would be almost no communication. . . . Everyone would think only of himself; our understanding could not develop; we would live without sensing anything; our entire happiness would consist in not knowing our misery; there would be neither goodness in our hearts, nor morality in actions, and we would never have tasted the most delicious sentiment of the soul, which is the love of virtue. (Geneva Manuscript in Rousseau 1997, I.2, p. 154) 31. The matter is arguably not so simple in Aristotle’s thought either, given the tensions between the political and philosophic life explored in Nicomachean Ethics, bk. X. 32. “For all the great tests have been made and henceforth it has been demonstrated for me by experience that the state in which I have put myself is the only one in which man can live as good and happy, since it is the most independent one of all, and the only one in which one never fi nds oneself in the necessity of harming someone else for one’s own advantage” (“Letter to Malesherbes,” in Confessions, p. 576). 33. “I may be told that anyone who has to govern men should not look for a perfection beyond their nature of which they are not capable; that he must not seek to destroy their passions, and that carrying out such a project would be no more desirable than it would be possible. I will grant this all the more readily as a man devoid of all passions would certainly be a very bad citizen: but it must also be granted that while men cannot be taught not to love anything, it is not impossible to teach them to love one object rather than another, and to love what is genuinely fi ne rather than what is malformed” (Political Economy in Rousseau 1997, p. 20). 34. In Rousseau’s view, xenophobia is a flaw but not a decisive one, because “the essential thing is to be good to the people with whom one lives” (Emile, bk. I, pp. 162– 63). In my view, this is a much bigger problem than Rousseau acknowledges. Citizens and noncitizens live together within one and the same pol-

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ity, and the individuals living in one society can have a profound impact on the well-being of those living in others. Hence I fi nd the parochialism of Rousseau’s public solution normatively unacceptable—if it is impossible to stamp out xenophobia completely, at the very least it should be mitigated and not encouraged. 35. Rousseau declines to specify why this is, perhaps to avoid naming Christianity as one of the causes (see Social Contract, IV.8). 36. As I noted in the fi rst section of this chapter, Emile also sketches an educational plan for Emile’s future wife, Sophie. While some interpreters such as Denise Schaeffer (1998) have argued that this plan is more philosophically interesting and less straightforwardly misogynistic than other commentators have supposed, I think Rousseau’s plan for educating women is nonetheless deeply problematic in its intentions and execution. For present purposes, I focus instead on the tutor’s education of Emile as a much more normatively compelling treatment of educative care. I return to Sophie in the next chapter. 37. Examples include “the care you have prescribed [les soins que vous aurez prescrits]” (Emile, bk. I, p. 189); “ill- considered care [soins mal- entendus]” (ibid., bk. II, p. 210); “too much care [trop de soin]” (ibid., bk. II, p. 218); “your care and your counsel [vos soins, vos conseils]” (ibid., bk. III, p. 320); “up to now our care [nos soins]” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 362); “the value of your care [le prix de vos soins]” (ibid., bk. IV., p. 388); “eighteen years of assiduous care [soins assidus]” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 396); “the reason for all my care [tous mes soins]” (ibid., bk. IV, p. 492); “Do not make all your care fatal to your pupil [ne rendez pas vos soins funestes à vôtre élêve]” (ibid., bk. V, p. 607); and “If that were so, what would be the use of devoting so much care to childhood [soigner l’enfance]?” (ibid., bk. V, p. 618). 38. For example: “Spare no effort to make things easy for the nurses in carrying out the care [les soins] that you have prescribed. Why would you not share that care? In ordinary nursing where one looks only to the physical side, provided that the child lives and does not waste away the rest has little importance. But here, where the education begins with life, the child is at birth already a disciple” (Emile, bk. I, p. 189). 39. Rousseau links the concept of being “independent and free” with not “needing to harm anyone” and not being afraid of “being harmed” (Emile, bk.  V, p. 648). This is obviously a different sense of “independence” than the ability to live without human contact. I owe this claim about independence as a form of interdependence to a conversation with Sharon Krause. 40. If the child “once knows how to make you take care of [vous occuper] him at his will, he has become your master”; in caring for children, one must be careful lest “the care [les soins] given them be misunderstood” (Emile, bk. I, p. 198). 41. Rousseau’s defi nition of virtue as the capacity to prevail over the passions through strength of will is narrower than the defi nition I generally employ in this book, according to which “virtue” can designate any excellence of character or process.

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42. See also Rousseau’s letter to his (already married) love interest Sophie d’Houdetot: “Yes, be perfect, as you can be, and I shall be happier than if I had possessed you. May my zeal be able to help to exalt you so far above me, that amour-propre will compensate me in you for my humiliations and console me in some manner for not having been able to attain you” (“Moral Letters,” p. 74). This is closely followed by the claim that Rousseau “knows no other pleasure than to take care of [s’occuper de] you ceaselessly” (ibid., p. 75). 43. “Neither poverty nor labors nor concern for public opinion exempts [a father] from feeding [nourrir] his children and from raising [élever] them himself. . . . What does this rich man—this father of a family, so busy, and forced, according to him, to leave his children uncared for [à l’abandon]—do? He pays another man to take responsibility for these cares [remplir ces soins] which are a burden to him. Venal soul!” (Emile, bk. I, p. 175). 44. This is not to insist that Emile becomes the tutor’s equal in every respect. 45. There is also the fact that Rousseau gave his own children up for adoption. Rousseau discusses this decision in the Confessions, insisting that it was not done hard heartedly but because he convinced himself it was best for his children (bk. VIII, pp. 299– 300). Despite regretting it and claiming he deceived himself, he still seems to believe it may have been good for them in light of his personal misfortunes. These justifications aside, he is not offering his own conduct as a model for others. 46. Additional scholars who perceive a sharp dichotomy between “men” and “citizens” in Rousseau’s thought include Victor Gourevitch (1997), Steven Kautz (1997), Iseult Honohan (2002, p. 85), and Frederick Neuhouser (2008, pp. 158– 61). 47. Other interpreters who take a version of the view I defend here—that Emile is both man and citizen—include Roger Masters (1968, pp. 11, 14), Jonathan Marks (1998), Nancy Hirschmann (2009, p. 136), Christopher Kelly (2002, p. xix), and Jason Neidleman (2013). 48. Also: “The more his [i.e., Emile’s] cares [ses soins] are consecrated to the happiness of others, the more they will be enlightened and wise and the less he will be deceived about what is good or bad. But let us never tolerate in him a blind preference founded solely on consideration of persons or on unjust bias” (Emile, bk. IV, p. 409). 49. Emile resembles the Romans in another significant respect: like the Roman citizen’s, Emile’s virtue is a product of private rather than public education (Political Economy, p. 22).

Chapter 4 1. Rousseau himself uses this phrase (“souverains subordonnés”) once in Letters Written from the Mountain, where it characterizes Genevan citizens in

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their assemblies (Seventh Letter, p. 238). In context, it appears to be derogatory. Yet the phrase usefully captures what Rousseau himself advocates, as he insists that citizens ought to be sovereign in some respects while subordinate in others. I would suggest that his rhetoric in Letters Written from the Mountain reflects his belief that the balance in Geneva has tipped too far in one direction. I address the balance he tries to cultivate between superordinates and subordinates and his rhetorical approach to this problem at greater length in the next section. 2. “I call the master of this science [i.e., education] governor rather than preceptor because his task is less to instruct than to lead” (Emile, bk. I, p. 178). 3. For the tutor as a caregiver, see the previous chapter. The Lawgiver is addressed in the next section. As for Wolmar, St. Preux characterizes his efforts to guide and cure him as “paternal ministries [vos soins paternals]” (Julie, pt. 5, Letter XII, p. 510). See also Shklar’s (1964) excellent treatment of Wolmar and Rousseau’s tendency to conceptualize model authority figures as literal or figurative parents. 4. What is being suggested is that natural authority among adult men—that is to say, authority relationships enjoined “by the nature of things” that bind parties irrespective of anyone’s consent—is a contradiction in terms, as it would lead to domination. 5. On this point, see also: “The love of oneself is always good and always in conformity with order. Since each man is specially entrusted with his own preservation, the fi rst and most important of his cares is and ought to be to watch over it constantly” (Emile, bk. IV, p. 363; Chacun étant chargé spécialement de sa propre conservation, le prémier et le plus important de ses soins est et doit être d’y veiller sans cesse). 6. That said, the claim, mentioned above, that wise men need no laws leaves open the possibility that they might enjoy a greater independence from conventional authority. Though the evidence is not decisive, Rousseau could well think this. It would be in keeping with his justification for his own decision to leave Geneva and criticize it from abroad. Regardless, the wise do not have the same natural right to (re)constitute authority relationships that Plato attributes to them. 7. One example concerns their competing views of domestication. Compare Rousseau’s positive evaluation of wildness with Plato’s positive evaluation of tameness (for instance, Plato’s discussion of animals in the Kronos myth told in the Statesman [273c, 274b], and his demand that human beings “remove anarchy” from the lives of the animals subject to them [Laws, 942d]). 8. Masters recognizes this difference between Plato and Rousseau (1968, pp. 104– 5). It is therefore surprising that Masters emphasizes Rousseau’s break with Aristotle and claims that he has a modern rather than classical understanding of nature. 9. Plato and Rousseau’s disagreement about the natural world’s goodness affects the very manner in which they envision the highest kind of contempla-

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tion: Plato believes it consists in the ascension in thought to contemplation of the Forms, whereas Rousseau describes it as a reverie progressing from aimless sensory experience to the sensation of pure existence. For Rousseau, the most “Being-ful” things are more immanent in the natural world than they are for Plato. 10. Consider St. Preux’s lament in Julie that philosophy “incites us to defy passions from a distance and leaves us like an empty braggart when they get closer” (Julie, pt. 2, Letter X, p. 181). 11. In addition to the quotation above, see Emile, bk. IV, pp. 517–18, and Rousseau’s discussion of the ring of Gyges in the Reveries: Rousseau begins to talk about how beneficent he would be were he to acquire the ring, but then he admits his passions would lead him astray (Reveries, “Sixth Walk,” pp. 82– 83). 12. This applies not only to political authority but to authority relationships generally, even those Rousseau recognizes as “natural” (in the sense of “not established by convention”), such as parent/young child. 13. However, the superordinate need not recognize the subordinate’s will to the point of always yielding to it; this would give the subordinate a taste for command and, by extension, domination. 14. See also: “The heart receives laws only from itself. By wanting to enchain it, one releases it; one enchains it by leaving it free” (Emile, bk. IV, p. 388). 15. Emile characterizes a man who surrenders himself unconditionally as ceasing “to exist before his death in spite of nature, which gives him immediate responsibility for his own preservation” (bk. V, p. 651). 16. How exactly Rousseau cashes out what it means for the subordinate to have the fi nal say varies according to the type of authority relationship. I will discuss this with specific reference to political authority below. 17. I say “triadic” here following Rousseau’s description of rightful political authority as a threefold relationship among citizens, the government, and the sovereign (Social Contract, I.7, III.1). The citizens are individually subordinate to government, but they command the government in their collective capacity as the sovereign. 18. I do not mean to imply that Rousseau thinks that the rights and responsibilities of subordinates and superordinates are the same in every kind of authority relationship. Rather, I am claiming that all the authority relations that he thinks are desirable share structural similarities. 19. “I had seen that everything depends radically on politics, and that, from whatever aspect one considers it, no people would ever be anything other than what it was made into by the nature of its Government” (Confessions, bk. IX, p. 340). 20. Also: “Let the fatherland [la patrie] then prove to be the common mother [la mère commun] of the citizens, let the advantages they enjoy in their country endear it to them, let the government leave them a large enough a share of the

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public administration to feel they are at home, and let the laws be in their eyes nothing but the guarantors of the common freedom” (Political Economy, p. 19). 21. In the Government of Poland, Rousseau makes public exercises mandatory but does not prohibit parents who prefer “domestic education” from having their children brought up “under their own supervision” (p. 191). And as Shklar notes, Rousseau claims that Geneva had achieved an acceptable compromise between domestic and public education (1964, p. 929). In Political Economy, Rousseau does not expressly allow domestic education in a virtuous republic; instead he consoles fathers reluctant to cede their authority to the government with the following consideration: If, by taking the father’s place and assuming this important function, the public authority acquires their rights by fulfi lling their duties, they have all the less reason to complain of it, as, strictly speaking, they do no more in this respect than change names, and under the name “citizen” they will have in common the same authority over their children which they exercised separately under the name fathers. (p. 21) 22. Like Plato, Rousseau believes physical exercise has important psychological consequences: “It is above all for the sake of the soul that one must exercise the body, and this is what our small-minded sages are far from realizing” (Government of Poland, p. 187). Public education also serves the purpose of preparing citizens for war, but this is intimately connected to its other purposes, as Rousseau’s affection for martial republics is connected much more to the affective bonds martial discipline creates between citizens than it is to any love of warfare, military victory, or glory. 23. Also: “Although the government is not the master of the law, it is a considerable thing to be its guarantor and to dispose of a thousand ways of making it beloved. This is all the talent for ruling consists in” (Political Economy, p. 11). 24. “The same principle should be used to judge which centuries deserve preference with regard to the prosperity of humankind. People have too much admired those that have seen letters and the arts flourish.  .  .  . One should focus less on apparent repose and on the chiefs’ tranquility than on the well-being of entire nations and above all of the most numerous estates” (Social Contract, III.9, p. 105n.). 25. See also Rousseau’s praise of “the excellent regulations of Lycurgus,” which “were concerned with the sustenance of children as if this were their main care” (First Discourse, p. 57) 26. Nature, Rousseau claims, “has made many good fathers of families; but it is doubtful that since the beginning of the world human wisdom made even ten men capable of governing their fellow-men” (Political Economy, p. 5). 27. Compare Rousseau’s claim that “a people is in any case always master to

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change its laws, even the best of them; for if it pleases it to harm itself, who has the right to prevent it from doing so?” (Social Contract, II.12, p. 80) with the Athenian Stranger’s argument that Magnesia’s destruction is preferable to “willingly tolerating the slavish yoke of being ruled by worse men” and “allowing the regime to be changed into one whose nature is to make human beings worse” (Laws, 770e). 28. “Dependence on men, since it is without order, engenders all the vices, and by it, master and slave are mutually corrupted. If there is any means of remedying this ill in society, it is to substitute law for man and to arm the general wills with a real strength superior to the action of every particular will” (Emile, bk. II, pp. 216–17). This is a key part of Rousseau’s justification for his (in)famous assertion that forcing an individual to submit to the deliberations of duly constituted political authority is the same thing as forcing him to be free, “for this is the condition which . . . guarantees him against all personal dependence” (Social Contract, I.7, p. 53). 29. “If, when an adequately informed people deliberates, the Citizens had no communication among themselves, the general will would always result from the large number of small differences, and the deliberation would always be good” (Social Contract, II.3, p. 60). 30. For knowledge of the passions and human nature, see, for example, Social Contract, II.7, esp. p. 69; for physical nature, see ibid., II.10, esp. pp. 67– 68. In general, Rousseau claims that what makes the constitution of a State genuinely solid and lasting is when what is appropriate is so well attended to that natural relations and the laws always agree on the same points, and the latter as it were only secure, accompany and rectify the former. But if the Lawgiver mistakes his object, if he adopts a principle different from that which arises from the nature of things . . . then the laws will be found imperceptibly to weaken, the constitution to deteriorate, and the State will not be free of turmoil until it is either destroyed or altered, and invincible nature has resumed its empire. (ibid., II.11, pp. 79– 80) 31. In his love of order, concern for the well-being of others, and ability to transcend the human passions, the Lawgiver resembles Julie’s Wolmar. 32. “Elections by lot would entail few inconveniences in a genuine Democracy where everything is as equal by virtue of morals and talents as maxims and fortune, because choice would make almost no difference. But I have already said there is no genuine Democracy” (Social Contract, IV.3, p. 126). Consider also: “No one has ever made a people of wise men” (Political Economy, p. 16).

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33. Rousseau had earlier suggested in the Second Discourse that he would want magistrates to be the sole possessors of right to propose laws (p. 82). 34. For instance, Pateman (1988) and Kofman (1988, pp. 124– 25) flag the ways in which Rousseau’s arguments resemble Aristotle’s but do not note key respects in which they differ, such as the pseudogoverning role Rousseau envisions for women. By contrast, Okin is attentive to the power Rousseau believes women can and ought to exercise over men, once referring to the female role as one of “subservient domination” (1979, p. 153). But her account does not fully explore the parallels between what Rousseau demands of women here and what he expects from superordinates in other authority relationships. 35. For an early defender of this position, see Aristotle (Politics, 1254b, 1259b, 1260a). See also de Beauvoir for an overview of this argument and its history (2011, pp. 5–14). 36. Rousseau’s defense of gender equality in “On Women” seems to have been a one- off event, and he abandons it in subsequent works. 37. I say “essentially” because some defenders of patriarchy, such as Aristotle, formally distinguished the power of husbands over wives from the authority of masters over servants or slaves. These authors nonetheless consign women to a servile position. 38. “Woman and man are made for one another, but their mutual dependence is not equal. Men depend on women because of their desires; women depend on men because of both their desires and their needs. We would survive more easily without them than they would without us” (Emile, bk. V, p. 539). 39. In referring to the family as “natural,” Rousseau means that it is compatible with an orderly harmony of self-interested beings and is grounded in biological characteristics, not that it existed in the state of nature (on this point, see Elshtain [1981], pp. 150– 55). Indeed, his description of the “natural” dependence of women upon men (and men’s involvement with childcare) is at variance with their relative independence from one another in the state of nature (cf. Second Discourse, pp. 134– 37). 40. See also: “As she is made to obey a being who is so imperfect, often so full of vices, and always so full of defects as man, she ought to learn early to endure even injustice and to bear a husband’s wrongs without complaining” (Emile, bk. V, p. 546). 41. Rousseau claims that women ought to be “enslaved by public opinion” (Emile, bk. V, p. 554), which is “the grave of virtue among men and its throne among women” (ibid., bk. V, p. 540). Similarly, women ought to be “enslaved by authority” when it comes to their religious beliefs (ibid., bk. V, p. 554). 42. Arguably servants fare better than women in Rousseau’s thought. He reluctantly accepts the existence of servants (though not slaves) in our corrupt present condition but with the reminder that their condition is contrary to nature

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and will inevitably produce discontent and unhappiness (Julie, pt. 4, Letter X, p. 378). Furthermore, he insists that servants retain the right to leave their employers whenever it suits them (Political Economy, p. 4), a way of checking the exercise of power over them that Rousseau does not grant to wives. 43. For the claim that their respective strengths and weaknesses mean men and women are more or less equal, see Emile, bk. V, p. 548. 44. See also the claim that women ought to govern men while obeying them in Emile, bk. V, p. 548. 45. Rousseau also commends the Spartan women for governing men in the Second Discourse (“To the Republic of Geneva,” p. 89). Here he breaks from Aristotle, whose particular strain of misogyny maintained that women should be strictly subordinate and condemned the Spartans for granting them so much power and influence (e.g., Politics, 1269b). 46. “Men will philosophize about the human heart better than [woman] does, but she will read in men’s hearts better than they do. It is for women to discover experimental morality, so to speak, and for us to reduce it to a system. Woman has more wit, man more genius; woman observes, and man reasons. From this conjunction results the clearest insight and most complete science regarding itself that the human mind can acquire—in a word, the surest knowledge of oneself and others available to our species. And this is how art can constantly tend to the perfection of the instrument given by nature” (Emile, bk. V, p. 566). 47. “Women’s reason is practical and makes them very skillful at fi nding means for getting to a known end, but not at fi nding that end itself. . . . This partnership produces a moral person of which the woman is the eye and the man is the arm, but they have such a dependence on another that the woman learns from the man what must be seen and the man learns from the woman what must be done” (Emile, bk. V, p. 554). 48. I agree with many aspects of Wingrove’s analysis, but I believe she misdescribes Rousseau’s overall intention. She claims that what Rousseau is aiming to produce is “consensual nonconsensuality, meaning the condition in which one wills the circumstances of one’s own domination” (2000, p. 5). In my view, the point is not to create (male) subjects who desire their own domination—men and citizens should not be dominated—but to fi nd safe and salutary ways to reconcile subordinates to the forms of caregiving authority to which they must necessarily be subject if they are to live well. This is only possible if caregiving authority is carefully constrained to promote subordinates’ interests while preventing domination and if superordinates conceal their power in order to avoid inflaming subordinates’ amour- prôpre. 49. The argument that free male citizens can only devote their time to valuable political, economic, and cultural activities if someone else does the “dirty work” is an old saw and an ancient justification for the subordination of both women and slaves. Clearly this consideration alone is not decisive for Rousseau,

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as he rejects slavery even as he grants that it facilitated political participation in antiquity (Social Contract, III.15, p. 115). 50. Thus the hostess of Rousseau’s imagined dinner party leaves her guests with the impression that she has thought only of them and has not had time to eat a single bite, “but the truth is that she has eaten more than anyone” (Emile, bk. V, p. 562). For an excellent account of this dimension of Sophie’s education in Emile, see Schaeffer (1998). 51. Rousseau is clearly concerned with heading off the argument that female subordination is a social construction—see Emile, bk. V, pp. 532, 538; also, Letter to D’Alembert, Rousseau 1960, pp. 83– 87. 52. Even with respect to “quitting,” while European countries in Rousseau’s time may have limited a husband’s power to divorce his wife, men faced fewer social and legal consequences for infidelity, a discrepancy Rousseau seems to think just (Emile, bk. V, pp. 535– 36). 53. See, for instance, the sexist rhetoric of the Letter to D’Alembert (e.g., Rousseau 1960, pp. 49– 50), which lacks the qualifications and countervailing arguments he presents elsewhere. 54. Pettit acknowledges that his notion of domination does not apply to nonhuman nature: “Republicans believe that the state ought to be designed with a view to the promotion of people’s freedom as non- domination alone, not with a view to the good of anything non-human” (1999, pp. 135– 36).

Chapter 5 1. Citations from Godwin’s Political Justice (hereafter cited as PJ) are to An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, ed. F. E. L. Priestley (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1940). 2. Godwin argues that as science progresses and moral enlightenment spreads, government will grow increasingly unnecessary to the point of eventual dissolution. 3. Of course, Plato believes that self-love and the desire for immortality ought to be indulged primarily in their more elevated forms. See chapter 1 and the discussion of erôs there. 4. See Rousseau, Emile, bk. IV, p. 362, and Locke (2003), “Second Treatise,” ch. 2, §6. Hobbes is an interesting case. It is ambiguous whether he thinks our natural right to preserve ourselves is grounded in a fundamental desire universally held or is something commanded by God (see Leviathan, ch. 15, which addresses the status of the laws of nature). 5. Godwin takes up the argument, advanced by philosophical optimists, that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Optimists acknowledge the existence of evil, but they claim that whatever evil exists in the world is there for the sake of

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the greater good. As Godwin puts it, they believe that all evil is like “the amputation of a gangrened limb” (PJ, IV.11, p. 450)—what appears to be an evil when viewed in isolation (i.e., the removal of the limb) turns out to be a good when its relation to the whole is properly understood (i.e., amputating the gangrenous limb will save the person’s life). 6. Cf. Rousseau, who excuses the fact that animals kill and eat one another by arguing that the good of all requires the circulation of matter, and that it is therefore unavoidable (“Letter to Voltaire”). 7. Godwin grants that the human species has made tremendous progress over the course of its history, which might suggest that nature contains a benevolent teleological principle (PJ, IV.11, pp. 450– 51). But he argues that we owe these improvements to mind, not nature. While the human mind has a strong tendency to advance progressively (ibid., VIII.10, pp. 548– 54), the same is not true of matter: “The globe we inhabit bears strong marks of convulsion, such as the teachers of religion, and the professors of natural philosophy, agree to predict, will one day destroy the inhabitants of the earth. Vicissitude therefore, rather than unbounded progress, appears to be the characteristic of nature” (ibid., IV.11, pp. 452– 53). Far from exhibiting signs of a harmonious and orderly design, the natural world instead affords us the spectacle of meaningless change and pointless suffering. 8. Godwin goes so far as to argue that children do not naturally have a blink reflex when objects are suddenly brought close to their eyes and are indifferent to frowns until they have learned to associate them with the effects of anger (PJ, I.4, pp. 33– 34). 9. Plato claims that the desire for immortality is implanted in us by nature (e.g., Laws, 721b). As the Symposium argues, it is also one of the fundamental components of erôs—see chapter 1. 10. Godwin has far more positive things to say about sympathy, which involves an imaginative understanding of what someone else is experiencing. Sympathy facilitates our ability to respond benevolently and disinterestedly, which Godwin takes to be essential parts of virtue. I will say more about this below. 11. Cf. Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes’s account of the state of nature in the Second Discourse. 12. Godwin claims that “persons of narrow views and observation, regard every thing as natural and right, that happens, however capriciously or for however short a time, to prevail in the society in which they live” (PJ, I.5, p. 84). 13. “The actions and dispositions of men are not the offspring of any original bias that they bring into the world in favour of one sentiment or character rather than another, but flow entirely from the operation of circumstances and events acting upon a faculty of receiving sensible impressions” (PJ, I.4, pp. 26– 27). 14. Godwin therefore rejects an idea that Rousseau largely accepts, which is that education involves an unfolding of latent potential: “How long has the jar-

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gon imposed upon the world, which would persuade us that in instructing a man you do not add to, but unfold his stores?” (PJ, I.4, p. 43). 15. It might be objected that moral and ethical values are in some sense “constructed” by human beings. Even if this is so, it seems to me that proponents of this thesis must grant the point that it is not morally permissible for human beings to construct whatever values they please (e.g., fascistic or racist values). It follows that one must unavoidably appeal to some standard that limits what values are fitting for human beings to adopt, and that standard cannot itself be a product of human contrivance. 16. Owing to these differences, some interpreters have questioned whether Godwin is a utilitarian at all. F. E. L. Priestly argues that though Godwin dresses his position in utilitarian garb, his moral philosophy is actually a product of his religious upbringing on one hand and the influence of rationalist philosophers on the other. Despite his superficial adoption of formulas from French utilitarians such as Helvétius, Godwin’s view is “essentially that of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, and of the Greek tradition” (Priestly, ed., Godwin [1940], 3:15– 16). Other critics have similarly doubted Godwin’s utilitarianism, emphasizing the influence of his religious upbringing and the Rational Dissenting tradition (e.g., Philp 1986). Evidence that this view is not entirely unfounded is provided by Godwin himself, who later criticized the fi rst edition of Political Justice for inconsistencies in its utilitarianism and cast blame on his religious education for some of his errors (Collected Novels and Memoirs, 1:54). Yet Godwin claims to have fi xed these mistakes by Political Justice’s third edition (Collected Novels and Memoirs, 1:54), and I maintain that this claim is largely correct. 17. This is not an uncommon view among utilitarians—John Stuart Mill later took this position as well. 18. Although in this passage Godwin articulates a weaker alternative to his position in the clause beginning “or, at least,” he generally takes the stronger view that intellectual and moral pleasures are qualitatively superior to the pleasures of the senses. (For example, the claim that some pleasures are “more exquisite” is repeated in PJ, II.3, p. 146, and the claim that some are “more excellent” appears in ibid., II.6, p. 172.) 19. The choice of “oyster” here recalls Plato: without the power of mind, memory, and calculation, one would “not live a human life but the life of a mollusk or of one of those creatures in shells that live in the sea” (Philebus, 21c). 20. Godwin maintains that there “is not one of our avocations or amusements, that does not, by its effects, render us more or less fit to contribute our quota to the general utility” (PJ, II.5, p. 159). 21. In criticizing the assumption that human beings are only actuated by self-love, Godwin notes how ubiquitous it is: “It is no wonder that philosophers whose system has taught them to look upon their fellow men as thus perverse and unjust, have been frequently cold in their temper, or narrow in their designs.

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It is no wonder that Rousseau, the most benevolent of them, and who most escaped the general contagion, has been driven to place the perfection of virtue in doing no injury” (PJ, IV.10, p. 436). 22. Godwin believes that his ranking is valid for all human beings, because we are similarly constituted: “We are partakers of a common nature, and the same causes that contribute to the benefit of one, will contribute to the benefit of another. Our senses and faculties are of the same denomination. Our pleasures and pains will therefore be alike” (PJ, II.3, p. 146). For this reason, “There is but one perfection to man; one thing most honourable; one thing that, to a well organised and healthful mind, will produce the most exquisite pleasure” (ibid., III.7, p. 240). 23. Godwin takes a much dimmer view of humanity’s original or primitive condition than Rousseau: if we consider the state of the human species as it existed prior to the development of political society, “it is difficult not to be inspired with emotions of melancholy” (PJ, I.2, pp. 7– 8). Godwin claims that the “most desirable state of man . . . is a state of high civilization” (ibid., “Summary of Principles,” p. xxiii). While Rousseau was right to see “that the imperfections of government were the only perennial source of the vices of mankind,” he erred in praising “the period that preceded government and laws, instead of the period that may possibly follow upon their abolition” (ibid., V.15, p. 129). Like Plato, Godwin characterizes society and the arts as defenses against nature (ibid., I.2, p. 7; I.6, p. 104; cf. Plato, Statesman, 274b– c, 279c– 280e, 288b). 24. “It is impression that makes the man, and compared with the empire of impression, the mere differences of animal structure are inexpressibly unimportant and powerless” (PJ, I.4, p. 40). 25. The Enquirer (1797) is an essay collection Godwin authored in order to expand on some of the themes in Political Justice and make them more accessible to a popular audience. It was published between the second and third editions of Political Justice, which were released in 1796 and 1798, respectively. 26. “Every man is laudably employed, who procures to himself or his neighbour a real cession of pleasure; and he is censurable, who neglects any occasion of being so employed” (PJ, VIII.7, p. 493). See also: “To virtue it is necessary, that it proceed from kind and benevolent intention; but malevolence, or a disposition to draw a direct gratification from the sufferings of others, is not necessary to vice. It is sufficient that the agent regards with neglect those benevolent considerations which are allied to general good” (ibid., II.4, p. 152). 27. “How much am I bound to do for the general weal, that is, for the benefit of the individuals of whom the whole is composed? Every thing in my power” (PJ, II.2, p. 132). 28. See also: “My neighbour is in want of ten pounds that I can spare. . . . Unless it can be shown that the money can be more beneficently employed, his right

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is as complete . . . as if he had my bond in his possession, or had supplied me with goods to the amount” (PJ, II.2, p. 135). 29. Godwin invokes a duty to engage in self- cultivation in order to secure not only one’s own happiness but the happiness of others in other passages as well. See, for instance, the following remark and its context: “When a man has proved himself a benefactor to the public, when he has already, by laudable perseverance, cultivated in himself talents which need only encouragement and public favour to bring them to maturity, let that man be honoured” (PJ, V.11, p. 96). 30. Similarly, Godwin argues that “the inference from this survey of human life, is, that he who is fully persuaded that pleasure is the only good, ought by no means to leave every man to enjoy his peculiar pleasure according to his own peculiar humour” but rather attempt to raise him up (PJ, IV.11, p. 448). 31. By rejecting hedonic relativism, Godwin avoids the “contented slave” problem I discussed at the end of chapter 4. Objecting to a hypothetical defense of slavery on the grounds that some slaves might be happy, Godwin replies: It is not very material to a man of a liberal and enlarged mind, whether they are contented or no. Are they contented? I am not contented for them. I see in them beings of certain capacities, equal to certain pursuits and enjoyments. It is of no consequence to me in the question, that they do not see this, that they do not know their own interests and happiness. . . . That which you mention as an alleviation, fi nishes in my conception the portrait of their calamity. Abridged as they are of independence and enjoyment, they have neither the apprehension nor spirit of men. I cannot bear to see human nature thus degraded. It is my duty, if I can, to make them a thousand times happier, than they are, or have any conception of being. (PJ, IV.11, pp. 443–44) 32. To oblige people “to act and to live together, is to subject them to some inevitable portion of thwarting, bickering and unhappiness. This cannot be otherwise, so long as men shall continue to vary in their habits, their preferences and their views” (PJ, VIII.8, p. 506). 33. Even the valet should prefer Fénelon’s life to his own (PJ, II.2, p. 127). 34. In the fi rst edition of Political Justice, Godwin’s thought experiment included a chambermaid rather than a valet, and he had written “sister” and “mother” instead of “brother” and “father.” He changed this in the second edition, perhaps, as Monro speculates, as “a sop to popular prejudice” (1969, p. 9). 35. As with his attitude toward the private affections generally, Godwin’s opinion of marriage became more favorable later in life. Indeed, he married twice: fi rst to Mary Wollstonecraft and then to Mary Jane Clairmont. In keeping with his rejection of enforced cohabitation, he maintained separate lodgings

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during his marriage to Wollstonecraft. His usual habit was to spend the day in his apartment and then join her in the evenings (Philp 1986, p. 190). 36. Godwin does not attach much stigma to adultery, which “would not be found incompatible with a character of uncommon excellence” (PJ, VIII.8, p. 510). The principal harm in adultery is less sexual infidelity than dishonesty: “What, at present, renders it, in many instances, particularly loathsome, is it being practiced in a clandestine manner” (ibid.). 37. For instance, the tendency to prioritize the welfare of our relations is acceptable in ordinary cases, but the “soundest criterion of virtue is, to put ourselves in the part of an impartial spectator . . . and uninfluenced by our prejudices, conceiving what would be his estimate of the intrinsic circumstances of our neighbour” (PJ, II.2, p. 132). And, to take a striking example from The Enquirer, Godwin argues that we often conduct ourselves better toward acquaintances than those we have grown overly familiar with. The typical kindness and generosity we would show toward a child we barely know should inform the way we treat our own children, as too often a feeling of familiarity leads us to act impolitely and severely (Enquirer, pt. 1, “Essay X,” p. 80). Compare the following passage in Political Justice: “When I seek to correct the defects of a stranger, it is with urbanity and good humour. I have no idea of convincing him through the medium of surliness and invective. But something of this kind inevitably obtains, where the intercourse is too unremitted” (PJ, VIII.8, p. 507). 38. As long as “the providing for individuals is conducted with its present irregularity and caprice,” Godwin grants that there is truth in the argument “in favour of my providing, in ordinary cases, for my wife and children, my brothers and relations, before I provide for strangers” (PJ, II.2, p. 132). But this argument, he insists, is still to be admitted “with great caution,” because it is true only of “ordinary cases; and cases of a higher order, or a more urgent necessity, will perpetually occur, in competition with which these will be altogether impotent” (ibid.). In other words, even if I am generally justified in providing for my family fi rst, I still ought to show preference to nonrelatives when it would clearly maximize the greatest happiness of all, as per the Fénelon example. 39. “I can promote the welfare of a few persons, because I can be sufficiently informed of their circumstances. I can promote the welfare of many in certain general articles, because, for this purpose, it is only necessary, that I should be informed of the nature of the human mind as such, not of the personal situation of the individuals concerned. But for one man to undertake to administer the affairs of millions . . . is of all undertakings the most extravagant and absurd” (PJ, V.4, p. 32). Consider also: “I have perhaps additional reason to interest myself for those who live under the same government as myself, because I am better qualified to understand their claims, and more capable of exerting myself on their behalf” (ibid., V.22, p. 193). 40. Consider the discussion of the contributions sociality makes to happiness

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(PJ, VIII.8, p. 499), the claim that “friendship  .  .  . is one of the most exquisite gratifications, perhaps one of the most improving exercises, of a rational mind” (ibid., VIII.8, p. 509) and the emphasis placed upon true sympathy and affection (ibid., IV.10, pp. 428– 30). 41. Strikingly, in Thoughts on Man, Godwin goes on to assert that a degree of inequality, dependence, and care is essential to love, which he argues is true of romantic love and “perfect” friendships as well (“Essay XV”). This is a significant departure from his position in Political Justice.

Chapter 6 1. See also the following claim in The Enquirer: The affairs of man in society are not of so simple a texture, that they require only common talents to guide them. Tyranny grows up by a kind of necessity of nature; oppression discovers itself; poverty, fraud, violence, murder, and a thousand evils, follow in the rear. These cannot be extirpated without great discernment and great energies. Men of genius must rise up, to shew their brethren that these evils, though familiar, are not therefore the less dreadful, to analyse the machine of human society, to demonstrate how the parts are connected together, to explain the immense chain of events and consequences, to point out the defects and the remedy. It is thus only that important reforms can be produced. Without talents, despotism would be endless, and public misery incessant. Hence it follows, that he who is a friend to general happiness, will neglect no chance of producing, in his pupil or his child, one of the long-looked-for saviours of the human race. (Enquirer, pt. 1, “Essay II,” p. 9) 2. The authority of confidence “seems to be the strictest and most precise meaning of the word authority; as obedience, in its most refi ned sense, denotes that compliance which is the offspring of respect” (PJ, III.6, p. 231). 3. Though Godwin is not entirely clear on this point, reason also appears to be the faculty that discloses to us the truth of utilitarianism in the fi rst place. See, for example, PJ, II.3, p. 146; IV.10, p. 427. 4. “Virtue demands the active employment of an ardent mind in the promotion of the general good. No man can be eminently virtuous, who is not accustomed to an extensive range of reflection” (PJ, I.7, p. 105). 5. In Godwin’s words, “If each do not preserve his individuality, the judgment of all will be feeble, and the progress of our common understanding inexpressibly retarded” (PJ, III.6, p. 236).

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6. See, for instance, Godwin’s claims that “promoting the best interests of mankind, eminently depends upon the freedom of social communication” (PJ, IV.3, p. 295) and that frank discussion is “the most powerful engine of human improvement” (ibid., IV.6, p. 340). 7. As these quotations imply, the aim of conversation is not merely to supply information but to awaken capacities and “propagate” virtue (PJ, IV.5, pp. 308–15). 8. “If I spoke to [someone] of the errors he had himself committed, I should carefully avoid those inconsiderate expressions, which might convert what was in itself beneficent, into offence; and my thoughts would be full of that kindness, and generous concern for his welfare, which such a talk necessarily brings along with it” (PJ, IV.6, pp. 328– 29). 9. “Accustomed  .  .  . to tell men of things it was useful for them to know, I should speedily learn to study their advantage, and never rest satisfied with my conduct, till I had discovered how to spend the hours I was in their company, in the way which was most rational and improving” (PJ, IV.6, p. 329). 10. On this point, Godwin explicitly sides with Rousseau and Helvétius, who think that government comprehensively influences the lives of those subject to it, against Locke and Sydney (PJ, I.1, p. 4n). 11. Godwin notes that “many of the best patriots and most popular writers on the subject of government . . . have treated morality and personal happiness as one science, and politics as a different one” (PJ, I.1, p. 3). Against these writers, Godwin contends that political science is merely a subset of moral science, and politics ought to be practiced in whatever way best promotes the greatest happiness of all. 12. As I shall show below, Godwin ultimately does not believe the appropriate way to grant these men the “largest share” is to entrust them with political authority. 13. Godwin explains that the contradiction occurred because he came to understand his argument “more completely as he proceeded” but lacked the time to revise it before it was printed (PJ, preface, pp. vii–viii). 14. Priestley, for example, stresses Plato’s influence: “At the time when Political Justice was being planned, in 1791, Godwin recorded in his diary that he was reading Greek philosophy. Specific references to Plato and to the Parmenides in the fi rst edition of Political Justice make it clear that this reading included Plato” (Priestly, ed., Godwin [1940], 3:8). I would add that the third edition also includes a reference to the Republic—see PJ, VIII.3, p. 459n. 15. Even then, however, Godwin claims that “if a man be in some cases obliged to prefer his own judgment, he is in all cases obliged to consult that judgment, before he can determine whether the matter in question be of the sort provided for or no. So that from this reasoning it ultimately appears, that the con-

Notes to Pages 181–185

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viction of a man’s individual understanding, is the only legitimate principle, imposing on him the duty of adopting any species of conduct” (PJ, II.6, p. 181). 16. Godwin assesses Rousseau’s overall merits as follows: “Rousseau, notwithstanding his great genius, was full of weakness and prejudice. His Emile deserves, perhaps, upon the whole, to be regarded as one of the principal reservoirs of philosophical truth, as yet existing in the world; though with a perpetual mixture of absurdity and mistake. In his writing expressly political, Du Contrat Social and Considérations sur la Pologne, the superiority of his genius seems to desert him” (PJ, V.15, pp. 129– 30n). 17. According to Godwin, Rousseau’s entire system of education is “a series of tricks, a puppet-show exhibition, of which the master holds the wires, and the scholar is never to suspect in what manner they are moved” (Enquirer, pt. 1, “Essay XII,” p. 94). 18. “How many arts, and how noxious to those towards whom we employ them, are necessary if we would successfully deceive?” (PJ, V.15, p. 131). 19. “We must not only leave their reason in indolence at fi rst, but endeavor to supersede its exertion in any future instance. If men be, for the present, kept right by prejudice, what will become of them hereafter, if, by any future penetration, or any accidental discovery, this prejudice shall be annihilated?” (PJ, V.15, p. 131). 20. In his essay “Of Deception and Frankness,” Godwin subjects Rousseau’s educative project to the same critique (Enquirer, pt. 1, “Essay XII”). 21. See also: “That must surely be a singular species of consent, the external indications of which are to be found, in an unremitting opposition in the fi rst instance, and compulsory subjection in the second” (PJ, III.2, p. 193). 22. See Rousseau, Social Contract, I.2, p. 42. Hobbes argues in a similar vein: “The right of nature . . . is the liberty each man hath to use his power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature, that is to say, of his own life, and consequently of doing anything which, in his own judgment and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto” (Leviathan, ch. 14, p. 79; my emphasis). Locke by and large agrees with this, though our rights to life, liberty, and property are constrained from the outset by God’s rights over us (“Second Treatise,” in Two Treatises of Government, ch. 2, §6). 23. Godwin maintains that there “is not one of our avocations or amusements, that does not, by its effects, render us more or less fit to contribute our quota to the general utility” (PJ, II.5, p. 159). 24. This critique of property rights, combined with other reflections about the benefits of material equality, leads Godwin to praise Plato: “It might be amusing to some readers, to recollect the authorities, if the citation of authorities were a proper mode of reasoning, by which the system of accumulated property is openly attacked. The best known is Plato in his treatise of a Republic.  .  .  . It

258

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would be trifl ing to object that the systems of Plato and others are full of imperfections. This rather strengthens their authority; since the evidence of the truth they maintained was so great, as still to preserve its hold on their understandings, even though they knew not how to remove the difficulties that attended it” (PJ, VIII.3, p. 459n.). 25. Godwin asserts that “few things have contributed more to undermine the energy and virtue of the human species, as the supposition that we have a right, as it has been phrased, to do what we want with our own” (PJ, II.5, p. 161). 26. This image is a striking departure from the common ruler-as-parent trope. Here citizens are not being compared to children but to parents who delegate their caring responsibilities to other adults better able to perform them. 27. This is closely related to Godwin’s belief that human beings are better able to meet one another’s needs when they interact on a smaller scale: “If we contemplate the human powers, whether of body or mind, we shall fi nd them much better suited, to the superintendence of our private concerns, and to the administering occasional assistance to others, than to the accepting the formal trust, of superintending the affairs, and watching for the happiness of millions” (PJ, V.2, p. 7). 28. “With what delight must every well informed friend of mankind look forward, to the auspicious period, the dissolution of political government, of that brute engine, which has been only the perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and which . . . has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated with its substance, and no otherwise removable than by its utter annihilation!” (PJ, V.24, p. 212). 29. “Every thing that is usually understood by the term cooperation is, in some degree, an evil” (PJ, VIII.8, p. 501). 30. Godwin was mocked by some of his contemporaries for countenancing the possibility of a fully automated plow that performed its work “without the need of superintendence” (PJ, VIII.8, p. 503). The notion hardly seems so absurd today. 31. At times, Godwin takes his objections to cooperation to ridiculous extremes: Shall we have concerts of music? The miserable state of mechanism of the majority of the performers, is so conspicuous, as to be, even at this day, a topic of mortification and ridicule. Will it not be practicable hereafter for one man to perform the whole? Shall we have theatrical exhibitions? This seems to include an absurd and vicious cooperation.  .  .  . All formal repetition of other men’s ideas, seems to be a scheme for imprisoning, for so long a time, the operations of our own mind. (PJ, VIII.8, p. 504) 32. Joshua Miller (2012) develops an understanding of conversation as a form of democratic political care based in a reading of Plato’s Gorgias. While I do not

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believe Gorgias’s argument is as democratic and noncoercive as Miller suggests, I think the conception he develops of conversation as a form of care is one Godwin shares to significant degree. 33. Godwin argues that the capacity to serve others is not sustainable unless it is balanced by self- care in the form of solitude and leisure. This anticipates conversations now taking place among activists striving to balance social and political engagement with the need to avoid depression and burnout. 34. Here I follow scholars such as Schwarzenbach (2009, pp. 210–11) in rejecting the mother/child relationship as paradigmatic for politics.

Conclusion 1. This resembles Engster’s (2007) argument in favor of a civic obligation to provide care. 2. Rousseau refers to this longing as the desire for extension, and Plato identifies it as a component of erôs. 3. Though Plato and Rousseau agree that domination is bad for the dominator, they differ as to why. Plato stresses the fact that carelessly indulging one’s desires tends to multiply them; therefore, forcing others to follow one’s whims is incompatible with the degree of self-mastery an excellent life requires. Furthermore, dominated beings are incapable of greatness and therefore cannot help the dominator perpetuate him- or herself in a lasting way. Rousseau, by contrast, places a greater emphasis on the fact that domination precludes satisfying affective ties to others. Though Plato does acknowledge that wickedness has the severe downside of cutting one off from good company and good conversation, Rousseau goes further, emphasizing the importance of conscience and of love and affection between intimate relations. Another way in which they differ is that whereas Plato claims that the tyrant does not do what he wants because his desires overmaster him, Rousseau claims that the tyrant does not do what he wants because he is dependent upon caregivers, such as servants and ministers, and is therefore vulnerable to their manipulations. The most significant consequence of these differences is that Plato’s account leaves open the possibility of a good tyrant who obeys his reason rather than his desires, and Rousseau’s denies that this is possible. 4. Of course, their views are certainly not identical. For instance, Rousseau’s praise of intellectual virtue is qualified by his conviction that the arts and sciences can be corrupting, a worry which troubles Plato less and Godwin not at all. And Plato restricts opportunities for the full cultivation of intellectual virtues to a few, whereas Godwin wants them to be universally accessible. 5. I would not insist that Rousseau’s assessment of the relative demands of parenting and governing is accurate, but I believe the general point that different tasks require different character traits is correct.

260

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6. The reason Godwin embraces anarchism is not because government lacks a comprehensive responsibility but because he believes that there is very little political authority can do to help citizens and much it can do to harm them. 7. On the debate within the care ethics literature, see Tronto (2013), p. 162; for the capabilities approach itself, see Nussbaum (2000) and Sen (1989). 8. As I am convinced that many liberal and democratic protections are essential for good political care, I side with Tronto (1993, 2013) rather than Engster, whose vision of political care is comparatively indifferent to regime-type (2007, p. 93). 9. I phrase this cautiously because there are certainly cases where deprivation enables new political coalitions between previously antagonistic groups. In the United States, the alliance between poor blacks and whites in the 1890s Populist movement and its subsequent failure in the face of enduring antiblack racism exhibits both sides of this dynamic. 10. In emphasizing that care can be fulfi lling, I do not wish to deny that caring labor is often burdensome. Nor do I endorse the notion that care “ought to be its own reward,” which is sometimes proffered as an excuse for not compensating care workers fairly. My claim is merely that some kind and some amount of caregiving is an important component of the good life, as is true of “productive” labor as well. 11. This is not to say that others should be thought of as colonizable objects for an imperial self or to view them solely as means to one’s own ends. Selfregarding benefits cannot be the only motivation for activities that are truly caring, and someone who proceeds with that mentality is far more likely to dominate others than to help them.

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Index Aeschines, 230– 31n20 Affordable Care Act, 212n6 Alcibiades, 40, 223n34, 223n35, 223n36, 224n42, 230– 31n20 altruism (acts of care), 5 as crucial, 166 excessive, 141, 206– 7 moral action requires, 159– 60, 172, 252n26 as possible, 156, 157 Rousseau’s system and, 103–4, 111–12, 141 See also care/caring; caregiving ameleô, 41, 219n6 amour- prôpre/amour de soi, 99, 102, 103, 110, 113, 122, 124, 198 and domination, 128, 129, 133, 146 and erôs, 239–40n29 Godwin on, 151– 52, 251– 52n21 and philosophy, 120 anarchy, 148, 177– 89, 260n6 as care, 187– 89 See also government Andocides, 230n20 animals, 229n9, 239n25, 250n6 breeding of, 68– 69 education of, 158 freedom of, 92, 94 moral consideration of, 89, 207 as predatory, 150 See also humans appetites, 236– 237n10 bodily/material vs. higher, 33, 35– 36, 41, 78, 79, 151

controlling, 53, 56 dangers of excessive, 151 archê, 51 aretê, 221– 22n25 Aristotle, 13, 21, 31– 32, 211n3, 216–17n36 Politics, 9, 228– 29n9 Rousseau distinguished from, 97, 118 on slaves/slavery, 118, 136 on women’s role, 134, 217n37 Athenians gender roles of, 217n37, 232– 33n32 mythology of vs. Plato’s, 70 Plato/Socrates criticizes, 40–41, 64– 65, 66, 75, 224n40, 224n43 See also dêmos; humans atimia, 63 authority and caring (Godwin), 178– 79, 198 and caring (Plato), 52, 55– 56, 62, 229– 30n14 “epistocratic,” 57– 58, 61, 197 forcing, 57, 119 Godwin opposes, 179– 81 paternalistic, 80 Rousseau compared with, 85, 116– 21 and caring (Rousseau), 115–46, 181 Godwin opposes, 181– 85, 257n16 conventional vs. natural, 117 evils of, 120– 22, 128, 169– 77 forms of confidence, 170– 73, 179, 187, 189, 193, 199, 255n2 force, 119, 171– 72, 187 reason, 170– 71, 189

274 authority (continued) vs. happiness, 168, 178 natural, 117–19, 243n4 necessary Plato on, 52, 54– 55, 119 Rousseau on, 121 political, 120– 22, 124– 33, 179– 80, 202– 3, 244n17 vs. parental, 127– 28 women’s, 137– 38 See also government; magistrates; politics Barber, Benjamin R., 129 Beauty, Form of and virtue (Diotima on), 47–48 benevolence defi ned, 159– 60 tops Godwin’s hierarchy, 154– 57, 160 Bentham, Jeremy vs. Godwin on utilitarianism, 154– 57 Bloom, Allan, 29 on consent, 229n12 on philosophers, 47, 48, 94 Bubeck, Diemut Elisabeth, 77 Butler, Melissa A., 86 Caligula, 118 care, political, 23, 62– 83, 124–46, 178, 180– 85, 193, 218n40 actuates liberalism, 7– 8 deficit of “horizontal,” 6 “vertical,” 5– 6 goal(s) of, 14, 15, 62, 65, 67, 195 necessity for, 205– 7 opposition to, 4, 81, 203 philosophers and, 48– 50 rhetoric of, 6– 7 See also under Godwin, William; Plato; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques care/caring across history, 8–10, 19– 22, 203 of children, 100–102 (see also children; education) conversation and, 175– 77, 191 dangers of, 157– 68 etymology/semantics of concept, 18–19, 215–16n30 excessive, 161

index as feminine/low- status, 20, 85, 205 Godwin on, 25, 147–49 of humans, 12–14 (see also altruism; humans; men; women) of institutions, 15 language of, 16–17, 20– 21, 126– 27, 194 in Godwin, 157, 159 in Plato, 27– 31, 44, 46, 56, 62, 69, 73– 74, 220– 21n20 in Rousseau, 126– 27 liberalism of, 194– 208 medical, 221n22, 232n29, 233n39 in example, 11, 12, 14, 17, 23, 69, 78, 196, 202, 212–13n8, 213n16, 215n28, 216n35, 228n7 as metaphor, 28 in other languages, 30– 31, 84, 219n7, 235n2 natural vs. ethical, 214–15n24 nature’s for living things, 87– 99, 199 Godwin opposes, 150– 53 Plato on conception of, 30– 39 defi nes, 24 as lifelong need, 59 for others, 42–44, 45–48, 78 private prefigures public, 62– 63, 126– 27 of self, 29, 35, 40–42, 45, 53– 55, 59, 76– 79, 207, 223n35, 223– 24n37, 224n38, 224n40, 226n53 as a practice, 10–12 Rousseau on, 24– 25, 84– 87 and authority, 115–146, 199 and authority of men by women, 135– 39 private prefigures public, 109 (see also under Rousseau, Jean-Jacques) of self, 233– 34n40, 234n41 Foucault on, 39–40, 223n35, 224n40 Godwin on, 159– 60, 176, 191, 259n33 Rousseau on, 112, 236n9 values of, 15–16 See also care, political; care ethicists; care ethics; caregiving care ethicists, 145, 213n13, 214n21 on altruism, 141, 206– 7 on caregiving labor, 12, 77, 85 on family, 9

index goals of, 206– 7 on humans and nonhuman life, 207 on human well-being, 13, 201– 2 on liberalism, 147–48 on mothering, 191– 92 on nondomination, 145 and political support, 201– 2 and self- care, 77– 78 on societal involvement, 206, 225n46 See also individual names care ethics, 12, 213n13 components of, 15–16, 104, 143–46, 198– 99, 215n26 defi ned, 15 fight for, 208 and liberalism, 8– 9 and moral agency, 43–44, 215n27 See also care, political; care/caring; caregiving caregiving affects associated with, 16–17 agent vs. subject in, 140–41 defi ned, 12–16 equitable, 20 evolution of, 202– 3 importance of, 108, 195– 96, 205 and independence, 200 by men, 20– 21 (see also men) politics as, 27– 28 reservations about, 160– 68 rewards of, 111–12, 206 systematic, 197 teaching to children, 102– 3 virtues of, 16, 104, 200 See also care, political; care/caring; care ethics children, 152 care of, 100–102, 104, 106, 144 education of, 101– 2, 121, 124, 158, 164, 174, 204 responsibility of many, 163– 64 and eugenics, 232n28, 238n18 as parents’ raw material, 153 Rousseau gives up, 242n45 spoiled royal, 161, 169 See also education; tutors Christ, Matthew, 70 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 225n47 competence benevolence requires, 159– 60

275 and caregiving, 53 dêmos lacks, 60– 61 confidence authority of, 170– 73, 179, 180, 189, 190, 193, 199, 255n2 contemplation as highest concern, 47, 49, 50 Plato vs. Rousseau on, 120, 243–44n9 conversation, 229n11 as road to wisdom/virtue, 26, 173– 77, 189, 200 Crete government of Plato admires, 65 cura, 215–16n30 curo, 215–16n30 Daniels, Norman, 212–13n8 dêmiourgos, 34 democracy Athenian “hands- off” approach of, 64– 65 Plato objects to, 59– 60, 81, 230n18 drawbacks of, 81– 82 Godwin on, 186– 87 Rousseau and, 128– 29, 142, 145–46, 246n32 dêmos, 60– 61, 81– 82 as child of polis, 63– 64 power of, 59– 60 See also democracy Demosthenes on polis’s obligations toward oikoi, 63 dependence as undesirable, 101, 103, 161, 165, 167, 191, 246n28, 247n39, 248n47 See also independence d’Houdetot, Sophie, 107, 242n42 dialectic, philosophical as highest educational form, 67 purposes of, 222n28 See also philosophy Diotima on erôs and the good, 44–47 discussion. See conversation doctors authority of, 56, 69, 213n16, 229n10, 232n29 decision of good, 232n29 See also authority; care/caring: medical

276 dokimasia (formal review), 63 domestication as human plight, 91– 93, 200 Plato vs. Rousseau on, 243n7 domination care and, 138, 144–145 and domestication, 93 as evil, 86, 101–4, 107, 108, 120– 21, 141, 143–45 Plato fails to address, 83 Plato vs. Rousseau on, 259n3 preventing, 116–46, 199– 200 Duff, Brian, 86 education and care, 158 of Emile, 85, 99–114, 207 Godwin’s plan, 177 natural/domestic, 84– 85 as care, 98–108 as political, 108–14 public vs. domestic, 98– 99, 245n21 elitism in, 67, 75 excellent potential of, 198 of highest importance, 66 leads to successful society, 98, 126– 27, 204– 5, 245n22 Plato’s systems of, 67 Spartan, 109, 224n40, 224n44 of women, 135, 241n36 See also children; tutors educators. See tutors ektrephein, 225n50 elitism in education, 67, 75 Plato’s, 116–121 Romans’, 132 in Rousseau’s Social Contract, 128, 129– 32 See also epistocracy; philosophers Emile (Rousseau’s), 159, 237n14 education of, 85, 99–114, 207 as model of citizenship, 111–14 See also under Rousseau, Jean-Jacques empathy as virtue, 105– 6 Engster, Daniel, 8 on caregiving, 13, 78, 193, 213n15 on liberalism, 147–48

index epimeleia, 18, 30, 31– 32, 33, 219n6, 219n7, 219n9, 219n10, 224n41 epimeleomai, 18, 30, 31, 32, 33, 216n36, 219n6, 219n7, 219n9 epimelês, 18 epimelôs, 18 epistocracy, 57– 58, 61, 83, 197, 213n14 Godwin on, 180, 181, 186 Rousseau approaches Plato’s, 118–19, 131 See also authority; philosopher-king; philosophy; wisdom equality achieving human, 159 and education, 177 and freedom, 176– 77 (see also freedom) and independence, 177 in Magnesia, 66 between sexes, 22 equalization of humans, 159 equilibrium and the good, 93 and happiness, 89, 97– 98, 207, 240n32 and nature’s care, 89– 90 humans impede, 90– 91 required for human flourishing, 97– 98, 199 erôs, 76– 77, 239– 240n29 defi ned (Diotima), 44–47 Plato on, 49– 50, 227n61 Estlund, David M., 58, 213n14 ethics. See care ethicists eugenics in Plato, 67– 68, 69 in Rousseau, 238n18 expertise needed by authorities, 57– 58, 60, 229n14 Godwin eschews, 180 rejection of, 80, 82– 83 and self- care, 53– 54, 228n2 See also wisdom family authority within, 117, 118 caregiving from polis, 63– 65, 71– 72 within, 71, 74– 75, 112, 118, 166, 190– 91 extends beyond kinship, 70– 73, 110, 143, 254n38

index natural, 135, 247n39 patriarchal, 134– 35 prefigures political behavior, 62– 63, 109, 112, 126, 230– 31n20 and vice versa, 126, 206 and state analogies/differences between, 126– 28 See also children; fathers; mother; parents fathers, 216–17n36 domineering, 128 duties of, 104, 109, 121, 242n43 See also men; mother; women feminism, 85 on “natural” gender roles, 205 on Rousseau, 85– 86 Fénelon, Archbishop, 164 superior to valet, 162– 63 Filmer, Richard Patriarcha, 22 Fischer, Bernice, 11, 16 force authority of, 119, 171– 72, 187 government as, 187 Forms, Platonic, 37, 47–48, 222n30, 223n33 Foucault, Michel on care of self, 39–40, 223n35, 224n40, 227n1 “founding lawgiver,” 128 defi ned, 131 Fraser, Nancy, 5 freedom, 94, 111, 147–48, 190– 91 and amour- prôpre, 146 and education, 177 excessive, 60 excludes public office, 112–13 human from nature, 96– 97 and savage innocence, 92, 240n30 of subordinates, 141 and welfare state, 212–13n8 See also independence friendship, 254– 55n40 within family, 166– 67 See also neighbor “general will,” 110, 126, 127, 129 determined by majority vote, 129 and elitism, 129– 30, 132, 133

277 requires executive element, 130, 132, 133 See also magistrates Genlis, Madame de Godwin on, 158, 161, 169 Gilligan, Carol, 7, 20 God, 121– 22, 150 gods, ancient Greek care for cosmos/humans, 34, 35, 74, 119, 220n18 See also myths/mythology Godwin, William on conversation, 173– 76 on dangers of caring, 157– 68 on education, 158, 177 The Enquirer, 158, 252n25, 254n37, 255n1 Memoirs of the Author . . . , 165, 167 moral foundations of, 149– 57 Political Justice, 164, 165– 67, 170, 173, 181, 254n37 criticizes Social Contract, 181– 85 disagrees with Plato, 179– 81 on politics and care, 25, 147–49 St. Leon, 166– 67 Thoughts on Man, 167 good, the, 37, 153– 54 and caregiving, 44, 225n49 and equilibrium, 93 erôs as desire for, 44–45 humans and, 94, 158 justice and, 43–44 nature as, 88– 89 politics and, 146 government abolition of, 169, 185– 86, 188, 249n2, 258n28 fails as caregiver, 17, 180– 85 minimal necessary, 187– 88, 258n27 must rule by consent, 56– 57, 229n12 “natural,” 131– 32 and reason, 185 See also magistrates; politics; state, the guardians, 65– 67, 70, 73 of children and women, 54, 63, 72 of the laws, 72, 231– 232n27, 233n37 guérir, 235n3 happiness defi ned, 239n28

index

278 happiness (continued) depends on equilibrium, 89, 97– 98, 207, 240n32 fostering Godwin on, 159, 170, 178 Rousseau on, 106– 7, 114, 126 greatest of all, 162– 63, 196 as pleasure, 154 and reason, 171 requirements of human, 95, 96, 102, 167 Rousseau’s personal, 107– 8 See also good, the; pleasure Harbour, David Michael on “contented slave,” 144 health care, 212–13n8 as basic right, 81 See also care/caring: medical; doctors Held, Virginia, 14 Hirschmann, Nancy, 85– 86 history, intellectual and theorizing care, 8–10, 20– 21 Hobbes, Thomas, 153, 249n4, 257n22 humans (ancient Greek) gods care for, 34– 35 components of, 151 develop dynamically, 34– 35, 41–42, 45–46 needs vs. wants of, 12–14, 151 perfectibility of, 94– 95 See also children; men; women hupêretikê, 219– 20n12 illiberalism threat of, 6, 7 See also liberalism immortality, 45 independence freedom and, 147–48, 240n30, 241n39 Godwin on, 148, 161– 62, 163, 167, 191– 93, 200, 201, 207 Rousseau on, 87, 100–101, 108, 133, 167– 68, 241n39, 243n6 from father, 118 of subordinate sovereigns, 141 See also freedom intellect pursuits involving, 97– 98, 176, 251n18, 259n4 See also education; epistocracy; philosophers; wisdom

interdependence among neighbors, 164, 201 (see also neighbor) and education, 121 and independence, 101, 192, 194– 95, 241n39 and political authority, 125 and well-being, 76 See also dependence; independence intimacy, human, 192 inevitable, 165– 67 mars impartiality, 162 public behavior and, 206 wisdom and, 165 See also family Joose, Albert, 52– 53 justice, 110 and the good, 43–44 and happiness, 154 impartiality of, 163 Kallipolis, 66, 70, 225n45 peacekeeping in, 232n31 virtue and education in, 67 Kant, Immanuel, 215n27, 225n46 Krause, Sharon, 241n39 kurios, 62– 63 kûros, 51 laborers education of, 67 in Godwin’s hierarchy, 155 See also slaves/slavery laws Plato looks to embody wisdom in, 61, 180– 81 Godwin disagrees, 181 sometimes inadequate, 57– 58, 180, 239n24 See also under Plato left wing, political frame moral politics, 5 liberalism, 193 of care, 8, 194– 208 contemporary Plato’s thought challenges, 76– 81 criticized, 147–48 defi ned, 2– 3, 211n2 feminists criticize, 190

index importance of, 8 minimal, 3–4, 148 radical and care, 25, 147–49 See also care, political; politics libertarianism beliefs of, 22 and right-wing thought, 4 Lidz, Joel Warren, 43 life attaining the good, 157– 58, 166 human vs. nonhuman, 207 humans’ love of, 152 Rousseau on actualized, 96– 97, 107– 8 balance needed in, 97– 98 as exemplar, 113 See also good, the Locke, John, 217n39, 257n22 Essay on Toleration, 217n38 and minimal liberalism, 3 Two Treatises of Government, 22 love of self (see amour- prôpre) See also erôs magistrates, 124 as elected next-bests to philosopherkings, 61 must disguise power, 121, 123– 24, 131– 32, 142–43 and population control, 68 responsibilities of, 126– 27, 131– 32 Magnesia criminal justice in, 68– 69 provides for all citizens, 65– 66, 231n24, 233n37 virtue and education in, 66 See also Kallipolis; Plato; Socrates manipulation by lawgivers, 181– 82 by women, 136– 37 See also under magistrates Marks, Jonathan, 96 marriage Godwin and modifies traditional, 163, 167 rejects, 165– 66 maternalism Godwin and, 191– 92 See also family; mother

279 meledêma, 18 melêma, 18 meletaô, 45, 219n6 meletê, 18, 37, 45 melô, 18, 219n6, 224n41 Melzer, Arthur M. on the “new” philosopher, 93– 94 men as caregivers, 20– 21, 22, 86– 87, 205, 216n34, 216n35 and “natural” authority, 117–18 role of in society, 85– 86 women and compared with, 138, 248n46, 248n47 equals to/rulers of, 136– 37 subordinate to, 135– 36, 205, 232– 33n32 See also women Mill, John Stuart compared with Godwin, 25, 203 See also utilitarianism misogyny Aristotle’s, 248n45 in Plato, 42 Rousseau’s, 85, 140 See also women morality caring, 149– 60, 195– 96 defi ned, 154, 156– 57, 165 and happiness, 154, 156– 57 See also care/caring; care ethics mother(s) care of children by, 102, 104, 163, 191, 238– 39n23 duties of, 22, 85, 104 fatherland as, 126, 244–45n20 nature and, 238– 39 nature as, 88, 236n6 as tutors of children, 137 See also children; family; fathers; men; women motion natural, 88 Timaeus (Plato) on, 221n22, 228n4 myths/mythology false, 74– 75 Plato/Socrates’s, 34, 35, 72– 74, 119, 220n18, 243n7 Athenians’ vs., 70 of the cave, 37, 222n30, 226n56

280 myths/mythology (continued) Rousseau’s, 244n11, 245n25 See also gods, ancient Greek; Kallipolis; Magnesia nature cares for living things, 87– 99, 199– 200, 236n8 Godwin opposes, 149– 50, 153, 252n23 humans impede, 90– 91, 207, 238n19 goodness of Plato vs. Rousseau on, 119 as habit, 235– 36n5 limitations of following, 151– 52 neighbor as optimum association, 166, 187– 88, 191– 92, 200 paradigmatic, 164 neoliberalism, 7, 211–12n4 Noddings, Nel, 78, 192, 214–15n24 nondomination, 145 nourrir, 235n3 Nussbaum, Martha, 13 Ober, Josiah, 55, 223n33 oikos, 63 Okin, Susan Moller, 136, 139, 247n34 optimism Godwin’s, 249– 50n5 parents and children, 71, 167 See also fathers; men; mother; women Pateman, Carole, 136 paternalism, political, 125– 26, 217n38 vs. autonomy, 83 perils of, 80 patriarchy, 7, 20 Rousseau defends, 134– 36, 140 See also men; women pederasty, 42, 71 perfectionism, 211n3 Pericles, 33, 219n11 persuasion limits of for caring, 55, 229n11 Pettit, Philip on domination, 143–44 philia/philô, 219n10 philosopher-kings, 61, 116–17, 120, 198 Godwin rejects, 179

index See also authority; Plato philosophers and erôs, 49– 50 in Godwin’s hierarchy, 155 not always wise, 37, 222n29 as point of perfection, 38, 67, 231– 32n27 and politics, 48–49 as rulers, 48– 50, 60– 61, 161, 226n56, 226– 27n57, 230n17 incompetent, 120 as uniquely competent, 116–19, 161 too focused on wisdom, 47 philosophy and care for souls, 37– 38 dangers of, 74– 75 Foucault on, 39 moral strengths of, 190– 93 weaknesses of, 189– 90 virtues of, 37– 38, 222n30 pity as ephemeral, 152– 53 nature imparts, 89– 90, 152, 198, 237n13 as negative, 103 plants Rousseau on, 92, 235– 236n5, 237n12 See also animals; nature Plato Alcibiades I, 40, 219n9, 219n11, 227n1, 228n5 Apology, 40, 42, 223n35, 223– 24n37 on care citizens’ collective, 70, 76– 77 concept of, 30– 39 criticized, 75– 83 defi nes, 23– 24 differs with Rousseau, 87– 99 family relations and, 70– 71 language of, 27– 31 See also under care/caring censorship in, 74 Charmides, 227n61 egalitarianism of, 22 and elitism in authority, 116– 21 in education, 67, 75 eugenics in, 67– 68 Euthyphro, 32, 219– 20n12 Gorgias, 27, 31, 33, 56, 219n11 Laches, 223n35

index Laws, 27, 33, 34, 36– 37, 42, 56– 58, 61 Athenian Stranger in, 34, 36, 51– 52, 57, 64– 75, 221n23, 217n37 on democracy, 230n18 on dialectic, 222n28 Godwin disagrees with, 179– 81 on parents’ conduct, 66 on property, 73 Lysis, 53– 54 Menexenus, 33, 220n15 Phaedo, 223n35 Phaedrus, 34, 36, 227n61 on “politics,” 218–19n5 Protagoras, 224n44, 228n3 Republic, 29, 34, 36– 37, 42, 44, 49– 50, 51, 54– 57, 61, 64– 75, 179– 80, 232n29 regulates gymnastics and food, 66 Rousseau criticizes, 112, 116– 21 Seventh Letter, 50, 225n48 Statesman, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 57, 64, 228n5, 231n22 Eleatic Stranger in, 55, 56, 64, 220n17 Symposium, 222n29, 223n32, 223n34 Diotima on caring in, 45–47 Timaeus, 33, 36– 37, 220n16 See also philosophy; Socrates pleasure all alike, 60 as happiness, 154 hierarchy of, 60, 155, 251n18, 252n22 human love of, 152 humans’ desire for moral, 154, 155, 196 as only good, 160, 253n30 and sensation, 152, 236– 37n10 in solitude, 107– 8, 161– 62 See also altruism; good, the; happiness polis care of dêmos, 63– 75, 225n45, 244–45n20 See also government; politics politeia defi ned, 59 political art as architectonic, 64 politics as anarchic, 26 and care, 197 Plato on, 24, 27– 28, 50, 64, 227n59 Rousseau on, 24– 25, 124–46 and education, 109–14 and expertise, 180

281 women excluded from, 145–46 See also care, political; government; magistrates populism as current backlash, 6– 7 power. See authority; domination property, personal, 44, 73, 185, 225n47 pursuits, intellectual good for a few, 97 See also education; intellect; virtue: intellectual Rawls, John, 4, 13, 81 Raz, Joseph, 218n3 reason authority of, 185 Godwin vs. Plato on, 171 and truth, 173– 74 natural to humans, 151, 189– 90 soul uses, 36 reproduction and care, 46–47, 225n51 political management of, 67– 68 as propagation, 166 and self, 45–46 responsibility to help others, 159– 60, 164– 65 importance of teaching, 104– 5 and marriage, 166 Richards, David, 20 rights absence of natural/property, 184– 85 active vs. passive, 170 liberalism and, 202– 3 right wing, political and minimal liberalism, 4, 203–4, 207– 8 Riley, Patrick, 129 Romans, ancient emulation of, 103, 111, 113, 132, 242n49 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques on care, 22, 84– 87 Confessions, 242n45 Discourse on Political Economy, 98, 124–46 Émile, 24, 84– 85, 91, 98–14, 139–40, 238n18 Geneva Manuscript, 240n30 Government of Poland, 245n21 Letters Written from the Mountain, 242–43n1

282 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (continued) “Plan for a Constitution for Corsica,” 131 Political Economy, 245n21 and politics, 24– 25 Second Discourse, 97, 134, 237n13 Social Contract, 96– 97, 98, 109, 121– 22, 124–46, 182 Godwin criticizes, 182– 85 transcends boundaries, 112 on women, 85, 133–43 “On Women,” 134 See also under care/caring; education; Emile Ruddick, Sara, 13, 78 Schwarzenbach, Sibyl, 9, 31– 32 Sen, Amartya, 13 sexism and care, 9, 20, 22 Rousseau’s, 85– 86, 249n53 See also women Shklar, Judith, 3, 7, 109, 137 slaves/slavery, 71, 99, 102, 136 Aristotle on, 56, 118, 136, 228– 29n9 “contented,” 144, 253n31 Godwin on, 253n31 Plato and, 54– 56, 228n5, 228n6, 231n26 Rousseau on, 123, 144 women as, 21, 136, 247n37, 247n41, 247– 48n42, 248–49n49 s’occuper de, 235n3 Socrates, 28, 33, 34, 36, 65, 68, 219n11 as caregiver, 48, 226n53 inadequacy of, 55 lies to Kallipolis citizens, 73 vs. Plato, 29 on self- care, 39–41 See also Plato soigner, 18, 84, 235n2 soin, 18, 84, 216n33, 241n37 solitude pleasure in Godwin’s, 161– 62 Rousseau’s, 107– 8 sollicitude, 18, 19 Sophie, 103, 108 consigned to unequal role, 85, 241n36 See also Emile souci, 18

index soucier, 18 soul Athenians neglect, 40–41 care and, 34, 36, 221n23 concern with citizens’, 67 philosophy and, 37– 38 Plato/Socrates on, 220n16 and reason, 36 and reproduction, 46–47 sovereignty, popular. See democracy; “general will”; sovereignty, subordinate sovereignty, subordinate Rousseau on, 25, 85 defi ned, 85, 123 politics of, 124–46, 198, 242–43n1 women and, 137, 140 Sparta citizenship in as model, 113–14 and education, 109, 111–12 government of, 65, 231n25 women in, 137, 248n45 as xenophobic, 112 state, the and family, 20– 22, 126– 28 intervention by, 202– 3 responsibilities of, 127 women as crucial to, 139 See also government; magistrates; polis; politics storgê/stergô, 219n10 Strauss, Leo, 29 on philosophers, 47, 48, 49 Strong, Tracy, 94 sunektrephô, 225n50 teachers. See tutors therapeia, 30, 32, 33, 219n10 therapeuein, 27, 233n35 therapeuô, 30, 31, 32, 33, 216n36, 219n7, 235n2 threpsamenô, 225n50 Thucydides on Pericles, 33, 64 trephô, 31, 33, 216n36, 225n50 Trivigno, Franco, 220n15 Tronto, Joan, 8, 9, 11, 14, 16, 81, 82, 193 list of care virtues, 104 on self- care, 233– 34n40 trophê, 31, 33

index Trump, Donald “caring” language of, 6– 7, 213n10 truth(s) reason and, 189 theoretical and practical, 173– 74 tutors, 117, 177 authority of, 121– 22 duties of, 100–113, 124 wives as, 137 utilitarianism Godwin’s, 149, 154, 251n16 vs. Bentham on, 154– 57 liberal, 203 utopia(s) Godwin’s, 188– 89 in Plato, 27, 35, 66, 75, 119 in Rousseau, 113 See also Kallipolis; Magnesia Villa, Dana, 52 virtue(s), 214n23, 222n27 care ethic and, 15–16, 104, 214n23 defi ned, 156 “ethical,” 36, 221n24 goal of education, 101, 104, 241n41 and happiness, 156, 165 impartiality as, 254n37 intellectual, 36– 37, 222n27 ruler requires, 40, 228n7 wisdom and, 38 Ward, Lizzie, 234 Weiss, Roslyn, 219– 20n12, 226n54 well-being, human care and, 196, 206

283 and happiness, 96 nature and, 95 responsibility for others’, 156– 57 state responsible for, 127 See also care; happiness; pleasure Whigs, seventeenth century on paternalism, 217n38 Wingrove, Elizabeth, 139 wisdom as ambiguous, 223n33 deference to, 172– 73 and government, 133– 34, 179– 81, 245n26 needed in, 57, 169, 197 and ruling, 118– 20, 145, 243n6 and virtue, 38 See also epistocracy; expertise; philosopher-kings; philosophers Wollstonecraft, Mary married to Godwin, 253– 54n35 women Aristotle on, 134 Plato on, 42–43, 66, 78– 79, 224n39, 232– 33n32 role of evolved, 20– 21 Rousseau on, 85, 217n37, 247 and care, 133–43 as equal to men, 247n36 power of over men, 136– 38, 247n34 See also family; men; misogyny Wood, Gordon, 217n38 xenophobia counteracts political care, 6, 203–4, 208 Rousseau on, 112, 240–41n34 Xenophon, 216n36, 217n37