This book is an interesting extended thought-experiment, on the whole rather successful. In the preface M. summarises his main claim, that ‘the fictional, utopian polis of Magnesia is in fact practical’ (p. ix). In Chapter 1, M. sets out to appraise the practicability of Plato's Magnesia by situating it in the contemporary Greek context. He shows how Plato's city in the Laws could, if implemented as planned, exist in reality. It had as much potential for succeeding as any colony of Plato's era, if indeed not more. Nevertheless, the Athenian gives Magnesia some definitely alien customs, some of which border on the mythical, and this is why M. surmises it is placed geographically nowhere near Athens.
Chapter 2 is a thorough discussion of the economics of Magnesia. M. presents Plato's city as a highly sophisticated welfare state, with a workable economy, geared towards self-sufficiency but specifically not towards expansion, based on a ‘two-tiered currency’ system (pp. 28ff.), with one currency valid only inside the city and another for foreign trade. M. shows how such a system can be workable within the special Magnesian framework. The chapter includes a lengthy discussion of the number of inhabitants in Magnesia. After considering the probable additional number of women, children, metics and slaves, M. reaches a hypothetical total in the order of 200,000, somewhat less than Athens or Sparta at the time, hence large, but not excessively so.
Chapter 3 deals with the special questions of the military and the status of women. With all its innovations on the status of women, Magnesia is still very patriarchal, albeit less so than Athens; in fact, it may be fairly described as a paternalistic household writ large, and relations between parents and children (i.e. elder and younger) are carefully delineated. There will probably, however, be women in higher positions, although Plato is silent on this; but they will certainly be in military service, with limitations, if they so wish. Nevertheless, their role in society will, as a rule, be dependent on their maternal role. But a military career would be open to those not required (or no longer required) to bear children. Very pointedly, Plato compares his women to the Amazons and the Sauromatians. On the whole, Plato's programme demands a great degree of equality and socio-economical reform.
Chapter 4 deals with the legal system of Magnesia. Its main innovation is its non-retributive, even anti-retributive character. There is no retributive justice except in very well-determined instances, as, for example, homicide and damage to the state as a whole. M. rightly stresses the importance of the education of the character as the main goal of Plato's penology. But he fails to stress that it cannot go beyond the nurture of a political or demotic aretê, which, however adequate and even necessary for the good functioning of the city, is insufficient for real eudaimonia, as stressed in the final myth of the Republic. M. characterises Plato's penology as aimed at curing those who can be reformed and improved, replacing bad psychical traits with good ones. But it also aims at deterring wrongdoers and, if necessary, at removing negative influences from the polis, in extreme cases, by the death penalty. In order to educate citizens into virtue, Magnesia's legal system ‘will tailor punishments appropriate to each individual and their crimes’ (p. 61). A system of this kind would require a thorough knowledge of the psychology of each individual. The Institute of Correction (sophronisterion) too is mainly reformative in nature and as such is a marked advance on Athenian and Greek institutions. Such a system might work, but it would require deep changes to society at every level, and this is what Plato does in the Laws. M.'s analysis of the legal system of Magnesia is quite thorough, but I feel the lack of reference to M.M. McCabe's and K. Schöpsdau's various works on the subject. M. does not deal with the important question of the problem of determinism and punishment in the penal conception of the Laws: again, the book could profit from a discussion of Schöpsdau's work. Another issue left untouched is the import of Plato's surprising and unsupported conjunction of justice and pleasure.
Chapter 5 surveys the Magnesian polity. Magnesia is undeniably an authoritarian state (not quite like the Soviet Union or post-revolutionary Iran), ruled by a secretive council, but its autocracy is moderated by some sort of participating democracy with a lively political culture. ‘It is nowhere near as militaristic as Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia’ (p. 85).
This reader would have liked a more serious consideration of the relation of the Laws to the Republic. M. thinks that ‘Magnesia may become more like Kallipolis over time’ (p. 15). But it is doubtful whether the state of the Republic is an extrapolation of a feasible constitution rather than a standard by which actual states (including Magnesia) are to be measured, and hence is of a different order altogether, existing only ‘in the heavens’. Thus, according to M.'s view, the members of the Vigilance Committee (synlogos nukterinos) will have been inducted into the inner core of philosophy. But given Plato's view about the near-impossibility of attaining the vision of the Good, and seeing that the state of the Laws is expressly the second-best state because there are no philosophers to lead it, not even the two conversants with the Athenian, I doubt this could be the case. In a state ruled by philosophers, there would be no need of laws. What the members of the council are called upon to achieve at 966a5–10 is not full philosophical understanding of the Beautiful and the Good, but some measure of insight into unity within plurality. They are enjoined to study the divine heavenly movements precisely because this is the closest they can approximate, within the material realm, to the immutability and complex unity of the Platonic ideas.
M. acknowledges that ‘the nukterinos council does not function in precisely the same capacity as the philosopher kings/queens of the Republic’ (p. 93). In Magnesia, law is supreme, but is not perfect. But it should be noted that such imperfection is immanent in the very concept of law. No law can be perfect, because no law can suit the particular case. The law is always like the absent doctor's prescription of the Statement. Magnesia's laws are indeed grounded in eternal truth, as much as possible for the laws of a functioning state, but the philosophical vision they embody is not the vision of the members of the Council, but Plato's by the mouth of the Athenian.
M. shows us how much we can learn from the Laws, even today, beyond the plain dangers of dystopia, such as we have experienced them in the last century. In Chapter 6, he invites us to pay a visit to Magnesia, making it come to life before our eyes. Together with the commendable characteristics of that city, a degree of fear is unavoidable: every word is carefully guarded and every action is measured and self-conscious. It is the price Magnesians must pay for the social reconstruction meant to bring them as close as possible to political aretê.
This slim volume is a refreshing addition to the growing literature on Plato's last work.
