Pious Warriors: Thucydides’ Account of the Spartans
Under contract with Political Animal Press. Forthcoming in late Fall 2023.
This book provides a detailed account of Sparta, Athens’ antagonist, in Thucydides’ War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. Currently, there is no book length treatment of Thucydides’ presentation and analysis of Sparta. I argue, however, that focusing on Sparta offers key insights into the war, into Thucydides’ fundamental themes, and thus into his account of political and human life.
Isolationist Sparta decries imperialist Athens as unjust and while the Athenians imply this is merely “hypocrisy,” I contend the Spartans’ moral objections to empire and the impending war reveal their genuine understanding of politics, rooted as it is in their traditional laws and law-abidingness, religious convictions, and strong sense of moral propriety. The Athenian accusation of hypocrisy implies all politics is animated by self-interest and any claim to the contrary is mere pretext. But this Athenian view of “power politics” is neither stated nor supported by Sparta and its allies.
In turbulent times such as ours, when citizens declare fellow citizens as enemies and when hypocrisy is a daily accusation found in political discourse, studying both morality and political knowledge, the effects of the former and what we may expect from the latter, is timely and necessary. Thucydides’ Spartans are remarkably un-Athenian, and I argue, therefore, un-modern as well.
Thucydides, in declaring his work a possession for all time, offers compelling insights into the deeper psychology of morality and its effects on political decision-making, policies, and actions especially during the necessities of war, when we would most likely expect morality to be abandoned for calculated self-interest.
Sparta’s declaration to liberate Athens’ subject cities is the foundation of their war effort, and rather than being a hypocritical veil, Thucydides himself presents this declaration (as well as moral expectations of human beings in general) as genuine, even if, and sometimes precisely when, they are neither acknowledged nor noticed. Apparent hypocrisy for Thucydides has deeper roots in what he calls “the human condition” and studying the Spartan offers clarity on this key element of his political psychology.
As I present it, Sparta is the moral city. It is Spartan nomoi — the peculiar and notable laws and customs of their city — that form their citizens’ character in ways the Athenians fail to comprehend. While the Athenians thus repeatedly declare what they take to be the truths of human nature, particularly the exculpatory nature of necessity and therefore a rejection of justice, genuine belief in justice, its strength and demands, weighs heavily on the Spartans affecting both their strategic decisions and handling, and thus the trajectory, of the Peloponnesian War.
This book, therefore, clarifies Sparta’s approach and conduct in the war, as well a “Spartan” moral psychology. This will challenge scholarly interpretations that misunderstand Thucydides by reducing Spartan psychology to the views stated by the prominent Athenian speakers as if they are simply Thucydides’ own. Detailing the pious Spartans, as a foil to the daring Athenians, sheds important light on perplexities arising during the war that “realist” accounts are unable to solve.
The Moral Foundations of Political Trust: Thucydides’ Pericles and the Limits of Enlightened Statecraft
Published in Anamnesis: A Journal for the Study of Tradition, Place, and ‘Things Divine’. No. 5. 2016.
This paper argues that, according to Thucydides, three of Pericles’s chief initiatives preceding the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War—his emphasis on sea power and the “navalization” of Athens, his consolidation of the populace behind Athens’s walls, and his program of enlightened rhetoric—contributed to the deterioration of domestic stability in Athens. Although Pericles believed that his justification for going to war and his strategy for fighting it were rational, he misjudged the character of Athenian “progressiveness,” and his attempt to alter the basis of Athenian morality led to a confusion that weakened public trust and respect for the law.
Thucydides uses Pericles to identify the risks and costs of attempting to replace traditional sources of civic identity and public trust with a rationalistic appeal to self-interest. In this way, Thucydides’s presentation of Pericles offers valuable insight into the nature of political trust, its moral foundations, and the possibilities and limits of so-called enlightened statesmanship. We believe, therefore, that Thucydides’s voice should be added to current discussions of political trust and the role of emotion in politics, especially since he offers powerful reasons to believe that trust is rooted principally in pre-political moral phenomena, not, as certain theorists argue, in institutions or public deliberation.
Socrates’ Motives and Human Wisdom in Plato’s Theages
Book chapter in Socrates in the Cave: On the Philosopher’s Motive in Plato. 2019. Editors: Paul J. Diduch and Michael P. Harding. Part of Palgrave Macmillian’s “Recovering Political Philosophy” series (https://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14517).
From the editors:
“This book addresses the problem of fully explaining Socrates’ motives for philosophic interlocution in Plato’s dialogues. Why, for instance, does Socrates talk to many philosophically immature and seemingly incapable interlocutors? Are his motives in these cases moral, prudential, erotic, pedagogic, or intellectual? In any one case, can Socrates’ reasons for engaging an unlikely interlocutor be explained fully on the grounds of intellectual self-interest (i.e., the promise of advancing his own wisdom)? Or does his activity, including his self-presentation and staging of his death, require additional motives for adequate explanation? Finally, how, if at all, does our conception of Socrates’ motives help illuminate our understanding of the life of reason as Plato presents it? By inviting a multitude of authors to contribute their thoughts on these question—all of whom share a commitment to close reading, but by no means agree on the meaning of Plato’s dialogues—this book provides the reader with an excellent map of the terrain of these problems and aims to help the student of Plato clarify the tensions involved, showing especially how each major stance on Socrates entails problematic assumptions that prompt further critical reflection.”