These three "abiding principles" — empathy, liberty, equality — are defined and refined in relation to each other. Even so, empathy is the historical key. Nothing that has a history can be comprehended without examining its history, imbedding it ultimately in History Writ Large.
Humans differ from animals in our advancing capacity to "stand in each other's shoes" and see the world from others' perspectives. This is the essence of our "theory of mind": I recognize that you recognize that we both know that humans, empathetic beings, think this way. Through the advance of empathy, our forebears discovered — and we and our offspring must continue to explore — a sequence of deepest insights:
1. Who would not be a slave should not be a master of slaves.
2. Who would enjoy equal rights and opportunities must uphold them for all.
3. Where the rights or freedoms of one are trampled, the freedoms of all are imperiled.
Our capacity for empathy undergirds our determination to have the "blessings of liberty" apply equally to all sane adults; accordingly, as suggested at the onset, we accept only equal restrictions upon our liberties; hence, we ordain and establish constitutional democracies upholding equal justice under law.
***
These abiding or changeless values guide us as the stars guided the ancient Greek helmsman, the kubernetes or governor. But good governance based on abiding values like equal justice requires more.
First, it requires an honest recognition that, while equal justice — isonomia — has ancient origins, it is an "abiding value" that abides only tenuously. It is little understood and less applied in too many situations and regions, worldwide. It is not something that one "gets" and then "has" ... and can therefore relax with, secure in its eternal embrace. No, it must be fought for and won, time and again, generation after generation. The same is true also of constitutional democracy.
Second, like all abiding values, implanting and implementing equal justice requires deep understanding of what, for lack of a better phrase, we shall call the art of governance.
Socrates, according to Plato's Georgias, first proposed the metaphor of the kubernetes and the art of "governance" (which is an English word originating with that Greek word). In doing so, Socrates was addressing a — perhaps the — key preoccupation of the Sophists (of whom he was the greatest, though Plato despised the Sophists; this website will delve into that fascinating story in due course; it provides one of the most powerful instances of the Ecology of Mind at work ... when the dew was fresh upon the leaf of thought, the sapling tree of government). These Sophists, teachers of virtue and persuasion, sought to integrate knowledge of the changeless, the naturally changing, and the humanly changeable, with a view to making the first two "instruct" the third, thereby inducing impeccable choice, will, and action: areté.
These three "abiding principles" — empathy, liberty, equality — are defined and refined in relation to each other. Even so, empathy is the historical key. Nothing that has a history can be comprehended without examining its history, imbedding it ultimately in History Writ Large.Humans differ from animals in our advancing capacity to "stand in each other's shoes" and see the world from others' perspectives. This is the essence of our "theory of mind": I recognize that you recognize that we both know that humans, empathetic beings, think this way. Through the advance of empathy, our forebears discovered — and we and our offspring must continue to explore — a sequence of deepest insights:1. Who would not be a slave should not be a master of slaves.2. Who would enjoy equal rights and opportunities must uphold them for all.3. Where the rights or freedoms of one are trampled, the freedoms of all are imperiled.Our capacity for empathy undergirds our determination to have the "blessings of liberty" apply equally to all sane adults; accordingly, as suggested at the onset, we accept only equal restrictions upon our liberties; hence, we ordain and establish constitutional democracies upholding equal justice under law.***These abiding or changeless values guide us as the stars guided the ancient Greek helmsman, the kubernetes or governor. But good governance based on abiding values like equal justice requires more.First, it requires an honest recognition that, while equal justice — isonomia — has ancient origins, it is an "abiding value" that abides only tenuously. It is little understood and less applied in too many situations and regions, worldwide. It is not something that one "gets" and then "has" ... and can therefore relax with, secure in its eternal embrace. No, it must be fought for and won, time and again, generation after generation. The same is true also of constitutional democracy.Second, like all abiding values, implanting and implementing equal justice requires deep understanding of what, for lack of a better phrase, we shall call the art of governance.Socrates, according to Plato's Georgias, first proposed the metaphor of the kubernetes and the art of "governance" (which is an English word originating with that Greek word). In doing so, Socrates was addressing a — perhaps the — key preoccupation of the Sophists (of whom he was the greatest, though Plato despised the Sophists; this website will delve into that fascinating story in due course; it provides one of the most powerful instances of the Ecology of Mind at work ... when the dew was fresh upon the leaf of thought, the sapling tree of government). These Sophists, teachers of virtue and persuasion, sought to integrate knowledge of the changeless, the naturally changing, and the humanly changeable, with a view to making the first two "instruct" the third, thereby inducing impeccable choice, will, and action: areté.
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