Dan Conway's decision to accept the majority decision and Socrates

[Alfonso Jones]

I was thinking about Dan Conway's response to the decision re "Dog Eat Dog" - - in accepting the will of the majority, in spite of it being unjust, etc...

It is strongly parallel to Socrates' decision to accept the death sentence from the Athenians.

I was wondering - - - does anyone know if Rand ever commented about the parallelism? Deliberate?

Bill P

[Alfonso Jones]

Rand referred to Socrates' decision in a letter she wrote to Isabel Paterson:

Now, more of your points: as a denunciation of my kind of rationality and of the general weakness of the syllogism, you write: "Plato reports Socrates as saying that t

he community, the City, had a right to take his life, even unjustly, because the City was the same as his parents. There is the assumption first that parents actually have a right to take the life of their child for no cause and second that the collective is the same thing as a natural parent. Neither is true."

That's right, neither is true. But how are you going to prove that it isn't true? By rational argument? Or by the fiat of revelation? If this last, Plato can well say that his revelation tells him it's true—and that's that. In fact, that's just about what Plato did say. Or must we assume that there is no rational argument which could prove that parents have no right to the life of their child, and that the collective is not the same thing as natural <ltrs_183> parents? And if there is no such rational argument, we must accept something else? And if a rational argument is simply a statement that makes sense—must we assume something else when we find that we can't make sense?

There is, however, of course no linkage to Dan Conway in her comments (which were written in 1945!).

Bill P