The Laws is Plato's last, longest, and perhaps, most famous work. It presents a conversation on political philosophy between three elderly men: an unnamed Athenian, a Spartan named Megillus, and a Cretan named Clinias. They worked to create a constitution for Magnesia, a new Cretan colony that would make all of its citizens happy and virtuous. In this work, Plato combines political philosophy with applied legislation, going into great detail concerning what laws and procedures should be in the state. For example, they consider whether drunkenness should be allowed in the city, how citizens should hunt, and how to punish suicide. The principles of this book have entered the legislation of many modern countries and provoke a great interest of philosophers even in the 21st century.

This book discusses how Plato, one the fiercest legal critics in ancient Greece, became – in the longue durée – its most influential legislator. Making use of a vast scholarly literature, and offering original readings of a number of dialogues, it argues that the need for legal critique and the desire for legal permanence set the long arc of Plato’s corpus—from the Apology to the Laws. Modern philosophers and legal historians have tended to overlook the fact that Plato was the most prolific legislator in ancient Greece. In the pages of his Republic and Laws, he drafted more than 700 statutes. This is more legal material than can be credited to the archetypal Greek legislators—Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon. The status of Plato’s laws is unique, since he composed them for purely hypothetical cities. And remarkably, he introduced this new genre by writing hard-hitting critiques of the Greek ideal of the sovereignty of law. Writing in the milieu in which immutable divine law vied for the first time with volatile democratic law, Plato rejected both sources of law, and sought to derive his laws from what he called ‘political technique’ (politikê technê). At the core of this technique is the question of how the idea of justice relates to legal and institutional change. Filled with sharp observations and bold claims, Platonic Legislations shows that it is possible to see Plato—and our own legal culture—in a new light “In this provocative, intelligent, and elegant work D. L. Dusenbury has posed crucial questions not only as regards Plato’s thought in the making, but also as regards our contemporaneity.”—Giorgio Camassa, University of Udine “There is a tension in Greek law, and in Greek legal thinking, between an understanding of law as unchangeable and authoritative, and a recognition that formal rules are often insufficient for the interpretation of reality, and need to be constantly revised to match it. Dusenbury’s book illuminates the sophistication of Plato’s legal thought in its engagement with this tension, and explores the potential of Plato’s reflection for modern legal theory.”—Mirko Canevaro, The University of Edinburgh

This book discusses how Plato, one the fiercest legal critics in ancient Greece, became – in the longue durée – its most influential legislator. Making use of a vast scholarly literature, and offering original readings of a number of dialogues, it argues that the need for legal critique and the desire for legal permanence set the long arc of Plato’s corpus—from the Apology to the Laws. Modern philosophers and legal historians have tended to overlook the fact that Plato was the most prolific legislator in ancient Greece. In the pages of his Republic and Laws, he drafted more than 700 statutes. This is more legal material than can be credited to the archetypal Greek legislators—Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon. The status of Plato’s laws is unique, since he composed them for purely hypothetical cities. And remarkably, he introduced this new genre by writing hard-hitting critiques of the Greek ideal of the sovereignty of law. Writing in the milieu in which immutable divine law vied for the first time with volatile democratic law, Plato rejected both sources of law, and sought to derive his laws from what he called ‘political technique’ (politikê technê). At the core of this technique is the question of how the idea of justice relates to legal and institutional change. Filled with sharp observations and bold claims, Platonic Legislations shows that it is possible to see Plato—and our own legal culture—in a new light “In this provocative, intelligent, and elegant work D. L. Dusenbury has posed crucial questions not only as regards Plato’s thought in the making, but also as regards our contemporaneity.”—Giorgio Camassa, University of Udine “There is a tension in Greek law, and in Greek legal thinking, between an understanding of law as unchangeable and authoritative, and a recognition that formal rules are often insufficient for the interpretation of reality, and need to be constantly revised to match it. Dusenbury’s book illuminates the sophistication of Plato’s legal thought in its engagement with this tension, and explores the potential of Plato’s reflection for modern legal theory.”—Mirko Canevaro, The University of Edinburgh

Book 10 of the Laws sets out Plato's last thoughts on the gods, piety, and religion. Robert Mayhew presents a new English translation of this important text with a detailed commentary that highlights its philosophical, political, and religious significance.

Long understudied, Plato's Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of describing the foundation of a just city and sketches in considerable detail its constitution, laws and other social institutions. Written by leading Platonists, the essays in this volume cover a wide range of topics central for understanding the Laws, such as the aim of the Laws as a whole, the ethical psychology of the Laws, especially its views of pleasure and non-rational motivations, and whether and, if so, how the strict law code of the Laws can encourage genuine virtue. They make an important contribution to ongoing debates and will open up fresh lines of inquiry for further research.

Reading the Republic without reference to the less familiar Laws can lead to a distorted view of Plato's political theory. In the Republic the philosopher describes his ideal city; in his last and longest work he deals with the more detailed considerations involved in setting up a second-best 'practical utopia.' The relative neglect of the Laws has stemmed largely from the obscurity of its style and the apparent chaos of its organization so that, although good translations now exist, students of philosophy and political science still find the text inaccessible. This first full-length philosophical introduction to the Laws will therefore prove invaluable. The opening chapters describe the general character of the dialogue and set it in the context of Plato's political philosophy as a whole. Each of the remaining chapters deals with a single topic, ranging over material scattered through the text and so drawing together the threads of the argument in a stimulating and readily comprehensible way. Those topics include education, punishment, responsibility, religion, virtue and pleasure as well as political matters and law itself. Throughout, the author encourages the reader to think critically about Plato's ideas and to see their relevance to present-day philosophical debate. No knowledge of Greek is required and only a limited background in philosophy. Although aimed primarily at students, the book will also be of interest to more advanced readers since it provides for the first time a philosophical, as opposed to linguistic or historical, commentary on the Laws in English.

Julia Annas explores how Plato's account of the relation of virtue to law developed, and how his ideas were taken up by Cicero and by Philo of Alexandria. She shows that, rather than rejecting the account given in his Republic, Plato develops in the Laws a more careful and sophisticated version of that account.