There is a long speech in the Laws (716A-718B and 726A-734E) where Plato has his Athenian Stranger give a good comprehensive summary of a kind of civic morality. This really is a long speech … and while I suppose it must have some kind of literary merit as such, it can take some real patience to slog through. But I had a professor once long ago who had the curious habit of referring to this speech as “Plato’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’”. I suppose his idea was that it contained so many of Plato’s other teachings packed into one place, in epitome. Anyway, a couple of decades ago I was writing a friend about it and tried to boil it down to a list of bullet-points – so that my friend could see the forest without losing his way in all those blasted trees. Here is what I came up with. (The wording and numbering are mine; the groupings are suggested in the text, but again I am responsible for the wording.)
I was tempted to keep the title "Plato's Sermon on the Mount" but decided that by reducing it to "Thou shalts" and "Thou shalt nots" I had made it more like a list of commandments. More than ten, however ....
FIRST, HONOR THE GODS.
1. There is a divine Order. Following it brings happiness, while flouting it brings chaos and ruin.
2. Take God as the measure of all things, and strive to become godlike.
3. The gods bring good things to the good, but do not receive the gifts of the wicked.
4. Honor the Olympians and the underworld gods; next in order of rank, honor the daemons; next, the heroes; next, your ancestral gods; and next, your living parents.
SECOND, HONOR YOUR SOUL AS YOUR MOST DIVINE PART.
5. Do not praise yourself without always striving to improve yourself.
6. Do not blame others for your errors.
7. Do not practise forbidden pleasures.
8. Do not shirk commended toils.
9. Do not judge that mere life is worth any price.
10. Do not honor beauty above goodness.
11. Do not crave to get wealth ignobly.
12. Do not prefer the bad to the good, since becoming bad is its own punishment.
THIRD, HONOR YOUR BODY
13. The best body is a mean in beauty, strength, and health.
14. The best property is a mean between wealth and poverty.
15. Even the best bequest to your heirs is a mean.
FOURTH, HONOR OTHERS
16. The old must reverence the young, and must teach them by example.
17. Rate what you do for others lower than they rate it; rate what they do for you, higher.
18. Honor your kin and friends.
19. Honor your native laws.
20. Honor strangers.
21. Honor suppliants.
22. Be true and trustworthy.
23. Do no wrong, neither consent to wrongdoing.
24. Be friendly, and share your good qualities.
25. Be ambitious of excellence, but not jealous of others.
26. Fight passionately against wrongdoing, but be gentle with wrongdoers; for no-one does wrong voluntarily.
27. The greatest evil is self-love, which blinds you to what is truly good and bad.
28. Avoid extreme joy or sorrow.
29. Praise the virtuous life as the happiest one, the one which brings the greatest excess of pleasure over pain.
