Abstract

The chapter is an examination of our competing duties to society and to those we have close personal relationships, such as friends and family. Particular attention is paid to the views of Plato and Aristotle on our social and personal responsibilities. It is maintained that the Greek philosophers are right that we should sometimes place our civic duty over the interests of those closest to us. This doesn’t mean that we should never treat our friends and family better than people with whom we have no connection. But it does mean that even apparently heroic acts of personal loyalty can really be acts of moral failure. If we want to do right, it isn’t enough to do well by the people we care about most. We must ask how our actions affect everyone. In some ways, the moral views of these early philosophers move us too far toward civic duty and away from traditional values of loyalty to friends and family. Plato and Aristotle are wrong to turn the citizens into something akin to state property. People are happiest when they are allowed to be in charge of their own lives. Plato is especially wrong that we should encourage loyalty to the state by abolishing the family for the guardians in favor of raising their children in state institutions. The love of a family is good for children’s development. On the other hand, in some ways, the philosophers don’t take us far enough from traditional values in their notions of how to balance family and civic loyalties. Such loyalties raise the possibility of letting family interests get in the way of important civic duties.