1. Who Should Rule?  Since there is no way other than having a state or authority, who do you think should be ruling the state?  What regime is acceptable?  Democracy or authocracy?  An autocracy is a system of government in which a supreme power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.

2.  How about tyranny, aristocracy, absolute monarchy? What are they?  Aristocracy: Originally, leadership by a small privileged class or a minority thought to be best qualified to lead.  Plato and Aristotle considered aristocrats to be those who are morally and intellectually superior, and therefore fit to govern in the interests of the people.  The term has come to mean the upper layer of a stratified group.  Most aristocracies have been hereditary, and many European societies stratified their aristocratic classes by formally titling their members, thereby making the term roughly synonymous with nobility.

3.  Absolute monarchy, or absolutism, meant that the ultimate authority to run a state was in the hands of a king who ruled by divine right.  Divine right was the claim that a king was given his position by some higher power.  The authority of the monarch could include any or all of the following areas: administration, taxes, justice, and foreign policy.  What sort of regime is the dominant political system in the world now?  Is democracy a good thing? How would you tell?

4.  No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but equality, freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics since ancient times.  We have discussed what makes a state legitimate and acceptable. What do you think makes a government legitimate?  If democracy is so good and attractive then why so many philosophers and thinkers have rejected it?  It is being claimed that in a democratic system, there will be no oppressive laws and rules in a particular country.  How about minority rights? How about those who has no or not enough voice?

5.  As John Stuart Mill indicates, society consists of different groups with different interest, ambitions; it is not homogeneous.  What is unavoidable is the majority will pass laws that are in the interest of majority, not the minority.  In democracy, we like to make sure that the tyranny of majority does not take place.  It should protect rights of minorities as well.  Then we can talk about real democracy.  How about direct democracy verses representative democracy? Which is better or feasible?

6.  How does it work in most of the countries today? Which form is used?  Individual rights verses majority rule? Right to vote? Citizenship rights of voting?  Women were not given right to vote in England till 1928, and those were educated had 2 votes at one time.  In ancient Greece, women, slaves, foreigners, prisoners did not have the right to vote. In small city-states, direct democracy was the form of democracy.  Today, foreigners, those who are younger than age 18, prisoners, soldiers, and military school students cannot vote in Turkey.

7.  How about trash-hold system of election or first past the post system?  Do you think these election systems allow the full democratic choice to take place?

8. Plato against Democracy  Plato’s main concern about democracy is the eligibility of the ruler and the ability of people to select the one that has traits of a statesmanship.  If you go on a cruise, you would be interested in the ability of the captain to control the ship.  The captain is an expert who knows what he is doing.  How about those in the ship try to take over the ship and take somewhere else since the captain is not able to control it?

9.  When you feel sick, who would you see?  An expert, who would be a doctor.  With your ability, you would try to go to the one that has the best knowledge about your particular illness.  How about teachers and professors? When you choose a school you choose it based on some criteria.  You look for people who have proper training for teaching.  How come we look for experts to take care of our own health, education, training, even when we go on cruise to choose the best captain possible, but we choose people who do not have any expertise in their job to rule the country.

10.  Those who talk loudly and make noise, those who have money and can put lots of commercials in media and get our votes to rule the country are serious concern of Plato.  Not the experts, but noise-makers will rule the country.  Since people do not know the right person to elect for the post, they will elect the noise makers.  Plato thinks, experts, people with the skills and ability of judgment should rule the country.  The choice should not be left to people.  It will result in disaster.

11.  Ruling should be for people, but not by the people.  People have no sufficient knowledge to decide what candidate is the best for the country.  His views are not democratic, but what we can call them as aristocratic.  The just society is impossible unless the philosophers become the king or the king becomes the philosopher.  Philosophical training is necessary to be ruler.  The ruler, or the king should involve in process of learning from his early age and should acquire all knowledge that is necessary for ruling the state.

12.  He should know all aspects of life which is necessary to rule the society.  A search of the philosopher! Number of those is not going to be plenty.  So, the rule of minority is proposed. Few eligible people have right to rule.  In Plato’s system of ruling, the guardian or the ruler king- philosopher is not allowed to own any property in order to prevent corruption.  How to select those guardians?  In this regard, considering what Plato says, do you think ruling is an art or science?

13.  Determining the needs of society might be possible by voting which takes place in democracies.  But, this does not mean that Plato’s system will not work in determining the benefits of people or their needs.  Experts will work to determine the needs.  Plato’s guardian or the king is not a dictator, he is the philosopher; works for people.  What is the democratic challenge to this approach?

14.  Defenders of the democratic system argue that people know their best interest and they will make the best choices for themselves.  Witnessing that individuals making very poor choices about their own life, even for the very short term, do you think people will think about long-term benefits and benefits of common?  Interest groups will work hard to make sure that every decision made is promoting their own interest.  The best examples of this are in America. Farmers, subsidies… oil companies… all lobbies work for their own interest.  Halliburton Company... Report on Afghanistan…

15.  Voting might be important in determining the tendencies of the society, but how about opinion polls?  So, in Plato’s system opinion polls may help since there is no election in his system.  Giving choice to people is very important in democracy.  People make decisions based on what you put in front of them to choose. Choices are not infinite. They are limited.  We like to attribute holiness to the things that we do.  Demo has gained holiness. Decisions have gained holiness.  Even you cannot criticize democracy or who the majority elected in today’s democracies.

16.  Self-interest verses common good?  Which one do you think people will go for?  It is claimed that democracy will find a common good; middle path.  Conflict of interest will lead the middle way.  But, how do we even know that individual know their interest?  Plato argues that experts will know better than regular people.  They are trained for it.

17.  There is no chance of regular people deciding better than experts.  They know the common good and how to pursue the goals of a nation.  Notion of freedom and equality is very important in democracy.  Do you think you can practice them if you are poor, uneducated and a worker with minimum wage?

18. Rousseau and the General Will  While Plato argues that ruling requires special education and training, and rulers should be philosophers, Rousseau agrees, but adds that training should be given to everybody in the society.  Democracy can work only if people are educated enough about the political and social system.  Training of people should not be limited to a particular group.  The state, democratic state, should place an importance to education of its citizens.  Best decisions are only possible by virtue of educated-informed people.

19.  Rousseau wants his citizens to play an active role in law making and decision making.  He promotes direct democracy.  But, considering the circumstances, he believes that there has never been a real democracy and will never be one.  People cannot rule directly, since they have their own life and responsibilities.  They cannot devote their time to public affairs.  Someone has to make decisions on behalf of them.  Probably that will be a commission.

20.  That commission will change the form of government; will not be a real, direct democracy.  A perfect government is not for people, since people are not perfect themselves.  That is in imaginations.  Rousseau advocates aristocracy, a ruling class who is knowledgeable.  But, he believes laws should be made by people and rulers should not be able to change them without will of people.  Laws are not made in official assemblies, but in public gatherings.

21.  This has no application in today’s democracies.  For Rousseau’s system to work, the class differences should not be wide.  Classes should even be eliminated.  No one should be able to buy someone else’s vote.  What if employers buy their employees’ vote?  A good state would have few laws.  Since people cannot come together to make laws very often, state should be with few laws.

22.  Interest groups are threat to the real democracy.  Political parties, like fractions in the society are also threats, unless there are as many tendencies as like there are in the society.  There should either be no political party or so many of them that will reflect interests of particular groups’ choices.  Education is important in creating a society that individual members give up self-interest and seek the common good in their decisions.  Public morality is important.  Individuals are social creatures; interest of society is over interest of individuals.  State represents the society.

23.  Civil religion and censorship is subsequently advocated, although he might not intend for.  Social unity is regulated by civil religion.  For that every individual has to subscribe to a religion.  This will remind him of his social duties.  A divercity of religions should be allowed unless a religion is intolerant to another.  In addition to private morality, every citizen should subscribe to the civil religion.  Moral-social grounds are important.