Of Law and Philosophy

Here's something kind of fun. I was reading the Civil Rights Cases (1883) again and came across this line early in Justice Harlan's dissenting opinion: "It is not the words of the law but the internal sense of it that makes the law. The letter of the law is the body; the sense and reason of the law is the soul." The lines are quoted without attribution, but they come from a 1574 statutory interpretation case, Eyston v. Studd, decided by the King's Bench.

But they reminded me of something in Plato's Phaedo. So I went back and took a look (the dialogue at this point is between Socrates and Simmias):

And what do you say of the pleasures of love-should he [the philosopher] care about them?

By no means.

And will he think much of the other ways of indulging the body-for example, the acquisition of costly raiment, or sandals, or other adornments of the body? Instead of caring about them does he not rather despise anything more than nature needs? What do you say?

I should say that the true philosopher would despise them.

Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not with the body? He would like, as far as he can, to be quit of the body and turn to the soul.

That is true

In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, may be observed in every sort of way to dissever the soul from the body.

That is true.

Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of the opinion that a life which has no bodily pleasures and no part in them is not worth having; but that he who thinks nothing of bodily pleasures is almost as though he were dead.

That is quite true.