Are We Our Descendants’ Keepers?

Abstract

In one of the earliest uses of the metaphor of guardianship, Socrates tries to convince his interlocutors that taking one’s own life is wrong since life itself is not one’s “possession” but rather belongs to the gods. Furthermore, human beings have a positive duty to guard life, not to let it go. The gods are our keepers in the sense of ownership, but we are their delegates or trustees in the role of guardians of the property they own, namely life. Running away from this duty is a violation of trust. Typically, Plato, the rationalist with the deep sense of the mystical, appeals to the Orphic tradition and to the allegorical rendering of the idea of responsibility for one’s own life. He describes the doctrine as “high” (which could be interpreted as both “noble” and “mysterious”) and cautions us of its difficult implications.