Plato Republic
Further observations
Mostly taken from Malcolm Schofield's account of Plato's Republic in Cambridge History of Greek and Roman
Political Thought.
Callicles in the Gorgias
held that there is a natural hierarchy: people can be put in order by
strength and weakness. When the strong rule the weak, that is the
natural order. When the weak rule the strong, that is a perversion of
the natural order.
Thrasymachus, however similar his position, is different in that he
holds that all talk of justice and morality is just talk. In reality,
people rule in their own interest. Democracies rule in the interest of
the many. Oligarchies in the interest of the few. Monarchies in the
interest of the monarch. The principle is self interest. What is called
"just" in any given regime is whatever is in the interest of the
rulers. Justice is about adherence to laws that are imposed by those in
power. Power determines what justice is.
Socrates, of course, suggests that rulers are not always able to
accurately identify what is truly in their interest, and thereby pokes
a hole in Thrasymachus' position.
Glaucon and Adeimantus suggest that from the free-rider's perspective,
the benefits of justice just are not worth it. Better to be unjust IF
you can get away with it. Glaucon suggests that the weak get together
and enter a social contract to protect themselves in their weakness
(Thrasymachus would call this a perversion of the natural order). The
assumption is that doing unto others is best, being done to is worst
and utterly to be avoided. Neither getting to do unto others nor being
done to is in the middle. The rational choice is the middle, because it
is unlikely that one will get to constantly do unto others without
being done to, AND if one is done to, that is absolutely to be avoided.
Thus doing neither is a faute de mieux solution: the social contract as
a compromise.
Socrates' response to all of this is a rather perplexing, long, and
complicated one.
First, we need to realize that he is engaging in fantasy. He wants us
to think of society in novel ways to try to "think outside the box."
The city-soul analogy: does it beg the question? Is justice the same in
a city and a soul?
Socrates starts in on the city by asking why the city comes to be. The
answer is that individuals are not self-sufficient (369). Then he
suggests that certain specialized individuals are the bare minimum
necessary for a city. The principle which underlies this discussion is
the idea that specialized individuals are best off practicing their
specialty and society is best off if they practice their specialty.
One's specialty should be whatever one is best suited for. If you
accept the principle that specialization is the way to go, certain
consequences follow.
It is not clear what we are to make of Plato's initial sketches of the
city. But eventually, the principle of specialization makes Plato
discuss how to form the best protectors or "guardians." The analogy to
dogs plays a large role in getting Plato going. Initially, they
are to be trained for war. But then the notion of guarding comes to be
applied to maintaining the system itself thru maintaining the
educational system. Then the educational system is described in tedious
detail.
Along the way, most art is banished: Plato has clearly decided that in
order to produce guardians that are both fiercely protective of the
city and yet harmonious with themselves and the city, he has to reform
education.
The 'noble lie' is part of the education. It serves to make people
harmoniously fulfill their roles, and it makes it clear that it is not
sufficient to impose a system. People also have to believe that it is
the right system (in this case, the natural
system). Detailed legislation will not be necessary is people are
properly conditioned (423).
With book IV, we get a heavy dose of totalitarianism: the good city
will be a city in which the city itself is strongly unified. Its parts
need not be individually well off for it to be well off.
Orderliness is more important than individual satisfaction.
Socrates does not speak of violence, but the state is to use
"persuasion and necessity" (519).
Propaganda figures largely. Deception is a tool which the guardians
must use heavily.
Although much of the proposal seems evidently impracticable and
undesirable, Plato often returns to the notion that it is practicable
and desirable.
And above all, he seems attached to the idea that the more unified a
city is, the better off it is. He reiterates the idea in the Laws, his latest work. Aristotle
argues that such extreme unity would be the ruin of a city.
The notion of philosophers as rulers is clearly laughable to most
Athenians, or at least that is what Plato suggests, but think of
Protagoras and Gorgias, men with philosophical ideas who are
politically active and influential. Also think of Xenophanes, who said
that philosophers are worth more than sports stars to a city. The
knowledge which the guardians are to have puts them head and shoulders
above most. Most humans are benighted and ignorant with no clue that
the do not know the important things (the sun, line, and cave).
Philosophers have access to the form of the good, which is what gives
order to eternal truth, and thereby they can best order things in the
sensible realm. But they have to be compelled to rule. No one can do it
better. They were educated by the city. If they don't, someone
will rule them in an inferior way.
Book VIII introduces the corrupt individuals and corresponding corrupt
cities.
The best system ruled by the best individuals corrupts into a
timocratic city ruled by timocrats (desire for honor, victory, etc),
which corrupts into an oligarchic city ruled by oligarchs (desire for
necessary appetites), which corrupts into democracies ruled by
democrats (desire for unnecessary things), which devolves into tyranny
ruled by a tyrant (i.e. one supremely lawless individual).
Typical charges against Plato include that his "justice" in the Republic is not justice as
generally understood, and also that justice for an individual is not
the same as justice for a state. What is more, the citizens of his
republic are not the same as ordinary humans.
An answer:
"the proposition that
unjust behaviour, in its most rampant form, is the product of lawless
appetites can be treated by Socrates as uncontroversial. All he now
needs to sustain his own position on injuustice and to undermine
Glaucon's thesis--directly the claim that injustice is intrinsically
preferable to justice, but indirectly therefore the social contract
account of justice--is to take three further steps. These are the
suppoistions that, first, rampantly unjust conduct is rampant because
lawless appetites are insatiable; second, insatiable appetites are
necessarily anarchic; third, since psychic anarchy is the cause of
rampant injustice, it is best interpreted as the core of injustice
itself; which will be a supremely wretched condition because of the
insatiability of the desires that constitute it. If we now ask what
sort of person would be least likely to engage in the behavior
characteristic of the perfectly unjust man, there seems much
plausibility in Republic's
proposal that it is someone whose soul is in a condition of psychic
harmony as far removed as can be conceived from the psychic anarchy
which is to be equated with injustice. " (Malcolm Schofield, P230 of The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman
Political Thought)
The philosophers' souls are habituated to measure and harmony by their
early education. Their grasp of the good is a grasp of supreme harmony.
They desire to know truth and to instantiate their knowledge more than
anything (the stronger one desire, the more it diverts energy from
other desires (485d)). Thus their knowledge involves a concomitant lack
of desire to do unjust things...
In Book IX, Socrates suggests that in the ordinary world, if a true
philosopher comes to be, that philosopher will be a quietist and will
concentrate on that philosopher's own soul. That seems to suggest that
the status of the republic described in the Republic is that of a fantastic
ideal that most people will never have a chance to realize in any way
except in their own souls. Nothing prevents them from realizing aspects
of the republic except that there is no good opportunity.