CCW Taylor, 'Plato's Totalitarianism' found in the two-volume collection of articles entitled Plato edited by Gail Fine.

Taylor begins by distinguishing three things:

Tyranny has no ideology, just authoritarianism: Sparta, an ancient Greek state, had ideology, but was not extremely authoritarian. In medieval Europe, the state was authoritarian, and the Church was ideological: so the state was not itself totalitarian.

Plato's ideal state is definitely totalitarian by these standards. The locus of ideology is also the locus of political power.

Three kinds of totalitarianism:

  1. Extreme Totalitarianism: the purposes and well-being of individuals are totally subordinated to those of the state. The state's well-being consists of power, prestige, security, etc. Individual well-being may be promoted by the state, but only as a means to its own well-being. Orwell's Oceania is an example of this form of state. Nazi Germany may be too.
  2. Totalitarianism that values individual well-being. The well-being of the state is the same as above, and is still paramount, as above, but the good of the individual is identified with his/her contribution to the good of the state. Thus the best state for an individual is one in which he/she can contribute most to the state. Individuals may be seen as essentially part of a social unity. The state's well-being is the ultimate good: individuals are instruments, BUT their well-being has intrinsic worth.
  3. Paternalism: The state's function and goal is to promote the well-being of individuals. The well-being of individuals consists of knowledge, happiness, health, etc. The well-being of the individual is the ultimate value: the state's well-being is instrumental, but it also is intrinsically good. Individuals are subject to state control for their own good: they are unable to achieve their own well-being on their own, and so the state is justified in subjecting them to its control, PROVIDED the state provides for their individual well-being.

Paternalism's assumptions:
These two things paternalism must assume.

The first claim is dubious (consider Socrates, who will not provide answers: he clearly thinks that unless one arrives at an idea with some degree of autonomy, one is not in the best state). The second claim is not dubious if such knowledge is possible metaphysically as well as if having such knowledge entitles one to rule.

Extreme Totalitarianism is anti-individualist. Individuals are merely instruments. The individual is to subordinate everything to the well-being of the state, but is given no reason why. It is anti-rationalist, based on worship of power, security, etc.

The Second Type, Totalitarianism that values individual well-being, has problems not well elucidated by Taylor which involve trying to avoid the problems of Extreme Totalitarianism and Paternalism.

Taylor is reacting to Karl Popper's 'The Open Society and its Enemies: Plato,' a sustained attack on Plato's Republic. Taylor convincingly argues that Popper thinks that Plato's Ideal City involves Extreme Totalitarianism. Taylor next convincingly argues that Popper is wrong about that. Along the way further interesting issues arise.

Taylor points out that if Plato were an extreme totalitarian, he would not be interested in Glaucon's challenge: he would simply say that justice is not in the individual's interest. Rather, it is in the state's interest, and the state's well-being is the ultimate good. BUT Plato does not do so: he argues that psychic harmony is justice and it is in the individual's interest.

In all, Taylor rejects Popper's claim that the individual in Plato is wholly subjected to the state. Popper's claim rests on passages from the Laws which Taylor rejects as evidence for the claim (PP287-288). One passage which might support Popper is Republic 420b-421c, where Plato claims that the aim is not to make any one class in the city eudaemon, but rather to make the whole city eudaemon. At 519e-520a, when Socrates explains why the guardians must give up 15 years of their lives to rule the city, he says they must do so in order that the whole polis may do as well as possible: the guardians will be compelled to give what benefit they can to their fellow citizens. Both of these passages, however, fail to commit Plato to extreme totalitarianism, for they fall short of claiming that the well-being of the state as something separate from its citizens is paramount. Requiring one segment to sacrifice may in fact be aimed at producing greater benefit for individuals, not the state.

That Plato intends for government to be done for the benefit of the governed is clear from : the argument against Thrasymachus at 341d-342c that government aims to benefit the governed; in book 2, 369b-372a, the primitive polis is set up by individuals to provide themselves with basic survival and material goods. That does not change in the ideal city.

And yet, it seems that only the guardians are capable of eudaemonia, and so the state, which has as its goal eudaemonia, if it is for the benefit of individuals, is for the benefit of the guardians alone. So the masses are just instruments. Vlastos tried to argue that the masses can have eudaemonia in that the guardians can provide them with true belief, but true belief is not sufficient for psychic harmony (430b).

The masses get no education in goodness or the best life: they only have true beliefs in the minimal sense that they believe that what the guardians say about them is true (and they have little reason to believe that). And yet at 435e, Socrates says that the characteristics of a community derive from the characteristics of individuals, for there is nowhere else from which they could come. Bernard Williams' article shows the absurdity that can result from this as follows: The eudaemonia of a polis is created by social harmony; That of an individual by psychic harmony; social harmony seems to require that the majority lack psychic harmony.

The state's goal is as much eudaemonia as possible, but most people are incapable of it on their own. They can approach it by subjecting themselves to the rule of someone who knows better than they do (590c-d says that it is better to be slave to someone else than slave to one's lower nature). In other words, Plato's Republic is paternalistic. The guardians can, if not produce eudaemonia in the masses, at least direct them in a rationally prudent way.

Taylor thinks Plato is caught between a rock and a hard place, because he relies on there being an objective knowable good for the individual: the masses cannot be happy in the sense of psychic harmony, so the guardians cannot be aiming at the masses' happiness. The alternative is that the masses can instantiate the form of the good by bringing it about that they are in the best possible state that they can be in and still be members of the masses. But then the original question of what the good is arises. Any paternalistic system has this problem.

A more fundamental problem is the assumption that autonomy has no value of its own: isn't there a value in directing one's own life in accord with one's own scheme of value? Taylor agrees that autonomy is not sufficient for a good life, but he thinks it is necessary (what of monks, etc. who make serious vows of obedience?: perhaps they have autonomy insofar as they have autonomously given up their autonomy).

Plato claims that the workers freely choose to be subject to the guardians (432a, 433c-d), but if they do that, then they are not prey to their lower nature if left to their own devices (this seems wrong in a complicated way: I might choose rationally to put myself in a position where I am not tempted, but still not be able to resist temptation). Taylor says that since the masses are prey to short-term bodily desires, they cannot make autonomous choices at all: so they cannot choose to be subject to the guardians. That seems wrong: I have various problems in certain situations (e.g. I cannot resist video games), and so I autonomously make it impossible for myself to fall into those situations. That does not destroy the problem: it avoids it. Perhaps the masses are meant to do that. Is that enough for virtue?or is it not virtue unless it is tested and tempered by temptation?