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Republic
4 (427d-445b)
Justice
in the City and Individual
Contents:
Justice
in the City (427d-434d)
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Socrates now asks the
founder of this "City in Speech", Glaucon, and all the
others, where the justice in it resides.
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They assert that the
city is perfectly good.
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For it to be perfectly
good, it must be wise, courageous, moderate and just.
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Because it is assumed
that there are no other virtues or excellences for a city to have,
it is believed that if the wisdom, courage and moderation of the
city are defined then by process of elimination and by
highlighting these three virtues, justice will stand out in
contrast.*
*This notion derives
from the Platonic theory of the unity of the virtues, that is, that
the four virtues are so interrelated that a deficiency in one will
imply a deficiency in or erosion of the others, and true virtue
entails accomplishment in all four virtues.
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The city is wise
by virtue of a small part of it, that is, by the counsel of the
Guardian Rulers.
-
Although artisans and
craftpersons know many things their knowledge is restricted to the
telos of their specialized craft.
-
Statescraft, by
contrast, requires knowledge of the whole city and its relation to
other cities. This knowledge is found exclusively in the
Guardian Rulers.
-
We learn in Book VII,
521c-541b , the extensive nature of the broad liberal arts
education proposed for Rulers: music, gymnastics,
mathematics, science [including medicine and astronomy],
literature and history. If qualifying exams are passed,
at the age of thirty, Auxiliary Guardians study philosophy and
the dialectic for five years. They then enter positions of
high command in the military for fifteen years of service.
Observed in the field for courage, wisdom in the conduct of
battle, for leadership abilities, for moderation and justice
in the treatment of the defeated, Auxiliaries can be tapped at
the age of fifty for Guardian Rule. Plato is confidant that
no-one could mask corruption or incompetence after such a
career.
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The City is courageous
because of its sterling Auxiliary Guardians.
-
By virtue of the
education the Guardians receive in music and gymnastics, they
learn what is truly terrible and what is not. Thus they are
able to defend the life, honor and glory of the city without
cowardice or resort to excessive violence. They combine in
themselves both viciousness and gentleness. Their disciplined
education prevents them from raping, rampaging or pillaging
subdued enemy peoples. They are disposed to change their
former enemy into an ally. Their courage then comes from their
character, their disposition to defend the laws and not from their
ability to wreck havoc. "These colors won't run."
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The city is moderate
in a systemic way
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Moderation does not
reside exclusively or even predominantly in the artisan class.
We know from Book II, that Socrates reluctantly accepted Glaucon's
aspiration to found the "Feverish City," one dedicated
to the pursuit of the unnecessary desires, namely luxuries.
The artisans, far from living in moderation,are part of a feverish
capitalist economy and their avocation is the amassment of wealth
and acquisitions. Plato holds them in contempt as people who
sadly do not desire what is the most humanly desirable and also
for not knowing what they really want (as opposed to the
Auxiliaries and the Rulers). Unbridled acquisitiveness and
hedonism would have torn the city apart. And that's why the
desires of the artisan class have to be externally curbed by the
impositions of Rulers, enforced by Auxiliaries.
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Moderation in the
ideal city comes from the recognition of every class in the
society that the basest, worst and most out of control part of the
society should be ruled by the better, most knowledgeable, prudent
and reasonable part. Indoctrinated by the Noble Lie, the
artisan class accepts the legitimacy of the Guardians to rule.
They accept the prohibition against revolution or popular
usurpation of power because they accept the acquired wisdom of the
Guardian class as its natural trait (a lie)..
Moreover, there is no envy on the part of the populace for the
ruling class because: 1. private ownership is guaranteed them by
the rulers, and 2. their rulers subsist on a far more austere
standard of living then they and serve them without
compensation of salary or property. The City is moderate because
rulers keep their hands off the people's money and the people keep
their hands off the rulers.
-
Auxiliaries also play
their part in the city's moderation because they willingly serve
as the enforcement arm of the rulers without desiring to usurp the
government. Further they are willing to defend and serve the
citizens instead of abusing them and extracting tribute from the
citizens. (Plato knows well that the fear inspired by
warriors can give them the effect of the Ring of Gyges, hiding the
extortion of the citizens behind a wall of silence.)
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Now they are ready to
flush out justice
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Socrates says (with
considerable surprise) that justice has been right at hand all
along in the discussion. From his discussion with Adeimantus
and the Healthy City in Book II, he extracts the principle of
specialization: a person should do one function in the city
and one for which s/he is particularly suited.
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This then is justice in
the city: Each class does the job for which it is best suited
and no one class should meddle with the task of the other.
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Justice is giving and
allowing each class to do what is its own. When this occurs
there is a harmony in the city. Rulers rule, Auxiliary
Guardians Guard, and Producers produce. The result is full
productivity and employment with all the basic goods and luxuries
provided; a City that is well-defended, honorable and glorious;
and one in which the rulers rule in the interests and to the
advantage of the citizens.
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Socrates thinks that
if a shoemaker wants to do a bit of carpentry this would not
shatter the harmony of the city. But if a money-maker enters
the class of rulers and starts to use government as a means to
personal enrichment or if he enters into the military (replacing
the profit motive for the defense motive), then there is political
hell to pay. [Eisenhower warned against the
military-industrial complex.] Also if a general or admiral took
over the government and subverted the commercial sector to
military purposes, the city would be lost.
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We too should
recognize the distinct functions of public policy making,
military defense and private enterprise and realize the damage
that superimposing the goals of one function on the other can
cause. What offends the modern mind is the undemocratic
exclusion of whole classes from government. We accept
this when it comes to the military, but not when it comes to
the private sector. Plato is caught up in his
rigid analogy of the State as having the same structure as the
human psyche. The artisans are likened to the appetitive
function of the soul. We might find it plausible that
the rational soul should lord it over the baser appetites, but
that this is analogous with the rulers' duty to lord it over
the artisans escapes us. Plato's own psychology has it
that the artisans are endowed with Reason and Spirit, as well
as Appetite. More enlightened philosophers used this as
a defense for universal suffrage and right of the people to
govern itself. In my view, Plato harbors an aristocratic
contempt for the common man. In his opinion the artisan could
fulfill his intellect and control his appetites but he is
unlikely to do so; and it is this contempt that underlies his
authoritarian and undemocratic meritocracy. In an era
before the founding of universities and the scarcity of
leisure time for scholarly pursuits, it is perhaps
understandable why Plato had this prejudice; but it is not
forgivable.
The
Three Parts of the Soul (434d-441c)
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Plato now makes the
comparison between the Form of the City and the Form of the human
being. We are to imagine ourselves to be complex
"cities" and the crucial question is: "who's in
charge?" How well are you governing this "city,"
that is, your self?
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The first task is to see
if there are comparable factors of the soul (psyche) that are
analogous to the Tripartite classes of the polis:
Guardian Rulers, Auxiliary Guardians, Producers.
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The human soul is complex
rather than simple because different aspects of it desire different
Ends.
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DESIRE:
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The Appetitive
aspect of soul desires sensual satisfaction, for example, for
food, drink and sex.
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The appetites seek
not some specific end, for example: Sam Adams Summer Ale, but
rather a generic goal: anything quench-worthy. (This
distinguishes the appetites from the rational soul.)
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Socrates finds in
the soul conflicting tensions: one in the direction of
satisfying the appetite, the other in the direction of
frustrating the appetite.
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REASON
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The latter is the
calculating part of the soul: the rational soul.
There can be found in the same person the irrational desire to
drink and the rational resistance to drink because of the bad
consequences of drinking. (An example would be the offer to a
starving man of a cake the starving man knows to be poisoned.
The persistent desire on the part of the appetite, in contrast
to the rational part which resists it at all costs, shows the
separation of these aspects of the psyche.)
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SPIRIT
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Finally, the fact
that anger sometimes makes war against the appetites reveals
the third part of the tripartite soul: the spirited soul
(anger, assertion, aggression).
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Interaction:
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When desire pushes
a person toward an object that reason rejects as
choice-worthy, reason often enlists anger to rail against and
subdue the appetitive force.
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Once spirit vows
allegiance to reason, and reason sees the worth of a political
cause, any frustrations of the appetites will be accepted
without anger: Spirit will docilely obey reason's
dictates despite hardship.
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But if reason
perceives itself unjustly wronged., spirit will rear up in its
defense, and appetites will be subdued even unto death for a
just cause.
Justice
in the Individual (441c-445b)
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And so the Form of the
Soul is seen to have the same Form as the City. Virtue will be
found in the soul in the same manner as it is found in the City.
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Justice in the city
was found in the willingness of each class to do what it is
naturally suited to do, while not interfering with the business of
the other classes: Rulers rule, Auxiliary Guardians guard
and Producers produce.
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In the just person, each
part of the complex soul does what it is natural for it to do without
unduly interfering with the functions of the other souls.
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Thus the reasoning or
calculating part rules over the appetitive and spirited parts.
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Spirited anger or
aggression allies itself with Reason and springs to its defense.
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If the appetitive or
spirited souls attempt to usurp and enslave reason, disaster
results.
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Only justice among the
souls, wherein each is allowed to pursue what is its own, can all
human goals be effectively obtained.
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Thus only a wise,
courageous, just and moderate soul can achieve eudaimonia,
full human flourishment, happiness.
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Now they test this theory
of justice as psychic harmony against the conventional opinions
about justice, that is, against the popular notion that justice is
honoring parents and making acts of piety toward gods, avoiding
stealing, lying, and betraying or committing acts of adultery.
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They see immediately
that the eudaimon, the psychically harmonized person, is
the least likely to break any of the conventional norms associated
with justice.
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This is the triumph of
an ethic of virtue over rule-based ethics. The psychically
harmonized person is the least likely to injure or violate another
person for they have all that they need for happiness in their own
noble character.
-
Making an analogy
between virtue and health, Socrates asserts that psychic harmony
is in accord with nature; but if passion overwhelms reason or
spirited aggression usurps reason, such injustice between souls is
as unnatural and as damaging as disease is to the body.
Conclusion
-
It should be pointed out
that Plato has answered all the questions posed in Books I and II.
Justice has been defined both in the City and in the person.
Further, whether justice is advantageous in itself ( an intrinsic
value) and not only as a means to other goods has been demonstrated in
the model of the eudaimon, the fully flourishing, psychically
harmonized person (It is never an advantage to be out of sorts
spiritually).
-
The argument for the
advantage of the just life, however, is thoroughly accomplished in
Books VII through IX, where Socrates compares various forms of cities
and personalities in contrast with the Ideal State and individual.
This is completed only after the digression on women, marriage and the
philosopher king in Books V, VI and VII.
Suggestions for Further Reading
- Annas, Julia. An Introduction to
Plato's Republic. New York: Oxford UP, 1981.
[109-152]
- Cooper, John M. "The
Psychology of Justice in Plato." Plato's Republic:
Critical Essays. Ed. Richard Kraut. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1997.
- Benardette, Seth. Socrates'
Second Sailing: On Plato's Republic. Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1989. [78-105]
- Bloom, Allan. The Republic of
Plato. New York: Harper Collins, 1968. [369-379]
- Irwin, Terence. Plato's Ethics.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. [223-243]
- Pappas, Nickolas. Plato
and the Republic. New York: Routlege, 1995. [81-98]
- Robinson, R. "Plato's
Separation of Reason From Desire." Phronesis 16 (1971):
38-48.
- Sallis, John. Being and Logos:
Reading the Platonic Dialogues. 3rd ed. Bloomington,
IN: Indiana Univeristy Press, 1996. [361-371]
- White, Nicholas P. A
Companion to Plato's Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979.
[106-138]
- Wilson, J. "The Argument of
Republic 4." Philosophical Quarterly 26 (1976): 111-124
Department
of Philosophy | Sophia
Project | Plato
Page
© 2000, S. Mayo
For more information contact: smayo@molloy.edu
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