Karl Wallace
ETHICS
Essential to an understanding of Plato’s conception of ethics in his book called, “The Republic” is his distinction between the particular and universals. He says there is a thing that exists called the universal from which issue all particulars. How will his theoretical state impart his universal good? Can a distinction be made between particulars and universals? Many philosophers believe it can. There exists a universal good
apart from empirical determinations of good things which the member of this state (the philosophers) must attend.
“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of the world, have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils--no, nor the human race, as I believe, and then only will this our State have possibility of life and behold the light of day. “
How the Philosophers are to be trained?
“The preliminary studies should be begun unsystematically in childhood but not forced; and they should be suspended during the two or three years of physical training. At the age of twenty, selected students will systematically study the sciences; and of these the most promising in every way will be chosen at the age of thirty to study dialectic for about five years… The study of philosophy will continue for five years; and when they have reached fifty years of age…the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things and be hold the absolute good.”
These philosophers are now set apart. They no longer have grass roots, no longer work, no more striving and scratching with the best or the worst, this is much like our Supreme Court here in the U.S. The philosophers can now dream up any universal good without worrying about whether this agrees in fact with particular denotations of good. The state is founded because we are not individually independent, but have many individually dependent needs and our needs are too many to be supplied by individual efforts. As Plato’s growing state becomes a menace to its neighbors or as it becomes tempted to conqueror, its growth and safety require military guardians. The military guardians are the auxiliaries, distinguished from the true guardians, the philosophers. All of the philosophers/guardians are carefully selected and undergo a rigorous education designed to make them good at ethics.
Plato defines the virtues more in the sense of politics than ethics.
*Courage is a safe-keeping of the belief produced by law through education, concerning the number and nature of things to be feared.
*Temperance-that of desires and pleasures and pains the many and diverse will be found, especially in children and women.
*Wisdom and courage, unlike temperance isn’t spread through the whole city alike.
*Justice for the individual could be stated as “mind your own business.” There is justice in a state when that state gives to the individual what he is due.
After a training period containing gymnastics and the cultural arts, there follows for the philophers the most important study that of dialectic, the study of universals and the methods of distinguishing the truth from the falsehood. This is an admirable ethical view but impossible or even dangerous to try to realize as in the main there will be a degeneration of character of those in control.
“But whether such a one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other” (DOP 412.) In other words, the educational program only puts off for a time the failure of the state.
To be continued…
