PLATO'S REPUBLIC
Essential to an understanding of Plato’s
conception of ethics in his book, “The Republic” is his distinction between the
particular and the universal. He says there is a thing that exists called the
universal from which issue all particulars. How
will his theoretical state impact his universal good? Can a
distinction be made between particulars and universals? There exists a
universal good apart from empirical determinations of good things which the
philosophers must attend.
Plato states that,
“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.
“All of the children in the Nation are to begin
training when they are two or three years old. The preliminary studies should be
begun unsystematically in childhood, and not forced; and they should be
suspended during 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 the 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 independent 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
experts at being soldiers.
Plato
defines virtues more in a 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 philosophers 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” In other words,
the educational program only puts off for a time the failure of the state.
“It is true that
though proper education of future citizens there can be a more excellent
government, but such a program of total education could be easily seized by a
corrupt fore and perhaps used for vicious ends. The underlining principle good
is towards social excellence and must be begun an early stage. All you want
people to grow up knowing and being able to know the truth. You shouldn't begin
by telling them the false.”
Could it
possibly be right for the philosophers of Plato's Republic to tell fairy tales
to the adults?
“They are to be
told that their youth was a dream, and the deduction and training which they
received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were
being formed and fed in the womb of the earth where they themselves and their arms
and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed the earth their
mother, sent them up; and so their country being their mother and also their nurse
they are bound to advise for her good and to defend her against attacks and her
citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.”
Plato supposes
that his state society as a whole will be better off if the weakest and
improperly conceived individuals are exterminated in a secretive manner. He
justifies his proposals as conducive to efficiency. It these individuals were
allowed to live they would be a burden on the state and little good to
themselves anyway.
This act has been generally unaccepted moral
convention. With the rise of Christianity there has probably been a still
greater discontent to the principle. Every human being is an end in itself.
Every being has the God given right to live, and in many cask it is difficult
to determine just who is doing the most good for the state and who should
therefore be allowed to live.
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more Karl Wallace goes to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
