Plato / Lecture 3

Ethical and Cultural Values – Lectures Week Three

Platonic Ethics

1. Last week’s discussion of Socratic Ethics left us with the following problem. Socrates identifies virtue with knowledge. This is supposed to be practical knowledge of what will benefit us. But Socrates also thinks that it benefits us to lead a morally good life. Why should we think that leading of morally good life is what is best for us? Will it make us happier than any other life? Are we happier if we are just and morally decent people? Socrates appears to think that the best kind of life is necessarily a morally good one. That would be true if we simply defined a “best life” as a “morally best life.” But why should we do that? Perhaps the best kind of life for us is the one in which we are happiest. Or the best life might be the most exciting, challenging and enjoyable life. If this is the best kind of life for us, then being morally good looks like an optional extra.

Socrates thinks that the best life for a person is a just and honorable one. But he doesn’t tell us exactly why this is so. He doesn’t demonstrate to us that this must be so. This is where Plato comes in.

2. In spite of his many difference from Socrates, one can see Plato as taking up exactly this task. The key text here is Plato’s dialogue, the Republic. In these lectures we are going to examine Plato’s ethics as it is developed in this text. The key part of the Republic for this purpose is Book IV, where Plato develops an account of human nature and describes what it is for human beings to achieve well-being. You can access an electronic version of the full text of the Republic here. (This link is also reproduced on the Readings and Resources Page of the Course Website.)

3. Plato (428-348 BCE) is among the most important and influential philosophers of the western tradition. He advanced important views about the nature of society, politics and morality, the nature of reality (metaphysics), the nature of knowledge (epistemology) and on human nature (psychology). We are going to look at his ethics, in particular his response to the problem left behind by Socrates: why think that the best kind of life for us is a morally good life? To put the question in another way: What is the value in being a just person?

4. The first book of the Republic sets out a clear challenge. Plato portrays Socrates and his companions discussing the nature of justice. (The Ancient Greek word ‘dikaiosune’ is translated as ‘justice’ and means very generally ‘being moral and upstanding.’) Three participants to the conversation (Thrasymachus, Glaucon and Adeimantus – the latter two are playing devil’s advocate) espouse highly cynical understanding of what justice is. Thrasymachus puts it like this:

…justice is really the good of another, the advantage of the stronger and the ruler, and harmful to the one who obeys and serves. Injustice is the opposite, it rules the truly simple and just, … and they make the one they serve happy, but themselves not at all. You must look at it as follows, my most simple Socrates: a just man always gets less than an unjust one. (Republic, 343c-d).

Glaucon argues the point in terms of the story of Gyges’ Ring. A simple law-abiding shepard, Gyges one day discovers a ring that enables him to become invisible. He uses the ring to make his way to the court, slay the king, seduce the queen, take over the throne and live forever after in wealth, fame and power. Glaucon’s challenge is to say, not just whether we would be likely to follow Gyges’ example were we to find ourselves in the same circumstances. Glaucon’s challenge is to demonstrate whether there is any real reason why, for his own good, Gyges’ ought not have exploited his ring for unjust ends. Can we give an account of human well-being in which Gyges must inevitably figure, not in triumph and happiness, but as a miserable creature and an unhappy failure?

5. Plato approaches the problem indirectly. The bulk of the Republic is concerned with political theory – a theory of the just state. This is because Plato develops a close analogy between justice in the individual and justice in the state. As Plato has Socrates say:

We say, don’t we, that there is the justice of a single man and also the justice of a whole city?

Certainly.

And a city is larger than a single man.

It is larger.

Perhaps, then, there is more justice in the larger thing, and it will be easier to learn what it is. So, if you are willing, let’s first find out what sort of thing justice is in a city and afterwards look for it in the individual, observing the ways in which the smaller is similar to the larger.

That seems fine to me.

(Republic 368e-369a)

So Plato’s task is to show why it is that being just is in our own interests, not just in the interests of others. He approaches the task by describing what a just society would be, and then uses this result to show what being a just person is.

6. First, Plato observes the variety of human needs and the economic value of distributing tasks to those best suited to perform them. Specialization is sensible and it leads to three broad kinds of task being undertaken in a well-functioning society: those of rulers and planners; those of soldiers and protectors; and those of workers. Thus Plato takes it that a rationally organized society would settle into three classes: the guardian class; the auxiliaries; and the workers (or the productive class). The classes are marked, not only by the tasks unique to them, but also by the natural talents that would have to be exhibited by those performing these tasks well. Guardians, being planners, would have to excel in foresight and intelligence; Auxiliaries, being protectors and soldiers, would have to excel in strength and vigour; workers would have to excel in a range of distinctive abilities (as farmers, carpenters, etc.).

7. Along with their peculiar abilities, members of each class in an ideally rational society would need to possess distinctive virtues. Guardians, the virtue of wisdom; the auxiliaries, the virtue of courage; and workers, the virtue of temperance (or moderation). In fact, Plato points out, temperance is the key to all virtues here: the guardians require temperance to avoid falling into of a life of pure, impractical contemplation (indulging intellectual pleasures to excess); auxiliaries – very importantly – require the virtue of temperance to avoid falling into excessive pride and enthusiasm (leading to war and strife). Workers need temperance to avoid excessive consumption and greed. Temperance, or moderation, is a kind of self-control. Plato describes it like this:

But isn’t the expression ‘self-control’ ridiculous? The stronger self that does the controlling is the same as the weaker self that gets controlled, so that only one person is referred to in all such expressions.

Of course.

Nonetheless, the expression is apparently trying to indicate that, in the soul of that very person, there is a better part and a worse one and that, whenever the naturally better part is in control of the worse, this is expressed by saying that the person is self-controlled or master of himself. At any rate, one praises someone by calling them self-controlled. But when, on the other hand, the smaller and better part is overpowered by the larger, because of bad upbringing or bad company, this is called being self-defeated or licentious and is a reproach.

Appropriately so.

Take a look at our new city, and you’ll find one of these in it. You’ll say that it is rightly called self-controlled, if indeed something in which the better rules the worse is properly called moderate and self-controlled.

(Republic 430e-431b)

Here we see Plato’s analogy between the state and the individual in full view. Both the state and the individual are rational, moderate, and well-functioning (in a word, healthy) when the better is in control of the worse.

8. What then, is a virtuous soul? A virtuous state is one in which each kind is doing work appropriate for its kind: the rulers rule, the auxiliaries guard, and the workers produce. Similarly, a virtuous soul is one in which the various parts of the soul are doing the work appropriate to them. Justice in the state is a matter of the well-functioning and harmony of the state. Justice in the individual is a matter of the well-functioning and harmony of the parts of the soul.

9. Plato advances a tripartite account of the soul: holding that it consists of a rational part, or faculty; a part usually translated as ‘spirit’ (and approximates to our idea of emotion or passion); and an appetitive part. The human soul – or personality – is a mixture of appetites, emotions and reason. Each part of the soul is distinguished by a class of desires. Appetites, primarily bodily appetites for food, sex and comfort, but also for possessions, wear their desires on their sleeve, as it were. Emotions also feature particular desires: for example, desire to avoid shame, desire for fame and honour. Pride brings with it a desire for acknowledgement and displays of civic gratitude, retaliation for slights and insults, and so on. Reason also has its desires: desire for contemplation, for intellectual exercise, fine philosophical conversation or mathematical puzzling, and so on. This is a very important feature of Plato’s ethics. For example, human flourishing could not consist in the mere accumulation of pleasurable experiences, according to Plato, because of this complexity of human personality. Each of the parts of the soul must achieve satisfaction, and achieve it in some kind of balance, if a person can be said to have lived a really good life.

10. Achieving a balanced harmony of satisfactions of the various parts of the soul is what Plato calls justice in the soul. But how are we to understand this balance or harmony? Compromises have to be made, but what compromises? One part of the soul should not dominate the others to the point that the satisfactions characteristic of them are not given their due. Allowing sexual desire to obsessively dominate and drive out desires characteristic of pride or of intellect is to live out of balance. This is a kind of sickness of the soul.

11. The idea that a just soul is a healthy soul is an important theme for Plato. But it is not his only, or even primary, way of conceiving the ideal balance of parts of the soul. This is where the analogy with a just state bears further fruit. A just state requires that one class – the guardians – take on the role of planner and leader, directing the activities of the other classes. In the same way, the just soul requires that reason lead and direct the passionate and appetitive parts of the soul. Here is Plato’s development of the idea in book IV of the Republic:

And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the State is just?

That follows of course.

We cannot but remember that the justice of the State consisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own class?

We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said.

We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature do either own work will be just, and do his own work?

Yes, he said, we must remember that too.

And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally?

Certainly.

Republic (441d-441e)

And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule over the concupiscent [appetites], which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature the most insatiable of gain; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fullness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her own sphere, would attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man?

Republic (442a-442b)

In this way, a person’s faculty of reason is the natural ruler of their personality; and happiness depends upon peaceful rule. The unhappy person is much like a state in civil war.

12. There is one other feature of human nature to add to this mix. Human beings vary considerably one to the other in the strength of the desires characteristic of the parts of their soul. In some the desires of reason dominate; in other the desires of spirit; and in others still, the great majority, the desires of appetite dominate. This is the basis for Plato’s class-bound political system. Plato’s view of human nature is essentialist – a person’s basic personality is fixed at birth – but it also recognizes a natural variation of personality. Education is a very important element of Plato’s just society, especially the education of the Guardian class, but this is a matter of bringing out and perfecting abilities and temperaments that are fixed at birth. Plato even envisages a kind of eugenics program, where the Guardian class is perfected by a selective breeding.

13. In order to aid the peaceful co-existence of classes of varied temperament, ability and dominating desire, Plato recommends a promulgation of a state myth: a ‘noble lie’. Here is how he expresses the idea:

“All of you in the city are brothers,” we’ll say to them in telling our story, “but the god who made you mixed some gold into those who are adequately equipped to rule, because they are the most valuable. He put silver in those who are auxiliaries and iron and bronze in the farmers and other craftsmen. For the most part you will produce children like yourselves, but, because you are all related, a silver child will occasionally be born from a golden parent, and vice versa, and all the other from each other.”

Republic (415a)

14. The upshot of all this for Plato’s conception of human flourishing is that human happiness is to be found in the soul by allowing reason to rule, but rule in keeping with the natural temperament. A farmer’s flourishing has the rule of reason restricted to a role of moderating appetite and acknowledging the superior wisdom of the guardians. A Guardian’s flourishing has the rule of reason dominating appetites in a much more thorough way.

15. How does Plato’s account of a just soul stand up to critical scrutiny? There are a number of points at which criticism naturally arises. First, one may criticize the factual and conceptual basis of Plato’s account. Is the tripartite soul a reality or a philosophical fiction? One might also question Plato’s contention that human happiness and flourishing resides in the rule of reason. In a similar vein, one might question Plato’s essentialism. Plato holds that there is a fixed and unchangeable essence of each individual personality. Nothing can alter this character: neither education nor individual will. This is obviously controversial.

16. In addition to putting pressure on the factual and conceptual presuppositions of Plato’s ethics, one can also put under question the value assumptions that underlie it. Plato places supreme value on harmony and peaceful co-existence, both within the state and within the individual. He appears to value this as an end in itself. A harmonious, or just soul, just is, a happy or flourishing soul. But this is not obviously the case. Perhaps harmony is not a legitimate end in itself. Or perhaps it is overwhelmed by other values, for example the value of self-perfection.

17. Thirdly, we can question the success of Plato’s philosophical project in the Republic in its own terms. Has Plato really answered Glaucon’s challenge? To do so, he would have to show that a just person is a flourishing and happy person; and an unjust person is neither flourishing nor truly happy. He attempts this by describing justice in the soul in terms of a healthy soul. From here, the connection between justice and happiness or flourishing can plausibly be drawn. But is the “just” person in Plato’s sense necessarily a “just” person in a more commonplace sense? Would they be honest and fair-dealing? Would they be concerned about general welfare? Would they be true friends? Plato is committed to the idea that they would. Immoral behaviour of this conventional sort, must arise, on Plato’s view, from an imbalance or sickness of the soul, perhaps facilitated by an imbalance and sickness of society. This is a deep and fascinating proposal, but it is just that: a proposal.