Plato’s Republic: Ideal Society and the Nature of Justice
Plato’s Republic
What is Natural Sociability?
The tendencies that incline human beings to love, friendship, and coexistence in general are natural tendencies.
What Concept Does Plato Intend to Clarify in The Republic? Why?
The objective was to determine what justice is. This is a virtue common to man and city (we should look for it). There is no known city that is just; Socrates proposes the creation of an ideal city. Being a perfect society, it cannot lack any perfection, and we must find there the true meaning of justice. It is easier for us to detect if someone is unfair with others than when someone close to us is being fair to us.
Which Three Classes Does the Ideal Society Need According to Plato? Why Are They Essential?
- Workers: They provide the social body with the goods, commodities, and resources that it needs for its survival. Appetitive soul.
- Auxiliaries: They protect the social body of the city from a possible attack. Spirited soul.
- Rulers: They rule fairly over the rest of the city and direct all of society to the common good. Rational soul.
How is the Life of Producers in Plato’s Ideal Republic? How is That of Auxiliaries and Rulers?
- Artisans: Possessors of wealth, they have the right to private property and to own a family. They are allowed to enjoy the material enjoyments that derive from the possession of wealth.
- Auxiliaries: They do not have access to wealth, private property, or family. They must live in barracks and live as a community (share their goods). They shouldn’t have attachments because they will fight for those individuals (fully concentrated on defending the city).
- Rulers: They have no access to private property or to family. They will watch only for the good government of the city, focusing on the study to know what is good to govern the city properly. To make such rulers possible, that is why they study for it.
What Virtue Should Producers Master? What Should Auxiliaries and Rulers Develop? Why?
- Artisans (Temperance): We need temperate producers to sustain society (control of desire). If there is overproduction, they will think that the goods are in excess, and they will become lazy.
- Auxiliaries (Fortitude): If they value their lives over the lives of others, they will not do their work well. They must be strong enough to face the problems of the police, whatever they are.
- Rulers (Knowledge of Good): They have to know what is best for society, regardless of what people think.
- Justice: Non-interference between classes. That everyone performs their activity since birth.
What Role Does Poetry Play in Plato’s Republic? Why Does Plato Think It Should Be Censored?
- They have to think of virtue as something attainable.
- Virtue is what everyone wants.
- We can get what is good thanks to beauty.
- Plato thinks that people have the principle of the same base in the whole world, and that base teaches us the beauty and love of virtue to think about it as something desirable. That is how we know what is good.
- If they have the desire to know what the virtue of love and beauty is, that is why some are censored because not all poems show beauty.
What Role Do Music and Gymnastics Play in Plato’s Republic? Why Are They So Important?
Gymnastics is needed to strengthen the body and the soul. This will help to develop better virtues of the soul. Music will also be part of education. Music is sensitive mathematics. If we are attracted to music, we can also be attracted to numbers. Music is the sound of numbers.
What is the Point of Mathematics and Dialectics in Plato’s Utopia?
The production of good rulers and citizens. To develop the necessary intellectual vision. Dialectics is the dialogue regarding ideas.
What Does Justice Have to Do with the Relationship Between Classes According to Plato’s Vision?
He said that, firstly, to be just, you need to have it in your mind. Non-interference of a certain class in the businesses of others. I cannot be upgraded to an upper class because I’m not trained, but I can be degraded in my position.
What is the Best Possible Form of Government According to The Republic?
The best way a society can be conducted is with a group of philosopher-kings.