Page 15 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Unit 1: Plato’s Life, His Ideal State and Theory of Justice

Though Plato took into account the role of spirit and appetite in human behaviour, he was convinced Notes
that reason must ultimately control and direct emotions and passions. This explained why the
rational soul embodied in the philosopher ruler would govern. Unlike Socrates, Plato took into
account the irrational aspects of the soul, for the individual was not exclusively rational:
Thus Plato’s conception of virtue centres on psychological harmony. In the just soul
each element stays in its own place and performs the task to which it is naturally
suited. The result is a condition analogous to the health of the body. The chief benefit
of justice is that it allows this condition of psychological harmony to come into existence
and to be maintained in his soul (Klosko 1986: 69).
The parallel between the state and the individual led to a problem which Plato did not solve.
While in an individual, desires and passions were restrained by reason, Plato was ambivalent
when describing the state. He insisted that the artisans and producers would be willing to
subordinate themselves to the guardians. He was uncertain about how long this subordination
would last. He even recommended the use of force and rhetorical persuasion. With so much
control and monitoring, it was doubtful whether the Ideal State could be a happy one.
Justice in the individual meant that every individual was assigned a place in society according to
one’s natural aptitudes and skills. In other words, justice meant departmental excellence.
Furthermore, justice was psychic harmony, balancing and ordering the three elements in accordance
with the dominant one. For Plato, restraint was the key to proper development and societal
harmony. It also represented a bond that cemented ties between the individual and society. In this
sense, justice was social. A just individual was also a good person. His purpose was to show ‘how
ought we to live’ and tried to establish the relationship between virtue and happiness. Plato
developed the answer to how ought to live ‘based on unusually rich account of our nature and the
nature of reality’. Plato gave three arguments in favour of why a just life was a happy one. First,
a just individual limited his desires, for non-satisfaction of desires led to unhappiness. Second,
only a philosopher could differentiate between the pleasures derived from the pursuit of reason,
and those obtained from appetite and sensuality. Third, pleasures derived from the intellect were
more genuine and comforting than those derived from the senses.
Justice in the state meant that the three social classes (rulers, warriors and producers) performed
the deliberative and governing, defence, and production, without interfering with the functions of
the others. Justice was “one class, one duty; one man, one work”. Plato drew a parallel between
the three social classes and the three elements of the human soul. Each soul had a corresponding
social class. A just society recognized and educated every individual talent according to the
dominant element in one’s soul, and ordered these elements into coherent classes. The rulers and
soldiers constituted the guardian class. Plato visualized society:
... as a system of services in which each member both gives and receives. What the
state takes cognizance of is this mutual exchange and what it tries to arrange is the
most adequate satisfaction of needs and the most harmonious interchange of services.
Men figure in such a system as the performers of a needed task and their social
importance depends upon the value of the work they do. What the individual possesses,
therefore, is first and foremost a status in which he is privileged to act, and the freedom
which the state secures him is not so much for the exercise of his free will as for the
practice of his calling.
Plato understood injustice to mean interference and meddlesomeness. Any interchange in jobs
between the three social classes would bring harm to the state and was the worst evil. On the
contrary, if the rulers, auxiliaries and artisans performed their respective tasks, then such a state
would be just. Plato’s conception of justice was distributive, giving what was due to an individual,
namely good training and skills, in return for proper discharge of one’s responsibilities. A Plato’s
conception could be represented as follows:

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 9