(Originally written September 14, 2006 in Book 10)
Classics of Philosophy
Louis Pojman
The Republic
Plato
Chapter 2: The challenge to Socrates
Glaucon and Adeimantus (Plato's brothers) demand a full justification of Socrates' claim that morality enables one to prosper.
Glaucon holds that morality is not good, only a lesser evil.
Adeimantus holds that morality is valued only for its external rewards.
Socrates has to prove that morality is intrinsically good and that it contributes towards a person's happiness.
Glaucon sets out to:
1) Explain the usual view of morality
2) Show that it is practiced reluctantly as a necessary thing, not a good thing.
3) Show that this is unreasonable because an immoral man is happy than a moral one
Morality is originated by people coming into contacts with one another and forming laws.
Morality is a compromise. It isn't good, but it is valued because it prevents wrong doing.
If people are given a choice between morality and immorality people will always choose immorality. If someone were to choose morality if given a choice, he would rightly be seen as a fool.
The pinnacle of immorality is being immoral while still appearing to be moral.
If we are to truly believe that a person is moral for morality's sake, we must treat him as a sinner and see if he will still live as a saint. Then we can gauge who is happier: a moral person or an immoral person.
Adeimantes then barks in and defines morality from the standpoint of the rewards it brings.
Adeimantes claims that the gods give moral people rewards.
Adeimantes affirms that appearance of morality is much more important than the reality of morality.
Adeimantus claims that those who believe morality is good have never refuted those who claim immorality is not good.
Glaucon and Adeimantus hold that it is not enough to show morality is better than immorality because that is a praise of morality's rewards and a condemnation of immorality's stigma. They contend that if one only does this they accept Thrasymachus' claim that it is good to be immoral and appear to be moral, rather than being moral outright.
Chapter 3: Fundamentals of Inner Politics
Socrates calls Glaucon and Adeimantus "sons of Ariston" (godlike) because of their articulation of immorality and resistance to its rewards.
Socrates wants to investigate morality by investigating the morality of a community, then of an individual.
A community is formed when men realize they are deficient in some manner and combined with other men to overcome their deficiencies. We have lots of needs and lots of deficiencies so we form large communities to meet all of these needs. Different people are inherently better suited for different trades, thus we need all sorts of people in our community.
Success comes from specialization, not a man endeavoring in numerous tasks.
So once the community is formed does it contain morality and immorality? Adeimantus remarks if it does it must have something to do with how the inhabitants treat one another.
A community's size must be increased to the point of bloating to fulfill all of the human non-necessary wants.
As the community grows the community's appetites will increase and the community will have to commandeer part of their neighbor's land to fulfill their wants. But that other community will need to do the same to our community. The next step would then be an inevitable war.
War would produce a need for an army and an army would need soldiers and thus, the community would grow.
The community will need guardians to protect the community from aliens and to educate the young nobility.
The guardian must be like the noblest of dogs: vicious to strangers and lovers of knowledge.
"Anyone who is going to be a truly good guardian of our community, then, will have a philosopher's love of knowledge, and will be passionate, quick on his feet, and strong" (Pojman, 129).
Chapter 4: Primary Education for the Guardians
Guardians must have a natural aptitude.
A guardian's education must be started young and inculcate values.
Young guardians must have only morally sound stories. Immoral stories must be censored.
The guardian role in the community is the most vital of the whole community. Every person is predestined by their abilities to a certain task. All these tasks work together to form a functional community. The guardian's task is to make sure the community functions properly.
Education begins young because the mind is most impressionable when it is young.
Story-telling is the first step in education. Story writers must be scrutinized so that only moral stories are told to the guardians (because guardians must be moral) by their nurses and mothers.
Homer and Hesiod must be censored because the distort heroes and the gods.
While Socrates admits that these poets' stories are allegorical, he states that since young children cannot distinguish allegory from reality, the stories must be chucked altogether.
Whatever stories are told, they must be in accordance to the nature of God, which is good.
Anything good is harmless. Anything harmless cannot cause damage. Anything that cannot cause damage cannot do anything bad. Anything that cannot be bad cannot be held responsible for anything that is bad.
Goodness is responsible for all things good in a state and bad things are not bred out of goodness.
Chapter 5: The Guardian's Life and Duties
There are three castes of people: Guardians, Auxiliaries and Workers.
Guardians - rulers - "Gold"
Auxiliaries - Militia - "Silver"
Workers - Craftsmen - "Copper" or "Iron"
God wants there to be three casts and the members of each caste must believe this. There is a little room for change however.
The best, oldest guardians ought to be the rulers and the rest the subjects. The old and best have the best skill and most complete love for the community.
The community fails or success according to the rule of the guardians (and vice-versa). Thus, the guardians have a vested interest.
Rulers are selected through careful watch throughout their whole lives and selected based on their devotion to the community.
Rulers are chosen on their adherence to the beliefs instilled in them from a very young age. It won't do at all to select a ruler who is liable to lose his faith.
To set up this community one will have to develop a tall tale (as Homer and Hesiod did) to instill the values of the community:
1) All men were formed in earth
2) All crafts were formed in each
3) The earth spit out the men and crafts into a specific land, which is their home to love and defend with honor
4) All men are brothers, but not equal
5) Some men were made with gold (guardians), some men were made with silver (military), some men were made with copper and iron (workers/farmers)
6) Gold, silver, copper/iron are one's class
7) Man beget children of the same class, but occasionally a gold man will beget a silver body and silver man will beget a gold boy. If a son of a farmer or worker is born predisposed to silver or gold nature then he must be elevated.
The most important job of the guardians is to maintain the three classes and to make certain that everyone is placed in the right class (even if they are born of another class)
The guardians and auxiliaries are to live an alert military life and own no property (much like Sparta).
The guardians/auxiliaries are not to own property because it will corrupt them and the community will fall.
The guardians/auxiliaries will not be happy in the vulgar, materialistic form but can be happy in a greater sense. But, if they aren't it doesn't matter because the happiness of the whole community is greater than the happiness of any single part.
It is vital that the classes do not act as one another. A guardian ought not act as an auxiliary. An auxiliary ought not to act as a guardian or as a worker. A worker must act as a worker. But, it is also as important that a higher class citizen not abuse or exploit a lower class and a lower class ought not to intimidate or rebel against a higher class.
Gold men (guardians) and silver men (warriors) are not to desire earthly gold or silver because that gold/silver is tainted and the gold/silver in them is untainted. They are to be paid in only their stipend to live which should leave them no excess and also not leave them wanting.
If Gold/silver men obtain property they will become envied/hated by copper and iron men and will lord over their lesser brethren. They will become enemies of their community and the community will collapse.
The individual is sacrificed to the community of Socrates so that all will have a share in a higher happiness and not the lower, vulgar happens individual now seek in gluttony.
Plato maintains that the stability of the community lies in the guardians' ability to keep workers working. They must not become too rich or too poor.
The military of Plato's community will not be able to sustain prolonged warfare so must appear ferocious and aim to solve conflict with fear and diplomacy.
Education and a good system will provide all three classes with structure so a huge amount of laws will not be needed.
Overly wealthy people become too lazy in their work. Overly poor people will create inferior products/labor.
Too much wealth brings "indulgence, indolence, and innovation". Too much poverty brings "miserliness, bad workmanship and innovation"
Innovation is bad because the system is good and no change is needed.
The size of the community is important. It mustn't be too small or too large. It must remain a unity.
Good education produces good people. Good people (if they continue the education) will better the education and make it more complete.
Music must be regulated because new music will affect people's moods about the law. Change is bad.
All aspects of life will be orderly and spring out of good, early education and needn't be legislated, which is foolishness.
In a good society, with proper education orderliness and rules of conduct will spring forth out of the good character of all the citizens of a good society. There will be no need of continual lawmaking and editing. The goodness of their nature will suffice to provide all the rule of law they need. (on top of the broad constitution of the State).
No comments:
Post a Comment