Key Lessons from Plato’s Republic — Book II
Please read Key Lessons from Plato’s Republic — Book I, as this story is part of a broader series on Plato’s Republic.
Justice as a means to an end
Glaucon, one of Socrates’s young companions, states that all goods can be divided into three classes:
- Things that we desire only for their consequences, such as physical training and medical treatment;
- Things that we desire only for their own sake, such as joy; and,
- The highest class, things we desire both for their own sake and for what we get from them, such as knowledge, sight, and health.
Glaucon and the others would like Socrates to show is that Justice is not only ideal, but that it belongs to the highest level of desirable things: those sought for their own sake only for their own sake.
Glaucon points out that most people classify Justice as per class 1 and not class 3. People see justice as a necessary evil that we force ourselves to endure. Justice emerges from the weakness and insecurity of humanity. Since we will all suffer from the injustices of each other, we make a social contract pledging to be just like each other. Only under the pressure of justice should we suffer and we know that without it we will suffer more.
e.g. An Eye for an Eye makes the whole world blind
Therefore, the perfectly unjust life, Glaucon argues, is more pleasant than the perfectly just life. In making this claim, he draws two detailed portraits of the just and unjust man. The completely unjust man, who indulges all his urges, is honored and rewarded with wealth. The completely just man, on the other hand, is scorned and wretched.
A top down view of Justice
There are two kinds of political justice — the justice belonging to a city or state — and individual — the justice of a particular man. The justice of the man surrounds him only, whilst the justice of the city impacts everyone. Therefore, to define Justice, Socrates will build the perfectly just city from scratch, and see where and when Justice enters it.
The fundamental theory of this human culture is presented by Socrates: the principle of specialization. The theory of specialization states that the position for which one is naturally ideally qualified must be played by them and that they must not meddle in any other business. The carpenter only has to build things, and the farmer only has to farm. The idea that human beings have inherent inclinations that should be met is behind this theory. Specialization not only includes the division of labor, but the most appropriate such division.
The result, then, is that more plentiful and better-quality goods are more easily produced if each person does one thing for which he is naturally suited, does it at the right time, and is released from having to do any of the others.
Key Observations: This type of specialization can be seen to be endorsed by many successful individuals. All of them speak of having “Passion” for you work and say that it is necessary for producing results at the highest level and for human felicity.
Socrates calls this city the “healthy city” because it is governed only by necessary desires. In the healthy city, there are only producers, and these producers only produce what is absolutely necessary for life. Glaucon looks less kindly on this city, calling it a “city of pigs.” He points out that such a city is impossible: people have unnecessary desires as well as these necessary ones. They yearn for rich food, luxurious surroundings, and art.
The next stage is to transform this city into the luxurious city, or the “city with a fever.” Once luxuries are in demand, positions like merchant, actor, poet, tutor, and beautician are created. All of this wealth will necessarily lead to wars, and so a class of warriors is needed to keep the peace within the city and to protect it from outside forces. The producers cannot act as our warriors because that would violate our principle of specialization.
Members of the Warrior class must be carefully selected — people with the correct nature or innate psychology. In particular, guardians should be spirited, or honor-loving, philosophical, or knowledge-loving, and physically strong and fast.
The education of guardians will involve physical training for the body, and music and poetry for the soul. Education of guardians is the most important aspect of the city. It is the process of purification through which the unhealthy, luxurious city can be purged and purified.
Within the city, the fundamental concept of education is that the soul may have both a stable and an unstable condition, like the body. Training defines the images and ideas absorbed by the soul and the behaviors that the soul can and can not partake in. Since the soul always absorbing, it is important to regulate the stimulation present in the city rigidly.
Because of the way our city is set up, with the producing class excluded from political life, their education is not as important to the good of the city as the education of the guardians. Although education is important for everyone, the education of the producers, which would focus on development of skills appropriate to their specialized vocation, is not as relevant to the good of the city as a whole.
When the discussion turns to questions of the individual, Socrates will identify for us one of the main goals of the city as the education of the entire populace as far as they can be educated.
