The Idea of Virtue in Antiquity (I): Plato (B)
In Plato’s Republic, we have seen in the previous blog posting in this series that Socrates plans to give an account of the origin and nature of an ideally constructed city in order to identify justice and virtue in both the city and, by analogy, in the individual human person. In Book II: 369e - 371e, the origin of a city is said to be one man calling on another for service. The real creator of a city will be a society’s needs for food, clothing, housing, etc.; for importing, exporting, ship-building, and merchandising businesses, etc.; for the efficiencies gained by individuals specializing on limited tasks; and for the wage earners who provide arduous, non-specialized physical labor. All these services are performed by the producing class. But where can injustice or injustice be found? It is not clear that the interlocutors could find justice or injustice in a city moderately supplying its own requirements. Thus, in 372e Socrates suggests that perhaps they should study the origin of the luxurious, “fevered” city. Not only are luxury-goods producers, poets, and doctors necessary in the fevered city; but an army (373e - 374a) is also required to ward off the inevitable raiding parties that will eagerly set about to steal the luxury goods.
In Book II: 374d, Socrates says that, just as specialized occupations and vocational excellence originate in a city; the task of the state’s guardians (army) unfolds as the greatest of all tasks if the very existence of the city-state is to be preserved, and its luxury goods retained. The guardians are initially thought of as the army, whose very existence will require significant training expenses to be paid for by the producing class (374e - 376c). Moreover, who is there to lead the army and to rein-in its excesses? There will have to be a ruling class of some type, also supported by the producing class. Love of wisdom, high spirit, quickness and strength must exist in the nature of him who is to become a good and true guardian of the state (376c), whether in the ruling class or in the army.
Evidently, the ruling class will have to be distinguished from run-of-the mill guardians by virtue of its [the ruling class’s] breeding and education (376c - 382c). Consistent with this distinction, a shift in terminology occurs: The guardians are now thought of as the ruling class, while the original army-guardians are now said to be the warrior class. The warriors are sometimes said to be the “helpers” of the guardians - - but these “helpers” seem to be potentially much more aggressive and threatening to the integrity of the state than merely subservient helpers or advisors.
The character, education and training of the guardians (ruling class) are crucial for the state’s survival and flourishing (376c - 382c). The stories told by speakers and poets to impressionable young guardians must conform to two norms, or canons: First, God must be represented as being the cause only of the good, and not of all things (380c). Second, God is altogether simple and true in deed and word, and neither changes himself nor deceives others by visions or words or the sending of signs in waking or dreams (381e – 382a).
A consideration of the curriculum for the education of the guardians leads to the Platonic version of “cancel culture” (Book III: 387b): If a poetic work negates or undermines the ideal of being more afraid of slavery than of death, then that poetic work shall be expunged from the poetic canon. Musical education is “most sovereign,” because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inmost soul (401d), allowing the recognition of “the forms of soberness, courage, liberality, and high-mindedness, and all their kindred and their opposites, too” (402c).
Some of the guardians’ education is referred to as a “noble lie” (414b) or “a sort of Phoenician Tale” (414c): In the ideal city-state, the story should be promulgated that all members of the city-state are fashioned from elements of the earth and are ipso facto brothers. However, the guardians receive an infusion of gold during their primordial development (414d - 415c); helpers of the guardians (warriors) receive silver; and farmers and craftsmen, et al. (productive workers) receive iron, and, depending on the translation, either brass [copper and zinc] or bronze [copper and tin]. These metals, although found among earthly elements and alloys, are said to infuse the soul of each individual; and, hence, to offer some early thoughts on the mind-body problem.
Occasionally, the Phoenician Tale continues, the father of one metallurgical type may beget progeny of a different metallurgical type. Each individual should be assigned to the social class corresponding to his own, naturally-occurring metallurgical type (415c), i.e., not necessarily to the type of his father. Thus, there results a three-fold-stratified, Platonic society with upward and downward mobility according to “the metallurgy of procreation” and not to personal effort. Rule is by the individuals (guardians) with the virtue-laden, golden souls originating from a golden earthly nature. The guardians receive maintenance from the city-state, but in return the guardians may not possess private property or money in order to keep their focus on the good of the city-state (416c - 417b).
Adimantus interrupts the conversation (Book IV: 419a - 421c) to say that the guardians will not be very happy without private property and money; hence, they will not have the motivation to provide good service. Socrates counters this objection by saying that no one should attach to the guardians a happiness that will draw them away from being truly good. Each class should have its own characteristic happiness. (This objection is also addressed later, in Book V: 465d - 466c, where the concept of the happiness accruing in a timocracy is mentioned: Honor in life and a worthy [state] burial at death should be sufficient.)
Socrates mentions wealth and poverty as factors that can corrupt even a craftsman, and as extremes that must be avoided (421d - 423b). Adimantus objects that without wealth the city cannot pay for its military defense. Socrates answers that disparities of wealth will demoralize any defense. He also mentions that these problems only underscore the importance of education, nurture, and being sure that the modes of music are never disturbed so as to unsettle the “most fundamental political and social conventions” (423e – 424c). Socrates now maintains that the ideal city’s construction is complete, and he is confident that it is rightly founded and completely good (427c-e).
As Socrates’ very first deduction from the premise that their constructed ideal city is perfectly good, he states that such a city is wise, brave, temperate, and just (Book IV: 427e). Presumably this is because the guardians, warriors, and producers are as perfect as their city, and because in an ideal city these social classes function harmoniously together. But to be sure of his analysis, Socrates goes down a check list of these four virtues in order to see that all are present in the ideal city.
First, in 428a - 429a Socrates discovers practical wisdom in the city as arising from the wise counsel of guardians, whose good breeding and rigorous education are founded upon principles of nature.
Second, in 429a - 430c Socrates finds bravery in the city as arising from a warrior class that has been trained in music and physical exercise, educated to receive the city’s laws like wool receives dye, and resolute in strong lawful belief about things to be or not to be feared (as in fearing slavery more than death).
Third, in 430e - 432a Socrates sees soberness in the city as arising from the self-discipline of the producers but extending across all social classes, so that the worse part of the city, or of the individual, may be controlled by the better part. Soberness is a kind of beautiful order and a continence of certain pleasures and appetites. Soberness is a kind of harmony, the concord of the naturally superior and inferior as to who ought to rule. (Soberness is also known as moderation or temperance.)
Finally, in 433a - 434c Socrates perceives justice as doing one’s business and not being a busy-body; i.e., performing exactly one social service for the state. Interference among the three classes of rulers, warriors, and producers would be most injurious to the state and most unjust.
Next week we will conclude our rendition of Plato’s construction of the ideal city-state in the Republic, Books I - IV, and the implication of this construction for the idea of virtue in the ancient world.