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.

The Idea of Virtue in Antiquity (I): Plato (A)

This blog posting is dedicated to the memory of Robert W. Bretzlaff (1918 - 1988), who was a master farmer in Champaign County, Illinois; who maintained interests in agriculture and civil engineering; and who held all matters of music and of the mind in high regard.  He would have been 105 years old as of the day of this posting, and he has been greatly missed.  From 1854 to the present day, from his predecessors Gustave and Henry W.; and to his successors Robert S., William S., Zachary J., and Ethan H.; this Bretzlaff line in the U.S.A. has greatly enjoyed the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - - and not even to mention the benefits of occasional blog postings!

In this blog posting (and its successors), we want to investigate the idea of virtue in Plato’s Republic (Books I - IV), which is famously centered on the idea of justice in a city-state.  For initial working definitions, let us assume that a virtue is a trait of excellence in action (moral virtue) or in thought (intellectual virtue); and that justice is the actual awarding to an individual human person of his due, or what he has earned, be it reward (distributive justice) or punishment (retributive justice).  There may be other traits besides justice that are virtues, as well as alternative definitions of justice.  Moreover, there might be disagreement regarding whether justice is properly predicated of individual human persons, of society at large, or of both.

Background regarding justice: Someone claiming proceeds from labor or capital might be told “Having been subsidized by good government, ‘you didn’t build that,’ meaning that you didn’t earn anything beyond the subsidy; and any continuing income stream accrues to the government!”  Someone requesting protection from illegal activity via the deterring effect of a criminal justice system might be told “Having been oppressed by bad government and evil victimizers, some individuals previously known as criminals have been recategorized as “the victimized”; whose conduct has been contextualized, and whose punishment has been cancelled!”  If such claims and requests are routinely denied, then, evidently, one would be forced either to abandon the possibility of justice or else to re-examine its underlying rationale.  Perhaps there are alternative ways to ground justice as rights and obligations pertaining to life, liberty, and property; and if so, then those rights and obligations must be secured by a sovereign who - - although striking terror into the minds of a rebellious populace - - can at least prevent life from becoming truly solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Plato’s dialog, the Republic, bears the title Politeia in transliterated Greek and De Republica in Latin.  The Latin title may also be rendered in English as “On the Public Thing” or “Public Affairs.”  The Republic examines the ethical questions: “What is virtue?” “What is justice?” and “Why should a person or city be just?” 

For a work widely known as a discussion of political theory, the Republic gets off to a somewhat surprising start: Socrates’ interlocutor, Cephalus, fields a question about the greatest benefit that accrues, in old age, from the possession of property (Book I: 330d - 331b).  Cephalus states that he is concerned about his personal fate in the afterlife.  Not being personally aware of any debt that he still owes to other individuals, to his city-state, or to the ancient Greek deities - - and evidently presupposing that unencumbered wealth is an independent, summary indicaton of being debt-free - - Cephalus hopes to attain to the poetic model of a man living out his days in justice and piety.  

Of course, the mere mention of a concept or idea like justice entices Socrates to start one of his typical examinations.  Socrates, Cephalus, and Polemarchus consider the definition of justice (331c - 336a) and advance to the point of saying that to be just is to benefit friends and harm enemies.  Suddenly, Thrasymachus breaks into the conversation, maintaining that “the just is ‘nothing else’ than the advantage of the stronger” (336b - 338c).  

Whereas Cephalus had started with the presupposition that being just is an attribute of an individual human person, Thrasymachus stated an abstract version of the just that could be applied equally well to governments, their ultimate rulers, and by extension, to any individual human person.  In fact, Socrates quickly pivots from individuals to governments and their leaders (338c - 356b).  Socrates deduces that justice is virtue and wisdom, while injustice is vice and ignorance (350d); that disunity (inner faction and lack of self-agreement) destroys individuals, while political faction destroys cities (351e - 352a); and that injustice can never be more profitable than justice (354a).  

It is during this dialog with Thrasymachus that Socrates enunciates the Greek presuppositions that the soul (psyche, or principle of life) has its own unique work (353d); that a good or bad soul manages “things” (living generally) either well or badly (353e); and that he who lives well is either happy (be it on a dichotomous or on a continuous scale) or even blessed (as an asymptotic limit to the continuous variable of happiness - see 354a).  

“Happiness” is a value term, synonymous with well-being or flourishing.  A second construal is as a word that purports to be a purely descriptive psychological term, grouped together with terms like ecstatic, tranquil, or depressed; and serving as a metric for relentlessly utilitarian government programs.  The purely psychological construal is certainly not what Plato had in mind, because Platonic happiness requires ethical action in order to live consistently with the objective essence of rational human persons.

Later in the Republic, Book IV, we will be told that the soul can be considered as having three faculties: See 436a for the distinction between learning [facts or reasons], desiring [and willing] pleasures, and feeling anger.  This “psychology section” in Book IV runs from 436a to at least 440d.  The three-fold faculties of the human soul are referred to the intellect, the will (or desire), and the emotions.  It is taken to be self-evidently true that the intellect - - dealing as it does with rational processes - - is the highest faculty of that rational animal known as the individual human person; and that, for the favored few, the rational process known as the contemplation of the Forms of truth, beauty, and goodness is the highest activity, approaching the limit of blessedness. 

Returning to the end of Book I, Thrasymachus “abandons the field,” and Socrates summarizes the investigation so far as follows (Book I: 354b): We interlocutors have failed to determine “what justice is” (regarding its essential nature) before trying to ascertain “something about it” (regarding its description as virtue or vice).  Asking whether justice is virtue and knowledge, or whether injustice is ignorance and vice, is premature as long as no one knows “what justice is.”  Consequently, Socrates says that “the present outcome of the discussion is that I know nothing.  For if I don’t know what the just [or justice] is, I shall hardly know whether it [justice] is a virtue or not, and whether its possessor is or is not happy.”

Glaucon and Adimantus now ask Socrates (Book II: 357b) if he had really thought that he had convinced them of the superiority of justice during his previous argument against Thrasymachus.  In other words, “Is it always better to be just than unjust?”  Glaucon challenges Socrates to give a better argument for his [Socrates’] position (357b - 358d).  Socrates accepts the challenge (358d).  Glaucon then recapitulates and embellishes Thrasymachus’ argument (358e - 362c).  Next, Adimantus continues the development of Thrasymachus’ objections to the thesis of the superiority of justice over injustice (362e - 367e).  

At that point (368c - d), Socrates remarks that their examination of the nature and origin of justice requires keen vision.  This keenness is like that required for seeing, from a distance, small letters (of the alphabet) drawn on a wall or surface.  Reading larger drawn letters on a larger, closer surface would be helpful in discerning letters, words, sentences, and meaning.  It is accepted by Adimantus that there is an analogy between discerning such drawn letters by sight and discerning justice by intellectual vision and rational argument. 

In 368e - 369a, we are told that because there is more justice in the larger object [city or city-state], therefore the city-state is more amenable to the analysis of justice than is the individual person.  We want to continue “looking for the likeness of the greater in the form of the less.”  (The idea of “more justice in the larger object” is also mentioned in Book IV: 434d - e.)  Moreover, if we can theoretically construct the origin of a city-state, then we should be able to pinpoint the origin of justice and injustice within the city-state.  In other words, Socrates believes that an account of the nature and origin of a good city - - and of its justice and virtue - - will help identify justice and virtue in an individual human person.  

Next week we will continue to follow Plato’s construction of the ideal city-state and his illumination of the idea of virtue in the ancient world.