Why Plato? Part Two: Justice as a Balanced Soul Written By Lou Marinoff
Some readers might wonder why Plato (circa 428 – 348 BC) is a featured practitioner among prestigious business organizations. Of course you have all heard of Plato, even if you never studied him. Why? Because his name is virtually synonymous with Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead declared that the history of Western philosophy is 2,000 years of footnotes to Plato. In Part One, we surveyed Plato’s celebrated theory of Forms. Here, we’ll examine his insightful theory of justice. Among Plato’s most important dialogues is the Republic, which articulates his theory of justice. In the aftermath of Sparta’s defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War and its installation of a puppet government that put Socrates to death on trumped- up charges of impiety and corrupting the youth, Plato sought to lay the philosophical foundations for a just and enduring polity. To accomplish his mission, Plato must answer two serious allegations. The first is by Thrasymachus, who avers that justice is the advantage of the stronger over the weaker. The second is by Glaucon, who asserts that people would always act unjustly if they could get away with it. Plato refutes both of these charges via his vision of an ideal
city-state. He accomplishes this in an ingenious way, proposing a model of a balanced soul that applies both to the individual citizen and to the state itself. The Platonic soul has three parts: rational, emotional, and instinctual. Our ability to exercise reason is represented by the mind, our passionate commitments by the heart, and our instinctive desires by the gut. To lead a fulfilling life, these three components must be finely tuned and mutually balanced. When people are persistently agitated, angry, or hateful, it signals an imbalance in their souls. Only when guided by reason can our passions and desires be channeled virtuously and fruitfully. If, instead, they run amok and override reason, personal unhappiness and social discontent are bound to ensue. Plato’s three-part model of the soul has more universal traction than Freud’s three-part model of the mind (super-ego, ego, id), although parallels can be drawn between them. Plato’s genius also lies in the simultaneous application of his model at two levels: the microcosmic, pertaining to each citizen; and the macrocosmic, pertaining to the state itself. Where reason rules, wise rulers emerge. Then citizens’ passions can be engaged in beneficial causes, and their appetites satisfied in wholesome ways. But when passion displaces
reason, malevolent rulers arise. They, in turn, can unleash the most damaging emotions and brutal appetites that a rational polity tries to minimize: the demons of hatred, malice, resentment, grievance, mob rule, and violence. Plato’s message is clear: to sustain a stable and productive polity, we need to incubate wise political leaders. He called them “guardians.” They are chosen on the basis of their understanding of the pure form of Good and so are most fit to govern. Men and women alike can be guardians (said Plato in 375 B.C.!), but only if their reason rules their emotions and desires. Guardians make laws and command defensive forces, called “auxiliaries,” to protect the state and its citizens. The auxiliaries are warriors, courageously risking their lives for the Good: they rush toward harm’s way, be it into a battle or a burning building. Third but hardly least are the “producers” of absolutely everything else, goods and services of all kinds. Fast-forward to the present, and “everything else” has incomparably more scope today. But producers still need guardians and auxiliaries, even more nowadays than in Plato’s era. is sustainable if the three parts of its soul remain in balance. The model is triangular, one of the most robust shapes in nature. So Plato’s city-state
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