City and the Soul Plato Essays

City and the Soul Plato Essays City and the Soul Plato Essay City and the Soul Plato Essay How compelling is the city-soul analogy and to what extent does the picture of â€Å"Platonic justice† that emerges from it differ from conventional justice? Much has been written about the inadequacy of the city-soul analogy in establishing what justice is, and further about how Plato fails to adequately connect his vision of justice to the conventional one and so is unable to address the original challenge. I mean to show that the city-soul analogy is in fact compelling, or at least that is it sufficiently adequate to allow us to move on to a discussion of how Platonic justice compares to conventional justice. At that point I will attempt to show that Platonic justice is relevant to the challenge posed to Socrates, and that despite objections to the contrary the Platonic and conventional views are sufficiently aligned to allow Socrates to conclude that he has shown that it is better to be just than unjust. Vlastos, and others, argue that describing the city as just is simply a generalization about its members, and so the city is not just in the same way that a person is just. I wish to argue, as Wilson does, that there are other grounds for Plato to attribute justice to the city. As Wilson puts it, â€Å"[Plato’s] central question is not the analytical philosopher’s question ‘What does ‘justice’ mean? ’, but the substantial question ‘What is justice? ’†. Thus, it is wrong to criticize the Republic as one would criticize a formal argument towards a definition, as Plato is actually searching for what justice actually is. Wilson’s doctor metaphor is helpful: Plato is investigating the nature of justice just like doctors inquire into the nature of a disease. Doctors notice a variety of systems and become convinced they are caused by a single underlying condition, to which they attribute a name. Eventually someone discovers this underlying condition and the initial assumption is justified. In this way, something like polio can be understood, not by investigating the meaning of the word polio but by looking at possible examples of it and by studying its nature. Plato, Wilson argues, is doing something similar with justice. What is it that makes the connection between justice in a city and justice in an individual plausible? To avoid the objections to the city-soul analogy, it is important that justice and other virtues not be found in the city only in a derivative way, that is, only as a generalization about the city’s members. Luckily, Plato is able to avoid this method. Wilson proposes that Plato does so by equating the structural features of the soul and of the city. Then, when some virtue V is indicated by certain characteristics C of a city, and by those same characteristics C of a soul, and that after inquiry we find that the structural feature of both the city and the soul that gives rise to C is the same structural feature S, then like the doctor we can conclude with certainty that V is S. Whether or not Plato successfully equates the structural features of the soul and the city is a large question, but he certainly thinks that he does. I do not mean to go into a discussion of this separate question here, but just wish to have shown that the use of the city-soul analogy is perfectly reasonable, since it provides an adequate method for investigating the nature of justice. Another potential problem Plato faces is the connection of Platonic justice to conventional views of justice. The original challenge is to show that it is better for a man to be just than unjust, regardless of anything else. This question would certainly not be sufficiently answered by inventing a new definition of justice that was unconnected from conventional views of justice, for example if the new definition permitted acts that commonly would be considered unjust; it is necessary for Plato to demonstrate a connection between Platonic and conventional justice. This issue comes most pointedly from Sachs, who asserts that Plato has to prove two different things: ) A Platonically just person will always act in conventionally just ways b) Someone who is conventionally just will necessarily also be Platonically just In other words, Sachs is of the opinion that Plato must equate Platonic justice to conventional justice in both directions, so that anyone who is one will necessarily be the other. Sachs claims Plato is aware of the need to prove a), though does not do a great job of doing so, but never mentions any need to show that b) is also true. I would argue that proving b) is unnecessary to establish Plato’s argument. Plato wishes to show that it is always better to behave justly, and Sach’s point is that Plato needs to show that someone who is conventionally just will always be better off than someone who is conventionally unjust, and so that person who is conventionally just must be Platonically just. However, I think that this is not actually required of Plato, as it is possible to think of cases where someone who meets the definition of conventionally just is not actually a just person in the way Socrates and the group are considering. As Sachs describes, the vulgar or conventional conception of justice is the idea of not doing certain acts. According to this definition, it would be possible to act in a conventionally just way- not simply seem just, but actually act in a way that makes one just- while in fact being unjust so that even those who hold the conventional view of justice would agree that such a person was unjust. As an example consider an â€Å"incompetent evildoer†. Such a person might have horrible intentions, but every single time he does a bad thing he not only fails to complete the action but fails to do so at all. Every action he does is a just action, and he never does any actions that are considered unjust, yet he has terrible intentions and constantly desires to harm others. He not only seems conventionally just to everyone around him, he actually is conventionally just because this vulgar, conventional view of justice is simply concerned with how he acts. It seems, however, that he is not a just person. Plato does not need to show that this man is someone who is Platonically just, and he very clearly is not. Thus, Plato is not required to demonstrate b), because there are some people who meet the definition of conventionally just but are not just in the sense that Socrates and company are discussing- they want to establish that it is better to be just, and would all agree that the incompetent evildoer is not just although he technically meets the conventional definition. On the other hand, it is important that Plato prove a). At first glance, it seems entirely plausible that someone with inner psychic harmony may be capable of stealing, murdering, or committing other unjust actions. This would totally invalidate Plato’s argument, as it would do nothing to show that everyone should act in what Glaucon and Adeimantus think of as a right way. So it is necessary to demonstrate that someone who is Platonically just will also be conventionally just, that is, everyone who has a well-ordered soul must always act in ways that we think of as just. I argue that an adequate proof of a) does exist for Plato, even if he himself does not include it. As Demos says, â€Å"mathematicians often skip steps in an inference, thinking them obvious†, and even though Plato may fail to provide the proof of a) himself, he is still justified in believing it. Demos gives a good way of approaching the defense of this point. Basically, the soul of the Platonically just person is ruled by reason, which is both a desire and an appreciation of the truth and of the good. This good which reason aims at involves justice, and aiming at the good means also aiming at the production of good things. So, an individual aiming at justice cares not only for justice abstractly, but is concerned with justice being embodied in humans in general. For the soul to be healthy requires its reason to be fulfilled, and reason’s concern is that the good should be exemplified everywhere. Being inwardly just means wanting everyone to have his due, and that means not committing the types of actions that are thought of as conventionally unjust. While this does not thoroughly prove a), it seems to show that the aims of an inwardly, Platonically just person will require them to be externally, and thus conventionally, just as well. Annas follows Sachs in insisting that Plato fails to prove a), and further thinks that there is no possible link between Platonic and conventional justice. One particular criticism is Plato’s view of truth-telling, which she sees as devastatingly inconsistent. As she points out, Plato would allow for the Guardians to occasionally tell lies, but the working class may not. She sees a big issue with the fact that the Guardians â€Å"cannot bear to be deceived, but they sometimes deceive others†. This criticism, however, seems to rest on an apparently quite stringent deontological view. I believe that Plato’s idea of the occasional rightness of lying fits perfectly well with conventional morality. Consider: i) Truth-telling in general is good ii) Lying is occasionally acceptable I would argue that conventional morality would accept both i) and ii), or at the very least, since some people might not accept ii), that it is at least an open question of conventional morality of whether ii) is acceptable. Certain times, it seems, lying is an obviously right act, such as the case of the murderer at the door inquiring about the whereabouts of his victim. Plato, I take it, takes a more consequentialist view of morality and would agree with both i) and ii). Because of the difficulty of saying when it is acceptable to lie and when it is not (both ethically, as it is hard to define exactly in which cases it is acceptable, and logically, as if everyone knows lying is allowed in certain cases the lie won’t be believed anyway), it is better to encourage a general culture of truth-telling but to permit some exceptions, and for Plato the way that makes most sense to balance on that fine line is to state that people shouldn’t lie, but in some instances the Guardians may. Thus, it is not the case that it is an inconsistency, but in fact Plato’s idea of truth-telling fits in well with conventional views of morality. Platonic justice aligns with conventional justice. Another objection, raised by Annas and others, is to ask why the Platonically just philosophers Plato imagines might not steal in order to fund their intellectual pursuits. If these pursuits are so important to their lives, wouldn’t they feel it right to take money through any means necessary to allow themselves to continue with their life goals? One possible response, following from Demos’ argument, is that being Platonically just involves not being selfish. Someone with a well-ordered, just soul would put the general good above their own personal good, since the form of reason mentioned above would guide their actions. Selfishly stealing from others to pursue their own goals would contradict those very goals. Similarly, another objection is that philosophers would avoid ruling in favor of intellectual pursuits if society needed them and asked them to rule, but the same reasoning applies. The goal of pursuing intellectual reasoning would in fact be contradicted by so selfishly avoiding this duty. The very reason they would want to develop and explore would require them to do the (conventionally) just thing and take on the responsibility of ruling. In this way again, Platonic justice coheres with the more conventional form. I hope to shown that the city-soul analogy is at least adequate as a tool for exploring justice and discovering its nature. While it may not be very useful in giving a technical definition, it does its job as far as it needs to in understanding what justice is. Accepting this allows us to move on to discuss Platonic justice, which I hope I have demonstrated to entail conventional justice. Despite the irrelevance objections of Sachs, Annas, and others, I have argued that Plato’s account of justice is sufficient to respond to the challenge set out at the beginning of the Republic.