In carrying on war, special maxims of clemency are to be observed towards Hellenic enemies.
The education of the Guardians must be philosophical; it is for them to rise to the Idea of the good, to master the science of Good and Evil; they must be emancipated from the notion that Pleasure is the good. To indicate the route to this attainment Plato gives his theory of cognition generally—the theory of Ideas;—and indicates (darkly) how these sublime generalities are to be reached.
The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established, is doomed to degradation and decay; passing through Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, to Despotism, with a corresponding declension of happiness. The same varieties may be traced in the Individual; the 'despotized' mind is the acme of Injustice and consequent misery.
The comparative value of Pleasures is discussed. The pleasures of philosophy, or wisdom (those of Reason), are alone true and pure; the pleasures corresponding to the two other parts of the mind are inferior; Love of Honour (from Courage or Energy), and Love of Money (Appetite). The well-ordered mind—Justice—is above all things the source of happiness. Apart from all consequences of Justice, this is true; the addition of the natural results only enhances the strength of the position.
In TIMAEUS, Plato repeats the doctrine that wickedness is to the mind what disease is to the body. The soul suffers from two distempers, madness and ignorance; the man under passionate heat is not wicked voluntarily. No man is bad willingly; but only from some evil habit of body, the effect of bad bringing-up [very much the view of Robert Owen].
The long treatise called the LAWS, being a modified scheme of a Republic, goes over the same ground with more detail. We give the chief ethical points. It is the purpose of the lawgiver to bring about happiness, and to provide all good things divine and human. The divine things are the cardinal virtues—Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, Courage; the human are the leading personal advantages—Health, Beauty, Strength, Activity, Wealth. He requires the inculcation of self-command, and a training in endurance. The moral and religious feelings are to be guided in early youth, by the influence of Poetry and the other Fine Arts, in which, as before, a stringent censorship is to be exercised; the songs and dances are all to be publicly authorized. The ethical doctrine that the just man is happy and the unjust miserable, is to be preached; and every one prohibited from contradicting it. Of all the titles to command in society, Wisdom is the highest, although policy may require it to be conjoined with some of the others (Birth, Age, Strength, Accident, &c.). It is to be a part of the constitution to provide public exhortations, or sermons, for inculcating virtue; Plato having now passed into an opposite phase as to the value of Rhetoric, or continuous address. The family is to be allowed in its usual form, but with restraints on the age of marriage, on the choice of the parties, and on the increase of the number of the population. Sexual intercourse is to be as far as possible confined to persons legally married; those departing from this rule are, at all events, to observe secresy. The slaves are not to be of the same race as the masters. As regards punishment, there is a great complication, owing to the author's theory that wickedness is not properly voluntary. Much of the harm done by persons to others is unintentional or involuntary, and is to be made good by reparation. For the loss of balance or self-control, making the essence of injustice, there must be a penal and educational discipline, suited to cure the moral distemper; not for the sake of the past, which cannot be recalled, but of the future. Under cover of this theory, the punishments are abundantly severe; and the crimes include Heresy, for which there is a gradation of penalties terminating in death.
We may now summarize the Ethics of Plato, under the general scheme as follows:—
I.—The Ethical Standard, or criterion of moral Right and Wrong. This we have seen is, ultimately, the Science of Good and Evil, as determined by a Scientific or Wise man; the Idea of the Good, which only a philosopher can ascend to. Plato gave no credit to the maxims of the existing society; these were wholly unscientific.
It is obvious that this vague and indeterminate standard would settle nothing practically; no one can tell what it is. It is only of value as belonging to a very exalted and poetic conception of virtue, something that raises the imagination above common life into a sphere of transcendental existence.
II.—The Psychology of Ethics.