Plato in Republic is preacher, inculcating useful beliefs — not philosopher, establishing scientific theory. State of Just and Unjust Man in the Platonic Commonwealth.
In considering the main thesis of the Republic, we must look upon Plato as preacher — inculcating a belief which he thinks useful to be diffused; rather than as philosopher, announcing general truths of human nature, and laying down a consistent, scientific, theory of Ethics. There are occasions on which even he himself seems to accept this character. “If the fable of Kadmus and the dragon’s teeth” (he maintains) “with a great many other stories equally improbable, can be made matters of established faith, surely a doctrine so plausible as mine, about justice and injustice, can be easily taught and accredited.”[66] To ensure unanimous acquiescence, Plato would constrain all poets to proclaim and illustrate his thesis — and would prohibit them from uttering anything inconsistent with it.[67] But these or similar official prohibitions may be employed for the upholding of any creed, whatever it be: and have been always employed, more or less, in every society, for the upholding of the prevalent creed. Even in the best society conceivable under the conditions of human life, assuming an ideal commonwealth in which the sentiments of just and unjust have received the most systematic, beneficent, and rational embodiments, and have become engraven on all the leading minds — even then Plato’s first assertion — That the just man is happy quand même — could not be admitted without numerous reserves and qualifications. Justice must still be done by each agent, not as a self-inviting process, but as an obligation entailing more or less of sacrifice made by him to the security and comfort of others. Plato’s second assertion — That the unjust man is miserable — would be more near the truth; because the ideal commonwealth is assumed to be one in which the governing body has both the disposition and the power to punish injustice — and the discriminating equanimity, or absence of antipathies, which secures them against punishing anything else. The power of society to inflict misery is far more extensive than its power of imparting happiness. But even thus, we have to recollect that the misery of the unjust person arises not from his in justice per se, but from consequent treatment at the hands of others.
[66] See Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 663-664.
Good and simple people, in the earlier times (says Plato) believed every thing that was told them. They were more virtuous and just then than they are now (Legg. iii. p. 679 C-E).
[67] Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 661-662. Illustrated in the rigid and detailed censorship which he imposes on the poets in the Republic, in the second and third books.
In the Legg., however, Plato puts his thesis in a manner less untenable than in the Republic:— “Neither to do wrong to others, nor to suffer wrong from others; this is the happiest condition” (Legg. ii. p. 663 A). This is a very different proposition from that which is defended in the Republic; where we are called upon to believe, that the man who acts justly will be happy, whatever may be the conduct of others towards him.
Epikurus laid down, as one of the doctrines in his Κύριαι Δόξαι (see Diog. Laert. x. 150): Τὸ τῆς φύσεως δίκαιον ἐστὶ σύμβολον τοῦ συμφέροντος, εἰς τὸ μὴ βλάπτειν ἀλλήλους μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι. Ὅσα τῶν ζῴων μὴ ἠδύνατο συνθήκας ποιεῖσθαι τὰς ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ βλάπτειν ἄλληλα μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι, πρὸς ταῦτα οὐθέν ἐστιν οὐδὲ δίκαιον οὔδὲ ἄδικον. Ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν ὅσα μὴ ἠδύνατο, ἢ μὴ ἐβούλετο, τὰς συνθήκας ποιεῖσθαι τὰς ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ βλάπτειν ἀλλήλους μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι, &c.
Lucretius expresses the same — v. 1020:—
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“Tunc et amicitiam cœperunt jungere aventes “Finitimi inter se nec lædere nec violari,” &c. |
Comparative happiness of the two in actual communities. Plato is dissatisfied with it — This is his motive for recasting society on his own principles.