In my last Chapter, I discussed the manner in which Plato had endeavoured to solve the ethical problem urged upon him by Glaukon and Adeimantus. But this is not the entire purpose of the Republic. Plato, drawing the closest parallel between the Commonwealth and the individual, seeks solution of the problem first in the former; because it is there (he says) written in larger and clearer letters. He sketches the picture of a perfect Commonwealth — shows wherein its justice consists — and proves, to his own satisfaction, that it will be happy in and through its justice — per se. This picture of a Commonwealth is unquestionably one of the main purposes of the dialogue; serving as commencement — or more properly as intermediate stage — to the Timæus and Kritias. Most critics have treated it as if it were the dominant and almost exclusive purpose. Aristotle, the earliest of all critics, adverts to it in this spirit; numbering Plato or the Platonic Sokrates among those who, not being practical politicians, framed schemes for ideal commonwealths, like Phaleas or Hippodamus. I shall now make some remarks on the political provisions of the Platonic Commonwealth: but first I shall notice the very peculiar manner in which Plato discovers therein the notions of Justice and Injustice.
Plato recognises the generating principle of human society — reciprocity of need and service. Particular direction which he gives to this principle.
The Platonic Sokrates (as I remarked above) lays down as the fundamental, generating, principle of human society, the reciprocity of need and service, essentially belonging to human beings: exchange of services is indispensable, because each man has many wants more than he can himself supply, and thus needs the services of others: while each also can contribute something to supply the wants of others. To this general principle Plato gives a peculiar direction. He apportions the services among the various citizens; and he provides that each man shall be specialised for the service to which he is peculiarly adapted, and confined to that alone. No double man[1] is tolerated. How such specialisation is to be applied in detail among the multitude of cultivators and other producers, Plato does not tell us. Each is to have his own employment: we know no more. But in regard to the two highest functions, he gives more information: first, the small cabinet of philosophical Elders,[2] Chiefs, or Rulers — artists in the craft of governing, who supply professionally that necessity of the Commonwealth, and from whom all orders emanate: next, the body of Guardians, Soldiers, Policemen, who execute the orders of this cabinet, and defend the territory against all enemies. Respecting both of these, Plato carefully prescribes both the education which they are to receive, and the circumstances under which they are to live. They are to be of both sexes intermingled, but to know neither family nor property: they live together in barrack, and with common mess, receiving subsistence and the means of decent comfort, but no more, from the producers: respecting sexual relations and births, I shall say more presently.
[1] Plato, Rep. iii. p. 397 E.
[2] The principle laid down in the Protagoras will be remembered — εἷς ἔχων τέχνην πολλοῖς ἱκανὸς ἰδιώταις (Protag. p. 322 D).
The four cardinal virtues are assumed as constituting the whole of Good or Virtue, where each of these virtues resides.
When Plato has provided thus much, he treats his city as already planted and brought to consummation. He thinks himself farther entitled to proclaim it as perfectly good, and therefore as including the four constituent elements of Good: that is, as being wise, brave, temperate, just.[3] He then looks to find wherein each of these four elements resides: wisdom resides specially in the cabinet of Rulers — courage specially in the Guardians — temperance and justice, in these two, but in the producing multitude also. The two last virtues are universal in the Commonwealth. Temperance consists in the harmony of opinion between the multitude and the two higher classes as to obedience: the Guardians are as ready to obey as the Chiefs to command: the multitude are also for the most part ready to obey — but should they ever fail in obedience, the Guardians are prepared to lend their constraining force to the authority of the Chiefs. Having thus settled three out of the four elements of Good, which enumeration he assumes to be exhaustive — Plato assumes that what remains must be Justice. This remainder he declares to be — That each of the three portions of the Commonwealth performs its own work and nothing else: and this is Justice. Justice and Temperance are thus common to all the three portions of the Commonwealth: while Wisdom and Prudence belong entirely to the Chiefs, and Courage entirely to the Guardians.
[3] Plato, Repub. iv. pp. 427 D-428 A. ᾠκισμένη μὲν τοίνυν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ἤδη ἄν σοι εἴη, ὦ παῖ Ἀρίστωνος, ἡ πόλις … Οἶμαι ἡμῖν τὴν πόλιν, εἴπερ ὀρθῶς γε ᾤκισται, τέλεως ἀγαθὴν εἶναι. Ἀνάγκη, ἔφη. Δῆλον δή, ὅτι σοφή τ’ ἐστὶ καὶ ἀνδρεία καὶ σώφρων καὶ δικαία. Δῆλον. Οὐκοῦν, ὅ, τι ἂν αὐτῶν εὕρωμεν ἐν αὐτῇ, τὸ ὑπόλοιπον ἔσται τὸ οὐχ εὑρημένον; &c.
First mention of these, as an exhaustive classification, in ethical theory. Plato effaces the distinction between Temperance and Justice.
Here, for the first time in Ethical Theory, Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, are assumed as an exhaustive enumeration of virtues: each distinct from the other three, but all together including the whole of Virtue.[4] Through Cicero and others, these four have come down as the cardinal virtues. From whom Plato derived it, I do not know: not certainly from the historical Sokrates, who resolved the last three into the first.[5] Nor is it indeed in harmony with Plato’s own view: for temperance and justice are substantially coincident, in his explanation of them (since he does not recognise the characteristic feature of Justice, as directly tending to the good of a person other than the agent): and the line, by which he endeavours to part them, is obscure as well as unimportant. Schleiermacher — who admits that the distinction drawn here between Temperance and Justice is altogether forced — supposes that Plato took up this quadruple classification, because he found it already established in the common, non-theorising, consciousness.[6] If this be true, the real distinction between Justice (as directly bearing on the rights of another person) and Temperance (as directly concerning only the future happiness of the agent himself), which is one of the most important distinctions in Ethics — must have been already felt, without being formulated, in the common mind: and Plato, by retaining the two words, but effacing the distinction between the two, and giving a new meaning to Justice — took a step in the wrong direction. He himself however tells us, that the definition, here given of Justice, is not his own; but that he had heard it enunciated by many others before him.[7] What makes this more remarkable is, That the same definition (to do your own business and not to meddle with other people’s business) is what we read in the Charmidês as delivered respecting Temperance, by Charmides and Kritias:[8] delivered by them, and afterwards pulled to pieces in cross-examination by Sokrates. Herein we see farther proof how little distinction Plato drew between Justice and Temperance.