Plato’s Concept of the State: The Philosophy of Justice

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One of the biggest problems of mankind, unfortunately, yet unsolved, is the one of the government rules and the citizen of the country in question. The philosophy that underlies the problem depends to a great extent on the people’s spiritual qualities and the morals possessed – or not. For what it’s worth, it seems to me that the dialogue that the philosopher has with the nation within himself is to be solved once and for all, or – well, or we might have another crush of the empire.

Now I would like to draw your attention to the meaning hidden in the book by the great philosopher and the message he tried to convey through the pages of considering the delicate material.

Taking into consideration the fact that Plato was actually trying to create the image of the ideal state and show the means which in his understanding are the key issues to building up the society of his dream, I should say that this book is a treasure trove of the ancient ideas, for it has never been so explicit that a man, even being a philosopher, was so much a stranger to his epoch. His ideas would have been greeted more warmly in the modern society that lacks the very certainty that his works are breathing with…

So, coming to the point, the basics of his ideas that are being so much discussed and argued nowadays, I want you to concentrate on those theses that cause the most inflamed discussions today.

At first, this is the one that claims that justice must be the interest of the rulers – well, leaving that alone, it is quite clear with this one, – and its continuation saying that justice by agreement must take place in the republic, otherwise it would not be the state with enough power and influence. That is what the great master says:

Plato males Socrates focus the conversation on the notion of justice, which will be the main topic for the rest of his work. This focus, Plato thinks, is proper because of the central role of that notion in problems about conduct, and because of the widespread mistake, made by people such as Thrasymachus, about whether or not justice is beneficial to its possessor. (White 63)

Practically, that means that Plato thinks of an ideal reign where the ruler must not take advantage of his power for his own profit but act in such a way, to make the people of his state satisfied and happy and prosperous. That means a certain control of the ruler, in fact, a total control, which presumes that the ruler is honest enough not to make the situation turn worse for the citizens of his state.

There are not many contradictions so far, except the one that Plato speaks of Utopia that can never be put to practice. It is also the justice within a man that he is speaking about. That sounds rather utopia-like, again, but quite positive and at least rising the wish to try this way of building up a society. However, Santas argues that the analogy between the state and the person as the body and its parts is rather complicated and not quite complete.

“The analogy is both suggestive and problematic. It suggests that the final goal of the inquiry is to find out what a just person is, but since justice exists in society as well, it would be easier to discover justice in the society and then in the individual.” (56)

Of course, you might as why this approach seem to Santa’s more natural and clearer. As he states, that is because “society and justice in it are more public and observable than the soul and justice in the soul. Only the individual herself can look into her own soul and observe justice in it, others cannot see into her soul; they can observe at most the individual’s behaviour, which, as Thrasymachus and Glaucon made abundantly clear, can be deceptive.” (56)

Well, at this point it seems clear that, indeed, Plato is speaking of the ideal, or, like it is popular to say now, a transparent society with all its minor problems and drawbacks featured in full to the ruler.

Meanwhile, it must be just as obvious that the ruler himself must have no flaws and be the person never to make any mistake or slip. That sounds impossible for any society, whenever or wherever it existed, in Ancient Greece or contemporary Europe. It is a fake. We are all human beings, after all.

It is also very important to note that Plato in his second nook of Republica makes a detailed and clear subdivision of the citizen into five layers of society. That was big progress then, both in politics and psychology, for the work of his comprises both the human factor and the economics of the state.

So, the message o his was that all the people in Ancient Greece could make four layers of society, which are: the merchants, farmers, craftsmen and wage-earners. As Socrates remarked later, the description lacked one more layer, which was the philosopher-kings, but it seems that at that point philosophy could not be associated with the governing body even by a man of huge imagination who Plato was, no doubts.

Still back to the discussion, Plato argued that justice had to be a virtue of excellence. That was the very root of the contradictions that modern scientists and political scientists had when considering the work of the philosopher.

The main idea here is to define whether a person and thus the society is just or not, and the problem of this definition is the problem of psychology that Plato, whatever bright a philosopher he might have been, was not able to solve.

As Santas suggests, “Another way to define a just person and a just society is to apply the concept of justice first to a person, define it fir this case, and then conceive of a just society composed of just persons as defined.” (57).

However, that also might be a problem, for where the crowd makes the justice, a single person can be a traitor, and vice versa. A clear-cut example of such peculiarity of the crowd psychology is the so-called lynching, where the crowd can be mistaken as well, and at times it acts under the spur of the moment, not considering whether the accused is guilty or not. Many a poor victim has been executed in such a way to be rehabilitated further on, but – alas! – too late.

So that is why there are heavy doubts concerning whether the justice of the crowd is a reasonable notion at all. It must be also taken into account that it is much easier to take control over the mind of the crowd than the mind of a single person. Flocking together, people lose the ability to think individually.

Yet on the other hand White sounds most reasonable when claiming, “… the connection between justice as Plato explains it and both what is good for the city and the goodness of the city. What makes the city good is precisely the fact that it is made to adhere to the Principle of the Natural Division of Labor, according to which each element in the city performs its own natural task.” (19)

In fact, though it seems quite a weird thing for a nowadays ordinary citizen that such an obvious idea should be explained, there is one thing that should not be forgotten, namely that the very Greek word that stands for “justice”, which is dikaiosyne, haws the meaning that has nothing to do with the ideas expressed by Plato.

To wind up the discussion and come to a certain conclusion, I would say that the freedom of each and every citizen of the country together with the total trust in the governor is something that sounds more like heaven or something of the kind. This could not endure the human nature that in its natural egoism searches for something that is prior to himself than to the rest of the society.

However, if every single man as the citizen of the state understands the level of the responsibility that he bears, as well as the ruler understands his, there could happen something that might change the life into a new Utopia. As White puts it,

“What is important to bear in mind is that the term polis connotes a certain degree of independence of government and self-sufficiency of economy. These are features that Plato emphasizes throughout.”

Plato tried to create the idea of the perfect state, the perfect citizen, and the perfect ruler. Unfortunately, this was not achieved in Ancient Greece; otherwise, we could have an example to follow. However, the book still shows how distanced the real and the desirable could be. The great philosopher showed the way out as if saying. “My business is to tell you, and you are welcome to make it true.” Still, he was wise enough to foresee that the pathetic tries would lead to nowhere and that this is another Babel Tower to build. Striving for perfection as something unachievable is all that there is to a human being. But at least that fills our lives with sense.

Works Cited

Santas, Gerasimos. Understanding Plato’s Republic. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Print.

White, Nicolas P. A Comparison to Plato’s Republic. New York NY: Hacket Publishing, 1979. Print.

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Plato’s Concept of the State: The Philosophy of Justice

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