PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

From Classics in Political Philosophy, by James Fieser

Home: https://storage.googleapis.com/jfieser/410/Index.html

2008, updated 1/1/2024, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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CONTENTS

Plato: Civil Obedience, Justice and the Ideal State (from Crito and The Republic)

Aristotle: The Natural Foundation of Society (from Politics)

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PLATO: CIVIL OBEDIENCE, JUSTICE AND THE IDEAL STATE

 

Plato (428 348 BCE) was one of the great philosophers from ancient Greece's golden age, and he influenced virtually every area of philosophy. He lived in the city of Athens where he founded a school called the Academy, which his pupil Aristotle attended. Plato himself was a student of Socrates, and eccentric teacher who was put on trial and executed on the charges of atheism and corrupting the youth. While Socrates wrote nothing, Plato immortalized his teacher by making him the lead character in his philosophical dialogues. Below are selections from two of Plato's works on political philosophy. First is the dialogue Crito, which discusses the issue of whether we are morally obligated to follow the laws of one's country. The dialogue's setting is Socrates' prison cell, where he awaits execution. Crito, a wealthy student of Socrates, encourages him to flee for his life. Socrates argues that all of Crito's arguments for escaping merely reflect the "opinion of the many"; instead, Socrates says that his decision should be based on the views of someone who is an expert in justice. Justice demands that he obey the state and the decision of the jury. To make his case, Socrates imagines that the "Laws" of Athens are speaking directly to him. The Laws offer two main arguments for obedience to the state. First, Athens has raised Socrates in much the way that his parents raised him, and, consequently, Socrates needs to obey the laws of Athens in much the way that children should obey their parents. Second, by consciously choosing to remain in Athens, Socrates made a contract with the city to obey its laws. The Laws conclude by describing how miserable Socrates life would be if he fled to another town.

Plato made his greatest impact on political philosophy in his dialogue The Republic, which investigates the nature of justice. Again, Socrates is the lead character in this dialogue and, in the selection below, he is joined by three others: Thrasymachus a teacher of rhetoric, and Plato's two older brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus. Thrasymachus begins the dialogue by defending the skeptical position that justice is the interest of the stronger, essentially that might makes right. According to Thrasymachus, all governments seek their own interest, and the so-called "just" person always loses to the unjust person. Socrates disagrees and argues that acting unjustly is not more beneficial than acting justly. Socrates is then opposed by Glaucon, who, like Thrasymachus, is also skeptical about justice. Glaucon presents a fable about a shepherd who finds a ring that makes him invisible, which the shepherd uses to seduce the queen, kill the king, and take over the country. This, he believes, shows that injustice is more profitable than justice. To better clarify the nature of justice, Socrates proposes that the group explore the concept of a perfect society, how it emerges, and what its necessary components are.

The guiding principle behind much of the discussion is that one person cannot do many jobs with success, and so there must be a division of labor. The ideal society that he describes has three classes. First is that of the tradespeople, who are responsible for the necessities of food, shelter, clothing, as well as countless luxury items. Next is the guardian-warrior (auxiliary) class, a professional army that is responsible for protecting society. To train the best possible guardians, they need to be educated from their youth with a strict curriculum that has censored out harmful lies within literature. Third is the guardian-ruler class, who are selected from the best of the guardians and show the greatest interest in furthering the good of their country. Socrates explains that everyone must remain within their respective social classes, and that any attempt to move to a different class will harm society. To assure that everyone complies, rulers need to trick people into thinking that they are naturally assigned their places in the social hierarchy. Justice, in essence, amounts to everyone doing his own job within the larger social framework. Saying more about the guardians, Socrates explains how they live in a communal setting with no private property. They are selectively bred to perpetuate their best attributes, and the parents will not know which children theirs are. As to the rulers, society will function best when the kings are philosophers who have the capacity to know absolute truths, and not just the appearances of things.

The form of government that Plato advocates in the Republic is an aristocracy which is governed by guardian-rulers who are philosopher kings. Though not excerpted here, in Book 8 he contrasts the aristocracy with four more inferior forms of government: (1) timocracy is a degeneration of aristocracy where the rulers are guardian warriors who pursue wealth; (2) oligarchy is an extension of timocracy where political power is restricted to rich only; (3) democracy is a further degeneration of oligarchy where the lower class becomes increasingly larger and they do whatever they want, including breaking the law; (4) tyranny is the final degeneration emerging from democracy, where a tyrant emerges to impose order on the chaotic democracy and cannot be overthrown.

OBEDIENCE TO THE STATE (from Crito)

Crito's Arguments for Escaping

Crito: But Socrates my friend, let me beg you once more to take my advice and escape. If you die, I will not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there is greater harm. People who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not care. Now, can there be a worse disgrace than that I should be thought to value money more than the life of a friend? For the many will not be persuaded that I wanted you to escape, and that you refused.

Socrates: But why, Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Reasonable people, who are the only ones worth considering, will think about these events as they actually happened.

Crito: But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest harm to anyone who has fallen out of their favor.

Socrates: I only wish it were so, Crito, and that the many could do the greatest harm. For then they would also be able to do the greatest good, and what a wonderful thing this would be. But in reality, they can do neither. For they cannot make a man either wise or foolish, and whatever they do is the result of chance.

Crito: Well, I will not dispute with you. But please tell me, Socrates, whether you are not acting out of consideration for me and your other friends. Are you not afraid that if you escape from prison we may get into trouble with the informers for having taken you away, and lose much or even all of our property, or that even a worse harm may happen to us? Now, if you fear on our account, do not let that concern you. For in order to save you, we should surely take this risk, or even a greater one. Be persuaded, then, and please do as I suggest.

Socrates: Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but by no means the only one.

Crito: Do not worry, for there are people who are willing to get you out of prison at no great cost. As for the informers, they are not excessive in their demands; a little money will satisfy them. My means, which are certainly sufficient, are at your service, and if you have a hesitation about spending all mine, there are strangers here who will give you the use of theirs. One of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large amount of money for this precise purpose. Cebes and several others are prepared to spend their money to help you escape. So please do not hesitate on our accounts.

Also, do not say, as you did in the court, that you will have difficulty knowing what to do with yourself anywhere else. For men will appreciate you in other places to which you may go, and not just in Athens. I have friends in Thessaly, if you would like to go to them, who will welcome and protect you. No Thessalian will give you any trouble. Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates, in betraying your own life when you might be saved. In acting in that way you are playing directly into the hands of your enemies, who are eager for your destruction.

Further, I must say that you are abandoning your own children when you could otherwise raise and educate them. Instead, you go away and abandon them, and they will have to take their chances. They very well may face the usual fate of orphans. No one should bring children into the world who is unwilling to continue until the end with their nurture and education. You appear to be choosing the easier route, not the better and more courageous one, which would be more appropriate for someone who claims to care for virtue in everything he does, like yourself.

I am truly ashamed not only of you, but of us who are your friends, when I reflect that the whole business will be attributed entirely to our lack of courage. The trial should never have happened, or at least it should have been managed differently. But this final act, or crowning folly, will appear to have occurred through our negligence and cowardice. We might have saved you if we had been good for anything, and you might have saved yourself, since there was no difficulty at all. Consider, Socrates, how bad and shameful are the consequences, both to us and you. Make up your mind then, or rather have your mind already made up, because the moment for deciding is over. There is only one thing to be done, which must be done this very night, and if we delay at all it will be no longer practical or possible. So I beg you, Socrates, take my advice, and do as I say.

Socrates' Criticism: Disregard the Views of the Many

Socrates: Your zeal is invaluable, Crito, if it is for the correct purpose. But if not, then the greater the zeal the greater the danger. So, we need to consider whether I will or will not do as you advise. I am, and always have been, the kind of person who must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be that upon reflection appears to me to be the best. Now that this situation has arisen for me, I cannot take back my own words. The principles which I have until now honored and respected I still honor, and unless we can at once find other and better principles, I cannot agree with you, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, or deaths that might frighten us like children with nightmarish terrors. What will be the fairest way of considering the question?

Maybe we should return to your arguments from our previous discussions about the opinions of others. We were saying that some of them are to be accepted, and others not. Now, were we right in maintaining this before I was condemned? Has the argument which was once good now proved to be mere words for the sake of talking, like mere childish nonsense? That is what I want to consider now with your help, Crito. Under my present circumstances, does the argument appear to be in any way different or not? Should I accept it or reject it? As I then said, that argument, which as I believe is held by many people in authority, was essentially that the opinions of some people should be regarded, and those of others should not to be regarded. Now you, Crito, are not going to die tomorrow, at least, there is no reasonable probability of this. Therefore you are disinterested and not likely to be deceived by the circumstances in which you are placed. Tell me, then, whether I am right in saying that some opinions, and the opinions of some people only, are to be valued, and that other opinions, and the opinions of other people, are not to be valued. I ask you whether I was right in maintaining this?

Crito: Certainly.

Socrates: The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?

Crito: Yes.

Socrates: The opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of the unwise are bad?

Crito: Certainly.

Socrates: What about this: should the student who devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics care about the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of only the one man who is his physician or trainer, whoever he may be?

Crito: Of one man only.

Socrates: Should he fear the criticism and welcome the praise of that one only, and not of the many?

Crito: Clearly so.

Socrates: Should he act and train, and eat and drink in the way which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than according to the opinion of all other men put together?

Crito: Yes.

Socrates: If he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding, will he not suffer harm?

Crito: Certainly he will.

Socrates: What will the harm be, its tendency and affect, in the disobedient person?

Crito: Clearly, it will affect the body. That is what is destroyed by the harm.

Respect the View of the Expert of Justice

Socrates: Very good. Is this not true, Crito, of other things which we need not separately list? In questions of just and unjust, fair and unfair, good and bad, which are the subjects of our present discussion, should we follow the opinion of the many and fear them, or instead follow the opinion of the one man who has understanding? Should we not fear and respect him more than all the rest of the world? If we defy him, will we not destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and worsened by injustice. Is there such a principle?

Crito: Certainly there is, Socrates.

Socrates: Suppose that we fail to act under the advice of those who have understanding about the part of us that is improved by health and degraded by disease. Life, then, would not be worth living when that part of us is destroyed, namely, our bodies.

Crito: That is right.

Socrates: Could we live having a damaged and corrupted body?

Crito: Certainly not.

Socrates: Will life be worth living if that part of us is destroyed which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice? Whatever it may be in us which involves justice and injustice, should we suppose that that part of us is inferior to the body?

Crito: No.

Socrates: Is it more honorable than the body?

Crito: Far more.

Socrates: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us, but what he, the one man who has understanding of the just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. Therefore, you begin in error when you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and bad, honorable and dishonorable. "Well," someone will say, "but the many can kill us."

Crito: Yes, Socrates, that will clearly be the answer.

Socrates: It is true. But still I am surprised to find that our previous argument is firm as ever. I would like to know whether I may say the same of another proposition, not concerning just life, but whether a good life is to be chiefly valued?

Crito: Yes, that also stands firm.

Socrates: A good life is equivalent to a just and honorable one. That holds also?

Crito: Yes, it does.

Socrates: From these premises, I will next argue the question whether I should or should not try and escape without the consent of the Athenians. If I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt. But if not, I will remain. The other considerations which you mention, that is, the money and loss of character and the obligation of educating one's children, are, I fear, only the views of the many. But they would be as ready to restore people to life, if they were able, as they are to put them to death, and with as little reason. But now, since the argument has so far succeeded, there is just one question which remains to be considered. That is, will we be acting rightly or wrongly by escaping or allowing others assist in our escape and paying them with money and gratitude. If acting this way is not right, then death or any other adversity which may result by my remaining here must not enter into the calculation.

Crito: I think that you are right, Socrates. How then will we proceed?

Socrates: Let us consider the matter together, and you must either refute me if you can, and I will be convinced, or else you must stop repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of the Athenians. For I highly value your attempts to persuade me to do so, but I may not be persuaded against my own better judgment. Now please consider my first position, and try how you can best answer me.

Crito: I will.

Inflicting Harm is Always Wrong, Even in Retaliation

Socrates: Can we say that we should never intentionally do wrong, or that in some ways we should and other ways we should not do wrong? Or is doing wrong always evil and shameful, as I was just now saying, and as we have already acknowledged? Should we just throw away all our conclusions that we made over the past few days? Should we admit that, while we have been earnestly discoursing with each other throughout our lives, we are no better than children at our current age? Alternatively, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, should we insist on the truth of what we previously said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonor to him who acts unjustly? Should we say this or not?

Crito: Yes.

Socrates: Then we must do no wrong?

Crito: Certainly not.

Socrates: Nor when injured should we injure in return, as the many imagine. For we must injure no one at all?

Crito: Clearly not.

Socrates: Again, Crito, may we do harm?

Crito: Surely not, Socrates.

Socrates: What about doing harm in return for harm, which is the morality of the many. Is that just or not?

Crito: It is not just.

Socrates: For doing harm to another is the same as injuring him?

Crito: Yes.

Socrates: Then we should not retaliate or inflict harm for harm to anyone, whatever harm we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons. Those who agree and those who do not agree upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise each other when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and accept my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor avoiding harm through harm is ever right. Will that be the premise of our argument? Or do you disagree with this and reject it? For I have always thought this and will continue to do so. But, if you have another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same opinion as before, I will proceed to the next step.

Crito: You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.

Socrates: Then I will go on to the next point, which may be put in the form of a question: Should someone do what he admits to be right, or should he to go against what is right?

Crito: He should do what he thinks right.

Socrates: But if this is true, consider how it applies to my situation. By escaping from prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong anyone? Or rather, do I not wrong those whom I should least wrong? Do I not abandon the principles which we acknowledged to be just? What do you say?

Crito: I cannot tell, Socrates; I just do not know.

Dialogue with the Athenian Laws: Athens Like a Parent to Socrates

Socrates: Then consider the matter in this way. Imagine that I am about to skip town (you may call it by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me. "Tell us, Socrates," they say, "what are you doing? Through your action, aren't you attempting to destroy us as much as you can, we who are the laws, and the whole state? Do you think that a state can exist and not be overthrown when the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?" What will be our answer, Crito, to these and similar words? Anyone, and especially a rhetorician, will have much to say on behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be carried out. He will argue that this law should not be set aside. Will we reply, "Yes, but the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence." Should I say that?

Crito: Yes, Socrates, that is exactly what you should say.

Socrates: The law would answer, "Was that our agreement with you, or were you to accept the sentence of the state?" If I were to express my surprise at their words, the law would probably add: "Answer us, Socrates, instead of looking surprised, since you are in the habit of asking and answering questions yourself. Tell us, what complaint do you have against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the state? In the first place did we not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother with our help and gave birth to you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage?" None, I should reply. "Or against those of us who after birth regulate the nurture and education of children, in which you also were trained? Were not the laws, which have the charge of education, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastics?" Right, I should reply. "Well then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? If this is true you are not on equal terms with us. Nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or insult or do any other evil to your father, or even your master if you had one, because you have been assaulted or insulted by him, or received some other evil at his hands? You would not say this. Because we think it is right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us and your country in return, to the degree that you can? Will you, professor of true virtue, pretend that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and is higher and far more holy than mother, father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? Also to be soothed, and gently and reverently pleaded to when angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not persuaded, to be obeyed? When we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or lashes, the punishment is to be endured in silence. If she leads us to wounds or death in battle, there we follow, as is the right thing to do. Neither may anyone surrender, retreat or leave his position. Whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him. Otherwise he must change their view of what is just: and, if he may, he must do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country." What answer will we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?

Crito: I think that they do.

Social Contract between Socrates and Athens

Socrates: Then the laws will say: "Consider, Socrates, whether we are speaking correctly that in your present attempt you are going to do us an injury. For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Anyone who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. He who disobeys us is, as we maintain, wrong in three ways. First, in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents. Secondly, we are the authors of his education. Thirdly, he has made an agreement with us that he will appropriately obey our commands. But he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are unjust. We do not forcefully impose those commands, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us. That is what we offer, and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions. You, more than any other Athenian."

Suppose now I ask, why me rather than anybody else? They will justly reply to me that I, more than all other men, have acknowledged the agreement. "There is clear proof," they will say, "Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city, which we may suppose that you love since you never leave it. You never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service. Nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other states or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our state. We were your especial favorites, and you accepted our governing of you. Right here in this city you had your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Further, during your trial, if you had liked, you might have fixed the penalty at banishment. The state which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not unwilling to die. Now you have forgotten these lofty sentiments, and you disrespect us the laws, who you seek to destroy. You are doing what only a pathetic slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. Now answer this specific question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in your actions, and not merely in your words? Is that true or not?" How will we answer, Crito? Must we not assent?

Crito: We have no choice but to assent, Socrates.

Socrates: Then will they not say: "You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, but not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception. Rather, it is after you have had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your liking, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, both which states you often praised for their good government, or to some other Greek or foreign state. Because you, more than other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the state, or, in other words, of us her laws (and who would care about a state which has no laws?), that you never stirred out of her. The lame, the blind, the maimed were not more stationary in her than you were. But now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice. Do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city."

Bad Prospects for Socrates if he Flees

Socrates: "For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? It is reasonably certain that your friends will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their property. You yourself, if you flee to one of the neighboring cities, such as Thebes or Megara, both of which are well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities and virtuous men? Is existence worth having on these terms? Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates? What will you say to them? What you say here about virtue and justice and institutions and laws being the best things among men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away from well-governed states to Crito's friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and corruption, they will be entertained by the tale of your escape from prison, embellished with comical particulars of the way in which you were wrapped in a goatskin or some other disguise, and transformed as is typical of fugitives. But will there be anyone to remind you that in your old age you were brazen enough to violate the most sacred laws, all because of a pitiful desire of a little more life? Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good mood. But if they lose patience with you, you will hear many degrading things. Yes, you will live, but how? As the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men? And doing what: Eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner? Where will be your lofty feelings about justice and virtue? Suppose that you wish to live for the sake of your children. You want to bring them up and educate them. Will you then take them into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is this the benefit which you will confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that they will be better cared for and educated in Athens if you are still alive yet absent from them, assuming that your friends will indeed take care of them? Do you imagine that, if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care of them, but that if you are dead and in the underworld they will not take care of them? No, but if they who call themselves friends are good for anything, they will. Absolutely, they will.

"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have raised you. Do not think about your life and children first, and of justice afterwards; rather, consider justice first so that you may be justified before the rulers of the underworld. For if you do as Crito proposes, neither you nor any that belong to you will be happier or holier or more just in this life, or happier in another. Now you depart in innocence, a victim of harm but not a doer of harm. You are a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But suppose that you leave, returning harm for harm, and injury for injury, breaking the contracts and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong (namely, yourself, your friends, your country, and us). Then we will be angry with you while you live, and our brothers, the laws in the underworld, will receive you as an enemy. For they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. So, listen to us and not to Crito."

This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic. That voice is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. I know that anything more which you may say will be pointless. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.

Crito: I have nothing to say, Socrates.

Socrates: Leave me then, Crito, to fulfill the will of the god, and to follow where he leads.

JUSTICE AND SELF INTEREST

Whether Might makes Right (Republic, 1)

Socrates: As concerning justice, what is it? Is it no more than to speak the truth and to pay your debts? Aren't there exceptions even to these? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited weapons with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I would be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition. . . . But then speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. . . .

Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, but had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I were done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace. Gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild animal, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him. . . .

Thrasymachus: I say that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. . . . The different forms of government make laws democratic, aristocratic, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests. These laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. This is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government. As the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger. . . .

Socrates: Then, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient. For the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker. Have we admitted that?

Thrasymachus: Yes.

Socrates: The captain likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor?

Thrasymachus: That has been admitted.

Socrates: Such a captain and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest?

Thrasymachus (reluctantly): "Yes."

Socrates: Then, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or requires what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art. He looks to that, and he considers that alone in everything which he says and does.

Socrates narrates: When we had got to this point in the argument, and everyone saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said:

Thrasymachus: Tell me, Socrates, do you have a nurse?

Socrates: Why do you ask such a question when you ought rather to be answering?

Thrasymachus: Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep.

Socrates: What makes you say that?

Thrasymachus: Because you imagine that the shepherd or ox herder fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master. You further imagine that the rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. Oh, no. You are so entirely misguided in your ideas about the just and unjust that you do not even know that justice and the just are in reality another's good. That is to say, it is the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant. Injustice is the opposite, for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just. He is the stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the just less. . . .

Socrates narrates: When Thrasymachus had thus spoken, having, like a waterboy, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not let him, and insisted that he should remain and defend his position. I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. . . .

Socrates: You appear to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus. Whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. I ask you, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself. We are a large party and any benefit that you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe that injustice is more beneficial than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. . . .

Is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that wherever she takes up her residence, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to begin with, made incapable of united action by reason of sedition and distraction? Does it not become its own enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this the case?

Thrasymachus: Yes, certainly.

Socrates: Is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person? In the first place it makes him incapable of action because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place it makes him an enemy to himself and the just. Is not that true, Thrasymachus?

Thrasymachus: Yes. . . .

Socrates: The result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I do not know what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy.

Advantages of Injustice: The Ring of Gyges (Republic, 2)

Socrates narrates: With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always the most confrontational person, was unhappy that Thrasymachus left, and he wanted to continue the battle. So he said to me:

Glaucon: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust?

Socrates: I should wish really to persuade you if I could.

Glaucon: Then you certainly have not succeeded. . . . I will begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice.

They say that to do injustice is good by nature, and to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. So when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither. Hence there arise laws and mutual covenants. That which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice; it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honored by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. This, Socrates, is the common explanation of the nature and origin of justice.

Now that those who practice justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind. Having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see where desire will lead them. Then we will discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures believe to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the King of Lydia. There was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he climbed down into the opening, where, among other wonders, he saw a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he, stooping and looking in, saw a large dead body, as appeared to him, more than human and having nothing on but a gold ring. He removed it from the finger of the dead and climbed back out. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, so that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the King. He came into their assembly with the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he happened to turn the sleeve of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and, again touching the ring, he turned the ring's sleeve outward and reappeared. He made several experiments with the ring, and always with the same result. When he turned the ring's sleeve inward he became invisible, when outward he reappeared. After this he schemed to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court. As soon as he arrived he seduced the Queen, and with her help conspired against the King, killed him and took the kingdom.

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other. No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust: they would both eventually come to the same point. This we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity. For wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the observer to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to each other's faces, and keep up appearances with each other from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. . . .

Socrates: Glaucon and the rest begged me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them what I really thought, that the inquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes.

Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by someone to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to someone else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune.

Adeimantus: Very true. But how does the illustration apply to our inquiry?

Socrates: I will tell you. Justice, which is the subject of our inquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State.

Adeimantus: True.

Socrates: Is not a State larger than an individual?

Adeimantus: It is.

Socrates: Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more apparent. I propose therefore that we inquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them.

Adeimantus: That is an excellent proposal.

Socrates: And if we imagine the State in the process of creation, we will see the justice and injustice of the State in the process of creation also.

Adeimantus: I dare say.

Socrates: When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered.

Adeimantus: Yes, far more easily.

Socrates: But ought we to attempt to construct one? To do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Think about this.

Adeimantus: I have thought about this, and am anxious that you should proceed.

THREE SOCIAL CLASSES

Emergence of the Tradespeople Class (Republic, 2)

Socrates: A State arises, as I conceive, out of people's needs. No one is self-sufficient, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined?

Adeimantus: There can be no other.

Socrates: Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another. When these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State.

Adeimantus: True.

Socrates: They exchange with each other, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good.

Adeimantus: Very true.

Socrates: Then let us begin and create in idea a State. But the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.

Adeimantus: Of course.

Socrates: Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence.

Adeimantus: Certainly.

Socrates: The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like.

Adeimantus: True.

Socrates: Now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand. We may suppose that one man is a farmer, another a builder, someone else a weaver. Should we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants?

Adeimantus: Quite right.

Socrates: The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.

Adeimantus: Clearly.

Socrates: How will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labors into a common collection? Will the individual farmer, for example, produce for four, and labor four times as long and as much as he needs to provide the food with which he supplies others as well as himself? Or will he have nothing to do with others and not bother producing for them, but provide only for himself a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three-fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants?

Adeimantus: He should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything.

Socrates: Probably that would be the better way. When I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike. There are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations.

Adeimantus: Very true. . . .

Socrates: if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.

Adeimantus: Undoubtedly.

Socrates: Then more than four citizens will be required. For the farmer will not make his own plough or hoe, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools, and he too needs many. Similarly with the weaver and shoemaker.

Adeimantus: True.

Socrates: Then carpenters, and smiths, and many other artisans, will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow?

Adeimantus: True.

Socrates: Yet even if we add ox herders, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as farmers may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides. Still our State will not be very large.

Adeimantus: That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these.

Socrates: Then, again, there is the situation of the city to find a place where nothing need be imported is nearly impossible.

Adeimantus: Impossible.

Socrates: Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city?

Adeimantus: There must.

Socrates: But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed.

Adeimantus: That is certain.

Socrates: And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied.

Adeimantus: Very true.

Socrates: Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required?

Adeimantus: They will.

Socrates: Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants?

Adeimantus: Yes.

Socrates: Then we will want merchants?

Adeimantus: We will.

Socrates: And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers?

Adeimantus: Yes, in considerable numbers.

Socrates: Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State.

Adeimantus: Clearly they will buy and sell.

Socrates: Then they will need a marketplace, and a money-token for purposes of exchange.

Adeimantus: Certainly.

Socrates: Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him, is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the marketplace?

Adeimantus: Not at all. He will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In well-ordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose. Their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy.

Socrates: This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not 'retailer' the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants?

Adeimantus: Yes.

Socrates: There is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship. Still they have plenty of bodily strength for labor, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labor.

Adeimantus: True.

Socrates: Then hirelings will help to make up our population?

Adeimantus: Yes.

Socrates: Now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected?

Adeimantus: I think so.

Socrates: Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up?

Adeimantus: Probably in the dealings of these citizens with each other. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found anywhere else.

Socrates: I dare say that you are right in your suggestion. We had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the inquiry. Let us then consider first what will be their way of life, now that we have established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? When they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and wearing shoes. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. They and their children will feast, drinking the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. They will have sex, but will limit the number of their children to what their resources permit, thereby avoiding poverty or war.

Glaucon: But you have not given them delicacies with their meal.

Socrates: True, I had forgotten. Of course, they must have delicacies, such as salt, olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare. For a dessert, we will give them figs, peas, and beans, and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. With such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.

Glaucon: Yes, Socrates, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?

Socrates: But what would you have?

Glaucon: Why, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.

Socrates: Yes, now I understand. The question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will want to add sofas, and tables, and other furniture. So too with dainties, perfumes, incense, courtesans, and cakes. They will want all these, and not just one type only, but in every variety. We must go beyond the necessities of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, clothes, and shoes. The arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, so that gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be acquired.

Adeimantus: True.

Socrates: Then we must enlarge our borders. For the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want. . . . The country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?

Adeimantus: Quite true.

Socrates: Then we will want a slice of our neighbors' land for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?

Adeimantus: That, Socrates, will be inevitable.

Socrates: So we will go to war, Glaucon. Will we not?

Glaucon: Most certainly

Socrates: Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public.

Glaucon: Undoubtedly.

Need for the Guardian-Warrior Class and Censorship in their Education (Republic, 2-3)

Socrates: Our State must once more enlarge. This time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above.

Glaucon: Why? Are they not capable of defending themselves?

Socrates: No, not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State. The principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practice many arts with success.

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: But is not war an art?

Glaucon: Certainly. . . .

Socrates: The higher are the duties of the guardian the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him?

Glaucon: No doubt.

Socrates: Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?

Glaucon: Certainly. . . .

Socrates: What will be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort? This has two divisions: gymnastics for the body, and music for the soul.

Glaucon: True.

Socrates: Will we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastics afterwards?

Glaucon: By all means.

Socrates: When you speak of music, do you include literature or not?

Glaucon: I do.

Socrates: Literature may be either true or false?

Glaucon: Yes. . . .

Socrates: Will we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?

Adeimantus: We cannot.

Socrates: Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad. We will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mold the body with their hands. But most of those which are now in use must be discarded.

Adeimantus: Of what tales are you speaking?

Socrates: You may find a model of the lesser in the greater. For they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them.

Adeimantus: Very likely. But I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.

Socrates: Those which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great storytellers of mankind.

Adeimantus: Which stories do you mean, and what fault do you find with them?

Socrates: A fault which is most serious. The fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.

Adeimantus: But when is this fault committed?

Socrates: It occurs whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes, such as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original.

Adeimantus: Yes, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable. But what are the stories which you mean?

Socrates: First of all, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too (I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how [his son] Cronus retaliated on him [by castrating Uranus]). The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son [Zeus] inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons. If possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery. . . . If we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, neither should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fighting of the gods against each other, for they are not true. No, we must never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on clothing. We must be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens. This is what old men and old women should begin by telling children. When they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose them in a similar spirit. Consider the narrative of Hephaestus binding Hera his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer. These tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal. Anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become permanent and unalterable. Therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.

If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves entirely to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practice or imitate anything else. If they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession, such as the courageous, temperate, holy, free. But they should not depict or be skillful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, otherwise from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind?

Glaucon: Yes, certainly. . . .

Socrates: So, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purifying the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious.

Glaucon: We have done wisely.

Selecting the Guarding-Ruler Class (Republic, 3)

Socrates: What is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects?

Glaucon: Certainly.

Socrates: There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger.

Glaucon: Clearly.

Socrates: That the best of these must rule.

Glaucon: That is also clear.

Socrates: Now, are not the best farmers those who are most devoted to husbandry?

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: As we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians?

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: To this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State?

Glaucon: True.

Socrates: A man will be most likely to care about that which he loves?

Glaucon: To be sure.

Socrates: He will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to affect his own?

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests.

Glaucon: Those are the right men.

Socrates: They will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or magic spells, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State. . . . Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must inquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way?

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: There should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities.

Glaucon: Very right.

Socrates: Then we must test them with magic spells (that is the third sort of test) and see what will be their behavior. Similar to those who take colts amidst noise and commotion to see if they are of a timid nature, so too must we take our youth amidst terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace. In this way we may discover whether they are armed against all magic spells, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State. He who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, will be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State. He will be honored in life and death, and will receive sepulture and other memorials of honor, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any pretension to exactness.

Glaucon: Speaking generally, I agree with you.

Socrates: Perhaps the word "guardian" in the fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers.

Glaucon: I agree with you.

THE NATURE OF JUSTICE

The Noble Lie: Staying Within One's Class (Republic, 3)

Socrates: How then may we devise one of those necessary falsehoods of which we lately spoke? We need just one noble lie which may deceive the rulers, if that is possible, and at any rate the rest of the city.

Glaucon: What sort of lie?

Socrates: Nothing new, only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did.

Glaucon: How your words seem to hesitate on your lips!

Socrates: You will not wonder at my hesitation when you have heard.

Glaucon: Speak, and fear not.

Socrates: Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the bold fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us was only an illusion. In reality, during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and bits and pieces were manufactured. When they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up. Since their country, then, is really their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks. They are to regard their citizens as children of the earth and their own brothers.

Glaucon: You had good reason to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell.

Socrates: True, but there is more coming. I have only told you half. "Citizens," we will say to them in our tale, "you are brothers, yet the god who created you has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these the god has mingled gold, for which reason they have the greatest honor. Others the god has made of silver, to be warriors. Others again who are to be farmers and tradespeople he has composed of brass and iron. Generally, the species will be preserved in their children. But since all people are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. The god proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring. If the son of a golden or silver parent has a mixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be sympathetic towards the child because he has to move down in the social scale and become a farmer or tradesperson. Similarly, there may be sons of tradespeople who having a mixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honor, and become guardians or warriors. For a prophecy says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed." Such is the tale. Is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it?

Glaucon: Not in the present generation. There is no way of accomplishing this. But their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them.

Socrates: I see the difficulty. Yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for each other. . . .

Justice as Doing One's Own Business (Republic, 4)

Socrates: Well then, tell me whether I am right or not. You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practice one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted. Now justice is this principle, or at least a part of it.

Glaucon: Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only.

Socrates: Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody. We said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us.

Glaucon: Yes, we said so.

Socrates: Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me from what I derive this inference?

Glaucon: I cannot, but I would like to be told.

Socrates: Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted. This is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative. We were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one.

Glaucon: That necessarily follows.

Socrates: If we are asked to determine which of these four virtues by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, the question is not so easily answered. That is, should the award go to the agreement of rulers and subjects [i.e., temperance]; or to the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers [i.e., courage], or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers [i.e., wisdom]; or whether this other which I am mentioning, (which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject), I mean the virtue of everyone doing his own work, and not being a busybody [i.e., justice]?

Glaucon: Certainly, there would be a difficulty in saying which.

Socrates: Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage.

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: The virtue which enters into this competition is justice?

Glaucon: Exactly.

Socrates: Let us look at the question from another point of view. Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining law suits?

Glaucon: Certainly.

Socrates: Are law suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own?

Glaucon: Yes, that is their principle.

Socrates: Which is a just principle?

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: Then on this view we will recognize that justice is the having and doing what is a person's own, and belongs to him?

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: Consider this, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose that a carpenter does the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter. Suppose they exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person does the work of both, or whatever be the change. Do you think that any great harm would result to the State?

Glaucon: Not much.

Socrates: Suppose that the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a tradesperson, has his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, and attempts to force his way into the class of warriors. Suppose a warrior moves into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other. Suppose that one man is a tradesperson, legislator, and warrior all in one. I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State.

Glaucon: Most true.

Socrates: Considering, then, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing?

Glaucon: Precisely.

Socrates: The greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would be termed by you injustice?

Glaucon: Certainly.

Socrates: This then is injustice. On the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary [guardian-warriors], and the guardian [rulers] each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just.

Glaucon: I agree with you.

MORE ON THE GUARDIANS AND RULERS

Selective Breeding of the Guardians (Republic, 5)

Socrates: The law which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect: "that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent." . . . First, I think that if our rulers and their guardian auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey among the guardians and the power of command in the rulers. The guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care.

Glaucon: That is right.

Socrates: You who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them. They must be as far as possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own; they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. So they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have sex with each other. Necessity is not too strong a word, I think?

Glaucon: Yes: necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind.

Socrates: True. This, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, recklessness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid.

Glaucon: Yes, and it ought not to be permitted.

Socrates: Then clearly the next thing will be to make marriage sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred?

Glaucon: Exactly.

Socrates: And how can marriages be made most beneficial? That is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and quite a few distinguished type of birds. Now, I ask you, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding?

Glaucon: In what particulars?

Socrates: Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others?

Glaucon: True.

Socrates: And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only?

Glaucon: From the best. . . .

Socrates: Good heavens, my dear friend! What supreme skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species! . . . Our rulers will find that a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage. . . . The principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion.

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets. The number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small.

Glaucon: Certainly.

Socrates: We will have to invent some ingenious kind of lottery which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers.

Glaucon: To be sure.

Socrates: And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honors and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible.

Glaucon: True.

Socrates: And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men.

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be.

Glaucon: Yes, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure.

Socrates: They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognizes her own child; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling will not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. . . . A woman at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at twenty-five when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to produce children until he is fifty-five. . . . The law will apply to anyone of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers. For we will say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated.

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age. After that we allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. We grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light. If any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such a union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly.

Glaucon: That also is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on?

Socrates: They will never know. . . .

The Philosopher-Kings (Republic, 5)

Socrates: I think that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy one, though is still possible. . . . Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those more common natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils. No, nor will the human race, as I believe. Only then will our State have a possibility of life and see the light of day. Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would gladly have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant. For it is indeed a hard thing to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public.

Glaucon: Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have said is one at which many people, and very respectable persons too [will be outraged]. . . .

Socrates: We must explain to them whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State, then we will be able to defend ourselves. There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State, and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders. . . . He who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such a one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one?

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right?

Glaucon: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find that many strange creatures will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. . . .

Socrates: The lovers of sounds and sights are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colors and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty.

Glaucon: True.

Socrates: Few people are able to gain the sight of this.

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: Consider the person who has a sense of beautiful things but has no sense of absolute beauty, or a person who when led to by someone else to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow. Is this person awake or in a dream only? Is not the dreamer (sleeping or waking) someone one who equates dissimilar things, and who puts a copy in the place of the real object?

Glaucon: I would certainly say that such a person was dreaming.

Socrates: But take the opposite case, where a person recognizes the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects. Is he a dreamer, or is he awake?

Glaucon: He is wide awake.

Socrates: May we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who imagines only, has opinion?

Glaucon: Certainly.

Source: Plato, Crito and The Republic, Books 1-5, tr. Benjamin Jowett.

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ARISTOTLE: THE NATURAL FOUNDATION OF SOCIETY

 

Aristotle (384 322 BCE) is another of the great philosophers of ancient Greece's golden age who, like his teacher Plato, helped define the discipline of philosophy in Western civilization. Aristotle lived in Athens where he founded a school called the Lyceum, and for a time tutored Alexander the Great. The selections below are from his book Politics, where he argues that society is grounded in a distinction between natural rulers and natural subjects. The state, Aristotle argues, is prior to the individual, since people who live in isolation are savages and do not have the bonds of justice that come with living in society. The household is the foundational component of society and it consists of three ruler-subject relationships: master-slave, husband-wife, and father-child. Some people are naturally born masters and others slaves, depending on their mental superiority or inferiority, where the slave is designed for labor and the master for giving orders. For Aristotle, such natural slavery is both useful and morally justifiable. However, mere "slavery by law" where people are captured in war and enslaved, is neither useful nor justifiable. Just as the master-slave relation is based on differing mental abilities, so too are the husband-wife and father-child relationships. While slaves have no mental capacity to make deliberative judgments, women have that capacity without authority, and children have that capacity only in an immature condition. All members of the household have moral virtues, Aristotle argues, but those virtues differ based on the household members' role. The man has the virtues of temperance and courage in commanding, while the woman has the virtues of temperance and courage in obeying. The slave has the virtue of self-control in fulfilling his duty. Aristotle next discusses the various forms of government: those ruled by one, a few, and many people. All these forms, he argues, become perverted when the rulers seek their own gain, rather than that of the governed. The true aim of government, he argues, is the good life, which consists of virtue and noble actions, otherwise the state would be a mere alliance. Justice within a state is connected with the idea of equality, but the challenge is determining which qualities (e.g., wealth) are relevant for determining a person's equality or inequality. Ultimately, he maintains, the idea of equality is relative to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens.

THE STATE AS A CREATION OF NATURE

States Aim at the Highest Good

1.1. Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good. For, mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.

Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king, householder, and master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state. The distinction which is made between the king and the statesman is this: When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when, according to the rules of the political science, the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then he is called a statesman.

But all this is a mistake. For, governments differ in kind, as will be evident to anyone who considers the matter according to the method which has until now guided us. As in other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the state is composed, in order that we may see in what manner the different kinds of rule differ from each other, and whether any scientific result can be attained about each one of them.

Natural Rulers and Subjects: Families, Villages, States

2.1. He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them. In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other, namely, of male and female. This is a union which is formed, not by deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves. Because of this, the race may continue, and through natural ruler and subject, both may be preserved. For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave. Hence master and slave have the same interest. Now nature has distinguished between the female and the slave. For nature is not stingy, like the smith who fashions the Delphian knife for many uses. Rather, she makes each thing for a single use, and every instrument is best made when intended for one and not for many uses. But among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and female. Accordingly, the poets [Euripides] say, "It is plausible that Greeks should rule over barbarians" as if they thought that the barbarian and the slave were by nature one.

Out of these two relationships between man and woman, master and slave, the first thing to arise is the family, and Hesiod is right when he says, "First house and wife and an ox for the plough," for the ox is the poor man's slave. The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas "companions of the cupboard," and by Epimenides the Cretan, "companions of the manger." But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. The most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled "with the same milk." This is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings, namely, because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of the same blood. As Homer says: "Each one gives law to his children and to his wives." For they lived dispersedly, as was the manner in ancient times. Accordingly, men say that the gods have a king, because they themselves either are or were in ancient times under the rule of a king. For they imagine, not only the forms of the gods, but their ways of life to be like their own.

When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. Therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

The State is Prior to the Individual

Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. He who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity. He is like the "Tribeless, lawless, homeless one," whom Homer denounces, the natural outcast is immediately a lover of war. He may be compared to an isolated checker piece.

Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other social animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. While mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to each other, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth what is useful and not useful, and therefore likewise what is just and unjust. It is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.

Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part. For example, if the whole body is destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand. For, when destroyed, the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by their working and power. Thus, we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they have the same name. The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing. Therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all. For, armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Accordingly, if he has not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.

Parts of the Household

1.3. Seeing then that the state is made up of households, before speaking of the state we must speak of the management of the household. The parts of household management correspond to the persons who compose the household, and a complete household consists of slaves and freemen. Now we should begin by examining everything in its fewest possible elements. Accordingly, the first and fewest possible parts of a family are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. We have therefore to consider what each of these three relations is and ought to be: I mean the relation of master and servant, the marriage relation (the conjunction of man and wife has no name of its own), and thirdly, the procreative relation (this also has no proper name). There is another element of a household, the so-called art of getting wealth, which, according to some, is identical with household management, according to others, a principal part of it. We will also have to consider the nature of this art.

SLAVES

Slaves are Property and Living Instruments within the Household

Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of practical life and also seeking to attain some better theory of their relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule [i.e., rule without resistance], as I was saying at the outset, are all the same. Others affirm that the rule of a master over slaves is contrary to nature, and that the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law only, and not by nature; and being an interference with nature is therefore unjust.

1.4. Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring property is a part of the art of managing the household. For no man can live well, or indeed live at all, unless he is provided with necessities. As in the arts which have a definite sphere, the workers must have their own proper instruments for the accomplishment of their work, so it is in the management of a household. Now instruments are of various sorts: some are living, others lifeless. With a ship's rudder, the captain has a lifeless instrument, with the look-out man, he has a living instrument. For in the arts the servant is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession is an instrument for maintaining life. So, in the arrangement of the family, a slave is a living possession, and property a number of such instruments. The servant is himself an instrument which takes precedence over all other instruments. Suppose that every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, "of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods" [which autonomously moved to and from Mount Olympus]. If, in like manner, the shuttle [on a loom] would weave and the pick touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not need servants, nor would masters need slaves.

Here, however, another distinction must be drawn. The instruments commonly so called are instruments of production, while a possession is an instrument of action. The shuttle, for example, is not only of use; but something else is made by it, whereas of a garment or of a bed there is only the use. Further, as production and action are different in kind, and both require instruments, the instruments which they employ must likewise differ in kind. But life is action and not production, and therefore the slave is the agent of action. Again, a possession is spoken of as a part is spoken of. For the part is not only a part of something else, but wholly belongs to it; this is also true of a possession. The master is only the master of the slave; the master does not belong to the slave, whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs to the master. Hence we see what is the nature and office of a slave. He who is by nature not his own but another's man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another's man who, being a human being, is also a possession. A possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the possessor.

In Defense of Natural Slavery

1.5. Is anyone intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is useful and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but practical. From the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.

There are many kinds of rulers and subjects. That rule is the better which is exercised over better subjects. For example, to rule over men is better than to rule over wild animals, since the work is better which is executed by better workmen. Where one man rules and another is ruled, they may be said to have a work. For in all things which form a composite whole and which are made up of parts, whether continuous or discrete, a distinction between the ruling and the subject element comes to light. Such a duality exists in living creatures, but not in them only since it originates in the constitution of the universe. Even in things which have no life there is a ruling principle, as in a musical scale.

But we are wandering from the subject. We will therefore restrict ourselves to the living creature, which, in the first place, consists of soul and body: and of these two, the one is by nature the ruler, and the other the subject. But then we must look for the intentions of nature in things which retain their nature, and not in things which are corrupted. Therefore we must study the man who is in the most perfect state both of body and soul, for in him we will see the true relation of the two; although in bad or corrupted natures the body will often appear to rule over the soul, because they are in an evil and unnatural condition. In any event, we may firstly observe in living creatures both a despotic and a constitutional rule; for the soul rules the body with a despotic rule, whereas the intellect rules the appetites with a constitutional and royal rule. It is clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and of the mind and the rational element over the passionate, is natural and useful; whereas the equality of the two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful. The same holds good of animals in relation to men; for tame animals have a better nature than wild, and all tame animals are better off when they are ruled by man; for then they are preserved. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.

Where then there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and animals (as in the case of those whose business is to use their body, and who can do nothing better), the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master. For he who can be, and therefore is, another's and he who participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have, such a principle, is a slave by nature. Whereas the lower animals cannot even apprehend a principle; they obey their instincts. Indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life.

Nature would like to distinguish between the bodies of freemen and slaves, making the one strong for servile labor, the other upright, and although useless for such services, useful for political life in the arts both of war and peace. But the opposite often happens that some have the souls and others have the bodies of freemen. Doubtless if men differed from each other in the mere forms of their bodies as much as the statues of the Gods do from men, all would acknowledge that the inferior class should be slaves of the superior. If this is true of the body, how much more just that a similar distinction should exist in the soul? But the beauty of the body is seen, whereas the beauty of the soul is not seen. It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both practical and right.

Against Slavery by Law

1.6. But it may easily be seen that those who take the opposite view have in a certain way right on their side. For the words slavery and slave are used in two senses. There is a slave or slavery by law as well as by nature. The law of which I speak is a sort of convention the law by which whatever is taken in war is supposed to belong to the victors. But this right many jurists challenge, as they would an orator who brought forward an unconstitutional measure. They detest the notion that, because one man has the power of doing violence and is superior in brute strength, another will be his slave and subject. Even among philosophers there is a difference of opinion. The origin of the dispute, and what makes one view invade the territory of another view, is as follows. In some sense virtue, when furnished with proper means, has actually the greatest power of exercising force. As superior power is only found where there is superior excellence of some kind, power seems to imply virtue, and the dispute to be simply one about justice. For it is due to one party identifying justice with goodwill while the other identifies it with the mere rule of the stronger. If these views are thus set out separately, the other views have no force or plausibility against the view that the superior in virtue ought to rule, or be master.

Others, clinging, as they think, simply to a principle of justice (for law and custom are a sort of justice), assume that slavery in accordance with the custom of war is justified by law, but at the same moment they deny this. For what if the cause of the war is unjust? And again, no one would ever say he is a slave who is unworthy to be a slave. If this were the case, men of the highest rank would be slaves and the children of slaves if they or their parents were by chance taken captive and sold. Accordingly, the Greeks do not like to call enslaved Greek people "slaves," but confine the term to "slavery" to barbarians. Yet, in using this language, they really mean the natural slave of whom we spoke at first. For it must be admitted that some are slaves everywhere, others nowhere. The same principle applies to nobility. Greeks regard themselves as noble everywhere, and not only in their own country, but they deem the barbarians noble only when at home, thereby implying that there are two sorts of nobility and freedom, the one absolute, the other relative. Theodectes the Greek says: "Who would presume to call me servant who am on both sides sprung from the stem of the Gods?" What does this mean but that they distinguish freedom and slavery, noble and humble birth, by the two principles of good and evil? They think that as men and animals beget men and animals, so from good men a good man springs. But this is what nature, though she may intend it, cannot always accomplish.

We see then that there is some foundation for this difference of opinion, and that all are not either slaves by nature or freemen by nature, and also that there is in some cases a marked distinction between the two classes, making it useful and right for the one to be slaves and the others to be masters: the one practicing obedience, the others exercising the authority and lordship which nature intended them to have. The abuse of this authority is injurious to both. For the interests of part and whole, of body and soul, are the same, and the slave is a part of the master, a living but separated part of his bodily frame. Hence, where the relation of master and slave between them is natural they are friends and have a common interest, but where it rests merely on law and force the reverse is true.

The Skill of Slavery

1.7. The previous remarks are quite enough to show that the rule of a master is not a constitutional rule [but rather a royal/despotic rule], and that all the different kinds of rule are not, as some affirm, the same with each other. For there is one rule exercised over subjects who are by nature free [i.e., constitutional rule], another over subjects who are by nature slaves [i.e., royal/despotic rule]. The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head: whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals. The master is not called a master because he has science, but because he is of a certain character, and the same remark applies to the slave and the freeman. Still there may be a science for the master and science for the slave. The science of the slave would be such as the man of Syracuse taught, who made money by instructing slaves in their ordinary duties. Such a knowledge may be carried further, so as to include cookery and similar menial arts. For some duties are more necessary, others of the more honorable sort; as the proverb says, "slave before slave, master before master." But all such branches of knowledge are servile. There is likewise a science of the master, which teaches the use of slaves; for the master as such is concerned, not with the acquisition, but with the use of them. Yet this so-called science is not anything great or wonderful; for the master need only know how to order that which the slave must know how to execute. Hence those who are in a position which places them above toil have stewards who attend to their households while they occupy themselves with philosophy or with politics. But the art of acquiring slaves, I mean of justly acquiring them, differs both from the art of the master and the art of the slave, being a species of hunting or war. Enough of the distinction between master and slave. . . .

WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Royal Rule vs. Constitutional Rule in the Household

1.12. Of household management we have seen that there are three parts one is the rule of a master over slaves, which has been discussed already, another of a father, and the third of a husband. A husband and father, we saw, rules over wife and children, both free, but the rule differs, the rule over his children being a royal rule, over his wife a constitutional rule. For although there may be exceptions to the order of nature, the male is by nature fitter for command than the female, just as the elder and full-grown is superior to the younger and more immature. But in most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all. Nevertheless, when one rules and the other is ruled we try to create a difference of outward forms and names and titles of respect, which may be illustrated by the saying of Amasis about his foot-pan [i.e., a king who made a religious idol out of a lowly footpan]. The relation of the male to the female is of this kind, but there the inequality is permanent. The rule of a father over his children is royal, for he rules by virtue both of love and of the respect due to age, exercising a kind of royal power. Therefore Homer has appropriately called Zeus "father of Gods and men," because he is the king of them all. For a king is the natural superior of his subjects, but he should be of the same kin or kind with them, and such is the relation of elder and younger, of father and son.

Different Virtues for Rulers and Subjects

1.13. Thus it is clear that household management attends more to men than to the acquisition of inanimate things, and to human excellence more than to the excellence of property (which we call wealth), and to the virtue of freemen more than to the virtue of slaves. A question may indeed be raised, whether there is any excellence at all in a slave beyond and higher than merely instrumental and ministerial qualities whether he can have the virtues of temperance, courage, justice, and the like; or whether slaves possess only bodily and instrumental qualities. Whichever way we answer the question, a difficulty arises. For, if they have virtue, in what will they differ from freemen? On the other hand, since they are men and share in rational principle, it seems absurd to say that they have no virtue. A similar question may be raised about women and children, whether they too have virtues. Ought a woman to be temperate and brave and just, and is a child to be called temperate, and intemperate, or not.

So in general we may ask about the natural ruler, and the natural subject, whether they have the same or different virtues. For if a noble nature is equally required in both, why should one of them always rule, and the other always be ruled? Nor can we say that this is a question of degree, for the difference between ruler and subject is a difference in kind, which the difference of more and less never is. Yet how strange is the supposition that the one ought, and that the other ought not, to have virtue. For if the ruler is intemperate and unjust, how can he rule well? If the subject, how can he obey well? If he is unrestrained and cowardly, he will certainly not do his duty. It is evident, therefore, that both of them must have a share of virtue, but varying as natural subjects also vary among themselves. Here the very constitution of the soul has shown us the way; in it one part naturally rules, and the other is subject, and the virtue of the ruler we in maintain to be different from that of the subject; the one being the virtue of the rational, and the other of the irrational part. Now, it is obvious that the same principle applies generally, and therefore almost all things rule and are ruled according to nature. But the kind of rule differs. The freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in an of them, they are present in different degrees. For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all. The woman has the deliberative faculty, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature.

So it must necessarily be supposed to be with the moral virtues also. All should partake of them, but only in such manner and degree as is required by each for the fulfillment of his duty. Hence the ruler ought to have moral virtue in perfection, for his function, taken absolutely, demands a master artificer, and rational principle is such an artificer; the subjects, on the other hand, require only that measure of virtue which is proper to each of them. Clearly, then, moral virtue belongs to all of them. But the temperance of a man and of a woman, or the courage and justice of a man and of a woman, are not, as Socrates maintained, the same. The courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying. This holds of all other virtues, as will be more clearly seen if we look at them in detail. For those who say generally that virtue consists in a good disposition of the soul, or in doing rightly, or the like, only deceive themselves. Far better than such general definitions is their manner of speaking, who, like Gorgias, enumerate the specific virtues. All classes must be deemed to have their special attributes. As the poet says of women, "Silence is a woman's glory," but this is not equally the glory of man. The child is imperfect, and therefore obviously his virtue is not relative to himself alone, but to the perfect man and to his teacher, and in like manner the virtue of the slave is relative to a master.

Now we determined that a slave is useful for the needs of life, and therefore he will obviously require only so much virtue as will prevent him from failing in his duty through cowardice or lack of self-control. Someone will ask whether, if what we are saying is true, virtue will not be required also in the artisans, for they often fail in their work through the lack of self-control? But is there not a great difference in the two cases? For the slave shares in his master's life; the artisan is less closely connected with him, and only attains excellence in proportion as he becomes a slave. The inferior sort of mechanic has a special and separate slavery; and whereas the slave exists by nature, not so the shoemaker or other artisan. It is evident, then, that the master ought to be the source of such excellence in the slave, and not a mere possessor of the art of mastership which trains the slave in his duties. Accordingly, they are mistaken who forbid us to converse with slaves and say that we should employ command only, for slaves stand even more in need of correction than children. . . .

THE GOALS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

Ruling for the Good of the Governed

3.6. Having determined these questions, we have next to consider whether there is only one form of government or many, and if many, what they are, and how many, and what are the differences between them.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state, especially of the highest of all. The government is everywhere sovereign in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government. For example, in democracies the people are supreme, but in oligarchies, the few; and, therefore, we say that these two forms of government also are different: and so in other cases.

First, let us consider what is the purpose of a state, and how many forms of government there are by which human society is regulated. We have already said, in the first part of this treatise, when discussing household management and the rule of a master, that man is by nature a political animal. Therefore, men, even when they do not require each other's help, desire to live together; although they are also brought together by their common interests in proportion as they severally attain to any measure of the good life. The good life is certainly the chief end, both of individuals and of states. Also for the sake of mere life (in which there is possibly some valuable element in merely living, so long as the evils of existence do not greatly overbalance the good) mankind meet together and maintain the political community. We all see that men cling to life even at the cost of enduring great misfortune, seeming to find in life a natural sweetness and happiness. . . .

The governing of a wife and children and of a household, which we have called household management, is exercised in the first instance for the good of the governed or for the common good of both parties, but essentially for the good of the governed. . . . The conclusion is evident: that governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms. But those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.

Forms of Government: Rule of One, Few, or Many

3.7. Having determined these points, we have next to consider how many forms of government there are, what they are, and, most importantly, what are the true forms. For when they are determined the perversions of them will immediately be apparent. The words constitution and government have the same meaning, and the government, which is the supreme authority in states, must be in the hands of one, or of a few, or of the many. The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest. But governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether of the one or of the few, or of the many, are perversions. For the members of a state, if they are truly citizens, ought to participate in its advantages. Of forms of government in which one rules, we call that which regards the common interests, kingship or royalty. That in which more than one, but not many, rule, is an aristocracy. It is called this either because the rulers are the best men, or because they have at heart the best interests of the state and of the citizens. But when the multitude administer the state for the common interest, it is called by the general name of all governments, which is "constitutional government." There is a reason for this use of language. One man or a few may excel in virtue, but as the number increases it becomes more difficult for them to attain perfection in every kind of virtue. However, they may still attain perfection in military virtue, for this is found in the masses. Hence in a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens.

Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: of royalty it is tyranny; of aristocracy it is oligarchy; of constitutional government it is democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the poor. None of them have in view the common good of all.

The True Aim of the State is the Good life, Virtue and Noble Actions

3.9. . . . But a state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only. If mere life were the object, slaves and brute animals might form a state, but they cannot, for they have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice. Nor does a state exist for the sake of alliance and security from injustice, nor yet for the sake of exchange and mutual interaction. For then the Tyrrhenians and the Carthaginians, and all who have commercial treaties with one another, would be the citizens of one state. True, they have agreements about imports, and engagements that they will do no wrong to one another, and written articles of alliance. But there are no magistrates common to the contracting parties who will enforce their engagements. Different states have their own magistracies. Nor does one state take care that the citizens of the other are such as they ought to be. Nor do they see that those who come under the terms of the treaty do no wrong or wickedness at all, but only that they do no injustice to one another. Whereas, those who care for good government take into consideration virtue and vice in states. From this it may be further inferred that virtue must be the care of a state which is truly so called, and not merely enjoys the name. For without this end the community becomes a mere alliance which differs only in place from alliances of which the members live apart. Further, law becomes only a convention, "a surety to one another of justice," as the sophist Lycophron says, and has no real power to make the citizens.

This is obvious. For suppose distinct places, such as Corinth and Megara, were brought together so that their walls touched, still they would not be one city, not even if the citizens had the right to intermarry, which is one of the rights peculiarly characteristic of states. Again, if men dwelt at a distance from one another, but not so far off as to have no interaction, and there were laws among them that they should not wrong each other in their exchanges, neither would this be a state. Let us suppose that one man is a carpenter, another a husbandman, another a shoemaker, and so on, and that their number is ten thousand. Nevertheless, if they have nothing in common but exchange, alliance, and the like, that would not constitute a state. Why is this? Surely not because they are at a distance from one another. For, suppose that such a community were to meet in one place, but that each man had a house of his own, which was in a manner his state, and that they made alliance with one another, but only against evil-doers. Still, an accurate thinker would not consider this to be a state, if their intercourse with one another was of the same character after as before their union. It is clear then that a state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are conditions without which a state cannot exist. But all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together. But these are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. The end of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. The state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life.

Our conclusion, then, is that political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. Hence they who contribute most to such a society have a greater share in it than those who have the same or a greater freedom or nobility of birth but are inferior to them in political virtue; or than those who exceed them in wealth but are surpassed by them in virtue. . . .

Justice is Equality Relative to the Good of the State and Citizens

3.12. In all sciences and arts the end is a good, and the greatest good and in the highest degree a good in the most authoritative of all this is the political science of which the good is justice, in other words, the common interest. All men think justice to be a sort of equality; and to a certain extent they agree in the philosophical distinctions which have been laid down by us about Ethics. For they admit that justice is a thing and has a relation to persons, and that equals ought to have equality. But there still remains a question: equality or inequality of what? Here is a difficulty which calls for political speculation. For very likely some persons will say that offices of state ought to be unequally distributed according to superior excellence, in whatever respect, of the citizen, although there is no other difference between him and the rest of the community; for that those who differ in any one respect have different rights and claims. But, surely, if this is true, the complexion or height of a man, or any other advantage, will be a reason for his obtaining a greater share of political rights. The error here lies upon the surface, and may be illustrated from the other arts and sciences. When a number of flute players are equal in their art, there is no reason why those of them who are better born should have better flutes given to them; for they will not play any better on the flute, and the superior instrument should be reserved for him who is the superior artist. . . .

It is evident that there is good reason why in politics men do not ground their claim to office on every sort of inequality any more than in the arts. For if some are slow, and others swift, that is no reason why the one should have little and the others much. It is in gymnastics contests that such excellence is rewarded. Whereas the rival claims of candidates for office can only be based on the possession of elements which enter into the composition of a state. Therefore the noble, or free-born, or rich, may with good reason claim office. For holders of offices must be freemen and taxpayers: a state can be no more composed entirely of poor men than entirely of slaves. But if wealth and freedom are necessary elements, justice and valor are equally so; for without the former qualities a state cannot exist at all, without the latter not well. . . .

3.13. All these considerations appear to show that none of the principles on which men claim to rule and to hold all other men in subjection to them are strictly right. To those who claim to be masters of the government on the ground of their virtue or their wealth, the many might fairly answer that they themselves are often better and richer than the few (I do not say individually, but collectively). Another ingenious objection which is sometimes put forward may be met in a similar manner. Some persons doubt whether the legislator who desires to make the justest laws ought to legislate with a view to the good of the higher classes or of the many, when the case which we have mentioned occurs [i.e., when the many have superior wealth collectively]. Now what is just or right is to be interpreted in the sense of "what is equal"; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizens. A citizen is one who shares in governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue.

The Good Ruler

7.14. Since every political society is composed of rulers and subjects, let us consider whether the relations of one to the other should interchange or be permanent. For the education of the citizens will necessarily vary with the answer given to this question. Suppose that some men excelled others in the same degree in which gods and heroes are supposed to excel mankind in general (having in the first place a great advantage even in their bodies, and secondly in their minds), so that the superiority of the governors was undisputed and evident to their subjects. Still, it would clearly be better that the one class should permanently rule and the other serve. But since this is unattainable, and kings have no clear superiority over their subjects, such as Scylax affirms to be found among the Indians, it is obviously necessary on many grounds that all the citizens alike should take their turn of governing and being governed. Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons, and no government can stand which is not founded upon justice. For if the government is unjust, then everyone in the country will unite with the governed in the desire to have a revolution, and it is impossible that the members of the government can be so numerous as to be stronger than all their enemies put together. Yet it is undeniable that governors should excel their subjects. How all this is to be achieved, and in what way they will respectively share in the government, the legislator has to consider. The subject has been already mentioned. Nature herself has provided the distinction when she made a difference between old and young within the same species, of whom she fitted the one to govern and the other to be governed. No one takes offense at being governed when he is young, nor does he think himself better than his governors, especially if he will enjoy the same privilege when he reaches the required age.

We conclude that from one point of view governors and governed are identical, and from another different. Therefore their education must be the same and also different. For he who would learn to command well must, as men say, first of all learn to obey. As I observed in the first part of this treatise, there is one rule which is for the sake of the rulers and another rule which is for the sake of the ruled. The former is a despotic, the latter a free government. Some commands differ not in the thing commanded, but in the intention with which they are imposed. For this reason, many apparently menial offices are an honor to the free youth by whom they are performed. For actions do not differ as honorable or dishonorable in themselves so much as in the end and intention of them. We say, then, that the virtue of the citizen and ruler is the same as that of the good man, and that the same person must first be a subject and then a ruler. For this reason, the legislator must see that they become good men, and by what means this may be accomplished, and what is the end of the perfect life.

Source: Aristotle, Politics, Books 1, 3, 7. Tr. Benjamin Jowett.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

[Plato]

1. In Plato's Crito, the character Crito gives some arguments for why Socrates should flee Athens. What are they?

2. In Plato's Crito, what is Socrates argument against the views of the many?

3. In Plato's Crito, what is the argument that the laws presents regarding obligation towards one's parents?

4. In Plato's Crito, according to the Laws, what specifically did Socrates do to contractually bind himself to the city of Athens?

5. In Plato's Crito, at the close of the dialogue, the Laws describes five or so negative consequences of Socrates fleeing to another city. What are they?

6. In Plato's Republic, according to Thrasymachus, justice is merely the interest of the stronger. What examples does he give to make his case?

7. In Plato's Republic, according to Glaucon, what is the standard explanation of justice?

8. In Plato's Republic, explain how the production of luxury items expands the size of society.

9. In Plato's Republic, give examples of the stories in Hesiod's and Homer's writings that need to be censored from young guardians.

10. In Plato's Republic, in what ways should potential rulers be tested to see if they are suitable as leaders?

11. In Plato's Republic, list and describe the four virtues of a state.

12. In Plato's Republic, describe the selective breading process of the guardians.

13. In Plato's Republic, according to Socrates, philosopher-kings have the capacity to see absolute beauty. What kind of beauty, by contrast, do ordinary people perceive?

[Aristotle]

14. In Aristotle's Politics, explain the connection between families, villages and states.

15. In defense of natural slavery, Aristotle argues that there is a principle of ruling within nature where the superior rules over the inferior. What examples does he provides of this ruling principle of nature?

16. What are some of Aristotle's arguments against slavery by law (i.e., enslaving war captives)?

17. According to Aristotle, what are the various skills of slavery, both of the master and the slave?

18. According to Aristotle, what is the distinction between royal rule and constitutional rule, and how do they pertain to children and wives?

19. According to Aristotle, what are the three forms of government (based on the rule of one, a few and many), and what are the perversions of those three forms?

20. What are the possible qualities that Aristotle lists that might warrant inequality, and why does he believe that all of these qualities are inadequate for justifying inequality?

21. Short essay: please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

[Plato]

a. What is so bad about the opinions of the many, particularly regarding the issue of fleeing a city to avoid execution?

b. Socrates argues that we should follow the views of experts, such as horse trainers, and particularly experts in justice. Are there really "experts" in justice, and who might they be?

c. Evaluate the Laws' argument for civil obedience from the obligation towards one's parents.

d. Under what conditions might a person enter into a contractually binding agreement with his/her country?

e. The dialogue opens with Crito presenting arguments for why Socrates should escape. The arguments are pragmatic in nature, and Socrates rejects them for merely reflecting the views of the many. At the close of the dialogue, the laws present arguments that are also pragmatic. Do these too reflect the views of the many, or is there an underlying difference between the two sets of arguments?

f. According to Thrasymachus, the so-called "just" person always loses to the unjust person. Does this adequately prove that justice is merely the interest of the stronger? Explain.

g. Glaucon speculates that if a just person got hold of Gyges' ring, he'd do the same thing that an unjust person would. Do you agree? Explain.

h. Plato defends the censoring of literature that guardian youth are exposed to. Is this censorship restricted to the young, or does it impact adults in society too? In either case, is the censorship he describes justifiable?

i. Throughout the Republic, Plato draws on the principle that one person should practice one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted. Does he over-apply this principle?

j. Plato's conception of selective breeding: good idea or bad?

k. On two occasions Plato maintains that rulers need to be deceitful when devising social policy, one regarding the myth of the three metals, and the other regarding the secrecy of selective breeding. Is this kind of deceit justifiable?

l. The distinguishing feature of the philosopher-king is that he has knowledge of absolute truths such as beauty (i.e., the "forms" in Plato's theory of knowledge). Would knowledge of absolute truths be a real advantage to a ruler? Explain.

[Aristotle]

m. One of the most famous quotes by Aristotle is this: "the state is a creation of nature, and man is by nature a political animal." Explain this in the context of the paragraph in which it appears in his Politics and evaluate his argument in defense of it.

n. Aristotle argues that if all weak-minded people had strong bodies, there would be no dispute about the natural basis of slavery. Defend or refute his position.

o. Aristotle argues that there is a principle in nature that the superior rules over the inferior, and this justifies superior-minded people ruling over inferior-minded people. Defend or refute this position.

p. Aristotle draws a distinction between royal rule and constitutional rule. One way of understanding this distinction is that royal rule involves authority over the governed for the benefit of the governed, but without resistance from the governed. Constitutional rule, by contrast, involves authority over the governed which includes a legally defined power of resistance. Explain and evaluate Aristotle's view of how these two types of rules apply to children and women.

q. The critical mental faculty that determines whether a person is a ruler or subject is the ability of deliberation, that is, the capacity to determine which actions will achieve a desired goal. Explain this process of deliberation, and evaluate Aristotle's position on how this applies to men, women, children and slaves.

r. A common contemporary definition of justice is that it consists of the absence of arbitrary inequalities. Aristotle also links the notion of justice with equality. However, he argues that people have unequal attributes, and, thus, justice would call for treating them differently. The critical issue for Aristotle is discovering which attributes of a person are relevant to justice. How does Aristotle's conception of justice differ from the contemporary notion? That is, are the unequal attributes that are relevant to justice arbitrary?