The Problem

How to motivate people
to be just.
This is a problem because
people mainly desire power
and material success.
Since being just inhibits the pursuit of power and material success, being just is not what most people consciously want to be.

For example,
Glaucon says…

“No one is willingly just but only when compelled to do so.”

(366d)

Aims of the Republic

§A primary aim is to show
that being just benefits a
person.

§A secondary aim is to argue
that Forms are both a structural element of the natural world and
the objects of genuine knowledge.

Context

At Cephalus’ house
Socrates offers his account
of justice in order to persuade
the Sophist Thrasymachus
and Plato’s two brothers,
Glaucon and Adeimantus,
that the just life is the best life
for a person.

Socrates’ interlocutors maintain…

People would freely choose injustice or would prefer
the unjust life, if they could get away with it.

Socrates replies…

People would prefer the
just life, if they rightly
understood it.

To show that it benefits a person to be just,

Socrates begins by looking for justice in a state.

The state that he considers at
369a-372a is one which…

§Arises in order to satisfy
people’s needs.

§Works best if citizens do the task for which each is naturally suited.

§Requires only three classes: producers, defenders, and rulers.

Why does Socrates
begin in this way?

§It may be easier to see
justice in something larger
than in something smaller.

§Justice must be the same in both the city and a person because both are called “just”.

§The character of a state reflects the character of the people who institute it.

Socrates, at 429aff.,
locates…

§Wisdom in the ruling class.

§Courage in the auxiliary
class.

§Temperance is the agreement among citizens as to who should rule and who should be ruled.

§Justice is the condition that results when each part does “its own”.

In effect, the Socrates -
character has redefined
justice.

Rather than being (roughly)
the distribution of benefits and harms according to a person’s value,
he makes it equivalent to a kind of harmony of the parts of a whole city.

So according to Plato . . .

Justice in a city is a harmony

of the parts or classes of the city

such that each part of the city does

its own, i.e., each class does the work

that it is best suited to do.

Socrates then asks,
at 435e…

“Do the same [three] characters that appear in the state also exist in
each one of us?”

His ultimate answer is
“Yes.” And he argues for
this answer that there are
3 soul parts by assuming the principle of non-contradiction (PNC):

“The same thing, at the same time, in the same respect cannot act or
be acted on in opposite ways.”
(437a)

For example…

A man cannot simultaneously be
at motion and at rest. However,
his arms can be in motion and his torso at rest.

Socrates can then show on the basis of the PNC and
by means of an example
that reason and appetite
are distinct parts within the soul.

“Sometimes people are
thirsty and unwilling to drink.”

(439c)

So in order to avoid the contradiction of the soul having contradictory properties of wanting to drink and not wanting to drink,

These desires must be assigned to distinct parts of the soul.

But note one difficult point.

What makes this conflict of desires a conflict between desires of different parts of the soul rather than a conflict between desires that are within one part of the soul is . . .

A fact that is difficult to understand, namely,

The desires are fundamentally different insofar as they have a different relation to the good. The rational desire arises from a recognition of the good, whereas the appetitive desire leads to a belief about the good.

So . . .

The desires are not just in conflict, as they might be if they were both appetitive desires, but the motivational force that each desire represents is in conflict. So it is really a conflict of soul parts, not merely a conflict of desires in the same soul part.

Socrates next shows
(or tries to show)
that spirit is distinct from
both reason and appetite.

Anger sometimes opposes
appetites, as in Leonidas’ case; whereas anger is sometimes opposed by reason, as in
Odysseus’ case. (439e-441c)

Socrates uses two
examples to show this.

Leonidas’ anger opposes
his appetite’s desire to
look at the dead corpses.

Odysseus’ reason opposes
his spirited desire to retaliate
against the suitors.

These examples are intended to show that spirit is not identical with either appetite or reason.

The two examples show this . . .

Because in both of the two examples the desires that are in conflict represent different motivational forces. In the Leonidas case, it is thougt that Leonidas’ sexual urges are in conflict with his self-esteem. In the Odysseus case, Odysseus’ self-interest is in conflict with his self-esteem.

To sum up Socrates’ proof of soul parts:

The conflict of desires proof and the two cases that illustrate that spirit is distinct from reason and appetite rest on the idea of conflict or opposition between different kinds of motivation or motivating forces. The idea is that conflicting motivating forces is proof of distinct parts of the soul.

Thus, Socrates thinks
he is justified in
concluding that…

Spirit is a third ‘part’ of
the soul, because it can
oppose both appetite and reason, as it does in the Leonidas and Odysseus cases, respectively.

Thus, Socrates
concludes…

“The same three elements
exist alike in the state and
in the individual’s soul,” namely, appetite, reason, and spirit.

(441c)

Therefore, a just soul…

Consists of each soul
part doing “its own”
proper work…
reason agrees to rule,
appetite limits its desires
to necessary pleasures,
and spirit (self-esteem)
supports (adopts) reason’s aims.

(441a-442e)

So justice or being just
benefits a person and
Socrates has shown
what he set out to show.

Justice benefits a person because:

§in a just soul, the needs of each part of the soul are satisfied.

§the part of the soul with knowledge of genuine value rules.

For example…

The person with knowledge
can appreciate the good
of health, not just its
instrumentality but its
inherent harmony or
balance of physical elements. Hence, the wise people does not
to destroy that balance either by
over-indulgence or by the pursuit
of injustice that invites retaliation.

In a just soul…

§The needs of each part
of the soul are satisfied.

§The part of the soul which
grasps genuine value rules.

§People whose souls have an insufficiently developed rational capacity are ruled by ones whose rational capacities are fully developed.

In the ideal state,
philosophers rules…

“It is better for everyone
to be governed by the
intelligent, preferably in
dwelling and his own,
but in default of that
imposed from without.”

The guardians are called “philosophers”
because they are
“friends to knowledge,”
(philoi sophois)…
In Republic V, Socrates
explains what makes a
person a philosopher…
The person acknowledges the existence of Forms.

As Socrates explains
to Glaucon…

Forms manifest themselves
in particular actions, people, physical objects.
Yet they exist separately, and
each have natures in their own right. Each Form is one, and is different from every other Form. (476a)

Because philosophers
believe in the Forms,
they are capable of having knowledge.
This is in turn, because
for Plato the Forms are either
the only objects of knowledge,
or the basis of all knowledge.

The aim of Plato’s
educational program
is ultimately…

To know the Forms, and
ultimately to know the
Form of the Good.

Divided Line…

Represents the intellectual
ascent of the guardians to knowledge of the good.

The Divided Line

The Good is, says Socrates/Plato:

“What every soul pursues
as the end of all her actions.”

(505e)

The good also is:

What any soul can in principle attain by moving out of the cave.

Any soul can ascend
to moral knowledge…

By moving out of the cave.

Cave (from lowest
to highest level)

§Acceptance of
conventional opinions.

§Recognition of objective values.

§Assumption of a hypothesis to explain objective values.

§Knowledge of objective values.

Cave (from lowest
to highest level)

§Acceptance of
conventional opinions.

§Recognition of objective values.

§Assumption of a hypothesis to explain objective values.

§Knowledge of objective values.

Plato/Socrates says…

“The soul of every man
possesses the power
of learning, and
just as the body must turn
round towards the light,
so the soul must be turned
until it can see the good.”

(518c)