Plato's Republic Book I: What Justice Really Means

This lecture introduces Plato's Republic, focusing on its first book and the central theme: "What is justice?" It also serves as a broader introduction to Plato's philosophy.

Self-Assessment: Virtues and Vices

The lecture began with a self-assessment, asking participants to identify three virtues they currently possess and three they wish to develop. This exercise, originally designed for first-year Yale students, aims to encourage reflection on personal character.

Previous student responses highlighted several virtues, categorized as:

• Other-oriented/Altruistic: Kindness, loyalty, compassion, respect, empathy, honesty. These virtues involve appropriate behavior and good feelings towards others.
• Internally focused: Integrity, courage, patience, persistence. Courage, while often displayed in relation to others, also reflects one's overall personality.

The concept of "grit," defined as the ability to overcome obstacles and persevere through challenges, was also mentioned as a significant predictor of success. Students also expressed a desire to cultivate virtues like self-discipline, understanding, wisdom, a broader worldview, trustworthiness, and a sense of humor. The importance of developing a sense of humor was particularly emphasized in a meritocratic society.

Plato's Republic: Character and Justice

The discussion then transitioned to Plato's Republic, connecting the self-assessment on virtues to the book's themes. The first month of the course focuses on "character" (Greek: ethos), exploring what kind of person one is and aspires to be.

• Virtue Ethics: Both Aristotle and Confucius emphasized virtue ethics, focusing on developing virtuous character through habits and training. Plato shares this emphasis.
• Eudaimonia: Underlying these philosophies is the concept of eudaimonia, or flourishing, achieved by being an excellent person and possessing distinctively human virtues.
• Justice as the Overriding Virtue: For Plato, justice is the most important virtue. The first book of The Republic questions whether justice is a virtue or a skill, ultimately arguing it is a distinctively human excellence.
• The Central Question: The core question explored is whether justice leads to happiness and benefits the person who pursues it.

Context of The Republic

• Plato's Background: Plato was born into an aristocratic family and was a student of Socrates.
• Socrates' Role: Socrates is the main character in The Republic and most of Plato's dialogues. The book is set during Socrates' lifetime, when Plato was a teenager.
• Irony: Irony is a key feature of the book, where what is said may not be what is intended, or the reader perceives an argument's direction before the characters do.
• Difficulty of Reading: The first book is considered the most dramatic, with subsequent books becoming more abstract. However, the dialogue format and characters make it engaging.
• Themes: The Republic is about the state (polis), but also about ethics. It draws an extensive analogy between the city and the soul, addressing both politics and morality, or justice and morality.
• Historical Setting: Written when Plato was around 50, it's set during his youth amidst the Peloponnesian War. Athens was a democracy (though limited to male citizens, with slavery), while Sparta was an oligarchy known for its military focus and enslavement of other Greeks.

Cast of Characters in Book I

• Socrates: Plato's teacher, who was executed before the book was written.
• Cephalus: A wealthy, older metic (foreigner living in Athens) who hosts the initial discussion.
• Polemarchus: Cephalus' son, who will later be executed by the Thirty Tyrants, adding a layer of dramatic irony to his arguments.
• Glaucon: Plato's older brother, a primary interlocutor with Socrates throughout the book.
• Thrasymachus: A sophist, a teacher of rhetoric, portrayed as aggressive and cynical. Sophists focused on teaching effective communication for political success, often prioritizing results over truth. Plato's portrayal of Thrasymachus may not be entirely fair to real sophists.
• Adeimantus: Plato's middle brother, who appears in later books.

The Opening Scene: Force vs. Persuasion

The dialogue begins with Socrates and Glaucon going to the Piraeus (Athens' port) for a religious festival. They are stopped by Polemarchus' slave boy, who informs them that Polemarchus orders them to wait. This immediately sets up a tension between force and persuasion. Socrates, a master of persuasion, is confronted with a command. He playfully debates with Polemarchus, suggesting persuasion as an alternative to force. They agree to return to Cephalus' house for a conversation, highlighting the theme of dialogue and the ability to convince others.

Cephalus' Commonsense View of Justice

Upon arriving at Cephalus' house, the discussion turns to justice. Cephalus, a self-satisfied, wealthy older man, expresses that as physical pleasures wane with age, the pleasures of conversation and reflection grow. He believes his wealth, accumulated through honest business (making shields), allows him to be just.

• Definition of Justice: Cephalus, quoting the poet Simonides, defines justice as "speaking the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another." This is the ordinary person's view: truth-telling and returning what is owed.
• Motivation for Justice: He links justice to a peaceful conscience and hope for the afterlife, believing that a life free of unjust deeds leads to a good old age.
• Socrates' Challenge: Socrates questions this definition, asking if it's always just to tell the truth or return what is owed. He provides the example of returning weapons to a friend who has gone mad, arguing that doing so would be unjust and harmful. This demonstrates that simple rules are insufficient for a comprehensive understanding of justice.

Polemarchus' Refinement of Justice

After Cephalus departs, Polemarchus takes over the discussion. He refines his father's view, stating that justice is "helping friends and harming enemies."

• Moral Implications: This view, while potentially morally problematic from a modern perspective (e.g., Christian teachings of universal love), has parallels in contemporary politics regarding obligations to citizens versus foreigners.
• Socrates' Further Challenge: Socrates questions this, asking if justice is a techne (skill) or an arete (virtue/excellence). He also points out that one might be friends with a "jerk" or that harming an enemy might make them worse, not better. He argues that common understandings of justice are inadequate.

Thrasymachus' Moral Skepticism

Thrasymachus, a sophist, aggressively enters the conversation, criticizing Socrates' indirect method. His name, meaning "bold in battle," reflects his confrontational style.

• "Might Makes Right": Thrasymachus' initial argument is that "justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger." He believes justice is merely a name given to the rules imposed by those in power.
• Variations and Refinements:
  • He initially struggles with the idea that a stronger person might make a mistake about their own advantage.
  • Cleitophon, another character, suggests that justice is what the stronger believes to be their advantage, which the weaker must obey. This is a form of conventionalism or legalism, where justice is simply adherence to the law, regardless of its moral basis.
• Socrates' Counter-Argument: Socrates compares rulers to doctors, pilots, and horsemen, arguing that their function is to act in the best interest of those they serve (patients, sailors, horses), not their own. Their wages are separate from their function.
• The Cynical Shepherd: Thrasymachus counters with a cynical metaphor of the shepherd. Unlike the traditional view of a shepherd caring for sheep, Thrasymachus argues that shepherds care for sheep only to ultimately exploit and consume them. He applies this to rulers, suggesting they exploit the ruled for their own benefit.
• "Justice is Foolish": Thrasymachus concludes that the just man is always at a disadvantage compared to the unjust man, and that justice is foolish. He presents a world of "sheep and wolves," where smart individuals are wolves who exploit the sheep.
• Thrasymachus' Defeat: Socrates' arguments cause Thrasymachus to blush and become frustrated, indicating his intellectual defeat in the immediate exchange.

Summary of Book I's Arguments

Socrates dismantles four main views of justice:

1. Truth-telling and debt-paying: Rejected because there are situations where these actions can be harmful.
2. Helping friends and harming enemies: Rejected because friends can be unjust, and harming enemies might not lead to justice.
3. Conventionalism/Legalism: Justice is merely what those in power declare it to be, with no underlying moral principle.
4. Justice is foolish/Might makes right: It's better to be unjust and exploit others for personal gain.

Plato, through Socrates, rejects these views, setting the stage for a more complex and defensible argument for justice as a virtue in the subsequent nine books.

The Meaning of "Justice"

The lecture clarifies that the English word "justice" derives from the Latin jus (law). Plato uses the concept in both a narrow, political sense (legal justice, equal treatment under law) and a broader, moral sense (how one should live as a human being). Socrates emphasizes that the discussion is not just about abstract questions but about "the way one should live."

Conclusion of Book I

Socrates concludes Book I by acknowledging that his critiques have not yet provided a definitive answer to what justice is. He likens himself to a glutton sampling dishes without fully appreciating any. He states that without knowing what justice is, he cannot determine if it is a virtue or if it leads to happiness.

Final Self-Assessment and Resources

The lecture ends with a final self-assessment, encouraging reflection on how personal desires and preferences have changed over time, connecting to Plato's theme of educating and controlling desires.

Recommended resources include:

• Julia Annas's An Introduction to Plato's Republic
• Donald Kagan's works on the Peloponnesian War
• Anton Powell's Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Political and Social History from 478 BC
• Nicholas P. White's A Companion to Plato's Republic

The next week's assignment is to read Book II of The Republic and the beginning of Brooks Mather Kelley's Yale: A History, with quizzes on Plato's Books I and II.