Plato's Republic

Alfred North Whitehead famously said "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists in a series of footnotes to Plato." Plato’s long dialogue, the Republic, is a 2500 year-old classic because it raises questions and suggests answers that are as relevant now as they were then. Current events in the U.S. illustrate.

The central question of the dialogue is “what is justice?”

Plato is ultimately concerned with how best civilized societies ought to organize themselves. He takes it for granted that we do best in communities. We are not solitary animals. The benefits of what we call "civilization" cannot happen without order and stability. Some shared notion of justice or fairness seems necessary for people to live well together, he thought. So, we need to ask "what is justice?" Near the start of the dialogue, the character Thrasymachus offers Socrates (Plato's mouthpiece) a simple, straightforward answer.

Justice is obedience to laws.

Who makes the laws?

Those empowered to make them.

What empowers them?

Power does, obviously.

Who has the power?

The stronger.

How does one get to be stronger?

Ultimately, by having and using the ability to control what others do.

How does that come about?

At the level of societies, it means having or acquiring substantial resources.

How does that work?

With more resources than others, you can make the others needy relative to you.

You mean by being or getting rich relative to these others?

Yes.

One can’t be or get rich just by being just, right?

Absolutely, not. Justice is what happens when you obey the laws. It is a byproduct of obedience. It is what happens after you obey the laws. Obedience to the laws serves the interest of those with the strength to make them. The laws are made by those empowered to do so. Those empowered to do so are empowered by their relative strength to force outcomes. Strength, of course, comes about by having the resources to acquire it. Therefore, it comes down to amassing resources. In other words, being or getting rich.

This is the order of things. Only in this way can there be peace and harmony in society. Obey the resourceful.

In short, might makes right and wealth makes might.

[The above is a highly compressed paraphrase of the dialogue relating to the discussion with Thrasymachus.]

Thrasymachus would view with approval who is making headlines today everyday.

Plato does not like this answer... for some reason. He really didn’t want to believe that was all there was to justice. He didn’t actually have a quarrel with wealth per se. After all, he was among the privileged class himself. (Having found time to worry yourself over “philosophy” already means you have enough to eat and are not too afraid you won’t tomorrow.) But it is hard to fathom what could have troubled him if he didn’t see something problematic about wealth. Wealth is good, surely. Enough is. And that it is distributed to forestall envy is important. Important to social harmony. In the end, that is what he is going to show the point of justice is… or ought to be.

But it is harder than one might think to show this. He spends the whole rest of the dialogue finding fault with Thrasymachus’ answer and that of others. It’s hard, that is, if you don’t like Thrasymachus’ answer and if you don’t want to get too dreamy (i.e., too divorced from reality). But, in the course of his critique, Plato develops ideas about how society should be structured to promote a certain understanding of justice that leads to harmony, the end goal of justice, he thought. We are going to look closely at these ideas to see how they fit together and if they still apply...

Resources

“Plato’s Insane Political Philosophy | The Republic,” a brief overview of the Republic by Unsolicited Advice.