Plato's Republic 6: How to be a Good Person
Summary
This episode covers book 4 of Plato’s Republic.
What does it mean to be a good person? What is justice?
To answer these questions, Socrates and the boys have built imaginary cities, raised educated and nobly lied to armies, and sent them all to live in camp no-fun. Today’s the day Socrates brings it all home and explains his definition of justice both in the city and in the soul. And to boot, he explains the structure of the human soul.
Credits
Adeimantus: Rebecca Amzallag
Glaucon: Zachary Amzallag
Ancient music: Michael Levy
Transcript
Note: this is transcribed using an online transcription service so it’s probably going to have a lot of errors. We do don’t have time to go through these all carefully but still thought that it would be more helpful than having no transcript at all.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
socrates, city, people, soul, guardians, justice, plato, desires, education, mantis, part, appetite, athens, laws, spirit, reason, jobs, person, classes, speech
SPEAKERS
Socrates, Adeimantus, Glaucon, Clif Mark
Clif Mark 00:14
Today, Justice in the city justice in the soul, and why you should only pay politicians influence. I'm Clif Mark. And this is good in theory. What does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to be just? That's the question that got this whole conversation started. And in order to work their way towards an answer, Socrates and the boys have built imaginary cities, educated an army and tricked all the citizens into believing that they were born underground. And today, Socrates is going to bring it all home, he's going to finally explain what it means for a city to be just, and what it means for an individual to be just, and to boot is going to tell us the structure of the human soul. It's a big day. When we left off, Socrates and the boys had just put their soldiers through a very intense education, and then sent them to live in a kind of army camp, where they'll stay with no property, no luxury, no privacy, just watching over the city, making sure nobody breaks the rules. And that's where Adam Mantis jumps back into the conversation, to say something that you may have been thinking, which is that life in the city and speech doesn't look that great. This first section of dialogue today is pretty long, and it's packed full of ideas. But don't sweat it, if you miss something. I'm gonna pick up all the major points as soon as we're done.
Adeimantus 02:16
Let me get this straight Socrates. The Guardians aren't allowed to have land or build houses or even entertain guests like normal people. They just have to sit around and watch over everyone like hired bodyguards.
Socrates 02:30
Exactly. At a mantis, you've got it.
Adeimantus 02:32
So they're the rulers of the city, but they get nothing out of it.
Socrates 02:37
Well, not nothing. Are you forgetting that the citizens are going to pay for their food?
Adeimantus 02:41
Fine, then how would you defend yourself? If someone accused you of giving these guardians a very unhappy life?
Socrates 02:49
Well, Adam enters the long answer is that I don't think these guardians are as unhappy as you think. And we can get into that. But the short answer is, we're not here to make the rulers as happy as possible. We are here to make the whole city happy. And in order to do that, we have to make sure that every part of the city has a happiness that's appropriate to them. What do you think, is the most beautiful part of the body? What? The most beautiful part of the body? What do you always wind up staring at?
Adeimantus 03:25
The eyes?
Socrates 03:26
Hmm? Of course, the eyes. And what's your favorite color?
Adeimantus 03:30
Purple?
Socrates 03:31
Great. Now tell me in all your years of living in Athens, where there are statues everywhere. Have you ever seen a statue with purple eyes?
Adeimantus 03:42
Of course not. What is your point?
Socrates 03:44
But why not? If purple is the most beautiful color? And the eyes are the most beautiful part of the body? Why don't artists put it together and paint eyes purple?
Adeimantus 03:55
Because nobody has purple eyes? Socrates. If you painted a statues eyes purple, they wouldn't even look like eyes, they would look like something else.
Socrates 04:04
Exactly. And that's exactly what would happen. If you came in and started giving houses and property and gold to the guardians. You'd be making them happy in a way that isn't suited to them. And they'll stop being what they're supposed to be.
Adeimantus 04:17
But why do you think that?
Socrates 04:19
Well, what do you think would happen if we dressed up all of our farmers and gold robes and jewels? And we laid our Potter's down on banquet coaches and let them pass the wine jug from left to right. Do you think they would keep doing their jobs?
Adeimantus 04:32
Probably not. At least they wouldn't do them as well.
Socrates 04:37
And what about the guardians? I'm not really worried that the farmers and the potters aren't going to do a good job. I'm worried about the guardians. Because if they mess up, the whole city is going to suffer. They might enjoy having houses and gold and property. But those things aren't going to make them better leaders. They're more likely to change them into the kind of person who treats politics as if it's a big Public banquet not a serious responsibility.
Adeimantus 05:03
That's a fair point, Socrates.
Socrates 05:05
I agree, then it looks like having too much wealth is just as bad as having too little. Both make people worse at their jobs. So the guardians are going to have to guard against wealth as much as they guard against poverty.
Adeimantus 05:19
I hear what you're saying. But if our city has no money, how's it supposed to fight a war? Especially if it's up against a large, rich city?
Socrates 05:29
Oh, that sounds really easy. In fact, the only thing easier than fighting one big rich city is fighting to
Adeimantus 05:36
two. Why would that be easier?
Socrates 05:40
Because if we had two rich opponents, we could just go up to one of them and say, hey, look, in our city, we don't use gold or silver. So we have no use for any of the treasure or booty of war. If you team up with us against the other guy, you can have it all. And if we tell them that, I don't think their alliance against us is gonna last very long,
Adeimantus 06:00
right? But then we'll wind up with one enemy who's even bigger and richer. How does that help?
Socrates 06:07
It helps elementis because despite appearances, there's no such thing as a big rich city. These kinds of cities are always divided against themselves rich against poor, faction against faction. And that means we can play the same game again. As long as our city sticks to their discipline life and stays united. It'll be strong.
Adeimantus 06:29
Okay, my C,
Socrates 06:31
which means we have to convince our guardians to always stop the city from getting too big, or too rich. Oh, yeah, that should be easy. It'll be almost as easy as when we asked the guardians to make their less talented children, be farmers instead of rulers.
Adeimantus 06:47
Another piece of cake.
Socrates 06:50
I know, you think that we're asking too much of our citizens. But if we get the first thing, right, everything else should be easy.
Adeimantus 06:56
And what is that?
Socrates 06:58
education? If we raise them, right? The Guardians will have no problem figuring out all this stuff. And probably a whole bunch of other things that we haven't even mentioned yet. I bet when it comes to taking wives and kids, they'll just follow the old proverb and say, everything is best when it's shared among friends. Yes, sure, that would be best. If we get off to a good start, we should have no problem. A good education system produces good specimens. And good specimens produce better specimens. It's a virtuous circle that goes down through the generations. And that's why the guardians have to guard against even the smallest change to music or to gymnastic. People love new songs. But changes in music can cause revolutions.
Adeimantus 07:46
I totally agree, they have to watch out. It's so easy to start breaking these kinds of rules without even noticing.
Clif Mark 07:53
People aren't careful at all about these kinds of things, because they think it's just entertainment, and it won't do any harm. But it
Adeimantus 08:00
does. Sure it starts with a couple of new songs, no big deal. But soon enough, the kids are walking around with weird clothes and hairstyles and talking back to their elders. They don't realize that bad acts turn into bad habits. And sooner or later, the laws and institutions and all things decent are ruined. Ah,
Clif Mark 08:23
so you're saying that we should pass laws to control music and hairstyles?
Adeimantus 08:27
What's the point? This kind of thing doesn't come from laws. And even if we made them they wouldn't last? everything flows from education.
Clif Mark 08:36
Well, what about things like contracts and lawsuits in general regulations in the city? Well, we make laws for those.
Adeimantus 08:44
There's no point. If we raise good citizens, they'll figure it out themselves. If we don't, then nothing will help them. You see, they'll just keep inventing new legislation to solve their problems generation after generation. But it'll never work. Because the problem is that they're bad people. And laws can't fix that. They
Socrates 09:06
sound just like sick people who try medicine and amulets and surgery and charms. But if anyone comes up and tells them to stop drinking and get some exercise once in a while, they completely freak out.
Adeimantus 09:19
Those peopleare the worst.
Socrates 09:22
I know. Isn't it just like when somebody who lives in a badly governed city, not mentioning any names, suggests a few changes, and then people start threatening to put them to death? You know what I mean?
Adeimantus 09:35
Yes, because in cities like that, the only people they listen to are the ones who flatter them. Oh, they won't listen to hard advice. But when someone comes along and tells the people that they don't need to make any sacrifices, and they'll get everything they want. Then they say that person is the wisest man in the city. And the worst part is all that cheering from the majority convinced is these flatterers that they're actually real statesman? It's disgusting.
Socrates 10:05
Maybe, but they can't really help themselves, can they? If a man doesn't know how to measure himself, and a whole crowd of other people are telling him, he's six foot tall, he's gonna think he's six feet tall. How could you think anything else?
Adeimantus 10:20
I guess so? Well, if we're not gonna make any laws for all that stuff, we're just talking about Do we have any legislation left to make?
Socrates 10:30
We don't, but Apollo does.
Adeimantus 10:33
What do you mean?
Socrates 10:34
temples, rituals, sacrifices, stuff like that. But we can't make up those rules ourselves. So we'll have to ask the Oracle at Delphi.
Adeimantus 10:43
Good idea. Is that it?
Socrates 10:45
That is it. Consider our city founded.
Clif Mark 11:09
What happened that dialogue? Here are the big points out a mantis complains that being a guardian actually sounds pretty awful. And Socrates says, Don't worry about them, focus on the happiness of the entire city, don't go painting the eyes purple. Then Socrates argues that to keep the whole city happy, you have to make sure it doesn't get rich. Because when cities get rich people don't do their jobs. And the city won't be able to use the foreign policy strategy of convincing other cities that they're too poor to be worth conquering. And how do these people stick to their strict abstemious lifestyle, education, if you educate the citizens properly, then they'll always do what's best without needing a bunch of laws to tell them. So happiness of the whole, not of the part, avoid wealth as much as poverty, and focus on education instead of legislation. And if that whole routine about statues and purple eyes sounded confusing to you, here's the key fact. You know, all those nice white marble statues that you see in museums that come from ancient Greece and Rome? Well, back in the day, they used to paint them close, faces, eyes, everything. So that's what that metaphor is about. Adam Mantis is worried that the life of the Guardian sucks. And if you're from a democracy, ancient or modern, you probably think it sucks to because who wants to live under a military dictatorship, that just sits on a hill, watching everyone to make sure they don't get rich enough that they want to take a day off of work. Life in the city and speech looks bad now. And it's actually going to get worse in the coming chapters. Now, for that reason, there's a whole genre of secondary literature on Plato, that basically just says, Tut, tut, what a totalitarian, wouldn't enemy of the open society. Why do we read Plato? Now, I'm not really interested in doing that. So I want to change the perspective a little, I want to worry less about what would happen if a gang of platonic guerrillas took over the state and tried to create the city in speech in real life. And I want to focus more on what the city in speech can tell us about actually existing societies. The city in speech is a utopia. It's not a set of proposals for how to change society, at least, it's not just that. It's also a commentary on the society that Plato and all his characters lived in. The city in speech is a mirror that Socrates holds up to Athenian democracy, to show its blemishes. And it just so happens that modern democracies share a lot of the same blemishes. So here's a little trick for reading Plato's Republic. Whenever you hear Socrates and the boys, say something about politics that just seems wild and silly and a really bad idea in practice, take that idea. Put it down, flip it and reverse it. And you'll usually find some kind of critique of democracy. Socrates, his big point here is that in the city and speech, they have to focus on the happiness of the whole city, rather than on the happiness of the individuals. He's basically saying, Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. The guardians are supposed to be these completely public spirited, selfless patriots, which means that Socrates is saying that democratic citizens are selfish money grubbers. We want to know what our country can do for us. Think of the questions that come up during elections, who can fix the economy who can create more jobs who can win the war? How should we distribute the goods produced by society? Should we have more social programs, education and so on. These are all questions about what your country can do for you. And Athens was the same way. It was a democracy that voted again and again, to conquer and intimidate their neighbors so they could get rich. And then they squabbled over how to split up the wealth. That's why Adam Mantis is so skeptical that the city in speech could manage to stay limited in size. Adam entus has witnessed firsthand how hard it is for a powerful city to resist imperialism. So when Socrates is talking about how important it is to have selfless patriotism in the city and speech, he's really pointing out all the bad things that come out of selfishness in actual existing democracies, you can get selfish, corrupt leaders who treat politics like they're running a public feast, you can get people who are too focused on money to do their jobs. And in this case, don't think about a cobbler who wants a day off. Think about healthcare companies that jack up prices on drugs, so they can make more money, saving fewer lives. Or think of a tech company that is really trying to capture all your attention and all your data, instead of just helping you communicate or whatever they say they're doing. Think of any example where people are worrying more about the money they can make, then about the contribution they're going to make to society. This is what Socrates is pointing at. He's saying that too much wealth in a city creates perverse incentives and stops people from doing the jobs that they're supposed to do. And self interested in wealth also causes the faction and division. This is what happens to the big rich cities that Socrates imagines as opponents for the city in speech. And I think one of the neatest parts of the section is the discussion of education in the law. In the city and speech, the education system is extreme, and it's totally focused on moral education. It's supposed to work like a perfect garden, the guardians weed out all the things that might cause young people to develop selfish interests. And they give these little Cabbage Patch Kids everything they need to develop into healthy virtuous patriots. And then these little patriots eventually take over the gardening. And they do the same for the next generation. It's a closed feedback loop, a perpetual virtual machine. And this is also why it's so important not to change a single thing. Even a few new songs can disrupt the entire balance. But Socrates thinks it's worth it. Because if you get education right, then you won't even need any laws. After that. Your citizens will be so public spirited and virtuous, that they'll just be able to get along with each other automatically. Now, as a practical proposal, this is silly. In every actual society, laws are good idea. And all that virtuous brainwashing seems creepy and probably impossible to pull off. But like I said, if you want to understand the point of these goofy political proposals, look for the implicit critique of democracy. What's the opposite of an education to make you into a selfless virtuous patriot? It's an education that trains you to be selfish. And that's what we get in democracies. In Athens, people worried a lot about Sophos. These are the teachers of rhetoric that basically came to town, and taught young men the skills they needed to win in life, to beat their opponents in court and in politics. So think of Thrasymachus from book one. He's out there telling young men to just be as bad as they can. And he's promising to help them get away with it. Now, Thrasymachus, is an extreme character. He's kind of satirizing this group of people, but he does represent the profession. And I think we can make the same case against education in modern democracies. Now, education seems they're mostly to prepare young people to get a job, or in other words, to train us to compete against our fellow citizens in a scramble for money and status. It's rarely formulated as a way to help us make a contribution to society. And what's the opposite of a society where everyone is so good that they don't need laws? Well, how about a society where people are so selfish, that no set of laws can save them? Again, this is about Athens. One of the big complaints in Athens was that the city was too litigious, too legalistic. People were constantly dragging each other in a court for frivolous reasons, trying to make money in lawsuits, trying to take down their enemies. And it seemed to the Athenians that every time they tried to change the laws to make things better, people just found new ways to abuse them. And this is the point of Socrates anatomy, it's his argument. If you educate people to be selfish, then you shouldn't be surprised when they start trying to use the laws as weapons instead of as instruments of justice. One of the big things that Socrates is worried about here is unity. The city in speech has to stay united in a void all the division and squabbling that happens in big rich cities. And that raises the question of how the three different classes of Guardian soldiers and producers are going to get along with each other. Which brings us to the next section of dialogue in which Socrates and glaucon discuss how the four cardinal virtues of Greek ethics apply to the city.
Socrates 20:37
Our city is founded. All that's left is for you boys to go inside it and look around to see if we can find
Glaucon 20:44
justice. Oh, no, you don't Socrates, you said you were going to look for justice. So don't go back on your word. Now.
Clif Mark 20:51
You got me glaucon. But you all have to help?
Glaucon 20:55
Of course we will.
Clif Mark 20:56
Here's what I propose. If we founded our city perfectly, then it should be perfectly good. If it's perfectly good. It should have all four virtues, wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. I say we start with wisdom, courage and moderation. And then whatever's left after we find those, that'll probably be justice.
Glaucon 21:19
makes sense to me.
Clif Mark 21:21
Good. Let's start with wisdom. Usually, when we call a city wise, it's because the people who are in charge know what they're doing. So Cloud con, do you know where we might find wisdom in our city?
Glaucon 21:34
Of course, it's the guardians. Okay, so the wisdom of the city as a whole is contained in the smallest part of the city.
Socrates 21:43
That's right, cloud con. And what about courage?
21:47
Well, when we say a city is brave, we're really talking about its army. So that's where you find courage. Excellent.
Socrates 21:55
But what exactly is courage? I'd say that it's the power of preserving the opinions of what is to be feared and not to be feared that was given by the law giver. Sorry, what?
22:06
I'm not following Socrates. Hmm.
Socrates 22:10
I mean, that courage is not changing your mind. You remember when we tested our citizens with fear and temptation and pain, to make sure that they never forgot what we taught them in their education? That's what I mean by courage. It's about not changing your mind about what is truly fearful, even though you're surrounded by pleasure and pain.
22:33
Got it, Socrates. What about moderation?
Socrates 22:37
Well, moderation seems a little different to me. Wisdom belongs to the guardians. Courage belongs to the auxiliaries, but moderation seems to belong to the whole city. I think it's a relation between the different parts.
22:51
What kind of relation?
Socrates 22:54
Well, when a man is moderate, we say he's master of himself, that the better part of him his ruling over the worst part. But when a man is in moderate, we say the opposite. We say he's a slave to his desires, in that the worst part of him is in charge.
Glaucon 23:11
And how does that work in the city?
Socrates 23:13
I think it works in the same way. We call a city moderate or self discipline, when all the parts of the city agree that the best people in it should rule.
Glaucon 23:24
And that leaves justice. Where is it Socrates?
Socrates 23:31
I don't see it yet. glaucon. This isn't going to be easy. If we're gonna have any hope of finding justice. We're all going to have to surround the city like hunters. So it doesn't escape us. Okay, Socrates. And we're gonna have to search every dark corner. I'm right behind you then say a prayer and follow me. I will? Oh, no, what we've been absolute idiots. We've gone for miles in the opposite direction. and justice has been sitting right here, under our noses the entire time.
24:09
This is a very long introduction, Socrates. Your audience is getting impatient. What do you mean?
Socrates 24:16
Do you remember way back in this conversation, when we said that everyone in the city should follow the one job that they're best suited to?
Glaucon 24:25
I remember.
Socrates 24:27
Well, I think justice is something like that. Justice in the city is when each class of people minds their own business and doesn't interfere with any other classes job.
Glaucon 24:39
Are you saying justice is minding your own business?
Socrates 24:44
I am. I admit, it's probably not going to do too much harm. If a cobbler decides to try some farming. By default, the cobblers and farmers got together and they got puffed up and they started trying to do the job of the rulers or of the army. that could cause some real damage. In fact, I'd say that when the classes don't mind their business and try to take charge when they're not supposed to, that's about the worst crime you can commit against your own city.
Glaucon 25:14
And that is what I call an injustice.
Clif Mark 25:26
Socrates is finally getting around to giving some answers. They've all created the perfect city. And in this section of dialogue, they're trying to explain what makes it so perfect. Now, if you found Socrates, his definitions of virtues a bit weird, that's normal. He says, courage is not changing your mind. And justice is minding your own business. Even another ancient Greek would have thought this was strange, but that's because Socrates is giving his own unorthodox account of what the virtues are. And for him, the political virtues are all based on the class structure of the city and speech. So you can picture that as a three level pyramid. At the base, you have the producers who are the largest group, then the auxiliaries are in the middle, and the guardians, the smallest group are just the tip. Just like the arguments in the last section, everything that Socrates has to say about political virtue sounds kind of anti democratic. So his plan for the city basically amounts to getting some really smart people, and you put them in charge of everything, they have wisdom. And then all the other virtues are just about obeying these people at the top. Courage is when the soldiers remember what the rulers told them. moderation is when everyone agrees to obey the rulers. And justice is about minding your own business and not trying to rule if you're not a guardian. Overall, it's a kind of strength and diversity strategy. The classes are separate, they have different jobs. And if everyone sticks to their knitting, everyone prospers. Which, of course, is just the opposite of how it worked in Athens. And Athens, which was a democracy, pretty much every citizen was a producer, they had to earn a living, and they were a soldier. And they were a political decision maker when they participated in the assembly. And all of them were supposed to be equal, there was no hierarchy of classes. And the result was that democratic politics could get pretty messy. There was a lot of faction, there's a lot of bickering, there's a lot of demagogues, there was a lot of persecuting Socrates. All of this stuff was very unvirtuous. On Socrates his account. virtue is the opposite of what Athens was doing. And now that we know that, we can apply what we learned about virtue in the city, to the individual. And that means we'll finally get the answer to the question we've been working towards this whole time. What does it mean to be a good person?
Socrates 28:08
We did it. We found justice and virtue in the city. Now, Are you all ready to see if it's the same with the individual?
Glaucon 28:15
We're ready, Socrates.
Socrates 28:18
Then let's start with an easy question. Tell me glaucon. Does the human soul have the same three parts as the city?
Glaucon 28:27
Hmm. Do you have any easier questions?
Socrates 28:32
Well, let me put it this way. would we ever call a city wise or spirited if no actual person in that city was wise or spirited?
Glaucon 28:43
Of course not. That one's obvious.
Socrates 28:46
And that means that individuals can be wise and spirited and have desires, just like cities. So the question is, do we do all these things with our whole soul? Or do we have different parts of our soul for each different kind of activity?
Glaucon 29:02
Great question, Socrates. What's the answer?
Socrates 29:08
How about another question? Have you ever been really, really thirsty, but for some reason, held yourself back from drinking?
29:16
Sure. There are some things you shouldn't drink, no matter how thirsty you are.
Socrates 29:21
Wise words, cloud Khan. And in situations like that, what's holding you back? It sounds like there's a rational part of you that's fighting with the thirsty part of you,
29:31
and it doesn't always win. So there are at least two parts to the soul, the reasoning part and the thirsty or desiring part.
29:42
That's two, but we were looking for three. What about spirit? Do you think that's its own thing? Or is it part of one of the others?
Glaucon 29:50
Maybe it's part of desire.
Socrates 29:53
I'm not sure about that clock on. What about when you have a strong desire to do something that you know that you shouldn't do? Then you start to get angry at yourself for having those desires. In that case, it seems like spirit is fighting against desire, so it can't be part of it.
30:09
Good point, Socrates. That kind of thing happens all the time. For example, when someone wrongs me, I don't care how much pain and hardship I have to endure, I will keep going until I set things right.
Socrates 30:23
Unless you realize that you're in the wrong and reason tells your spirit to calm down, like a shepherd calling off a dog.
30:31
That's true, Socrates. Spirit obeys reason, like a dog, just like the soldiers obey the rulers.
Socrates 30:38
So spirit and reason work together against appetite. But how can we be sure that spirit is separate from reason and not the same thing?
30:48
Easy. Look at children. They're full of spirit from the time they're born, but they don't develop reason until later, if they ever do. Therefore, since you can have spirit without reason. That must mean they're different things.
Socrates 31:04
Very good. glaucon. And now that you've mentioned it, there's some evidence for the same point in Homer. You remember when Odysseus His heart is being like a dog for revenge. But Homer says he held back? Well, that's because the better part of Odysseus is soul, the part that had actually thought about what was happening, held his angry spirit back. Right, gentlemen, we've sailed the seas of argument and made it back to dry land. It looks like the soul is made up of the same parts as the city. So they're probably the same with virtue too.
Glaucon 31:41
What do you mean,
Socrates 31:42
in the good city, the guardians and the auxiliaries team up to keep the people under control. And in the good individual, it's the same thing. The rational and spirited parts of the soul team up to make sure that appetite doesn't dominate a boy's whole,
Glaucon 31:58
a boy's soul.
Socrates 32:01
That's what I said. And all of the virtues are the same in the individual as they are in the city. We call people wise because of the reason we call them brave because the spirited part of the soul always follows reasons orders. And we call a person moderate, because all three of the elements agree that reason should rule. You're right.
32:23
It is just like in the city. But you left out justice. Is it like we said earlier? Something about minding our own business?
Socrates 32:33
Yes, it is. glaucon. It looks like justice in the soul is when every part of the soul minds his own business, and doesn't try to take over another parts job. That's how it seems to me, but we should probably verify by checking with everyday experience.
Glaucon 32:48
What do you mean?
Socrates 32:50
Think of the kind of person we're imagining someone who's wise, and whose soul is arranged to keep reason in charge? Is this the kind of person you imagine embezzling? Or betraying their friends or committing adultery? or anything else that we call injustice?
33:06
No, he'd be the last person I'd suspect of that stuff.
Socrates 33:10
And what about robbing temples or disrespecting his parents or treason?
Glaucon 33:14
Socrates? No.
Socrates 33:15
Well, then it looks like our dream has come true. We've got a definition of justice. When the three parts of a man soul all do their own job and follow reason that man is just an injustice is when some element that's supposed to be slaved to reason tries to take over. That kind of struggle produces all the vices.
Glaucon 33:39
Yes, exactly.
Socrates 33:42
Doesn't doing justice remind you of doing unhealthy things? What do you mean? When you do something unhealthy? It disrupts the natural harmony and order of your body? And that makes you more unhealthy?
Glaucon 33:55
No doubt. But what about injustice?
Socrates 33:57
injustice probably does the same thing to the soul. If just actions keep the soul strong and healthy, then doing injustice makes it weak and diseased?
Glaucon 34:09
Of course it does.
Socrates 34:11
And now that we figured out what justice and injustice are, we just have to figure out which one is more
34:18
profitable. How can you even ask that Socrates? Life doesn't even see more living if you have bad health? Why would anyone want to live life with a six soul? Even if he could do whatever he wanted?
Socrates 34:32
When you put it that way? glaucon it does seem pretty absurd, right? Well, now that we finally got justice in our sights, this is no time to rest, is it? Absolutely not. We shouldn't hesitate at all. Then follow me to consider the different kinds of advice
Clif Mark 35:10
The whole reason that we built the city in the first place was to learn about the human soul. And in this section, we learned two really important things, we learn the structure of the human soul. And we learn what makes us all good. Now I get that words like soul and spirit are abstract, and they don't sound very analytical or scientific. But if you get past the sound of it, I think Socrates has a pretty intuitive and interesting theory of human psychology. And according to this theory, the soul has three different parts that correspond to the three different classes in the city. Let's start with reason. Reason corresponds to the Guardian class. It's the smallest part of the soul. But Socrates says it's the best part. This is the part of you that's good at calculating rational argument, and loves wisdom and learning and doing the crossword puzzle. In this part special power is that it's the only part of the soul that knows what's good for you as a whole person, and for each of the other parts. So, spirit and appetite, they kind of just want what they want. But reason can think about how each desire in each part of the soul fits in with the overall good of the person. Next, is spirit, also known as spiritedness, also known as through MOS. Spirit is a complex concept, we're going to say a lot more about it throughout the book. But so far, we know that it's associated with the emotions, especially anger and outrage. And it's also what makes the guardians courageous. And this is a related point. When we get mad, we seem to be able to overcome our normal appetites or desires. We can ignore hunger and cold and hardship and skip, sleep, and overcome all sorts of obstacles until we finally avenge ourselves or satisfy our outrage. So if you want to imagine a very spirited person, think of someone who loves honor, who takes offense easily and who never backs down in a fight. And this part of the soul is obviously associated with the warrior class. The last part of the soul is appetite or desire. You can call it either one. This part of the soul is all about bodily desires, like eating and drinking and having sex. It's the part of the soul that was powering cloud Khan's magic ring fantasy back in Book Two. According to Socrates, these kinds of desires are dangerous, because if you feed them too much of what they like, they have a tendency of spiraling out of control and taking over your whole life. appetite is associated with the producer class, and it has a special association with money, because money can buy satisfaction for these kinds of desires, at least much more easily than the combined satisfaction for the desires of spirit and reason. So that is the model of the sole reason, spirit, appetite. And that matches up with guardians, auxiliaries, producers. If you want to picture a pyramid that works, if you want to think of it in terms of head, heart and gut for reason, spirit and desire, that also works. And now that we know what the soul looks like, we can move on to talking about what makes it healthy. Or we can talk about virtue in the soul. Now, for Socrates, the virtues of a person are the same as the virtues of a city. First, you need wisdom. If you want to be an excellent person, you need to know what's good for you, both as a whole person, and what's good for each part of you. That's wisdom, and only reason can figure it out. So you want to have a good reasonable part of the soul. And then all the rest of virtue is structured around keeping reason in charge. Courage is when spirit listens to reasons so reason and spirit can team up to keep appetite in check. And moderation is when all parts agree that reason should rule. And justice is when every part of the soul mines its own business and doesn't try to take over. Now, all of this is very different from the ideas for justice that we heard in book one, then everyone was framing justice as something you have to do. capitalist said justice was following the rules. Paula Marcus justice was about helping your friends and hurting your enemies. Socrates is saying that justice isn't about what you do. It's about the condition of your soul. People are just when reason combines with spirit to control appetite. And people become unjust when the different parts of the soul disrupt the natural order, and start trying to take over the jobs that they aren't suited for. So if you've ever heard someone say that, so and so is thinking with his dick, that's injustice, according to Socrates, and as far as self help, advice goes, I think it's reasonably good. Some people think that Socrates sounds like he's too focused on reason and that he wants us to be hyper logical robot people. But that's not quite right. Reason is supposed to pay attention to all the parts of the soul, and give each of them what they need. And so that means you can still get angry and spirited at the right times. And you could still indulge your appetites, you just have to do it in a way that's healthy, that's good for you as a whole person. And I especially like the bit about spirit and reason being allies. Because a lot of times when people talk about how the mind works, or how people work, they think of reason versus emotion of logic versus feelings, as if the two are enemies. But that's not at all what Socrates is saying. He thinks that reason and emotion should be allies to really thrive, your emotions should be backing up reason they should be supporting what you think is really good for yourself on balance, and they shouldn't be pulling you in directions that you know, are bad for you. Your emotions should make sense. And it's a lot easier to live well, when they do. The end of book for which we just covered is a landmark in the Republic, it entered the first big question of the book, which was, what is justice? And that leaves the second question, which is, why bother? That was the question that glaucon Adam Mantis wanted to know, when they asked Socrates to prove to them that justice could make them happier than injustice would. Today Socrates hinted at an answer. He said that having a just soul is like being physically healthy. And glaucon, he jumped right on this idea. And he started acting like it would be crazy for anyone to think that injustice was a good idea. And this is kind of funny, because this is the same guy who was doing the magic ring fantasy rampage, just a few episodes ago. But clock on shift is less because Socrates has given any really compelling reasons to believe that and more because he's an excitable, 21 year old who gets caught up in the flow of a conversation. For most of the rest of the book, Socrates is going to be answering the second question, how does justice make us happy. And along the way, we're going to get analyses of the different kinds of political regimes. We're going to get cave analogies, a theory of the forms, and a whole lot more. But before all that, Adam Mantis is going to come back and pick up that white swapping thread that Socrates left hanging earlier this episode in the city and speech is going to get even weirder than it is already. As always, thank you to Zachary and Rebecca AMZ leg for playing glaucon and advantis. Thank you to Michael levy for his great ancient music. And thank you to set it up for new art for every podcast episode, and general editing and podcast Hello. And thank you for listening. If you like the show and want to support us, please tell everyone you know about it. Leave us some reviews on Apple podcasts or whatever app you use to listen. And if you like, you can head over to our Patreon page and support us by sending us money. Thank you to everyone who already does, every little bit helps, and it's very encouraging. To close this episode, I'd like to say something about Plato's theory of the soul. As a psychological theory, it's really stuck with me over the years and helped me to understand myself and other people. And if you think I sound crazy for basing my psychological views on what a fictional character said, in ancient Greece, one, there are crazier psychological theories, too. That's a very Aries thing to say, in three. I'm not the only one. Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis, had his own three part theory of the soul which, as far as I can tell, he lifted from Plato. For Freud, the psyche is made up of the ID, which is the subconscious part of the soul that's full of desires and wants to fuck your parents. That's apatite. ego, the conscious rational part of the soul that negotiates with the other parts to try to control our wild desires, and super ego, which is a kind of scolding inner voice that yells at us when we do something wrong. Just like Plato said, Spirit does. Generally speaking, Freud wasn't very generous with citing other thinkers, but he did cite Plato. In his book, three essays on the theory of sexuality. Freud wrote that, quote, anyone who looks down with contempt upon psychoanalysis from a superior vantage point, should remember how closely the enlarge section ality of psychoanalysis coincides with the Eros of the Divine Plato. If you know anything about Freud, you know that his theories were a lot about phalluses and incest in anal, oral and genital stages of development. And he got a lot of grief for this. People thought psychoanalysis was just too corny. And to defend himself from this charge, Freud said, You think I'm obsessed with it? What about Plato?