Plato Essay

Essay on Plato’s Republic

            A city comes to existence by the rationality to live with others, resources such as food, clothes, shelter, etc. from the labor of producers, and divide the labor. There are three different parts of a city or the Kallipolis according to Plato which include rulers, axillaries, and producers. The rulers are responsible for the state and have power but; do not have any privacy at all. The axillaries are the army the guardians of the city which protect the city from anything that harms it and assist the rulers. The producers are an essential part of the city since without it the city would not function properly.

In Plato’s Kallipolis the rulers are the only ones to decide on what governs the land while the producers have no right however, the producers get to have land while the rulers don’t. The producers in essence seem like the average American citizens in that they get to have land, privacy, and families. However, unlike American citizens they do not get to vote. The auxiliaries of the cities are basically the police force of the city and their job is to enforce the laws into effect by the ruler and just like the producers they don’t get to vote. A ruler or a group of rulers and that ruler or group of rulers has authoritarian power about what goes into law, ordinances or positions of political office. This means a central ruler or rulers would get to decide whether to increase the schools budgeting or expand on a land development. There is also a specialization system in the Kallipolis which is that people should participate in an occupation that he or she is best suited for. In other words  if a person was good at basket weaving then the person would have to do basket weaving, not what the person desires which might be playing baseball. Plato goes on to his main goal converting the Kallipolis into the individual soul. Plato’s individual human soul is explained in three parts, reasoning which would be the rulers in the city, spirited part which would be the protectors of the city and the appetites which would be the producers of the city. 

            Plato’s view of the individual soul is that the parts of the soul are of great importance. When Plato talks about the soul he means the full psychology of an individual’s mind. These parts are reasoning which is concerned with what is genuinely pursing, spirit which is concerned with reputation, and appetites which direct us to our material needs. There are three kinds of outcomes that the person experiences the reason is subjugated to the part which is most desirable for the individual whether it be reasoning itself, the spirited or the appetites. Each person in the sense of control choosing a part of the soul that is best suited or wanted by that individual. This would affect the person’s judgment in determining a decision. In a person that is ruled by their appetites would take a higher paying job than a job that is the person would actually like, for instance being a doctor instead of a farmer. The spirited person would take a job that has the greatest reputation like being a president of United States. The person that is ruled by reason would obvious pick to be a farmer instead of a doctor because that is the life worth pursuing. The appetites and spirit are subject by rule of the reasoning part. The reasoning is what determines if a person with appetites or spirited makes a decision about what job to take or what to eat. For instance, a person with appetites would not choose to eat nuclear waste as opposed to a Philly cheese steak and that is in essence the reasoning ruling that part of the soul.

            In a liberal constitutional democracy there is no hierarchy of classes. Everyone is equal and no one is higher than one another. In other words there is no set ruler in place to tell people what to do; instead there is a voted ruler or senate that presides over the decision making. There is also free choice of occupation which a basket weaver if he or she wanted to could become a baseball player and would not have a restriction from it. Also another feature of the liberal constitutional democracy is that citizens can vote whether or not to increase the school budgeting or land development. The liberal constitutional democracy also doesn’t have a set ruler in place; instead the people get to vote on who their next ruler will be.

            In the democratic sense of the individual soul there are no parts of the soul that are of hierarchy of importance, which means there is a balance of the appetites, spirit, and the soul. The soul can have an abundance of elements without one being of great importance. However, it is not clear how nature would do in the appetites, reasoning, and spirit. Instead of reasoning ruling the soul, there would be different ruling souls, to include appetites and spirit. The appetites would probably rule most of the time because, we desire a lot out of appetites, such as, food, shelter, a family, etc. Therefore, appetites would win out; in essence only because the appetites would have the most votes.

            Plato’s rejects these features of ideal human life from a democratic view because education is a free pursuit, while Plato believes that an essential element of education is to think about what you value the most. Plato believes that reasoning is the most important part of your soul and not a balance of all three of the parts. One of the huge reasons why Plato rejects the democratic view of the soul is the fact that there is a voting system of the three different parts of the soul, spirit, appetites, and reasoning. The person in the democratic sense would almost always choose appetites over all of the parts because there are more votes or elements involved. In Plato’s view an individual is better just than unjust, and the democratic view does not uphold that. Instead what the democratic view essentially says is you can be what you want and not have to worry about be just or unjust.

            In the liberal conception of a free pursuit is a stark contrast of what Plato believes in. The liberal conception of free pursuit is study what you want to study for any particular reason whether the reason is because, of money, jobs, etc. Plato’s view is what is most valued to a person.  “just as an eye cannot be turned around from darkness to light except by turning the whole body, so this instrument must be turned around from what comes to be together with the whole soul, until it is able to bear to look at what is and at the brightest thing that is the one we call good” (Plato 212). In other words, a critical thinking of why you are pursuing a certain degree and whether it is worth pursuing or in the matter of interest or cultivation of the mind and many other value factors. I believe Plato says it best in a quoted passage he makes about how the soul is not corrected by education, “education is not what some people boastfully declare it to be. They presumably say they can put knowledge into souls that lack it, as if they could put sights into blind eyes” (Plato 212). In the liberal conception you could pursue an education that will make you happier and wiser mostly by the appetite part of your soul.

            For living well in my life, I believe that Plato makes a better stand than the liberal point of view. Many times we are faced to make a decision we do not want to make like majoring in business because of many opportunities in jobs and wealth only to find out we had a better value of public speaking. By the time you find public speaking as a value the time would come at a disadvantage where you are so caught up in business that your basically chained up to become something that you don’t value as much. However, if Plato’s view of education were in place; instead of being rushed into a degree because of the potential wealth  of that degree or some other reason, you would be confronted to think about what is really worth pursuing, what has the most value to me. If this were in place for universities in my opinion people would not have so much stress whether they get a good grade in their class or not and have better lives.