Plato's Republic

Ancient Athens was a democracy. At the time of Plato's authorship of the Republic, it had just endured a crushing defeat at the hands of oligarchic Sparta. The best way to govern a city-state was a pressing concern upon Athenian's minds. After the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, Athens endured a brief, tyrannical regime known as the rule of the Thirty, which disrupted the Athenian own democracy from within. The major participants in the first dialogue of Plato's Republic -- Socrates, Cephalus, and Thrasymachus -- all debate what constitute justice, just forms of rule, and how a citizen should behave in an ethical fashion. Cephalus offers a formulaic answer -- obeying the laws of the land (such as not stealing) and respecting one's ethical obligations to others (such as by being honest). Thrasymachus, in contrast, advances the idea that there is no fundamental, true moral law of justice, rather what determines justice is one's ability to exercise one's will over others. What is 'just' is what is politically expedient for one's self, in Thrasymachus' eyes: might makes right.

Athens at the time was faced with a rising political class of wealthy, middle-class individuals who were able to use its democratic institutions to advance their interests through the deployment of skillful persuasion. A group of people known as Sophists gave rhetorical training to people without aristocratic birth, status, or an education and enabled the nouveau riche to gain political esteem in the eyes of the citizenry. Sophists would often teach people to persuade others more effectively in public. Socrates believed that 'truth' rather than the ability to manipulate words was more important, and condemned the notion that majority rule could ever create a more just society. However, Socrates disagreed with Thrasymachus' belief that justice was merely a fictitious notion created to justify the rule of the powerful. Socrates feared majority rule would simply leave definitions of justice up to individuals like Cephalus, who merely obeyed conventional wisdom, or people like Thrasymachus, who used words for self-interested political purposes.

Q2. Plato believed that, just as skilled craftsman should confine themselves to making shoes and warriors should confine themselves to fighting, only 'the best' should rule. Individuals with great aptitudes to be philosophers should be selected and taught to lead the people, and leadership by the majority was dangerous. The Platonic 'Guardians' would be taken away from their family at birth and given special training by other philosophers, so they would know how to govern. This reflects Socrates' notion of philosophy and leadership as specialized skills rather than something that can be practiced by all individuals equally effectively, as the concept of Athenian democracy would suggest. For Socrates, justice is not based in the concept of giving each citizen equal opportunities; justice means creating a perfect society. Making sure that the 'perfect' cobblers make shoes, the perfect warriors defend the city, and the best minds rule on earth makes society more similar the ideal world order that exists in the world of the Forms.