Socrates and Plato Ruling as a Skill

Ruling as a Skill

In his thoughts on rulers, Socrates defends the premise that ruling is a form of craft or expertise. Thus, the ruling requires knowledge. He argues that good rulers should not be driven by their selfish interests. Instead, they should consider the desires of their subjects. He gives an example of a doctor who values the patients' interests; in this context, medicine does not seek to profit the practitioner. Analogously, a ruler's job is to serve the citizens in the political environment (Plato & C., 2004). Here, it must be noted that while the doctor enjoys some contingent gains in the form of salary or other remunerations, this is not the intrinsic goal in medicine, and a similar model should be replicated in the ruling.

Socrates' example supports the premise that a doctor with negligible earnings can still be conceived. However, a doctor who fails to serve the interest of the patients does not enjoy this credit. This opposes Thrasymachus' claims that the rulers serve their interests. To reinforce his argument of the significance of expertise in defining a ruler and serving the needs of the citizens, Socrates presents Thrasymachus with another example of a ship's captain whose position is represented by ruling the sailors and not sailing in a ship. His expertise and service to the sailors give him the perfect position as a captain (Plato & C., 2004). In this argument, and reflecting on Plato's concept of the philosopher-king, knowledge is seen as a vital attribute of any chosen leadership style. Rulers should possess skills that their followers lack, as that is the only justifiable element to make them lead the citizens in the political domain. Besides, rulers should be elected by educated citizens who possess election skills and not a practice that should be guided by intuition. Thus, Socrates defends his premise using the above examples to emphasize that rulers should have the expertise to execute better the primary responsibility of serving the citizens.