Plato's Republic and Moral Education

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Plato's Republic and Moral Education

Benjamin WONG

Abstract

The Republic, arguably Plato's most well-known work, is a philosophical dialogue devoted to the question of justice. Is the just life the best way of life? Through a series of complex arguments, the protagonist Socrates leads his interlocutors to see that justice in the city initially requires a rigorous system of education aimed at fostering the moral virtues. As the dialogue offers a comprehensive analysis of the problem of justice, careful study of the text would help educators improve their understanding and teaching of ethics. Exposure to the Socratic dialectic would also help educators engage students by asking the right questions and structuring these questions to facilitate and deepen students' understanding of moral issues.

Introduction

Plato (c. 427–347 bce) was born into a noble and influential family in Athens. He became a disciple of Socrates and started an academy to educate future political leaders. One of his well-known students at the academy was Aristotle. Influenced by Socrates, Plato emphasised using the Socratic dialectic to guide his students in grasping philosophical truths. The Socratic dialogues were recorded in Plato's works such as the Apology, Phædo, Symposium and Republic. Each dialogue usually focuses on one issue with Socrates as the main character. The Republic, arguably Plato's most well-known work, is a philosophical dialogue devoted to the question of justice. Is the just life the best way of life? To address this question, the protagonist Socrates proposes to his interlocutors that they first consider how justice comes into being in an ideal city. Through a series of complex arguments, Socrates leads his interlocutors to see that justice in the city initially requires a rigorous system of education aimed at fostering the moral virtues. But for the city to sustain the practice of justice, the education must proceed to the creation of a class of philosophers who would take turns to rule the city.

Although it was written over two thousand years ago, the dialogue still manages to provoke controversy because of its original and provocative ideas. For the education of the philosopher-kings requires a radical transformation of society. The education programme, for example, entails that all children begin their education on an equal basis. But for this equality to be possible, parents must not be able to influence the education of their children. As a solution to this problem, Socrates proposes the destruction of the family. All the children will then be raised in common under a strict communistic regime. The arguments brought out in the dialogue continue to be relevant today because they have a bearing on contemporary issues such as equality, equity and meritocracy. If, for example, what the dialogue tells us about the conditions for genuine equality of opportunity were right, no existing education system would be truly fair or meritocratic. And if this were so, then every education system would be to some extent unjust. Seen in this light, the arguments of Plato's Republic would have much to teach us about the prospects and the limits of devising an equitable system of education aimed at fostering moral or civic virtues.

This chapter is not designed to summarise the major arguments of the dialogue. Instead, it seeks to introduce readers to the serious concerns that led Socrates to formulate his radical proposals for the moral transformation of the city. It is hoped that this introduction would induce readers to study and discuss the arguments of the dialogue.

Historical Background and Dramatic Context

Athens during the time of Socrates was a thriving democracy and the most powerful city in ancient Greece. The historian Thucydides described the Athenians as a restless and dynamic people dedicated to the advancement of the city. The imperial ambitions of the city provided much scope and opportunity for its leading citizens to realise their desire for personal glory. With its great wealth and power, it was also able to develop into a centre of learning, culture and the arts. Then, as now, education was highly regarded as the means to worldly success. In order to get ahead, young Athenians from wealthy homes were willing to pay at times exorbitant fees to professional teachers known as sophists to acquire the skills and abilities to manage the affairs of the city. The young interlocutors in the Republic were representative of this class of wealthy and ambitious Athenians. And it so happens that the main interlocutors in the dialogue are the two younger brothers of Plato—Glaucon and Adeimantus. Glaucon in particular was known to have been so eager and reckless in his pursuit of a political career that his relatives appealed to Socrates to help counsel the young man.

The dialogue takes place in the home of a wealthy merchant located in the Piraeus, the commercial heart of the city. This is significant as the Piraeus is not only the place where goods are traded, but it is also the place where new and innovative ideas are introduced into the city. So it serves as the appropriate setting for Socrates to introduce his radical ideas for the moral transformation of society.

The conversation on justice is initiated by Socrates first with the merchant Cephalus and subsequently with his son, Polemarchus. The son tries to defend a respectable view of justice that consists in doing good to friends and harm to enemies. With his usual facility, Socrates soon undermines that view of justice by persuading the young man to see that a just man would not harm anyone.

Although this initial exchange is conducted in a friendly manner, one of the guests, a professional teacher by the name of Thrasymachus, takes offence to it. Unable to contain himself, he breaks into the conversation to accuse Socrates of corrupting Polemarchus and his friends. Thrasymachus is a teacher of rhetoric, the art of persuasion. His intense interest in the conversation is related to his teachings and his view of the world. He sees the world as a harsh place in which the strong rule over the weak. Accordingly, he takes pride in teaching rhetoric to the young as it equips them to become rulers, for mastery of the art allows them to influence and so command the opinions of others.

Thrasymachus' accusation of Socrates appears to be in keeping with his cynical view of the world. If the young men were to follow Socrates' teachings on justice, they would be unable to defend themselves against the bullies of the world. They would be like sheep sent to the slaughter. As far as Thrasymachus is concerned, justice is a luxury no sane man can afford. Indeed, he goes to the extreme of extolling the life of injustice. Such a life, Thrasymachus says, is preferable because it is truly profitable.

Thrasymachus is not altogether a bad person, since he means to benefit the young men. He is, however, morally confused. On the one hand, he holds justice in contempt; on the other hand, he is motivated by justice to prevent Socrates from corrupting the young with his idealistic and apparently fallacious teachings on it. Socrates naturally exploits this inconsistency to refute Thrasymachus' defence of the life of injustice. This dramatic encounter with Thrasymachus paves the way for Glaucon to pose the problem of justice that would dominate the rest of the dialogue.

Glaucon's Challenge to Socrates

Glaucon is not altogether persuaded by Socrates' refutation of Thrasymachus. Socrates may have undermined Thrasymachus' opinion regarding the choiceworthiness of the life of injustice, but even he was compelled to admit that he failed to clarify what justice is in the course of his refutation. Furthermore, Socrates even indicated that justice may be necessary a means to hold a band of bandits together as an effective group. Justice in this case may be necessary as a means to injustice. In view of this contradiction, Glaucon insists that Socrates take up the challenge of clarifying what justice is and stating whether it is truly something worth pursuing for its own sake.

To underscore the serious nature of his concern with this question, Glaucon tells Socrates how often he has encountered arguments praising injustice and demeaning justice, so much so that he is truly at a loss. Indeed, he has been “talked deaf by Thrasymachus and countless others” (Rep. 358c).¹ Underlying his complaint is the insinuation that he might have no good reason to reject the opinions of these people should Socrates fail in the attempt to defend the life of justice. While he continues to resist these opinions, he may well be compelled by the force of these opinions to practise injustice for his ultimate survival. What Glaucon says about himself applies to his brother and his friends as well. The fate of these young men, as it were, rests on Socrates' ability to defend justice as an intrinsically choiceworthy way of life.

To encourage Socrates to put up the best possible defence of justice, Glaucon proposes to restate Thrasymachus' arguments: he will speak in “vehement praise of injustice” (Rep. 358d). In keeping with this intention, he proves to be superior to Thrasymachus by articulating some of the most powerful arguments against justice.

Glaucon begins by revealing the arguments informing the ordinary opinions regarding what justice is and where it came from:

They say that doing injustice is naturally good, and suffering injustice bad, but the bad in suffering injustice far exceeds the good in doing it; so that when they do injustice to one another and suffer it and taste of both, it seems profitable—to those who are not able to escape the one and choose the other—to set down a compact among themselves neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. And from there they began to set down their own laws and compacts and to name what the law commands lawful and just. And this, then, is the genesis and being of justice; it is a mean between what is best—doing injustice without paying the penalty—and what is worst—suffering injustice without being able to avenge oneself. The just is in the middle between these two, cared for not because it is good but because it is honored due to a want of vigor in doing injustice. The man who is able to do it and is truly a man would never set down a compact with anyone not to do injustice and not to suffer it. He'd be mad (Rep. 358e–359b).

To test the strength of the argument that no man is willingly just, Glaucon conceives of a thought experiment in which both the just and the unjust man are given the licence to act as they please with impunity. He appeals to a fabled ring that would render its possessor invisible. What would the just man do were he to be in possession of such a ring? Would he not revert to the natural propensity to do injustice? He would be a fool not to. The unjust man, on the other hand, would not hesitate to exploit the power of the ring for his own advantage.

To further illustrate why it would be sensible to pursue the life of injustice, Glaucon proceeds to contrast the two ways of life. He insists that they must be diametrically opposed. At one extreme is the perfectly unjust man. The extreme of injustice, according to Glaucon, is “to seem to be just when one is not” (Rep. 361a). Clever and courageous, the perfectly unjust man is able to use both force and fraud to gain wealth and power, which he uses to benefit his friends and to harm his enemies. He is honoured because he is seen as a benefactor. He even enjoys a good reputation with the gods since he is able to offer the greatest sacrifices at the temples.

At the other extreme is the perfectly just man, who is stripped of everything except his justice. Because he does not seem just, he acquires the greatest reputation for injustice. Maligned by many, he will eventually be tried, tortured and executed: “[He] will be whipped; he'll be racked; he'll be bound; he'll have his eyes burned out; and, at the end, when he has undergone every sort of evil, he'll be crucified and know that one shouldn't wish to be, but to seem to be, just” (Rep. 361e).

Glaucon's harsh account of the life of the just man actually reflects his ardent belief that the just life is the best way of life. If justice is truly a good worth pursuing for its own sake, then it must be deserving of the highest sacrifices. Something so precious must be worth fighting and dying for. It should be clear from Glaucon's arguments about the genesis of justice and his account of the two ways of life that Socrates is confronted with a task that is neither simple nor easy. Indeed, it would seem that Socrates has before him a problem that may prove impossible to resolve.

Implications for Educators

Glaucon's speech helps bring to light the problem of justice or, more broadly speaking, morality. Why should we be moral? If morality is valued only as an instrumental good, then it is not something we value for its own sake. On the other hand, if the moral life is worthwhile pursuing for its own sake, how do we reconcile this with the fact that many good people suffer painfully and unjustly at the hands of wicked men? Furthermore, why should we take morality seriously if all it takes to be materially successful in life is to appear just and moral? This is not to deny that some successful people are truly good and decent. But the fact is that not all who succeed in life are decent and good. And perhaps those who are not end up living a better and more pleasurable life. Who's to say?

Now we may think that after two thousand five hundred years we moderns are in a better position to address the problem posed by Glaucon. We may even believe that our answers are superior to those provided by Socrates. But we cannot be absolutely certain about our opinions unless we examine Socrates' response to this problem. For this reason, it may be worth our while to spend some time examining the arguments for justice in Plato's Republic.

As the dialogue offers a comprehensive analysis of the problem of justice, careful study of the text would help educators improve their understanding and teaching of ethics. Exposure to the Socratic dialectic would also help educators engage students by asking the right questions and structuring these questions to facilitate and deepen students' understanding of moral issues. A Socratic conversation is both creative and critical, and a very good way for students to develop their reasoning and communication skills.

Plato's Republic shows that when it comes to the question of justice it is important to pay attention to the ordinary opinions, which are interesting because they often do not agree with each other. As with Glaucon, students often have very strong and even dissenting views about justice. Glaucon had strong disagreements with his elders, whom he regarded as hypocrites who praised justice only because of the honours and rewards that went with it. These disagreements are helpful from an educational point of view, as they can be useful starting points for discussion and reflection on moral issues. Moral education cannot be conducted as a detached, academic exercise. That would only bore students. For learning to occur, educators must appeal to students' interests and take seriously their opinions and judgments of the world. The aim of moral education is not to impose a set of values on students, nor to answer students' question about the meaning of life. Moral education should aim to encourage students to discuss, examine and clarify their beliefs about what is most important to them.