Unit – 1

GREEK POLITICAL THINKERS

Plato
The idea of the Republic, Private property,
justice, censorship, freedom and autonomy

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Born in Athens, founded a school called Academy

His written works are in the form of Dialogues

The idea of Republic

He wrote Republic – it is a Socratic dialogue, authored by Plato

around 375 BC.

It mentions, justice, the order and character of the just city-state,

and the just man

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3 classes in society - Producers, the auxiliaries, and the guardians

(Rulers – Philosopher kings)

In The Republic, Plato is trying to defend the act for which his
teacher was executed

Socrates argues that since it was agreed that justice is a virtue of

the soul, and virtue of the soul means health of the soul, justice is
desirable because it means health of the soul

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Five types of regimes

(1) Aristocracy - This regime is ruled by a philosopher king, and thus

is grounded on wisdom and reason

(2) Timocracy – mixer of aristocracy and oligarchy (a political

system ruled by few people), high-spirited, suited for war, The
governors of timocracy value power, which they seek to attain
primarily by means of military conquest and the acquisition of
honors, rather than intellectual means

(3) Oligarchy -

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Plato defines oligarchy as a system of government which

distinguishes between the rich and the poor, making out of the
former its administrators.

An oligarchy is originated by extending tendencies already evident

in a timocracy.

(4) Democracy -
Oligarchy then degenerates into a democracy where freedom is the supreme good but
freedom is also slavery. In democracy, the lower class grows bigger and bigger. The poor
become the winners. People are free to do what they want and live how they want.
People can even break the law if they so choose. This appears to be very similar to
anarchy.

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(5) Tyranny - Democracy then degenerates into tyranny where no

one has discipline and society exists in chaos. Democracy is taken
over by the longing for freedom. Power must be seized to maintain
order. A champion will come along and experience power, which
will cause him to become a tyrant. The people will start to hate him
and eventually try to remove him but will realize they are not able

Plato’s ideas on Private Property

Private property promotes efficiency by giving the owner of resources an incentive to maximize its
value. The more valuable a resource, the more trading power it provides the owner of the resource.
This is because, in a capitalist system, someone who owns property is entitled to any value associated
with the property

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common property, collective property, and private property.

resources are governed by rules whose point is to make them

available for use by all or any members of the society

here the community as a whole determines how important

resources are to be used

Private property is an alternative to both collective and common

property. In a private property system, property rules are organized
around the idea that various contested resources are assigned to
the decisional authority of particular individuals (or families or
firms)
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Hence we have no solid grounds to suppose that Plato advocated

abolition of private property. Instead, we should consider whether
this detail has some plausible (reasonable) meaning at the
psychological level.

Plato’s ideas on Justice

Plato’s theory of justice quite different from and contrary to the

justice as we understand it in constitutional-legal terms, can be
precisely summed in following two quotes from the Republic:
“Justice is having and doing what is one’s own” and “A just man is a
man just in the right place doing his best and giving full equivalent
of what he receives”.
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A result of this conception of justice separates people into three types; that of
the soldier, that of the producer, and that of a ruler. If a ruler can create just laws,
and if the warriors can carry out the orders of the rulers, and if the producers can
obey this authority, then a society will be just.

Accordingly, Socrates defines justice as "working at that to which

he is naturally best suited", and "to do one's own business and not
to be a busybody" (433a–433b) and goes on to say that justice
sustains and perfects the other three cardinal virtues: Temperance,
Wisdom, and Courage, and that justice is the cause and condition of
their existence.

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Socrates does not include justice as a virtue within the city,

suggesting that justice does not exist within the human soul either,
rather it is the result of a "well ordered" soul.

Justice is "the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies.”

“Justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.”

Socrates overturns their definitions and says that it is to one's

advantage to be just and disadvantage to be unjust.

Plato argues, justice is a master virtue

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Plato on Censorship

Censorship is the subject of several dialogues in The Republic, the

major work of Greek philosopher Plato. His stance is perhaps
summarized in Book II of The Republic by the phrase that "literature
may be either true or false", i.e. true stories and fictions, Plato
objects to the fictions as false.

Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of

fiction

Poets cannot say that God is the author of evil, "God is not the
author of all things, but of good only"
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Poets should not tell objectionable stories

In Book III we read that authors should be expurgated (censored) if
the need is felt

Book VIII mentions the actual expulsion of the poets from the ideal
state

Plato on Freedom & Autonomy

Plato rejects the democratic idea of personal freedom, it is often overlooked that
he offers in its place an alternative, “aristocratic,” conception of freedom,
originating in the moral psychology of Socrates and reflecting a popular view of
freedom as opposed to slavery.

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In the Republic Plato describes aristocratic freedom as the rule of

reason over the soul unimpeded (not prevented) by desires. In the
Laws aristocratic freedom entails “willing enslavement to the laws,”
which represents a due measure between extreme slavery and
extreme freedom. Though different from the modern liberal
concept of liberty, Plato’s conception leads to important
innovations. Plato’s ideal of aristocratic freedom was shared and
developed further by Aristotle.

Autonomy is an individual’s capacity for self-determination or self-

governance.

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