Plato’s “The Republic” (380 BC): Aretaic Ethics

Note: I want to really talk about the “Handmaiden’s Tale”-esque vibe of Book V of The Republic with the way women are held in common due to Plato proposing some sort of mating festivals that feel reminiscent of eugenics before it was even conceived of the way we do. I also just want to note how spot-on Plato’s qualms about “The Imperfect Societies” are. However, I’ll save more of that for later.

The Platonic tradition is no stranger to leaving no stone unturned, seeking universals and commonalities in the pursuit of knowledge. The Socratic Method, a Platonic innovation, set forth ethics of debate for Western thought. The dialogues can arguably be seen as a refutation of Sophism, and Socratic midwifery, a rhetorical and epistemological ploy. By employing the dialectic, seen in Meno and Phaedo, Plato posits a method for examining epistemological and metaphysical views. Despite its political theory and line of argumentation, The Republic can be argued to be an ethical text primarily.

In constructing an ideal city, the kallipolis, Plato first thinks to the quality of the citizens. The construction of a person-first ethic is markedly aretaic. He believes the citizens constitute the city and how “well-ordered” their souls are will determine the quality of the city as a whole. The central question being grappled with over the course of dialogue is whether it is always better to be just than unjust. Evaluating “the good city” and its citizens on being just, reflects Plato’s establishment of an aretaic ethic. Coming from the word arete, referring to the “highest excellence” or “virtue” within a thing that makes it good, Plato’s aretaic ethic coming to fruition hinges on the ideal society being created. Meaning, the kallipolis establishes the conditions for the possibility of those ethics coming into being in lived reality.

Since the individual is a part of the state, having a just and well-ordered soul is the arete of the individual. Being led by a wise Philosopher Ruler, the techne of rulership is employed to fulfill the arete of justice for the kallipolis. A key objective in The Republic is instilling a constitution or self-governance within the soul; one that the Philosopher King will possess. Glaucon, Plato’s brother and main interlocutor in the dialogue, expresses doubt that a man like this would even want to be a ruler or enter politics, suggesting that the kallipolis will be impossible on Earth. Socrates responds, “Perhaps, it is laid up as a pattern in heaven, where he who wishes can see it and found it in his own heart. But it doesn’t matter whether it exists or ever will exist; in it alone, and in no other society, could he take part in public affairs” (529b). This doubt underpins an ethical argument suggesting that Plato saw the political climate at the time as inhospitable to the correct rulership needed, unless what “ought to be” is created. Rather, the kallipolis can be founded as a constitution in the soul, even if it never becomes a political reality. 

Aretaic ethics understand human action to reflect “the rational consumer”, in an economic sense. People will act in a way that brings the most satisfaction or benefit to themselves. For the Greeks, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain is rational for humans. Being “good” produces a happy life and being “bad” produces a miserable life. This trait of aretaic ethics can be seen in the preliminary discussion on justice being the particular “excellence of the mind” and injustice being its defect.  Socrates argues, “the just man and the just mind will have a good life, and the unjust a bad life…the just man is happy, and the unjust man miserable; and it never pays to be miserable, but to be happy” (354a). There is a very linear argumentation based on virtue here devoid of the modern complexities of human behavior and psychic register unknown to the Ancient Greeks. For the Greeks, they were a part of the world first–a world with things and perceivers of things. Moderns experience the world a priori colored by subjectivity. To the Greeks, bias wasn’t conceptualized, as that requires a subject distinct from a world of objects. For them, knowledge is the perception of sensory facts that are unchanging and eternal.

Platonic ethics are primarily concerned with the soul; they look to the soul and infer actions.The well-ordered soul is governed by reason, rather than the other two components of spirit and appetite. Reason, being the highest faculty, has an “eye ” to help us see the Form of the good. Plato crystallizes an aretaic ethic by suggesting a law of conservation of desire for the Philosopher Kings who can “see” the Form of the good. In defining the Philosopher Ruler from men who love beauty and arts, Socrates tells Glaucon, “And they [the Philosopher Ruler] set their hearts on the field of knowledge, while the other type [the lover of beauty] set theirs on the field of opinion– for, as you will remember, we said that their eyes and hearts were fixed on beautiful sounds and colors and so on, and that they could not bear even the suggestion that there was such a thing as beauty itself [the Form]” (480a).  He posits an argument against proto-utilitarianism that Philosopher Rulers are supremely virtuous and use an “eye of reason” to see the higher forms. They obtain knowledge for the endeavor in itself, so their time is spent away from the pleasures that “lovers of beauty” indulge in. For moderns, ethics has a subjectivist notion of human behavior; the goals of human actions are left to the individual to define. Without moral absolutes or a set “excellence” for individuals to follow, Plato may find this concerning. 

In opposition to modern ethics, aretaic ethics are in pursuit of explicit political goals: political unity and harmony, which can not be done without the citizens having harmonious and well-ordered souls individually. Socrates states, “Societies aren’t made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning the scale one way or another, determine the direction of the whole” (544e). To best illustrate his aretaic ethic in this pursuit of political goals, he creates the “Myth of the Metals” to show that each soul has a station in the society based on its quality or merit: gold for Guardians, silver for auxiliaries, and bronze for the workers (415c). Plato’s theory of “functionality” suggests each individual ought to pursue what they are suited for in the interest of the state’s best functioning. This unique, innate purpose is what each individual should solely be focused on in society. This is apparent in his distaste for oligarchic societies, where their “worst effect of all” is when a man can live in a society with no function at all. Their functionality is directly related to setting the conditions for Platonic ethics to be fulfilled. 

Plato’s exclusion of the poets and visual artists who employ mimesis or imitation also reflects distinct political goals for the kind of ethics he seeks in the kallipolis. He excludes them on the basis that they: 1) imitate objects that are copies belonging to the higher world of Forms, 2) imitate the craftsman themselves who are suited to judge the arete of the objects themselves; so they stand at a third-step away from reality (599d). He is also concerned with the implications this kind of art will have on society because “his [the artist or poet] works have a low degree of truth and also because he deals with a low element in the mind…he wakens and encourages and strengthens the lower elements in the mind to the detriment of reason, which is like giving power and political control to the worst elements in a state” (605b).  For example, if the citizens of Athens went to see a performance of Homer's The Odyssey, they might indulge themselves in the sorrows or joys portrayed by one imitating the gods. This raises moral ambiguity for the audience and challenges reason as the “master” of the psyche. Plato is very concerned with the implications of this indulgence in emotion and misrepresentation of the gods on the citizens. Their exclusion from the kallipolis is an explicit political goal marking the undertaking of an aretaic ethic.

This is quite contrary for us moderns. Modern ethics focus less on the pursuit of goals, but rather seek universal moral obligations and rules. Opposite to the kallipolis, the individual doesn't act themselves as a part of the collective state. Rather, the state sets forth amorphous and overarching principles that the individual carries out to participate in the state. Liberalism has set forth values of equality, liberty, and individual rights. Moderns participating in the state embrace these norms and principles. Their actions align with these and they reap the benefits of living under liberalism. To Plato, characterology and virtue of the acting person, or agent, comes first. In his discussion of the imperfect societies, the democracy being one, he creates a typology of the Democratic Man: “he’ll establish a kind of equality of pleasures, and will give the pleasure of the moment its turn of complete control till it is satisfied, and then move on to another, so that none is underprivileged and all have the fair share of encouragement” (561b). The Democratic Man is an actual part of the state, he need not participate in the state by embracing overarching principles. He is directly creating or directing the quality of the state with his own actions first.  

This is where a society valuing all pleasures, worthy or not, is originating from. As the individual and their pursuit of goals is continually set apart from the state, modern ethics is more concerned with consequences of actions. For example, how to adjudicate if one violates another’s individual rights. The Ancient Greeks would focus on the person first; they would evaluate the virtue of the agent because all action stems from there. Modern ethics and its subjective sensibilities have departed from this. An impartiality has been cultivated that can evaluate how to grapple with the consequences of an action.

-A