1.

The Nature and Function of The State: Plato's Fundamental Principles

1. Plato’s political theory is developed in close connection with his ethics.

2. Greek life was essentially a communal life, lived out in the City-State.
3. For a genuine Greek, it was unthinkable that a man could be perfectly good if he
stood entirely apart from the State, since it is only in and through Society that the
good life becomes possible for man.
4. Organised Society is a ‘natural” institution, and man is essentially a social animal.
This doctrine is common to both Plato and Aristotle.
5. The theory that Society is a necessary evil and results in the stunting of man’s free
development and growth would be entirely foreign to the genuine Greek.
o While individualism was rife, showing itself in internecine wars between
States and factions within Cities, this individualism was not a rebellion against
Society as such, but rather presupposed Society as an accepted fact.
6. For Plato, who concerned himself with man’s happiness and the truly good life for
man, it was imperative to determine the true nature and function of the State.
7. A good State is impossible if citizens are morally bad, and conversely, if the State
is bad, individual citizens would be unable to lead the good life as it should be
lived.
8. Plato did not accept the notion that there is one morality for the individual and
another for the State.
o The State is composed of individual men and exists for the leading of the good
life.
o There is an absolute moral code that rules all men and all States:
expediency must bow the knee to Right.
o Plato did not look upon the State as a personality or organism that can or
should develop itself without restraint, without paying any attention to the
Moral Law.
o The State is not the arbiter of right and wrong, the source of its own moral
code, and the absolute justification of its own actions.
9. This truth is expressed in The Republic, where the interlocutors set out to determine
the nature of justice.
o Socrates suggests that if they consider the State, they will see justice “written
larger and on a larger scale” and “larger and more easily discernible”.
o The proposal is to “inquire into the nature of justice and injustice as
appearing in the State first, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from
the greater to the lesser and comparing them”.
o The obvious implication is that the principles of justice are the same for
individual and State.
o Neither the individual nor the State can be emancipated from the eternal code
of justice if the individual lives as a member of the State and if the justice of
both is determined by ideal justice.

2. The Ideal State Versus Empirical Realities

1. Plato was not concerned to determine what empirical States are so much as what the
State ought to be.
 o In The Republic, he sets himself to discover the Ideal State, the pattern to
which every actual State ought to conform itself.
o In the work of his old age, the Laws, he makes some concessions to
practicability.
o His general purpose remained that of delineating the norm or ideal; if
empirical States do not conform, then so much the worse for the empirical
States.
2. Plato was profoundly convinced that Statesmanship is, or should be, a science.
o A true Statesman must know what the State is and what its life ought to be;
otherwise, he risks bringing the State and its citizens to shipwreck and proves
himself a bungling “politician”.
3. Experience taught him that actual States were faulty, leading him to turn his back
on practical political life, though he hoped to sow the seeds of true statesmanship in
his students.
4. In the seventh Letter, Plato speaks of his sad experience with the Oligarchy of 404
and the restored Democracy.
o He writes: “The result was that I, who had at first been full of eagerness for a
public career, as I gazed upon the whirlpool of public life and saw the
incessant movement of shifting currents, at last felt dizzy . . . and finally saw
clearly in regard to all States now existing that without exception their system
of government is bad. Their constitutions are almost without redemption,
except through some miraculous plan accompanied by good luck”.
o He concluded: “Hence I was forced to say in praise of the correct philosophy
that it affords a vantage-point from which we can discern in all cases what is
just for communities and for individuals; and that accordingly the human race
will not be free of evils until either the stock of those who rightly and truly
follow philosophy acquire political authority, or the class who have power in
the cities be led by some dispensation of providence to become real
philosophers”.

3. Plato’s Political Theory in The Republic

3.1. The Origin and Structure of the State

1. The State exists in order to serve the wants of men.

o Men are not independent but need aid and cooperation for the production of
the necessaries of life.
o They gather associates into a “City,” initially for an economic end.
o This leads to the principle of the division and specialisation of labour.
Different people have different natural endowments, and a man’s work is
superior if he works at one occupation alone.
o A rude sort of life requires husbandmen, weavers, shoemakers, carpenters,
smiths, shepherds, merchants, retail traders, hired labourers, etc..
o A “luxurious” city requires more, such as musicians, poets, tutors, nurses,
barbers, cooks, confectioners, etc..
2. Origin of War: With growing luxury and population, territory becomes insufficient,
necessitating annexation of neighbors’ territory.
o Plato finds the origin of war in an economic cause.
o (The author notes Plato’s remarks are not to be understood as a justification of
aggressive war and refers to the section on war under the Laws for more).
3.2. Guardians and Their Education

1. If war is to be pursued, the principle of division of labor requires a special class of

guardians of the State, who will devote themselves exclusively to the conduct of war.
2. These guardians must be spirited, gifted with the 6vp.oci8£; (thymoeides) element,
but also philosophic, in the sense of knowing who the true enemies of the State are.
3. Their guardianship must be based on knowledge, requiring a process of education.
o Education begins with music, including narrative.
o Plato states that children should not receive opinions the reverse of those
which they should entertain when they are grown to manhood.
o Legends about gods (Hesiod, Homer) will not be taught or admitted into the
State, as they depict gods indulging in gross immorality or being the author of
all things, whether good or bad. God is to be represented only as the author of
such things as are good.
4. Although Socrates initially posits the State’s origin in economic needs, interest soon
shifts to the problem of education.
o The State exists not simply to further economic needs (man is not simply
“Economic Man”) but for men’s happiness, to develop them in the good life,
in accordance with principles of justice.
o This renders education necessary, but only education to the true and the good.
5. Those who arrange the State’s life, determine education principles, and allot tasks,
must have knowledge of what is really true and good – in other words, they must be
philosophers.
o This insistence on truth leads to the extraordinary proposal to exclude epic
poets and dramatists from the ideal State.
o Plato is not blind to the beauties of Homer or Sophocles; rather, the beauty
and charm of their words are dangerous, acting as the sugar which obscures
the poison.
o Plato’s interest is primarily ethical: he objects to how poets speak about gods
and portray immoral characters.
o Poets, if admitted, must produce examples of good moral character; epic and
dramatic poetry are banished, while lyric poetry is allowed only under strict
supervision of the State authorities.
o Certain harmonies (Ionian and Lydian) are excluded as effeminate and
convivial.
o The animating principle is that, granted the existence of the soul and of an
absolute moral code, it is the duty of the public authorities to prevent the ruin
of the morality of the members of the State.
o To speak of the absolute rights of Art is simply nonsense.
6. Besides music, gymnastics plays a part in the education of young citizens.
o This care of the body for guardians and athletes of war is of an ascetic
character, a “simple, moderate system,” not for sluggish athletes but for
“warrior athletes, who should be like wakeful dogs, and should see and hear
with the utmost keenness”.
o (The author notes that Plato’s proposals anticipate what has been realized on a
great scale, which may be used for bad ends as well as for good).

3.3. Classes and Rulers in the Ideal State

 1. So far, there are two great classes: the inferior class of artisans and the superior
class of guardians.
2. Rulers of the State will be carefully chosen from the class of guardians.
o They are not to be young but must be the best men of their class, intelligent
and powerful, and careful of the State, loving the State and regarding the
State’s interests as identical with their own. This means pursuing the true
interests of the State without thought of their own personal advantage or
disadvantage.
o Those who, from childhood up, have done that which is best for the State will
be chosen.
3. These chosen rulers are the perfect guardians, the only ones rightly entitled to the
name of “guardian”; others previously called guardians will be called “auxiliaries,”
supporting the rulers’ decisions.
4. The ideal State will consist of three great classes (excluding slaves):
o The artisans at the bottom.
o The Auxiliaries or military class over them.
o The Guardians or Guardian at the top.
5. Auxiliaries, though more honorable than artisans, are not to be savage animals,
preying on those beneath them, but friendly allies.
o They should possess no private property of their own, receive all necessaries
from fellow-citizens, have a common mess, and live together like soldiers in a
camp.
o They should neither handle nor touch gold and silver, as “And this will be
their salvation and the salvation of the State”.
o If they start amassing property, they will very soon turn into tyrants.

3.4. Justice in The Republic

1. Justice is now clearer, given the outlined classes.

2. The wisdom of the State resides in the small class of rulers or Guardians.
3. The courage of the State resides in the Auxiliaries.
4. The temperance of the State consists in the due subordination of the governed to the
governing.
5. The justice of the State is that everyone attends to his own business without
interfering with anyone else’s.
o Just as an individual is just when all elements of the soul function properly in
harmony and with due subordination of the lower to the higher, so the State is
just when all classes and individuals perform their due functions in the proper
way.
6. Political injustice, conversely, consists in a meddling and restless spirit, leading to
one class interfering with another’s business.

3.5. Community of Wives and Children (Republic)

1. In Book Five, Plato treats the famous proposal as to “community” of wives and
children.
o Women are to be trained as men: in the ideal State, they will not simply stay
at home but will be trained in music, gymnastics, and military discipline like
men.
 o Justification: men and women differ only in respect to their roles in
propagation.
o Woman is weaker than man, but natural gifts are to be found in both sexes
alike, and as far as her nature is concerned, the woman is admissible to all
pursuits open to man, even war.
o Duly qualified women will be selected to share in the life and official duties of
the guardians.
2. On eugenic principles, Plato thinks marriage relations, particularly for higher classes,
should be under State control.
o Marriages of Guardians or Auxiliaries are controlled by magistrates for
efficient discharge of their official duties and the best possible offspring.
o Children will be brought up in a State nursery.
o Plato does not propose any complete community of wives in the sense of
promiscuous free love.
o The artisan class retains private property and the family; only in the two upper
classes are private property and family life abolished, and that for the good of
the State.
o Marriages of Guardians and Auxiliaries are very strictly arranged: they marry
prescribed women and have intercourse at prescribed times.
o If children result from relations outside the prescribed limits, it is at least
hinted that such children should be put out of the way.
o Children of higher classes not suitable for the life of those classes but
“legitimately” born will be relegated to the artisans.
3. Author’s Commentary on Community of Wives and Children:
o Plato’s proposals are abhorrent to all true Christians.
o His intentions were excellent (greatest possible improvement of the human
race), but his good intentions led him to the proposal of measures which are
necessarily unacceptable and repugnant to all those who adhere to Christian
principles concerning the value of the human personality and the sanctity of
human life.
o The author states that what works for animal breeding does not necessarily
work for humans, as man has a rational soul which is not intrinsically
dependent on matter but is directly created by Almighty God.
o He also questions if a beautiful soul always goes with a beautiful body or a
good character with a strong body, and if such measures were successful,
whether the Government has the right to apply them.
o Those who advocate compulsory sterilization today have not, be it
remembered, Plato’s excuse, that he lived at a period anterior to the
presentation of the Christian ideals and principles.

3.6. The Philosopher-King

1. In response to the objection that no city can be practically organized according to his
plans, Socrates replies that an ideal is not expected to be realized with perfect
accuracy.
o The smallest change to achieve this Constitution is the vesting of power in
the hands of the philosopher-king, which is neither small nor easy.
2. The democratic principle of government is, according to Plato, absurd.
 o The ruler must govern in virtue of knowledge, and that knowledge must be
knowledge of the truth. The man with knowledge of the truth is the genuine
philosopher.
3. Plato illustrates this with the simile of the ship, its captain and crew.
o He describes a ship with a strong but a little deaf and . . . short-sighted captain
with limited navigation knowledge, whose crew mutiny, take charge, and
continue their voyage “drinking and feasting” with expected success. They
have no idea of the pilot’s art.
o Plato’s objection to Athenian democracy is that politicians really do not know
their business at all, and people get rid of them, acting as though no special
knowledge were required for the right guidance of the ship of State.
o He proposes to substitute rule by the philosopher-king, i.e. by the man who
has real knowledge of the course that the ship of State should take.
4. The philosopher will be the finest fruit of the education provided by the State.
o He, and he alone, can draw the outline of the concrete sketch of the ideal State
and fill up that outline, because he has acquaintance with the world of Forms
and can take them as his model in forming the actual State.
5. Candidates for rulers will be educated in musical harmony, gymnastics,
mathematics, and astronomy.
o Mathematics is not for commercial or military use, but primarily that they
may pass “from becoming to truth and being,” that they may be drawn
towards truth and acquire the spirit of philosophy.
6. This education is a prelude to Dialectic.
o Through Dialectic, a man starts on the discovery of absolute being by the light
of reason only, and without any assistance of the senses, until he “attains at
last to the absolute good by intellectual vision and therein reaches the limit of
the intellectual world”. He will thus have ascended all the steps of the “Line”.
7. Chosen rulers (“sound in limb and mind” and endowed with virtue) undergo this
education.
o Those satisfactory by age thirty are selected for five years of training in
Dialectic.
o Then they are “sent down into the den and compelled to hold any military or
other office which the young are qualified to hold” for fifteen years to gain
necessary experience of life and show steadfastness.
o At fifty, those distinguished will “raise the eye of the soul to the universal
light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good”.
o This absolute good is the pattern according to which they are to order the
State and lives of individuals.
o They make philosophy their chief pursuit, but also toil at politics and rule for
the public good, not as if they were doing some great thing, but of necessity.
o After bringing up others, they depart to the Islands of the Blest.

3.7. Philosophy of History (Decline of States)

1. In Books Eight and Nine, Plato develops a philosophy of history.

2. The perfect State is the aristocratic State.
3. When the two higher classes divide property and reduce others to slavery, aristocracy
turns into timocracy, representing the preponderance of the spirited element.
4. Love of wealth grows, turning timocracy into oligarchy, where political power
depends on property qualifications, creating a poverty-stricken class.
 5. The poor then expel the rich and establish democracy, characterized by an
extravagant love of liberty.
6. This extravagant love of liberty leads to tyranny.
o A champion of the common people obtains a bodyguard, throws off pretence,
executes a coup d'itai and turns into a tyrant.
7. Just as the philosopher, in whom reason rules, is the happiest of men, the aristocratic
State is the best and happiest of States.
8. Just as the tyrannical despot, slave of ambition and passion, is the worst and most
unhappy of men, so is the State ruled by the tyrant the worst and most unhappy
of States.

4. Plato’s Political Theory in The Statesman (Politicus)

4.1. The Royal Science

1. Towards the close of the Statesman, Plato shows that the science of politics, the royal
and kingly science, cannot be identical with arts like that of the general or judge, as
these are ministerial.
2. The royal science must be superior, defined as “that common science which is over
them all, and guards the laws, and all things that there are in the State, and truly
weaves them all into one”.
3. He distinguishes this science of the monarch or ruler from tyranny:
o Tyranny rests merely on compulsion.
o The rule of the true king and statesman is “the voluntary management of
voluntary bipeds”.

4.2. The Rule of Law

1. “No great number of persons, whoever they may be, can have political knowledge or
order a State wisely,” but “the true government is to be found in a small body, or in
an individual”.
2. The ideal is for the ruler(s) to legislate for individual instances.
3. Plato insists that laws should be changed or modified as circumstances require, and
no superstitious regard for tradition should hamper an enlightened application to new
needs.
o It would be absurd to stick to obsolete laws, just as a doctor would not insist
on an obsolete diet for a patient whose health has changed.
4. Since this ideal requires divine, rather than human, knowledge and competence, we
must be content with the second-best, i.e., with the reign of Law.
o The ruler will administer the State in accordance with fixed Law.
o The Law must be absolute sovereign, and the public man who violates law
should be put to death.

4.3. Types of Government (Statesman)

1. Government may be by one, by few, or by many.

2. For well-ordered governments:
o Monarchy (rule by one) is the best (excluding the ideal form where the
monarch legislates for individual cases).
o Government by the few is second-best.
 o Government by the many is the worst.
3. For lawless governments:
o Government by the one (tyranny) is the worst (as it can do the most harm).
o Government by the few is the second-worst.
o Government by the many is the least bad.
4. Democracy is thus, according to Plato, “the worst of all lawful governments, and the
best of all lawless ones”.
o This is because “the government of the many is in every respect weak and
unable to do either any great good or any great evil when compared with the
others, because in such a State the offices are parcelled out among many
people”.

4.4. Demagogic Dictators

1. What Plato would think of demagogic Dictators is clear from his remarks on tyrants.
2. Politicians who are devoid of knowledge should be called “partisans”.
o These are “upholders of the most monstrous idols, and themselves idols; and,
being the greatest imitators and magicians, they are also Sophists par
excellence”.

5. Plato’s Political Theory in The Laws

5.1. Influences and Desired Constitutional Form

1. In the composition of the Laws, Plato was influenced by personal experiences.

o He suggests the best conditions for founding the desired Constitution are when
an enlightened Statesman meets with an enlightened and benevolent tyrant or
sovereign, as the despot can put reforms into practice.
o His unhappy experience at Syracuse showed him better hope for reforms
under one-man rule than in a democracy like Athens.
2. Plato was influenced by Athens’ history, its rise as a commercial and maritime
empire, and its fall.
o In Book Four, he stipulates the city shall be about eighty stadia from the sea
(though even this is too near).
o The State should be an agrarian, not a commercial State, a producing, not an
importing, community.
o The Greek prejudice against trade appears in his words: “The sea is pleasant
enough as a daily companion, but has a bitter and brackish quality; for it fills
the streets with merchants and shopkeepers, and begets in the souls of men
unfaithful and uncertain ways—making the State unfaithful and unfriendly
both to her own citizens and also towards the rest of men”.

5.2. The True Polity and the Soul

1. The State must be a true Polity.

o Democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny are undesirable because they are class-
States, whose laws are passed for the good of particular classes, not the whole
State.
 o States with such laws are not real polities but parties, and their notion of
justice is simply unmeaning.
2. Government is not entrusted based on birth or wealth, but for personal character and
fitness for ruling.
o Rulers must be subject to the law.
o Plato re-emphasizes: “The State in which the law is above the rulers, and the-
rulers are the inferior of the law, has salvation and every blessing which the
gods can confer”.
3. The State exists not for the good of any one class, but for the leading of the good life.
o In the Laws, Plato reasserts his conviction as to the importance of the soul
and the tendance of the soul.
o “Of all the things which a man has, next to the gods, his soul is the most
divine and the most truly his own,” and “all the gold which is under or upon
the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue”.

5.3. Size and Economic Provisions (Laws)

1. Plato had not much use for enormous States, fixing the number of citizens at 5,040.
o This number “can be divided by exactly fifty-nine divisors” and “will furnish
numbers for war and peace, and for all contracts and dealings, including
taxes and divisions”.
o He also speaks of 5,040 houses, implying families rather than individuals.
2. Citizens will possess house and land.
o Though Plato expressly clings to communism as an ideal, he legislates in the
Laws for the more practical second-best.
3. Provisions are made to prevent the growth of a wealthy and commercial State.
o For example, citizens should have a currency that passes only among
themselves and is not accepted by others.

5.4. Magistrates (Laws)

1. Plato discusses the appointment and functions of various magistrates.

2. Guardians of the law (vojio^iiXaxcc):
o There will be thirty-seven, aged 50-70 when elected.
o “All those who are horse or foot soldiers, or have taken part in war during the
age for military service, shall share in the election of magistrates”.
3. Council: 360 members, 90 from each property-class, with voting designed to prevent
election of partisans of extreme views.
4. Ministers:
o Two for music and two for gymnastics (one to educate, one to superintend
contests).
o The most important is the Minister of Education, who cares for youth (male
and female).
 Must be at least 50, “the father of children lawfully begotten, of both
sexes, or of one at any rate”.
 The elector and elected should consider “that of all the great offices of
the State this is the greatest”.
 The legislator should not allow children’s education to become a
secondary or accidental matter.
5.5. Marriage and Family (Laws)

1. A committee of women will superintend married couples for ten years.

o If a couple has no children within ten years, they should seek a divorce.
2. Marriage ages: men between 30 and 35, girls between 16 and 20 (later 18).
3. Violations of conjugal fidelity will be punishable.
4. Military service: men 20-60, women after bearing children and before 50.
5. Office holding: no man before 30, no woman before 40.
6. The provisions concerning state superintendence of married relations are hardly
acceptable to us; however, Plato considered them a logical consequence of his
conviction that “The bride and bridegroom should consider that they are to produce
for the State the best and fairest specimens of children which they can”.

5.6. Education (Laws)

1. In Book Seven, Plato discusses education and its methods, applying it even to infants.
o Infants are to be rocked frequently, as this counteracts emotions and produces
“a peace and calm in the soul”.
2. From ages three to six, boys and girls play together in temples, supervised by ladies.
3. At age six, they are separated, and the education of the two sexes will be conducted
in isolation, though Plato maintains his view that girls should have more or less the
same education as boys.
4. They will be educated in gymnastics and music.
o Music will be carefully watched over, and a State anthology of verse will be
composed.
5. Schools will be built with paid (foreign) teachers.
o Children will attend daily, taught gymnastics, music, elementary arithmetic,
astronomy, etc..

5.7. Religious Festivals and Penal Code (Laws)

1. Plato legislates for the religious festivals of the State: one each day, so that “one
magistrate at least will sacrifice daily to some god or demigod on behalf of the city
and citizens and their possessions”.
2. He also legislates on agriculture and the penal code.
o In the penal code, consideration should be paid to the psychological condition
of the prisoner.
o His distinction between p\a(Wi and d8ixlas amounts to our distinction between
a civil and a criminal action.

5.8. Atheism and Heresy (Laws)

1. In Book Ten, Plato lays down proposals for the punishment of atheism and heresy.
2. Atheism is defined as saying the universe is the product of motions of corporeal
elements, unendowed with intelligence.
o Plato argues that there must be a source of motion, ultimately a self-moving
principle, which is soul or mind, the source of cosmic movement.
o (He declares there must be more than one soul responsible, as there is disorder
as well as order, but possibly not more than two).
3. A pernicious heresy is that the gods are indifferent to man.
 o Plato argues:
 (a) The gods cannot lack the power to attend to small things.
 (b) God cannot be too indolent or too fastidious to attend to details;
even a human artificer attends to details.
 (c) Providence does not involve “interference” with law; divine justice
will be realized in the succession of lives.
4. A still more pernicious heresy is the opinion that the gods are venal, that they can
be induced by bribes to condone injustice.
o Plato argues that one cannot suppose gods are like pilots bribed to neglect
duty, charioteers bribed to lose, or shepherds sharing plunder.
o To suppose any of these is to be guilty of blasphemy.
5. Penalties for Atheism/Heresy:
o A morally inoffensive heretic will be punished with at least five years in the
House of Correction, visited by members of the Nocturnal Council to reason
with him. (Presumably, graver heresies get longer terms).
o A second conviction will be punished with death.
o Heretics who trade on the superstition of others for profit or found immoral
cults will be imprisoned for life in a desolate part of the country and cast out
unburied at death, their families being treated as wards of the State.
6. As a safety measure, Plato enacts that no private shrines or private cults are to be
permitted.
7. Guardians of the law should determine “whether the deed has been done in earnest or
only from childish levity” before prosecuting impiety.

5.9. Other Points of Law (Laws)

1. (a) Beggars: It would be extraordinary for well-behaved people to fall into extreme
poverty in a “tolerably well-ordered city or government”.
o A decree against beggars exists, and professional beggars will be sent out of
the country, “so that our country may be cleared of this sort of animal”.
2. (b) Litigiousness: The practice of conducting lawsuits for gain, trying to make a
court a party to injustice, will be punishable by death.
3. (c) Embezzlement of public funds and property:
o If the offender is a citizen, it is punished by death, as such a person who has
had the full benefit of the State-education behaves in this way, he is incurable.
o If a foreigner or slave, courts decide the penalty, bearing in mind he is
probably not incurable.
4. (d) Board of djGuvoi: Will be appointed to audit magistrates’ accounts at the end of
their terms.
5. (e) The Nocturnal Council: Will meet early in the morning.
o Composed of the ten senior vop,o?uXaxec, the minister and ex-ministers of
education, and ten co-opted men aged 30-40.
o Members are trained to see the One in the Many, know that virtue is one (i.e.,
trained in Dialectic), and have training in mathematics and astronomy to gain
a firmly-grounded conviction as to the operation of divine Reason in the
world.
o This Council, with knowledge of God and ideal goodness, will watch over the
Constitution and be “the salvation of our government and of our laws”.
 6. (f) Travel Abroad: To avoid confusion, novelties, and restlessness, no one is
permitted to travel abroad without State sanction, and then only if over forty (except
military expeditions).
o Returnees must “teach the young that the institutions of other States are
inferior to their own”.
o The State will send “spectators” (50-60 years old) abroad to find admirable
things to adopt, who must report to the Nocturnal Council.
o Visits of travellers from abroad are supervised: commercial visitors are not
encouraged to mix with citizens, while government-approved visitors are
treated as guests of the State.

5.10. Slavery (Laws)

1. Plato accepted the institution of slavery and regarded the slave as the property of his
master, a property which may be alienated.
2. Children of a slave woman always belong to the master, whether the father is a
freeman or freedman.
3. Plato shows himself severer than contemporary Athenian practice in some respects,
failing to give slaves the protection accorded by Athenian law.
o He does provide protection in a public capacity (e.g., killing a slave to prevent
information about an offense is treated as killing a citizen) and permits slaves
to give information in murder cases without torture.
o However, there is no explicit mention of permission to bring a public
prosecution against a man guilty of oppu; against his slave, which was
permitted by Attic law.
4. Plato disliked the free-and-easy way slaves behaved in democratic Athens (Republic)
but did not advocate brutal treatment.
o In the Laws, he declares that “slaves ought to be punished as they deserve,
and not admonished as if they were freemen, which will only make them
conceited,” and that “the language used to a servant ought always to be that
of command, and we might not to jest with them, whether they are females or
males”.
o However, he expressly says “we should tend them carefully, not only out of
regard to them, but yet more out of respect to ourselves. And the right
treatment of slaves is not to maltreat them, and to do them, if possible, even
more justice than those who are our equals; for he who really and naturally
reverences justice and really hates injustice, is discovered in his dealings with
that class of man to whom he can easily be unjust”.
5. The author concludes that Plato accepted slavery and, regarding treatment, disliked
both Athenian laxity and Spartan brutality.

5.11. War (Laws)

1. In Book One of the Laws, Cleinias the Cretan remarks that Crete’s regulations were
designed for war.
o He states every city is in a natural state of war with every other, “not indeed
proclaimed by heralds, but everlasting”. Megillus the Lacedaemonian agrees.
2. The Athenian Stranger points out:
o (a) Internal or Civil War: The best legislator will endeavor to prevent it or
reconcile factions for abiding friendship.
 o (b) External or International War: The true statesman will aim at the best,
which is the happiness of the State, secured in peace and goodwill.
o Therefore, “No sound legislator . . . will ever order peace for the sake of war,
but rather, if he orders war it will be for the sake of peace”.
3. Plato is not of the opinion that Policy exists for the sake of War and would scarcely
sympathize with the virulent militarists of modern times.
4. He points out that “many a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors, but
education is never suicidal”.

6. Conclusion: Plato’s Enduring Legacy

1. When reflecting on human life, Plato could not ignore man’s social relations, as man
is born into society and must live the good life there.
o He cannot be treated as an isolated unit.
2. A theory of the State only results from an advanced political consciousness.
o To the politically unconscious man (e.g., in the Persian Empire, where he
plays no active role but taxpayer or soldier), the State appears alien if not
oppressive, and salvation lies through individual activity or other societies. He
is not immediately stimulated to form a theory of the State.
o To the politically conscious man, the State appears as a body in which he has a
part, an extension in some sort of himself, stimulating a reflective thinker to
form a State theory.
3. The Greeks had this political consciousness in a very advanced degree: the good
life was inconceivable apart from the nAXi; (polis).
o Plato, reflecting on the good life, reflected on the State as such, i.e., the ideal
II6X14?.
o He was concerned not with the ideal Athens or Sparta, but with the ideal City,
the Form to which the empirical States are approximations.
o Though influenced by contemporary Greek City-States, he discovered
principles which lie at the basis of political life, and thus may truly be said to
have laid the foundations of a philosophical theory of the State.
4. It is a “philosophical” theory of the State because, unlike a theory of immediate
reform, it is not general and universal; Plato’s treatment is based on the nature of the
State as such, designed to be universal, a character essential for a philosophic theory.
o Although Plato dealt with reforms for actual Greek States, his theory was
sketched on the background of the Greek II6X14; since he meant it to be
universal, answering to the very nature of political life, it is a philosophical
theory.
5. The political theory of Plato and Aristotle has indeed formed the foundation for
subsequent fruitful speculation on the nature and characteristics of the State.
o Many details of Plato’s Republic may be unrealisable in practice, and also
undesirable even if practicable.
o However, his great thought is that of the State as rendering possible and as
promoting the good life of man, as contributing to man’s temporal end
and welfare.
6. This Greek view of the State (also shared by St. Thomas) is superior to the liberal
idea of the State.
o The liberal idea views the State as an institution whose function is to preserve
private property and exhibit a negative attitude towards the members of the
State.
 o In practice, even upholders of this view have abandoned a completely laissez-
faire policy, but their theory remains barren, empty and negative compared to
the Greeks’.
7. However, individuality was insufficiently stressed by the Greeks, as Hegel notes.
o Hegel states: “Plato in his Republic allows the rulers to appoint individuals to
their particular class, and assign to them their particular tasks. In all these
relations there is lacking the principle of subjective freedom.” Also, “the
principle of subjective freedom does not receive its due”.
8. This lack of emphasis on individuality was brought into strong light by modern
theorists who stressed the Social Contract theory.
o For them, men are naturally atoms, separate and disunited, if not mutually
antagonistic, and the State is merely a contrivance to preserve them and
provide for maintenance of peace and the security of private property.
o While their view embodies truth, the individualism of thinkers like Locke
must be combined with the more corporate theory of the State upheld by
the great Greek philosophers.
9. Moreover, the State that combines both aspects of human life must also recognize the
position and rights of the supernatural Society, the Church.
o Yet, one must be careful not to minimize or mutilate the character of the State,
which is also a “perfect society,” having man’s temporal welfare as its end.