Dan Mayer

Ethics

Plato’s Republic book 5

This is one of the only objections ever raised by Plato’s (Socrates) friends in the book. This question leads Plato off on a section that he considers hard to answer and easier to raise objections to. In the end Plato easily convinces his friends that women should be raised and taught as equals and should be equally able to serve the city at all levels. Plato also uses the city’s unity, to explain the need to keep wives and children in common. This is all after carefully examining what really makes people unite together. This I would consider although strange one of the more wisely thought out sections of the Republic. While I still disagree with most of the ideas, I think that they are well reasoned and defended and would probably promote more unity with in a city. I just don’t think that unity is worth the sacrifice of the ability to share love with one person.

Men and women are different and Plato fully agrees to that. What Plato thinks is more important is that the differences present in men and women are unimportant to their roles as citizens. For the time this is revolutionary thinking, Plato realizes that this kind of thinking will be met with harsh criticism in his time so he takes a lengthy time defending his rational. Plato asks the others if a bald man and long hair man are different. Of course they must agree that these people are different. Plato then makes the point that neither would be especially better for a job than the other. It is who makes it through training and the education the best. The difference in the end doesn’t matter; it is which part of the soul that is in control on that person. Men and women have the same fundamental parts of the soul Plato points out. This means that it is always the best citizen suited for the job regardless of differences that may exist. This argument for the bald and long haired man, easily apply over to the women and men. It doesn’t matter if in Plato’s opinion a majority of men are better suited to be guardians in the end, it is always how ever many are best suited for the job and some women will likely be better than some other men. So to have the best city you always want to have the best guardians possible. These arguments can travel all the way down Plato’s levels, meaning a woman can have any job she is deemed suitable for.

A family always bonds together; if a child is raised by parents it would feel more devotion to them than any other parents in the city. This attachment to family over the city can not be tolerated. It is something that weakens the unity of the city as a whole. The guardians want the citizens to be as adamant about defending the whole city as they would be their own family. To do this the children must not know their real parents and the parents shouldn’t know their own children. Once a child is born he should be taken to be raised in a separate community of the city where children are raised by professional caregivers. Mothers will be escorted at random while they produce milk so they will not know there own child. Mothers will not be allowed to spend excessive time giving milk to any one child. This will make the child feels as it is raised by the city and the mother as if she is the mother to every child. These children then will be raised with the best values and a love of the city as a whole, which will in the end produce the best citizens.

Plato thinks that only the best in the city should be allowed to reproduce while the lower classes should not be allowed to reproduce. He compares this to breeding dogs and horses which others at the table have had experience with. To keep the best reproducing and the lower class from reproducing, there will be an elaborate lottery system. This will make sure the best reproduce the most but the masses will only consider it bad luck that they haven’t been selected for a marriage ceremony. This ceremony will be respected and have poets with all the appropriate words. These government sponsored marriages will make sure there isn’t promiscuity through out the city. It will also ensure that the best of the people will be reproducing the most. Having guardians reproduce often should ensure that there is an ample pool to refill the positions as needed.

Plato seems to be trying to make a good explanation of why guardians like him self will have sex when ever they wish, while lower classes will not get to have this same kind of pleasure. He even goes so far as to support that when citizens have children not supported by the government that they must “deal” with the child knowing that the city will not support an unlawful child. Plato is very sure of himself to think he could ever decide who is worthy of being a guardian, who is worthy of bearing children, and who can defend the city. I think that Plato is building a society that would offer him the best way of life, a life which he would never have to be unjust because how the society is set up he already receives everything he would desire. I don’t believe that some of these choices would truly be what is best for the city all around.