Plato
The Republic
“It does pay to be just, but it's hard to see how”
Finally Socrates moves to define his "Ideal Polis". By outlining a community (polis) in which Justice must play a major part, he will prove that "justice pays".
The Ideal State
It's been hard to see what Justice is in an individual - perhaps if we used a magnifying glass (Plato compares it to using big writing when you start to read) we'd be able to see it.
A polis is bigger than a person: maybe it'll be easier to see justice if we look at the polis. (Fallacy?)
A polis begins because we can't all be self-sufficient. Men got together for mutual support, because each person can only do one thing well. We'd need three types of job: producers (farmers/makers of things); traders and carriers (to move things around and help exchange them) and labourers.
There's the ideal polis done! It's small and dead simple. You'd only need a few citizens, and they would live a satisfying but simple life, sharing their labour and their produce.
Note that Plato makes two assumptions that you may well disagree with:
- The polis is a citizen enlarged.
- One man can only do one job.
These two ideas are never questioned, but the whole argument depends on them.
Socrates, you know you're talking nonsense ... ![[Next Page?]](next.gif)