Plato On Happiness

(Notes – not to be quoted verbatim)

Plato’s dualistic theory of the self:

Born in Athens c.428BCE of a wealthy, aristocratic family, Plato had political ambitions from a young man but fell under the influence of Socrates. When Plato was 31 Socrates executed by the democrats of Athens, ostensibly for corrupting the Athenian youth by teaching them to question and think. Plato’s political aspirations were finally destroyed by the death of his friend and mentor at the hands of politicians. Leaving Athens he travelled for ten years before returning to Athens and founding the Academy. Plato died in 347 BCE at the age of 81.

In order to understand Plato’s theory of the self we need to contrast it with a modern understanding and then put it in context of the Theory of Forms. In the modern version the self is the individual; all people are born physically and emotionally whole and are or will become individual unless they fail to do so out of cowardice. A true individual stands out, stands alone maybe against the crowd, and looks into his heart to discover what is right. Often the individual is at odds with the state (a force determined to destroy individualism, aliens, communists, minority lovers, subversives, ‘perverts’. This belief system also sees individuals as having certain natural rights by virtue of being born. Society is little more than the totality of individuals, society has no life of its own. This version of self is an historical product. In America it is a conception that is partially cause and effect of the collective experience of an immigrant in a new and hostile land, and is bound up with violence. In ancient Greece the self in opposition to the collective body of the state was unthinkable.

Plato claims that the social body (polis) is the individual writ large, but conversely the individual is a political unit, a ‘microcosmic reflection of the social macrocosm’ (p20 Palmer – Visions of Human Nature, Mayfield c.2000) typically in Plato’s time a small city state such as Athens had a population c.100K.

Doctrine of Forms:

Let’s start with the Simile of the Line in which Plato clearly shows division between the (A) visible world, and (B) the intelligible world – (A) being a poor copy, imitation/shadow of (B), implying that (A) is in some way inferior to (B). (A) and (B) are both broken down further in so much as (A) the visible world is divided into (C) images and (D) physical objects, and (B) the intelligible world is divided into (E) concepts and (F) forms.

Forms are eternal, unchanging, templates of everything and anything that exists in the physical realm. They are understood by the intellect, not seen by the eye, but grasped intellectually by the mind in the same way that the eye ‘grasps’ the physical.

Finally there is the analogy of the sun (G) which is supreme over the physical world allowing us to see all that there is via the senses; and (H) the form of the Good which is supreme in the realm of the forms and whose ‘intellectual light’ enables us to apprehend the forms, to become intellectually enlightened. Through the process of philosophical discovery we move from opinion (eikasia), through pistis and dianoia to intellectual enlightenment (episteme). The pursuit of knowledge is a moral one as the final goal is the Form of the Good, the source of all knowledge. From this light of the Good illuminating all else, Plato believed we are able to grasp the ideal city and following on form that the ideal human.

Plato’s major work, The Republic, discusses the relationship between the individual and the polis. Socrates (Plato’s mouthpiece) explores the origins of the social unit in a discussion with Adeimantos:

“A city, I take it, comes into being because each of us is not self-sufficient. Can you think any other being could found a city?”

What is the implication here? We enter voluntarily but naturally (being social) into mutually advantageous relations with others: “Then one man gives a share of something to another or takes a share...... because he thinks he will be better for it?” Cited in Palmer p25 ‘Visions of Human Nature’.

Plato then describes a society based on a simple division of labour: each individual contributes their skills and reaps the benefit of others resulting in an uncomplicated ‘Spartan’ unit. In The Republic Socrates talks of how they will produce ‘food and wine’ and for winter ‘clothes and shoes’ because in the summer they will be ‘stripped and barefoot’. They will grow barley and wheat for the bread and cakes they will eat with small amounts of wine. But Glaucon interrupts Socrates and complains that this society and complains that this city is too austere, to which Socrates agrees and adds olives, salt, cheese, onions and greens, and maybe figs for dessert.

“So they will spend their days in health and peace living to an old age.” Ibid p.26 This Socrates calls a healthy city!

Glaucon complains it is still too simple and asks where are the couches on which to recline? This was a very Greek attitude and signified a latent opulence. Socrates acknowledges this question and asks how then does the luxurious city come into being? A city that is not about the bare necessities, but which is opulent by implication brings about corpulent and greedy individuals. Greed in the city leads to war and violence in the individual psyche!

Social Divisions:

The discussion now moves to one of war and the type/class of warrior needed to defend a city or wage war (presumably the healthy versus the greedy). This city imitates (is an imperfect copy) of the perfect form, and by extension this includes the ideal human. Within the ideal city there are three castes:

• Working or artisan (the majority)

• Military or police (protects from internal/external enemies)

• Ruling class/Guardians (these people guide the city according to rational principles)

• And above them all heading the oligarchy – The Philosopher King

Although a Caste system is worrying in nature and despite his aristocratic upbringing it is to Plato’s credit that he places no ‘glass ceiling’ on women. He respected the intellect and capacity of women and saw them as equally capable of leadership. Plato’s republic was an elitist philosophical oligarchy where only the very best become a member of the ruling class, and where there was strict regimentation and censorship concerning the relationship and education of the classes.

Essentially each class had its own kind of virtue or ‘excellence’ (aretê) and the truly good city is the truly just one resulting from each class predicating itself to its specific arête, and submitting to the rule of reason and law.

• Artisan moderation or temperance

• Military courage or spirit

• Guardians wisdom or intellect

Which all leads to a quirky sort of harmony: Wisdom+courage+moderation=justice!

The Psychological divisions of the soul:

As with the city, the soul is composed of a hierarchy of three psychical elements:

• The Rational – capable of seeing beyond the flux and the world of illusion/appearance, and is able to grasp being itself and what is eternally true. Reason is impotent other than intellectual power; it can justify action but no real motivation. • The Spirited – transforms reason into action. It embodies the reason of Reason and acts upon them, but can also embody reason and appetite (a foot in both camps so to speak)

• Appetitive – the animal self where reasons are derived from desire (sexual, nutritive, aggressive) which left on its own would produce chaos in the individual.

In chapter Nine of The Republic, Socrates speaks of the ‘lawlessness of unnecessary desires and pleasures’.

‘....they are born in everyone, it is true, but when they are chastened by the laws and the better desires with reason’s help, some people can get rid of them wholly, or only a few remain...(These desires) are those that are aroused in sleep... whenever the rest of the soul, all the reasonable, gentle and ruling part, is asleep, but the bestial and the savage replete with food and wine, skips about and, throwing off sleep, tries to go and fulfil its own instincts. You know there is nothing it will not dare to do, thus freed and rid of all shame and reason; it shrinks not from attempting in fancy to lie with a mother or with any other man or beast, shrinks from no bloodshed, refrains from no food – in a word, leaves no folly or shamelessness untried...’ Ibid p30

It is hardly surprising that Plato thinks that the animal side of human nature should be shackled by reason and not given free rein. Interestingly Plato also relates the arts to appetite roughly in the same way that reason relates to philosophy, and therefore in the name of reason ruling the soul, the arts must be suppressed, or at the very best censored to the highest degree! Why? Because if not the arts may well motivate the passions to rebellion.

The tripartite division of the soul is intertwined in the same way as the three social classes are. In the same way that the philosopher king and the guardians must guide and control the military and the artisans, so the rational soul must do the same for the spirit and appetite. Spirit must implement the rules revealed by reason and the appetite must submit to them.

The truly good human self is the one that submits to reason: the person who has rationally mastered their passions, and equally this is mirrored in the truly good state where the three social classes have the same virtues as the soul, and where the animal appetites of the masses are ruled by the rational mastery of the guardians. The excellence of all virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance, leads to a kind of exceptional goodness (dikaisyne) roughly translated as justice.

Plato believes that justice is in the interest of those who are just, but he doesn’t see that justice is good solely for its consequences, but that it is good in itself – an intrinsic good. Plato shows this by arguing that justice is a component of the happy life. If the virtues were only an instrumental means to happiness, then they might fail to lead to happiness in other circumstances, and one might be able to achieve happiness with only the appearance of virtue. But if virtue is the supreme characteristic of happiness, then one couldn’t be happy without being genuinely virtuous or virtuous without being happy.

Plato argued that the Just person with an orderly soul has a better, happier life than anyone whose soul is not in order; and one with a thoroughly unjust soul, a soul in disorder and conflict, is thoroughly miserable. Even if we allow that one is happier insofar as one’s soul is in order, and unhappy insofar as one’s soul is in conflict, should we conclude that one who acts in accordance with the public demands of morality will be guaranteed both psychic justice and happiness? Is acting in accord with social justice an essential component of the happy life? Here Plato is not particularly clear. However his example of the ideal city gives us an idea of social justice being a constituent part of happiness, and the question then arises as to whether one could achieve a happier life in some other way?

Each of us is capable of a kind of happiness corresponding to our psychological type; the greatest happiness (virtue) is available only to the philosopher. The premise here is that although a kind of happy life is possible if each part of the soul performs its function, the happiest life is one in which each part of the soul performs its function with complete excellence, or to the highest degree.

Because the philosopher is ruled by their reason, it is the philosopher that achieves true happiness, and because the rational part of their soul will lead them to view their own good as requiring the good of the city, the philosopher will agree to rule for the sake of the whole. This combination of ruling and philosophising will constitute the happiest life; the life of complete excellence.

Unfortunately this plan, this ideal of Plato’s effectively means dictatorship by reason; something easier to swallow psychologically rather than politically!! The plan of the ideal society (existing initially in the realm of the forms) has to be grasped by reason and imposed, both on the soul and on society.

Plato didn’t live in his ideal city; he lived in a very ‘flawed’ Democracy, for Plato a society dedicated to self- interest and short term goals, and if this was truly the case then he believed that individuals living in this sort of society must produce the same virtues, or lack of them. This all leads to something of a paradox for Plato: If there is, in his ideal plan, a reciprocal relation between the individual and the state (creating each other in their own image) the city is the individual writ large’! However Plato believed that the actual people of Athens were incapable of creating social conditions necessary to enhance the moral development of the individual.

The Relation between the individual and the Law:

This is best understood by looking at The Apology (apologia =defence) and Crito. The Apology is a dramatisation of the trial of Socrates during which he is not the slightest bit inclined to apologise for his behaviour – the charge that he had been corrupting the youth of Athens with impiety. Socrates admits that he has been provocative but that he is not a criminal; merely a ‘gadfly’ whose bite has awoken the noble steed (the state). In fact Socrates claims he has done the state a favour.

To the end Socrates is loyal to the state, if not in its present embodiment, because the state represents something much higher – the law embodied in the form of the state. Even poor states imitate this higher form, and to that law Socrates is faithful, and for the same reason he is loyal to himself believing that he has wronged no one and will not wrong himself by pleading for his life.

If this is the case and Socrates believes all this, then why does he not escape when Crito has arranged his escape by bribing a guard? Does the ‘higher’ law not command him to disobey the ‘temporal’ law that is unjust, perhaps in the same way that Gandhi or Martin Luther King orchestrated civil disobedience?

Socrates believes that what separates us from other animals is that we create communities governed by law rather than instinct, and it is this law that makes us what we are. If he escaped, as Crito had planned, then he would be breaking the law and therefore be in opposition to it. He explains this to Crito by stating that because he has accepted and benefitted from the state, he has entered into a contract with the state, and thus is obligated to obey the law even unto death. Secondly Socrates states that if an individual denies any law that is inconvenient or unjust to him then he is attacking the concept of law; by declaring war on the law he becomes an outlaw. Palmer suggests the following analogy to demonstrate Socrates’ argument:

“What if we were playing chess and either of us could ignore any rule that we found ‘unjust’? For instance, you could move your queen two spaces and say ‘check’! I reach down, pick up your queen, and swallow her. You reach over, grab my king, and throw him through the window.” Ibid p35

Such a world cannot exist for if it did it would chaotic and anarchic, where the individual is an outlaw, something we are naturally not? Summary:

• Human nature is the manifestation of a sublimely real essence

• The key to our essence is our rationality and sociability

• We ought to be governed by reason, which is our capacity for wisdom

• Reason, Spirit, Appetite work in harmony by fulfilling their function

• This harmony leads to justice

• Justice, Wisdom, Courage and Moderation are individual and social virtues

• Because humans are by nature social, there must exist the form of social justice

• The philosopher seeks to discover the proper manner society ought to be organised, discovering the true nature of the polis/republic

• We must be guided by our reason but most people do not have enough reason to be guided and thus need to be guided by someone else’s reason

• This results in Plato’s ideal republic being a rigid dictatorship holding a caste system in place by force

• What Plato’s philosophers discover when they search the realm of the forms in pursuit of good, is that, in the good society, most people are not good