Taha Najab

Dr. Jacques Carlos

PHI2301

04/05/09

Plato’s Just State

The political philosophy of Plato is described in his book ‘’The Republic‘’, in

which he tries to describe in detail the plan of a just state. For Plato, justice is to the just

state what virtue is to the soul. The just state for him thus consists of three classes, each

performing a specific function: The class of Guardians (or philosopher-kings), the class of

Auxiliaries(or warriors) and the class of Artisans. For Plato, the class of guardians is to the

state what the reason is to the soul. In other words, its role is to govern. The auxiliaries

class represents the will, and aims under the authority of guardians to defend the state

against potential external enemies and to reduce the ordinary citizens to obey. Finally, the

class of artisans which aims, under the orders of higher authorities too, to produce all the

material goods that the state needs .

According to Plato and for the just state to work, it is vital that each occupies the

place that best suits his/her abilities. This is an interesting aspect of the Platonic

conception of justice in which the proper functioning of the just state requires not only that

everyone has a job, but also that each position is occupied by someone who has the right

competence. In order to ensure the fair and right distribution of tasks, Plato’s suggested to

submit entirely the burden of raising children to the State . It is at the very beginning that

individuals will be selected. Those who demonstrate a strong ability in science and art and

a willingness to dedicate themselves to others receive an education designed to make

them guardians. Those who are more talented in gymnastics and demonstrate signs of

courage, self discipline and ability to understand and carry out orders will be trained to

become auxiliaries. For others, they will go through trainings of shorter duration to

become artisans. Plato’s just state makes no discrimination to sex. In fact, a woman can

become a guardian, auxiliary or artisan as a man can do; Only the intellectual and physical

qualities are crucial. In addition, this system allows a child born in the lower class to

access one of the two upper classes; the reverse is also true.

In my opinion, Plato’s just state demonstrates a lack of democracy and freedom; it

is for me a dictatorial and elitist system. Indeed, people are assigned some functions

without taking into account their choices. If a child has some abilities in some fields does

not mean necessarily that he/she wants to accomplish his/her career in this field. Moreover,

children are given to the state at an early age and are deprived from the life that every child

should have with his/her parents. This kind of practice reduces the ability of people to

discover new things instead, it obliges them to be confined to a certain way of living and to

a certain duties to accomplish. It seems that it is impossible for people to evolve in Plato’s

just state. Thus, this state represents a barrier to one of the most remarkable attributes of

humans which is the ability to evolve. In addition to that, this system forces people to be

governed by a certain category of people without their approval. It does not allow any form

of democratic process which means that people are obliged to accept their rulers instead of

having the right to choose them which symbolizes one of the vital parts of democracy. This

kind of system would have been very hard to apply nowadays since people tend to be very

critical toward the lack of democracy. One of the other weaknesses of Plato’s just state is

that these guardians are also humans that are confronted to some kinds of attractions like

sex or money that can make their choices biased. It is real that Plato suggested a solution to

this problem by prohibiting the acquisition of personal wealth and private ownership of
means of production. In other words, guardians cannot have private wealth in order to

avoid the external factors that can bias their choices such as money (corruption). This

solution also represents a barrier to the human freedom. In fact, a person has the freedom

to buy whatever he/she wants in order to achieve his/her self satisfaction.

Unlike the 21st century who has been known for the emergence of the democratic

way of ruling, Plato’s model of a just state was completely lacking a democratic way for

people to decide by whom to be governed and in which way they want these people to rule

the country. As a result Plato has come up with a conflicting idea of a just state that is in

opposition with the aforementioned one. Still, the modern example of the democratic way

of ruling has been confirmed to be much more in accordance with peoples’ access to

freedom and means of success and evolvement. Despite for Plato as being one of the most

influent thinkers of his time, I do not agree with his model of a just state. In my view, this

is justified by the fact that his model lacks a sense of democracy in its proper sense and

promotes power relationships instead of notions of freedom in its various forms.