A Platonic Defense of Liberal Individualism 
"'And doesn't that mean that he is making the best of his 
natural gifts, and, by forming a character in which self-control and 
justice and understanding are combined, getting something worth 
more than physical strength and health and good looks, just as the 
mind is worth more than the body?'"
                                --The Republic, 591b









	Bryan Caplan
	Politics 304
	Spring, 1994

1. Introduction

Plato's Republic is normally taken to be a defense of 
hierarchical, authoritarian rule by an elite class of philosophers, and
I have no quarrel with the standard interpretation.  But does Plato's 
vision of society flow logically from his account of the human soul, 
his moral theory, and his theory of human inequality?  While Plato's 
politics seems consistent with his broader philosophical system, 
the sequel will argue that many of his views could easily be turned 
to support liberal individualism.1

2. The Nature of the Soul

Plato tells us that the each human soul contains three 
elements: reason, spirit, and appetite.  Appetite consists roughly in 
instinctive drives, spirit in acquired desires such as those for honor 
and self-respect, and reason in the ability to acquire knowledge 
(including moral knowledge).  Having made this distinction, Plato 
draws the following normative implication: "The just man will not 
allow the three elements which make up his inward self to trespass 
on each other's functions or interfere with each other, but, by 
keeping all three in tuneIwill in the truest sense set his house to 
rights, attain self-mastery and order, and live on good terms with 
himself." (443d)  And naturally, the function of reason is to rule the 
soul: "So the reason ought to rule, having the wisdom and foresight 
to act for the whole, and the spirit ought to obey and support it." 
(441e)  Or as Aristotle put it in one of his Platonic moments, "just 
as a city or any other systematic whole is most properly identified 
with the most authoritative element in it, so is a manIBesides, a 
man is said to have or not to have self-control according as his 
reason has or has not the control, on the assumption that this is the 
man himself." (1168b31-35)  Plato goes on to say repeatedly that 
both morally virtuous character and true happiness necessarily flow 
from a proper internal ordering of the soul, in which reason alone 
rules.

3. Plato's Derivation of Authoritarianism

To the previous theory of the nature of the soul, Plato adds the 
observation that human beings are far from equal in their rational 
abilities.  "And, what is more, the greatest number and variety of 
desires and pleasures and pains is generally to be found in children 
and women and slaves, and in the less respectable majority of so-
called free man," Sokrates tells us.  And in contrast, "the simple and 
moderate desires, guided by reason and right judgment and 
reflection, are to be found in a minority who have the best natural 
gifts and best education." (431c)  

From this point, Plato makes an argument by analogy to a form 
of political authoritarianism.  We say that a person rules himself 
when his reason is in control over the other aspects of his soul.  
Similarly, we should say that a state has self-control when its 
rational element has authority over its appetites.  Combining this 
insight with the empirical premise of inequality of rational 
abilities, we see that rational rule requires rule by the few rational 
people over the many people who live under the sway of their 
passions; or, as Plato puts it, "the desires of the less respectable 
minority are controlled by the desires and the wisdom of the 
superior minority." (431c-d)

4. First Objection: Plato's State Cannot Lead to 
General Happiness

When Adeimantus objects that the Guardians will be unhappy, 
Sokrates replies that, "though it would not in fact be in the least 
surprising if our Guardians were very happy indeed, our purpose in 
founding our state was not to promote the particular happiness of a 
single class, but, so far as possible, of the whole community." 
(420c)  At the same time, Sokrates has also told us repeatedly that 
true happiness consists in the life of reason, not a life guided by 
appetite.

But these two premises imply that any state in which most 
people continue to live under the sway of their appetites cannot 
satisfy the announced aim of the ideal state.  If true happiness 
consists in the life of reason, and the just state seeks the happiness 
of as many people as possible, then the just state must seek to make 
as many people rational as possible.  It cannot be content with 
educating a tiny minority in the ways of reason.  But this is 
precisely what Plato argues the ideal state will do.

To put the argument a little more formally:
1. True happiness is possible only to those guided by reason.
2. The aim of the ideal state is to achieve the happiness of the 
whole community, not merely a part of it.
3. Therefore, the ideal state must make everyone in the 
community as rational as possible.

Plato's dilemma is that he has identified happiness with 
reason (premise #1), and has proclaimed the purpose of the state to 
make all classes of people happy (premise #2).  But his authoritarian 
state does not and cannot fulfill both requirements simultaneously, 
since it self-consciously leaves the large majority of the people 
under the sway of their passions.  How could Plato keep his proposed 
state?  He must either alter his account of happiness, so that less 
able people can be happy without reason.  Or, he could say that the 
goal of the state is not to make everyone happy.  In either case, 
Plato's proposed hierarchical society seems to be inconsistent with 
at least one of his two basic principles.

5. Second Objection: Rational Development Requires 
Freedom and Responsibility

Now Plato could reply that unfortunately, it is beyond the 
capacity of most people to become rational.  So as a second-best 
solution, Plato's state abandons the attempt to make everyone happy 
in the strict sense (that is, give everyone the happiness that goes 
along with rationality), and instead merely tries to give them the 
"popular idea of happiness." (591d)  This does not constitute an 
abandonment of the the conclusion that true happiness flows from 
rationality; it merely accomodates the theory to the limitations of 
average people.

But even on this slightly modified justification of Plato's 
political philosophy, Plato's state turns out to inadequately serve 
its ends.  Granted that most people cannot become philosophers, and 
therefore cannot attain supreme happiness.  But just because most 
people cannot become supremely rational, does it follow that they 
cannot be rational to any degree at all?  If true happiness flows 
from the life of reason, then it would seem that each person would 
be as happy as possible only if each person lived up to his full 
rational potential.  A system based on Plato's basic ideas should 
therefore be designed to encourage each individual to reach the 
highest level of rationality of which he is capable.

Now the problem with Plato's system is that is simply doesn't 
encourage ordinary people to become more rational.  It assigns each 
person his place in society, decides what he should believe, what 
cultural influences he may be exposed to.  An ordinary person in 
Plato's society could live his whole life without ever having to make 
an important decision for himself.  Is this the best way to develop 
his rational faculties?  When the Guardians make decisions for 
ordinary people, they take away the freedom and the responsibility 
of making those decisions for themselves.

Perhaps an analogy will make the argument clearer.  Parents 
naturally want to take care of their children; but at the same time, 
they want their children to develop into free and responsible adults.  
The dilemma is if parents take care of their children completely, 
they will never learn how to cope with freedom or how to accept 
responsibility.  So wise parents look to the long-run interest of 
their children, and remember that while parents may know their 
children's interests better than the children themselves do, they 
must allow them some degree of freedom or else they will never 
learn to make decisions for themselves.  And similarly, while 
parents would like to shield their children from the consequences of 
bad choices, they realize that if children never suffer the 
consequences of their mistakes, they will never learn responsibility.  
Or as Plato tells us in a slightly different context, "no one who had 
not exceptional gifts could grow into a good man unless he were 
brought up from childhood in a good environment and trained in good 
habits." (558b) Well-intentioned but unwise parents make all of 
their children's decisions and protect them from the consequences of 
their actions; but the end result is that their children will probably 
grow up to be dependent and irresponsible adults.  I think that Plato 
would acknowledge that only the former sort of parent shows true 
concern for the welfare of his child.

Similarly, a state seeking to make all of its citizens happy 
would be careful to leave each citizen a wide sphere of free choice, 
and to try to refrain from rescuing them from the consequences of 
bad choices.  Wise rulers would indeed know the short-run interests 
of its less rational citizens better than they do themselves; but they 
would also give due weight to each citizen's long-run interest in 
developing his rational faculty to its full potential.  These 
considerations argue strongly against censorship of literature and 
ideas; for a mind that is never exposed to controversy or argument 
will surely be stunted at a low level.  Sokrates' midwife analogy in 
Theaetetus illustrates the point with especial eloquence: "my art of 
midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs in that I 
attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are 
in labor, and not after their bodies; and the triumph of my art is in 
thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the 
young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth." 
(150)  The crucial thing to note here is that Sokrates wants the 
truth to emerge from each person's own reflections; he wants 
understanding, not merely agreement.  The central failure of the 
Platonic state to give true happiness to all of its citizens lies in its

attempt to elicit the people's agreement without their 
understanding.

And the Platonic state need not limit freedom to the narrowly 
defined intellectual realm.  There is a good case for allowing each 
citizen to choose his own occupation -- namely, that leaving each 
individual to make such decisions for himself helps develop his 
character and especially his intellect.  Indeed, it could be argued 
that it would benefit the Guardians if they were given the freedom 
to marry and own property, since this would prepare them for 
making more important decisions when they are in power.  After all, 
Plato counts moral thinking as one vital aspect of reason; and 
leaving each individual to make important life choices for himself 
will help develop his moral sense and thereby his reason.

6. Third Objection: Inequality Argues for Freedom not 
Authority

Most thinkers probably agree with Plato that human inequality 
argues to some extent for authoritarianism, but the case is much 
less clear than it appears.  For if individuals are unequal, mightn't 
we also say that they are different, that they are diverse?  Some 
kinds of inequality, such as unequal intellectual abilities, might 
argue for authoritarianism.  But other kinds of inequality, such as 
unequal (i.e., different) interests, tastes, aspirations, and talents, 
argue for a strong dose of individual freedom.  For if each individual 
is different from every other, then each person will have a special 
advantage in knowing his own good.

How does this differ from moral relativism, the very doctrine 
that the Republic is trying to refute?  Well, there is all the 
difference in the world between saying that good is in the eye of the 
beholder, and saying that each individual will find it easier to 
reason about his own good than he will about other people's good.  
The point is simply that if people are highly diverse, then knowledge 
about what is really good for each person will be radically 
decentralized.  

Now of course an extremely astute philosopher might be able 
to figure out a person's good with greater precision than the person 
himself could.  (For example, someone might not be very 
introspective, or might have trouble reasoning from the facts about 
their unique constitutions to their proper course in life.) But this 
would be very difficult, since each person would know the  crucial 
facts about their own interests, tastes, aspirations, talents, and so 
on with intimate familiarity.  In other words, even the wisest 
philosopher would have to balance his superior theoretical insight 
into the good against the superior factual knowledge of his own 
character that each individual enjoys.

7. Conclusion: Reconstructing the Platonic State

The preceding analysis suggests that Plato's ideal state would 
have to be drastically altered  in order to cohere with the rest of his
philosophic system.  Most importantly, ordinary people would have to 
be given vastly greater degrees of personal freedom and 
responsibility.  Otherwise, their rational development will be 
stunted, so they shall never enjoy true happiness; and since the aim 
of the ideal state is the happiness of all, the ideal state would 
completely fail in its announced aim.  The Guardians should also 
probably be given greater freedom, such as the freedom to marry and 
enjoy property, for this would help develop their moral faculties and 
prepare them for ruling.  And there would be no need to restrict 
foreign trade or the importation of foreign ideas; for even the 
challenge of wrong ideas helps to develop the rational faculty.  What 
would remain distinctively Platonic about this society?  Power 
would remain in the hands of the philosophers, but their power 
would be significantly reduced, since they would have to leave most 
decisions to each citizen to decide for himself or herself.  Education 
would remain a central concern of the state -- but education would 
have to aim at developing each person's rational faculty, and leave 
room for individual differences to blossom.  In sum, the Platonic 
state would not be a democracy, but it would be an open society.

_Notes_
1:  As a first approximation, I would say that "liberal 
individualism" encompasses all political philosophies which (a) 
emphasize individual freedom and individual responsibility, (b) as a 
corollary, leave most decisions not to the state, but to each 
individual.

_Bibliography_
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (W.D. Ross, translator) in 
Richard McKeon, ed., The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random 
House, 1941).
Plato, The Republic (Desmond Lee, translator; Penguin 
Classics, 1974).
Plato, Theaetetus (Benjamin Jowett, translator; New York: 
Macmillan Publishing Co., 1949)