What Is The Value And Significance Of Plato`s Tripartite Conception Of The Soul And Polis?

What is the value and significance of Plato's tripartite conception of the soul and polis?

With his tripartite theory Plato set out the first major and comprehensive theory of the human psyche and the humans place within wider society. The theory stems from the principle that the internal psyche of the individual is analogous with the constitution of external society. Plato distinguishes the psyche as being made up of three constituent parts, the rational part, the passionate part, and the desiring part. Every individual's psyche is made up of these three parts and a person's character is dependent upon which of the three is dominant. Plato defines a moral individual as one whose rational mind has mastered their desirous and passionate mind. For Plato this principle was also applicable to the polis which he believed to be also made up of three parts, the common class, the military class, and the guardian class. Each class was dominant in one of the three elements of the psyche. The common class were dominant in the desiring element, the military class were dominant in the passionate element, and the guardian or ruling class were dominant in the rational element. Plato also conceived of each element of the psyche having a particular virtue attributable to it. The rational attribute was considered to be wisdom, the passionate attribute was considered courage, and the desirous attribute considered self-discipline, and just as the moral man is considered he whose rationality has mastered his passions and desires, the moral polis is considered that in which the rational class has mastery over the two others. The implications of the theory are numerous and complex. This essay will focus mainly upon the implications of the analogy between the individual and wider society, and how if taken to its natural conclusion becomes intellectually and morally problematic. The analogy among other things leads to a failure to account for the inherent differences between an individualistic and a communitarian conception of justice, it gives credence to the notion that individuals rights can be subordinated in order to achieve a wider social goal, and it wrongly imposes an extreme teleological conception of the political structure of the polis which is largely drawn from a teleological conception of the individual.

The tripartite theory is predicated on the principle that the optimal condition for the individual and the wider state is for the rational element of the psyche to have mastery over the other elements, and the rational class i.e. the guardians to have mastery over the other classes within the polis. Plato's reasoning is that the rational element of the psyche, if given precedence is most conducive to the happiness of the individual; therefore the dominance of the rational class in society would be conducive to the well-being of the polis. "Human morality is the same in kind to a community's morality." Although when examined this is in fact is a very weak chain of reasoning that can be broken quite easily. The weakness is derived from the fact that Plato see's rationality in the individual as primarily concerned with well-being and self-interest. This is demonstrated by a simile in which a man's passion urges him to fight against an injustice done to him but hunger, cold, and suffering cause the rational element to subdue the passionate one . So if the rational element within the psyche is primarily concerned with self-interest then there is no logical reason why rational individuals, if put in charge of a wider community would act in the interests of that community, but in fact are much more likely to act in their own interests. On this very point David Sachs argues that "The most that can be said on behalf of Plato's argument is that crimes and evils could not be done by a platonically just man, in a foolish, unintelligent, cowardly or uncontrolled way." In other words rationality and morality are not mutually exclusive qualities, and any real conception of just statesmanship involves the engagement of sympathy empathy, and a great deal of moral as well as rational thinking. "Attempts to show that Platonic justice entails ordinary morality are strikingly missing from the Republic. Plato merely assumes that having the one involves having the other." It is arguable that the Platonic false logic of treating rationality as the only prerequisite for effective statesmanship has contributed to the view that aristocracy's are dominated by self-serving officials who fail to fulfill their role as public servants.

The myth of the metals is central to the Platonic conception of the tripartite theory of the soul and polis and has important implications when considering issues relating to free will and justice. Plato argues that the children of Athens should be taught myths in order to engender the maintenance of a just social structure. The myth is that individuals are composed of gold, silver, bronze, or iron at birth and that "God included gold in the mixture when he was forming you who have what it takes to be rulers." Although Plato new this story to be a myth it does contain an essential truth which Plato seemed to support, that of a nature over nurture explanation for an individual's psyches. Plato did dedicate a great deal of the Republic to the importance of education, but he maintained that the role of education was to build and refine a pre-existing nature. Plato refers to the different classes as "The naturally worse, and the naturally better elements of society." This almost arbitrary conception of the individual raises important questions. If for example a member of the common class was to forcibly take the property of another citizen then he could not reasonably be punished for that action given that his very nature is a desiring one. This rejection of the autonomy or independence of an individual's moral decisions undermines any real conception of free will, and therefore undermines personal responsibility, and degrades a philosophical foundation for justice. Also the relatively static way in which Plato conceives of human nature means that individuals have little hope of transcending their god given nature. The problem of free will is rooted not only in an arbitrary conception of an individual's nature, but also in the failure of the tripartite theory to account for the self within the three elements of the psyche. In R.C Cross's philosophical commentary on Plato he argues that the tripartite conception of the psyche is a psychological construct that leaves no room for the self, just the constant struggle between three equal parts. "If conflict, or moral conflict, is as Plato represents it, there can be no choice, and there would be nothing to do the choosing." Cross goes as far as to say that "Unless the whole notion of personal responsibility is to be abandoned, the platonic kind of analysis must be abandoned." Cross may be going a bit far, but it is still the case that Plato's theory does pose a serious philosophical problem when it comes to the issue of free will and personal responsibility.

Possibly one of the most controversial aspects of Plato's tripartite theory is the way in which he seems to disregard, and in some respects positively undermine the rights of the individual, in favor of pursuing a larger communitarian objective. The logic of Plato's outlook is primarily derived from his tripartite conception of the soul and the polis. Because Plato conceives of the ideal condition within the polis being the rational class ruling the none-rational classes, this leads him to the conclusion that true justice and morality on the communal level is derived from every individual performing the role that they have been assigned. The implications of this view are that it becomes perfectly just too subordinate individual freedom in order to maintain this harmony. "Morality is keeping to one's own property and one's own occupation." Much of the criticism towards Plato's conception of the individual has come from enlightenment philosophers such as john Locke and Emmanuel Kant who emphasize strong theories regarding the rights of the individual, and argue that they should not be subordinated in favour of the well-being of the larger community. Kant argues that human beings have fundamental rights and that one should "Always recognize that human individuals are ends and do not use them as means to your end." But Plato justifies the using of individuals in order to achieve a particular social goal. In the case of the republic it is a form of social engineering based on Plato's singular conception of morality. Ernest barker argues that this very principle could earn Plato's republic the title of the first communist state. He argues that the way in which Plato conceives of the individual as being in the highest state of morality when he is promoting the greater purpose of the state, is paralleled with many modern communist systems. "If the world is one, and works towards one end, then the state is part of the world, with an end subsidiary to its end, and the individual again is part of the state, with an end subsidiary to the end of the state."

This willingness to subordinate the rights of the individual is also rooted in the failure of Plato to distinguish between the purpose of the individual and the purpose of the wider society. Plato's teleological conception of the polis gives government a role that is both unattainable and undesirable. Many argue that he fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of government and what its correct relationship with the individual should be. The community should not simply be a reflection of the moral norms that are held by its citizens. The philosopher John Locke argues that the role of government is not to pursue a singular and objective conception of morality but rather to construct a morally neutral framework within which individuals will be able to pursue their own conceptions of the moral life, provided that they respect the rights of others to do the same. "It can have no other or measure, when in the hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society, in their lives, liberties and possessions; and so cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as possible to be preserved." Philosophers who support his limited model of government argue that if an individual wishes to pursue their subjective preferences, providing that this pursuit does not infringe upon the rights of others they should be free to do so. For example if a citizen of Plato's republic wished to pursue an alternate career then they should be free to. The detrimental effects of heavy handed morals legislation are clear to see even today. Currently in Uganda homosexuality is considered a criminal offence and many are calling for its establishment as a capital offence. Although the vast majority of advanced industrialized nations have to a greater or lesser extent transcended the kind of totalitarian morals legislation that was espoused by Plato, it may still be the case that aspects of his political philosophy are worth considering in greater depth, when thinking about the pitfalls of the modern political culture. It seems quite clear that aggressive legislation based on objective moral principles clearly has no place in the modern state, but what may be worthy of consideration is the Platonic conception of virtue, and the valuing of certain characteristic and practices over others. One criticism of modern political culture is the prevalence of the relativist principle that all preferences and moral values are of equal value and merit equal consideration, and that that the morally neutral positions of government has gone far beyond the rejection of heavy handed morals legislation and that they have become paralyzed in their ability to make any real value judgments when it comes to virtue and morality. It is fundamental for example for Governments to be able to distinguish between high culture and low culture, and not to simply to follow a utilitarian model of supporting whatever happens to produce the greatest amount of aggregate pleasure. For example it may well be the case that the number of people who watch television talent shows talent shows vastly outweighs the number of people who attend Shakespeare productions, and it may well be the case that those that watch television talent show gain a great deal of pleasure from it. But does this therefore mean that governments should stop funding the Royal Shakespeare Company, and instead use the money to subsidize talent show, obviously not and the reason is that one is intrinsically seen as more virtuous than the other. It is also fundamental that governments are able to make judgments about what qualities are worth honoring in a citizen, and what constitutes living a good. Just to take the three qualities which Plato considered to be the most worthy of honour that of courage, wisdom, and self-discipline. Is it not right that governments should give soldiers medals for bravery, courage, and heroism rather than cowardice, and selfishness? Or that government's should honour wisdom, and give distinction to services to science and literature, rather than services to the porn industry. Or that government should honour the virtue of self-discipline and restraint, rather than promoting over consumption and greed. It seems that all morally serious individuals would agree that the qualities which Plato exposed are worth honouring to at least some extent. But there is a serious risk that governments can become too neutral when pandering to the culture of moral relativism. It seems the overarching flaw in Plato's tripartite theory is the failure of the analogy between the individual and the society. It is often said that when criticizing Plato's philosophies you should not take his analogies too far, although it seems that in this case he has taken his analogy so far in order to argue for his theory that an intellectually honest argument against the theory requires the analogy to be pushed also. The analogy has in fact been pushed so far that by the time the theory has been consolidated the analogy is close to collapse. This is predominately because it fails to account for the inherent differences between self-interest and the community interest as well as ignoring none rational attributes that are essential for good statesmanship, the analogy justifies the subordination of individual rights because it only sees individual morality in the context of their position within a community and it fails to respect human beings as autonomous; the analogy also fails to make a vital distinction between the teleology of the human being and the teleology of the polis, in that it fails to allow citizens to pursue their own conception of the good life but simply imposes a singular conception on them. Although it is fundamental when purging a theory of its intellectually and morally unsound elements not be too heavy handed, and fail to retain aspects that are useful. In this case to retain and cherish the Platonic virtues which are fundamentally valuable to all societies.

Bibliography

. R.C. Cross and A.D Woozley, Plato's Republic: A philosophical commentary, (London: Macmillan, 1964). . J. Locke, Second treaties of government, (Indianapolis: Hackett publishing, 1980). . Plato, Republic, (New York: Oxford University press, 2008). . C. Popper, The open society its enemies: The spell of Plato volume 1, (New York: Routledge, 2003). . S. Sesonke ed., Plato's Republic: Interpretation and criticism, (California: Wodsworth publishing, 1966).