Plato’s Philosophies in Modern’s Perspective

Tat Tironsakkul

FPR

10/03/17

Plato’s Philosophies in Modern’s Perspective

In The Republic, Plato discusses many of his ideas and philosophies on the justice of a state and men. Plato also defines his understanding and belief of what a state is and how it should be structured. Even though, Plato’s ideas are strong and valid, I think that they are outdated and are out of context in modern-day society.

The Republic, suggests that a just man and a just state contain three corresponding virtues: wisdom, spirit and appetite. The virtue of wisdom is the ruling virtue of the rulers of the state. The virtue of spirit is the ruling virtue of the warriors of the state. The last virtue of appetite is the ruling virtue of the workers of the state. Socrates’ structure of a state is that the rulers have to be the one ruling the state because they are those with knowledge and wisdom. The warriors would support the rulers because they are those with spirit and courage. The workers would work and produce for the state. The state is a fixed system of government, everybody has to do their job and role of the society. Not only that, but everybody in the state must only play their roles and not take other people’s roles. According to Plato, if a state does not have all of these features the state would not function properly and the people will be separated.  

Plato’s ideal state is a state that is well-formed and productive government system because it contains a ruler that is wise and think of the well-being of the state, warriors and workers who make sacrifices for the good of the state. On top of that, Plato’s state and a modern-day’s state is very similar in that they both contain rulers, arm forces and workers. The biggest difference between Socrates’ state and modern-day’s state is that the morality of the people. First of all, in modern-day people value self-determination, self-respect and accomplishments very high. Therefore, everybody except the ruler would be forced by the ruler to live without freedom. They will lack self-respect and their desire would want more. This will contradict Socrates’ idea of a just individual because the people do not have true freedom. Plato’s state would create dissatisfaction among the citizens and the people will be unjust and self-divided. On top of that, because people value accomplishments highly, everybody would want to get promoted, get higher ranks, etc. People would want to achieve and gain more than what they currently are and have, for example, an intern of a company would want to one day make himself into the owner of the company. People would not want to do the same job for the rest of their life under someone, people would want to become more than that.

Moreover, according to Plato leaders should be those who are well-educated, wise and help improve the well-being of the state’s citizens. Although, it would be wonderful to have a leader who is smart and will improve the state and the well-being for its citizens, there are no such leaders in modern day. For many years, rulers are spiritually ruled by their appetite, which according to Plato’s ideal ruler would not be suitable. Rulers in the modern context only want to become rulers so that they can gain the power, fame and other self-interests. For example, rulers of the modern day are Donald trump and Kim Jong Un, they will never be considered as rulers to Plato because neither of them are wise, knowledgeable or suitable leaders. Many would argue that Donald Trump should not be a leader because he does not have any knowledge of politics and that he is only doing things to please himself. Donald Trump goes against Plato’s ideal leader in that he is not knowledgeable for the position and he is ruled by appetite, not wisdom. Another example is Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. Kim Jong Un is basically the complete opposite of what Plato had in mind of the rulers. Kim Jong Un does not care about the citizens of North Korea, he provides them no human rights. On top of that, he is also completely ruled by his appetite, he is only focused on military and weapons because he wants to feel powerful and become recognized. Which also goes against Plato in that he does not do anything to make the state better and he is also only ruled by his appetite. Leaders of today’s society are completely different from what Plato claimed as leaders.

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