PlatoÕs Critique of the
Democratic Character by
DOMINIC
SCOTT
ABSTRACT
This paper tackles some
issues arising from PlatoÕs account of the democratic man in Rep. VIII. One problem is that Plato
tends to analyse him in terms of the desires that he fulŽ ls, yet sends out con
icting signals about exactly what kind of desires are at issue. Scholars are
divided over whether all of the democratÕs desires are appetites. There is,
however, strong evidence against seeing him as exclusively appetitive: rather
he is someone who satisŽ es desires from all three parts of his soul, although
his rational and spirited desires differ signiŽ cantly from those of the
philosopher or the timocrat.
A second problem concerns the
question why the democrat ranks so low in PlatoÕs estimation, especially why he
is placed beneath the oligarch. My explanation is that Plato presents him as a
jumble of desires, someone in whom order and unity have all but disintegrated.
In this way he represents a step beyond the merely bipolarised oligarch.
The Ž nal section of the
paper focuses on the democratÕs rational part, and asks whether it plays any
role in shaping his life as a whole. For the disunity criticism to hold, Plato
ought to allow very little global reasoning: if there were a single
deliberating reason imposing a life plan upon his life, the fragmentation of
life and character discussed earlier would only be superŽ cial. I argue that
Plato attributes very little global reasoning to the democrat. Aside from the
fact that the text fails to mention such reasoning taking place, PlatoÕs views
on the development of character and his use of the state-soul analogy show that
the democratÕs lifestyle is determined just by the strength of the desires that
he happens to feel at any one time.
Although often viewed as a
critique of political democracy, PlatoÕs Republic
also discusses in some detail a character whose soul is the microcosm of
the democratic state (558c-562a). This passage is less well known than some of
those concerned with political democracy, yet it raises important and difŽ cult
issues in PlatoÕs moral psychology. For one thing, it is unclear exactly how we
are meant to understand the nature of the democratic character. Much of the
passage analyses him in terms of the desires that he fulŽ ls; yet it sends out
con icting signals about exactly what kinds of desires are at issue. A second
problem concerns the question of why the democrat ranks so low in PlatoÕs
estimation. The passage in question comes as part of a longer argument in which
four different character types are compared – the timocrat, the oligarch, the
democrat and the tyrant. PlatoÕs main charge against the democrat seems to be
that
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000 Phronesis XLV,1
he is
something of a dilettante, itting from one desire to another. Yet he ranks
only just above the tyrant and below the oligarch, who is himself hardly a very
attractive character – obsessed by money, deeply con icted and prone to abuse
orphans.1 In this paper, I wish to show how these problems, which
are closely interconnected, can be resolved.
1. Background
First, we need to sketch in the background to the account of
the degenerate characters. At the end of Republic
4, Socrates and Glaucon seem conŽ dent that the just person is better off than
the unjust (445a5-b5). Nevertheless, Socrates proposes to clarify their
conclusion by analysing injustice and vice more closely. At this point he is
about to embark on an account of the principal types of vice, making heavy use
of the state-soul analogy in which there is a type of corrupt state to
correspond to each type of vice in the soul. Instead he is interrupted and
challenged to elaborate upon the arrangements for the rulers of the ideal
state; this in turn leads him on to their education and the epistemology and
metaphysics of books 5-7. It is only at the beginning of book 8 that he returns
to the project mentioned at the end of book 4 and embarks on a description of
the four principal types of vice: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny.
Rather than simply classifying
the different types of vice in state and soul, Socrates presents them as a
series in a narrative of moral degeneration, starting with timocracy and
culminating with tyranny. In summary, decline of the soul is as follows. First
in line after the just soul is the timocrat, devoted to the pursuit of honour.
His son degenerates into the oligarch, who seems to value money above
everything and puts all his efforts into acquiring it. He in turn has a son who
becomes the democratic character, feeling all kinds of desires and giving them
freedom and equality.
Accepted September 1999
1 The
judgement on the four different characters is made explicit at 580a9-c8. It is
left to Glaucon to afŽ rm the democratÕs ranking (580b5-7), and so one might
try to dissolve the second problem by claiming that Socrates himself does not
agree with this verdict. (This approach was suggested to me by Rosslyn Weiss.)
But I can think of no explanation as to why Socrates would leave a major
blunder on GlauconÕs part uncorrected. In the absence of such an explanation, I
shall assume that Socrates endorses the GlauconÕs response. Furthermore,
Socrates has already committed himself to the same ranking of the political
constitutions at 568c9-d1 by placing them in an ascending scale, with democracy
only just above tyranny at the lower end. If Socrates did not also endorse the
same ranking of the individual, it would be very strange for him not even to
allude to the fact.
In the Ž nal stage of the decline,
the son of the democrat turns into the tyrant, who is dominated by the very
worst kind of desire (described as some sort of eros or lust) and who shows total ruthlessness in the lengths he
will go to satisfy it.
To understand this pattern of degeneration we should start
with the role that the theory of the tripartite soul plays throughout books
8-9. The just soul is dominated by reason and, as one goes down the series of
deviant characters, the non-rational parts assert themselves in various ways.
This is obvious in the case of the timocratic man, who is ruled by spirit – better
than appetite, but inferior to reason. Plato then analyses the remaining three
characters by making various divisions within the appetitive part. The oligarch
is introduced by the distinction between necessary and unnecessary appetites
(554a5-8), and described as someone who restrains his unnecessary appetites,
spending his money only to satisfy the necessary ones.[1] The
same distinction is invoked with the introduction of the democrat, although
this time it is more carefully explained: necessary appetites are for things
that lead to or preserve health or, more generally, are practically useful, the
unnecessary for things that are super uous, and sometimes actively harmful
(558d4-559d2). The oligarchÕs son transforms into the democrat when he puts all
appetites on an equal footing. Finally, when introducing the tyrant, Plato
makes a further distinction, this time between those unnecessary appetites which
are ÔlawfulÕ and those which are ÔlawlessÕ, and portrays the tyrant as someone
who gives his lawless appetites full rein.[2]
The fact that each of the last
three stages in the decline is introduced with a discussion of different types
of appetite suggests that the appetitive part provides the key to understanding
all three characters and their respective ordering. In particular, it is
tempting to assume that each one is dominated by some kind of appetitive
desire. In the case of the oligarch and the tyrant, this assumption is correct:
they subjugate everything to necessary and lawless appetites respectively. If
we are to Ž t the democrat into this pattern, we might claim that he too is
essentially appetitive, wedged in between the oligarch and the tyrant: better
than one because he restrains his lawless desires, worse than the other because
he gives the rest of his unnecessary appetites full rein. This view appears to
be supported by two back-references in book 9, where the democrat is presented
as a mid-point between the other two characters (572b10-d3 and 587c7). On
closer inspection, however, PlatoÕs democrat proves reluctant to Ž t so easily
into this mould.
2. The range of democratic desires
Much of the description of the democrat focuses upon the way
he transforms from his oligarchic starting-point. There are actually two stages
in his journey to full democracy. As a youth, he restrains his unnecessary
desires just like his father and, in the Ž rst stage (558c8-561a8), we hear of
the way in which he is tempted to give up this restraint. After holding back
initially, he gives in and casts his oligarchic upbringing aside, treating
necessary and unnecessary desires on a par. The ÔjuniorÕ democrat, as I shall
call him, lives the life of a voluptuary, despising the thrift and caution of
his upbringing.
As he grows older and once Ôthe
great tumult within has spent itselfÕ, some of the elements previously expelled
are let back in (561a8-b2). From now on, he puts all his desires on a footing
of equality:
And so he lives, always
surrendering rule over himself to whichever desire comes along, as if it were
chosen by lot. And when that is satisŽ ed, he surrenders the rule to another,
not disdaining any, but satisfying them all equally.[3]
In this account, the political analogy
is very much to the fore. Desires correspond to citizens in the state and, just
as each citizen is given an equal share of power (558c5-6), each desire in the
individualÕs soul is allowed its moment of satisfaction. The result is that he
has a truly diverse lifestyle, sometimes partying, then economising, fasting
and exercising; he also has aspirations to the military life, politics and even
(what he imagines to be) philosophy.
The issue I wish to focus upon
is the assumption that the ÔseniorÕ democrat is essentially appetitive. Here is
the description of his life-style once he reached full egalitarianism:
Sometimes he drinks heavily
while listening to the ute; at other times he drinks only water and is on a
diet; sometimes he goes in for physical training; at other times, heÕs idle and
neglects everything; and sometimes he even occupies himself with what he takes
to be philosophy. He often engages in politics, leaping up from his seat and
saying and doing whatever comes into his mind. If he happens to admire
soldiers, heÕs carried in that direction, if money makers, in that one.
(561c7-d5)
This makes him
sound like someone who dabbles in all sorts of things that others pursue more
single-mindedly. But are all the desires satisŽ ed in this life-style appetites? The references to military
and political aspirations suggest that he supplements his enjoyment of the
appetitive pleasures with the satisfaction of spirited desires: on some days,
he champions a cause and the pursuit of victory becomes his goal. Again, his
pursuit of some sort of intellectual interest (though not, in PlatoÕs sense,
philosophy) suggests that he is someone for whom discovery can occasionally be
a goal and that he satisŽ es rational desires.[4] The
impression that he is more than merely appetitive is reinforced a few lines
later, when he is presented as some kind of psychological salad, composed of
elements of the other characters:
I suppose that heÕs a complex
man, full of all sorts of characters, Ž ne and multicolored, just like the
democratic city, and that many men and women might envy his life since it
contains the most models of constitutions and ways of living. (561e3-7)
The problem is that, although there
are no explicit statements that the senior democrat is essentially appetitive,
the broader context of books 8-9 suggests that the democratic character is
located in the middle of an appetitive triad; when we actually encounter him,
he appears to wander freely among all the different categories of desire.[5]
One way to tackle the problem would be to insist that,
appearances aside, all the democratÕs desires come from the appetitive part.
This would result in making his desires for warfare, politics and ÔphilosophyÕ
radically different from those that motivate the just person or the timocrat.[6]But
if I am right that the democrat is occasionally attracted by the prospect of
achieving victory in a cause or of satisfying his curiosity, there is a problem
with this approach. When differentiating the three parts of the soul and their
corresponding desires, Plato often implies that each part, by its nature,
pursues a characteristic type of object. Where the appetites are concerned, many
of the examples given suggest that they are to be construed as biological urges
for food, drink or sex, or at least as desires for bodily pleasures more
generally.[7] Because
such pleasures are procured by money, the appetitive part is sometimes called
the money-loving or gainloving part (581a6-7 & 586d5). This choice of name
underscores the fact that Plato characterises it in terms of its objects. The
same goes for spirit: at a number of places, it is called the Ôvictory-lovingÕ
and Ôhonour-lovingÕ part, and those dominated by it characteristically make
victory and honour their goals (550b6-7, 553b7-d9; 581a9-b3, 586c7-d2). Reason
too is associated with the love of learning, and is named accordingly (435e7 ,
581b9-10). Notice that this way of characterising the three parts is
particularly conspicuous at 580d3ff., a passage in which Socrates reminds
Glaucon of the tripartite theory in preparation for the Ž nal arguments in
favour of justice. As this is no preliminary sketch of the theory but a summary
of its essentials presented to the most sophisticated of SocratesÕ
interlocutors, it is safe to assume that the object-orientated approach is
central to the tripartite theory. So if the democrat does occasionally aspire
after victory and learning, the characteristic objects of the spirited and
rational parts, it becomes very difŽ cult to classify all his desires as
appetites.
Perhaps we should challenge the claim that, by engaging in
political and military pursuits or dabbling in ÔphilosophyÕ, the democrat
pursues goals associated with the non-appetitive parts of the soul. To take the
case of the spirited part, one might argue that whatever he does on the battleŽ
eld (if he ever gets that far) has nothing to do with the love of honour or
victory. But this suggestion is undermined by another problem in denying that
the democrat only satisŽ es appetites. Is it after all plausible that he has no
desires in his spirited part? Spirit was present in his father, the oligarch,
but was held Ž rmly in check (553d1-7): it was allowed to honour money-making,
so the oligarch would clearly feel surges of pride in successful Ž nancial
ventures. Furthermore, there is also a reference at 554e7555a6 to the oligarch
having to sti e spirited desires for victory which threaten to assert
themselves more widely. In general, Plato is extremely generous about who is
capable of feeling spirited desires: children and even animals are included
(441a7-b3). So it seems very implausible to say that the democrat does not feel
spirited desires of some kind. Once this is granted, it is easy to see that,
given his liberal attitude to desire satisfaction, these desires will Ž nd
their way into action.
Although this point is clearer for the case of spirit, I
think a similar case can be made for the democratÕs rational part. In his
father this was allowed to deliberate only about maximising wealth (553d2-4);
any other form of intellectual pursuit would have been considered a waste of
time (cf. 581d2). Once the plutocentric constraints are lifted, however, it is
plausible to assume that the satisfaction of curiosity becomes a goal from time
to time. In other parts of the Republic,
Plato is happy to allow characters who rank well below the philosopher to
pursue some form of intellectual interest.[8]
But if we abandon the attempt to treat all the democratÕs
desires as appetites, his place in the series of degenerate characters becomes
puzzling. He no longer appears a straightforward compromise between oligarchic
and tyrannical tendencies. There are spirited and rational aspects to his life
that make him appear an anomaly in the process of degeneration. In particular,
these aspects seem to constitute redeeming features that make his position
beneath the narrowly appetitive oligarch mysterious.
To Ž nd a way out of this problem, we need to look at
another aspect of the distinction between the three types of desire. Aside from
the connection with bodily pleasure, another essential feature of the appetites
is that they are not based upon considerations about the good. This point
emerges almost as soon as the appetites are introduced in the argument for
tripartition in book 4: in itself an appetite is just for e.g. drink, not for a
good drink.[9] To
feel an appetite for something is to pursue it just because it offers one
pleasure, not because one independently sees any goodness in it. By contrast,
the rational part, at least in the case of the just soul, is able to form a
desire for something based on the realisation of its goodness.[10] One
may immediately ask how this binary distinction relates to the presence of the
third part of the soul, but spirit seems to straddle the divide: when it is
functioning properly, it responds to reason with a sense of the rightness of
the course of action, for instance – hence its associations with pride, shame,
and indignation.[11]
For our purposes, the important point is this. Appetites are
by their nature not based on
considerations of the good. If it is functioning correctly, reason can and
ought to seek the good. Similarly, spirit can and ought to ally itself with the
value-judgements of reason. In deviant cases, however, it is possible to have a
desire of reason for knowledge, and a desire of spirit for honour, without
basing these desires upon considerations of the good. So long as such desires
are orientated towards certain kinds of goal – honour or discovery – they can
count as spirited or rational.13
This, I would suggest, is the key to understanding the
democrat. He is someone who has desires for many different things: parties,
exercise, money, victory and discovery. But he just Ôgoes forÕ these different
things; they capture his fancy, nothing more; he pursues them all merely
because he happens to enjoy them, and not because he independently considers
them to be worthwhile.
This allows us to say, as the
text so clearly implies, that he does satisfy desires from all three parts of
the soul.14 On the other hand, since his spirited and
rational desires do not arise from the proper functioning of those two parts,
these desires differ radically from their analogues in the just person and the
timocrat. In fact, by lacking the evaluative basis underlying the desires of
better characters, the democratÕs desires all resemble appetites. His desires
for victory or discovery feel to him just as they would if they were desires
for a drink. Although his essence is not appetitive, it is quasi-appetitive.
This explains why all the objects of his pursuit appear to him on a par. He
would put a momentÕs conversation with Socrates in the same category as the satisfaction
of an unnecessary appetite.
ch. 13; also Penner (1971).
But there is no evidence that rational and spirited desires necessarily involve
reference to the good. Also, as I have said, we should not underestimate the
importance of the fact that Plato so frequently differentiates the types of
desire by referring to their characteristic objects. He makes no explicit
mention of whether a desire is based on the good when he comes to sum up the
main points of the tripartite distinction in 580d3ff.; rather, he concentrates
on the types of objects pursued by the different parts.
13
Recall that animals and children have spirited
desires.
14
As I said above, there are no explicit statements that
the senior democrat is essentially appetitive. Plato certainly thinks that the
distinction between necessary and unnecessary desires is crucial to
understanding the transition from oligarch to democrat; he also analyses the
junior democrat as appetitive. But none of this con icts with the claim that
eventually the character satisŽ es desires from all parts of the soul. True,
when he reminds us of the democrat in 572b10-d3 and 587c7 he alludes only to
the appetitive desires, but this need not be taken to deny the presence of
other desires.
3. A jumble of desires
I now wish to focus directly on the question of why the
democrat is placed beneath the oligarch. This is a character who represents a
form of vice because he does everything in the service of appetite (even if it
is of the best kind), and because the existence of unnecessary but forcibly
restrained appetites produces inner con ict. Both these criticisms can be
understood in terms of the psychological theory, and are reinforced by the
political analogy. When criticising the oligarchic state, Socrates had lost no
time in saying that it was ruled by those who lack the relevant qualiŽ cation
(551c2-d2). Analogously, the oligarch is ruled by an element inferior to
reason. The other criticism of the oligarchic state was that it was a
doublestate, divided between rich and poor (551d5-7).
But the oligarch still holds a relatively high position in
PlatoÕs series, and this is explained in terms of his redeeming feature,
restraint. Through forcible repression, he does at least attain a surrogate for
the order that characterises the just person. He represents a simulacrum or
shadow of justice. In fact, he espouses a morality of a kind,[12] even
though his attitude to virtue is superŽ cial and belies his real defect of
character, as is shown in his behaviour towards the vulnerable (554c4-9). This
superŽ cial virtue also makes the oligarch appear outwardly ordered (554e3-4).
I take this to mean that corresponding to his simulacrum virtue is a simulacrum
unity, and it is only when we look inside him that we see the underlying con ict
in his nature.
When it comes to ranking the democrat below the oligarch,
the issue of unity continues to play a crucial role. What is explicitly said to
be wrong with him is that he has no order (t‹jiw) or compulsion (Žn‹gkh)
in his life (561d5-6). The Ž rst of these claims shows how he differs from the
just person in whom harmony of desires produces order and thus unity, the
quality that Plato so prizes in state and soul.[13] In
having no compulsion in his life either, he abandons even the oligarchÕs surrogate
for rational order.[14] His
life has become a jumble of desires, and thus he has taken a decisive step
beyond his merely bipolarised father. As initially stated, this is a point
about the democratÕs life, rather than his soul as such.[15] It
is clear, however, that Plato also wants to accuse him of being a disuniŽ ed
person when he likens him to the democratic city and calls him Ôa complex man,
full of all sorts of characters . . . and ways of livingÕ (561e3-7).[16]In
the end, his soul itself has just become a jumble of desires.
That the democrat suffers in
some way from disunity is reasonably clear from the text,[17] but
to understand the force of the criticism we need to keep the conclusions of
section 2 above well to the fore. At Ž rst sight, the fact that the democrat
satisŽ es desires from all three parts of his soul might seem to offset the
criticism of him as radically disuniŽ ed: he might compensate for the loss of
coherence by his occasional forays into the higher realms of reason and spirit.
But any redeeming power these desires might have vanishes when we remember
that, although his desires are not all appetites, they are all like appetites. Indeed the disunity upon
which Plato ultimately focuses is the result of the fact that his life is just
a string of good-independent desires and their satisfaction.[18]
4. Reasoning, unity and the democrat
In this section, I want to probe further into the role that
reason plays in the democratÕs life. We have seen how Plato allows him to
follow rational desires from time to time. But there is an important question
to be asked about whether his reason has any global function – whether it plays
any part in shaping his life as a whole. Imagine the oligarchically-reared
youth shortly before his slide into democracy. Does Plato present him as
reasoning dispassionately about his fatherÕs repressed and frustrated life, and
concluding that his own would be much happier if he treated all his desires on
a par? If so, we ought to be puzzled by PlatoÕs complaint about the disunity of
his life, and even more about the disunity of his soul: on the view just
outlined, there is a single deliberating reason which thinks of his life as a
whole and imposes a plan upon it; the fragmentation of life and character that
Plato talks about would, in this case, only be superŽ cial.
PlatoÕs critique is far more intelligible if we imagine the
democrat rather differently: his spontaneous life-style is not the result of a
rational decision at all; instead, he is simply led along by whatever desire
happens to arise at any one time, and there is little more to his life over and
above its being a random series of desires. It is not that he has rationally
decided to eschew discriminations between desires; his reason may be so
weakened that it is incapable of operating globally and of imposing any
direction on his life.
The fact that Plato presents
the democrat as radically disuniŽ ed already creates a strong presumption in
favour of allowing global reasoning only a minimal role in shaping his life.
This would also tie in with the fact that, at the ÔlocalÕ level, his individual
desires are not derived from rational evaluation. I now wish to show that there
is plenty more evidence in the text to support this, most of which can be found
by looking carefully at the way in which each stage of his transformation is
described. I shall start, however, by asking how far reasoning about ends is
involved in the oligarchÕs life,[19] because
PlatoÕs views on moral education elsewhere in the Republic suggest that, if the oligarchÕs own rational part (logistikñn)
is in bad shape, the same is likely to apply to his son.
(a) The oligarch in 553a-555 b
There are two points at which Plato explicitly mentions
reasoning and the oligarch.[20] The
Ž rst comes at 553d1-4:
He makes the rational and spirited parts sit on the ground
beneath appetite, one on either side, reducing them to slaves. He wonÕt allow
the Ž rst to reason about or examine anything except how a little money can be
made into great wealth.
Here the activity of the rational
part is conŽ ned to a narrowly instrumental role: the oligarch apparently has a
single goal, and the only kind of activity permitted to reason is that which
promotes that goal. By specifying the one and only operation allowed to
reasoning, Socrates is thereby excluding any other. Here is someone in whom the
process of non-instrumental reasoning is stopped dead.[21]
In this passage, Socrates says that reason is made a slave
to appetite. It is important to stress that he is not using this metaphor to
describe a case of acrasia where reason has made a value-judgement with which
appetite con icts. The corruption of reason is deeper. Under the in uence of
appetite, it is prevented from reasoning in such as way as to produce
judgements that con ict with the goals of the appetitive part.[22]
But here there is a distinction to be made. 553d1-4
certainly implies something about the way in which the activity of the rational part is constrained. But it is a separate
question as to whether the value-judgement, Ômoney matters before anything
elseÕ, is located in the rational part or in the appetitive. We might suppose
that the rational part has become silent on the question of what constitutes
his overall goal, and so infer that the value-judgement resides in the
appetitive part. Alternatively, reason might form a judgement that wealth is
the only ultimate goal, but form it entirely under the in uence of the
appetitive part. In 553d3 he says that it is not allowed to reason about (logÛzesyai)
or consider (skopeÝn) anything apart from how to make more money out of less.
If we take these words to suggest mental effort of some kind,[23] we
can allow room for a lower grade of belief formation; the rational part does
form a belief about ends, but under the in uence of appetite. It is its reasoning that is conŽ ned to the instrumental
sphere.
What is not in dispute between these two interpretations is
the fact that reasoning about ends has collapsed by this stage in the decline.
Can we choose between them? One approach would be as follows: like all the
characters, the oligarch has a conception of the good. Our question, in effect,
is whether this is to be housed in the rational or the appetitive part. One
might argue that it has to be put in the rational part because appetite is
incapable of conceiving of the good: appetite, surely, is Ôgood-independentÕ,
as we saw above. This, however, is too quick. Although appetite cannot produce
desires based on a conception of the good, this is not to say that it is
incapable of having a conception of the good at all. It may be that, as result
of desiring or taking pleasure in something, appetite conceives of it as good.
If so, the difference between appetite and reason is not that one conceives of
the good and the other does not; it lies in the Ôdirection of Ž tÕ: in whether
the good provides an independent and antecedent ground for the desire.[24] On this view,
then, the value-judgement could still be housed in the appetitive, and the
rational part, in its evaluative capacity, could be silenced.[25]
It is in fact extremely difŽ cult to show that the
appetitive part cannot form value-judgements and that they must instead be
located in the rational part. Perhaps a closer look at book 4 would help to
determine the issue. But as far as the overall topic of this paper is
concerned, we can safely leave the issue on one side. For the sake of argument,
let us assume that the oligarchÕs rational part does house the value-judgement.
I shall go on to argue that, even if this is so, and even if the democratÕs
belief in the overall value of freedom is housed in the rational part, in his
case the functioning of that part is still too minimal to offset the disunity
criticism.
Before returning to the
democrat, we need to look at one more text concerning reasoning and the
oligarch:
He holds [his evil appetites]
in check, not persuading them that itÕs better not to act on them or taming
them with logos, but by compulsion
and fear, trembling for his other possessions (554d1-3).
Here Plato is implicitly drawing a
double contrast with the just person. One difference is that the just person
calms his appetites, thus producing harmony rather than the con ict that
characterises the oligarch. The other is that the just personÕs restraint is
achieved by reason: the rational part performs its function of seeing what the
good of the whole soul is, and governing in the light of this knowledge. But in
554d1-3 the oligarchÕs reason does not play this role. Instead, his necessary
appetites, together with the associated fear that they might not be satisŽ ed,
turn out to be stronger and more intense than his non-necessary appetites.[26] That
necessary appetites, rather than reason, should be the cause of his restraint Ž
ts with the use of the state-soul analogy: the state is run by a clique of
greedy plutocrats (the analogues of necessary appetites), not of misguided
intellectuals.
So both these texts, 553d1-4
and 554d1-3, tell strongly against the view that the oligarch is someone whose
pursuit of money is grounded in an autonomous decision of the rational part.
His day-to-day choices restraining unnecessary appetites do not involve
evaluative reasoning and, even if his overall choice of ends is somehow housed
in the rational part, it is not maintained by rational re ection.
(b) The junior democrat
Let us now turn to the Ž rst stage of the democratic
transition, the total rejection of oligarchic restraint, to see whether it
involves the use of autonomous (though misguided) reasoning. Even before we
look at the text in any detail, we can Ž nd two reasons against this view,
based on the way in which we have characterised the oligarch.
The Ž rst is that, for Plato, the rational part does not
just appear at a certain age of maturation in decent working order; unless it
is nurtured by someone whose own rational part is already in a healthy state,
it is most likely to be stunted.[27] If
the oligarch ÔenslavedÕ his own reason and limited it to instrumental
deliberation, how could it come to be so healthy in his son? Plato admits the
possibility, but thinks it very unlikely to be realised (558b3).
Second, if the democratÕs transformation were the result of
renewed functioning of the rational part, it is again unclear why he is put so
low on the list, lower than the oligarch. Our principal question is how the
unity criticism is supposed to work if the democratÕs decision is underpinned
by the activity of the rational part. But a ÔrationalÕ democrat would have
another advantage over his father. Although he might sometimes choose to follow
worse appetites than his father, the rational part would have control, and so
he could be persuaded out of his choice.[28]
If we now look at the text in
more detail, we can Ž nd further evidence against allowing a global function to
reason. The transition is decribed as follows. Making heavy use of the
state-soul analogy, Socrates describes how internal and external elements work
together to tempt the youth to give up the restraint of his unnecessary
desires, just as a democratic faction within a city might plot revolution with
the aid of an outside democratic power:
. . . doesnÕt the young man
change when one party of his desires receives help from external desires that
are akin to them and of the same form? (559e5-7)
At Ž rst, the oligarchic forces,
both within and without, resist the pressures. In other words, the
encouragement of family and servants, as well as the restraint imbued in him by
his upbringing, quells the rising tide of unnecessary desires within him. But
after subsiding, they grow strong again and Ž nally, with the help of the
Ôlotus-eatingÕ friends, bring about the revolution that failed before.
The actual transformation is described at 560a9-561a4. In
secret, the former desires breed a multitude of others and make another
attempt, this time successful, on the young manÕs soul. The next result of this
victory is that false beliefs become established and then, if any of the old
oligarchic allies try to re-establish control, he is said not even to give them
a hearing (560c6-d1). He refuses to engage in any kind of dialogue.
This passage offers three further reasons against supposing
that his rational part is active in the revolution. One is that the initial
pressure is exerted by unnecessary appetites, from within and without. Plato
goes out of his way to stress the role of the appetitive part in the process by
talking not of the associates themselves bringing about the change, but their
desires (559e5-7). There is also an argument from silence: in the actual
transformation, no mention is made of any deliberation, and his associates are
at no point said to win him over by argument. If there were any reasoning going
on here, it is extremely strange that Plato makes no mention of it, or attempt
to describe what it is like.
Finally, we need to pay close attention to the use of the
state-soul analogy. It is very noticeable that Plato keeps appealing to the
model of a democratic revolution to help explain the transformation of the
democratic man. Since he is so keen to highlight the analogy, any
interpretation of the passage needs to ensure that its account of the
individualÕs transformation Ž nds a clear analogue in some aspect of the
political revolution. By presenting the transformation non-rationally, we are
able to do this: it is the unnecessary appetites, as the surrogates for the
democratically-minded rebels, who do the work of expelling the old rulers. By
contrast, it is difŽ cult to see how the ÔrationalÕ interpretation can make
much sense of the analogy at all. The problem in fact would apply every time
one tried to make the transformation of a character a rational process. The
rational part would have to be reintroduced at each transition to hand over
power to another part, like an authority stepping in to take power from one
faction and give it to another. So in the case of the democratic man, one would
have to imagine some authority that thought the city would go better if it was
allowed a spell of democracy (at the same time reserving the right to change
its mind and try out another constitution). But the way in which Plato actually
uses the analogy is completely different, and simpler: one faction yields to
another directly.[29]
Now Plato does talk of false lñgoi and opinions siezing
the citadel of the young manÕs soul (560c2-3). But this happens only once the
desires have paved the way and, again, there is nothing in the text to support
the idea that reasoning about ends is
taking place. In fact, the way the lñgoi are described at 560c7-d1 as not even
prepared to listen to another viewpoint helps rule out this idea. Instead, the
formation of these beliefs should be compared to the way in which the oligarch
held value-judgements, perhaps housed in his rational part, by the strength of
(necessary) appetites. Similarly, the democrat now values freedom, and also has
a list of virtues to accord with this (560d2-561a4). Again, even if these
value-judgements are housed in the rational part, they do not arise from its
autonomous functioning, but from a process of non-rational belief formation.[30]
(c) The senior democrat
The second stage of the
democratÕs transformation is described at 561 a8-b3:
If heÕs lucky, and his frenzy
doesnÕt go too far, when he grows older, and the great tumult within him has
spent itself, he welcomes back some of the exiles, ceases to surrender himself
completely to the newcomers, and puts his pleasures on an equal footing.
The starting-point for this change
is the calming of his passions. Notice that there is no suggestion that this is
the result of the rational part soothing the appetites; all we are given as
causes are age and good fortune.
As a result of this change, he starts to gratify a much
wider range of desires than before. On my interpretation, what has happened is
simply that the new tranquillity allows other pleasures, which would previously
have appeared colourless, to make an impression on him. He follows the modiŽ ed
lifestyle simply because a wider range of things now appeals to him. On the
ÔrationalÕ interpretation, on the other hand, the point would have to be that
the new state of calm allows a previously distracted reason to recover and
deliberate towards a modiŽ ed life-style. Again, however, there is good
evidence against supposing that any substantive activity of the rational part
is involved in this transformation.
As before, there is an argument from silence. If the
rational part suddenly kicks into activity, why does Plato not mention it?
After all, it would be a crucial psychological difference between the stages of
the democrat. Furthermore, the suggestion that this character now reasons
towards his ends makes him a substantial improvement on his father, so that the
ranking question is once again thrown open: if, unlike the oligarch, he does
allow his rational part to deliberate about ends, and does not enslave it to
non-rational desire, he is far more amenable to persuasion and only needs to be
presented with the right arguments.
Finally, we need to bear in
mind PlatoÕs views on education and the development of character. In the
previous section, I asked how the junior democrat could have developed an autonomous
rational part given PlatoÕs
or grief (413b9-10); also,
they might be bewitched by pleasure or fear (c1-3). To put the point in terms
of the theory of the tripartite soul, beliefs can be formed by the strength of
desires in the non-rational parts, especially the appetitive. So, for instance,
if one started with a view about something being one of oneÕs ends, this might
be Ôdriven outÕ by excessive appetite. See also 429c5ff., esp. 430a6-b2. On the
signiŽ cance of these passages to the Republic
as a whole, see Scott (1999).
strictures about the need for
someone else to nurture it carefully. He also believes that yielding to
appetite not only strengthens it, but weakens reason, enslaving it to appetite
(442a4-b3 & 588e3-589a2). A consequence of this is that yielding to
appetite in oneÕs youth will affect the state of oneÕs reason later on. This
makes it improbable that, after giving himself over to each and every appetite
in his youth, the democratÕs reason will thereafter be in any position to
reassert itself.
So if we take into account his lack of rational education
and subsequent bout of appetitive indulgence, by the time we get to his mature
phase, his capacity to reason about ends has been irretrievably weakened. He
may Ž nd himself experiencing all kinds of desire, but will have neither the
ability nor the inclination to discriminate between them; he has become
pathologically indiscriminate.
As with the oligarch and the
junior democrat, I am not denying that the senior democrat has a conception of
the good (freedom) and a policy of eschewing discrimination (561b7-c4), which
may be housed in the rational part. Nevertheless, these are not principles
arrived at by the activity of that part, which is by this point in too weakened
a state to function autonomously. Rather, they result from the fact that he is
no longer capable of discrimination and are merely made to suit (or Ô atterÕ)
the state that his desires have now reached.[31]
* * *
In the earlier part of this
paper, I argued that the democratic character should not be seen as essentially
or exclusively appetitive. He is, however, Ôquasi-appetitiveÕ, which in turn
helps to explain how Plato is able to present him as a rabble of desires,
someone in whom order and unity have all but disintegrated. I then raised the
question of what role reason might play in shaping his life. If the disunity
criticism is to hold, Plato ought to allow very little global reasoning. With a
more detailed examination of the text, we saw that this was conŽ rmed by three
points in particular – PlatoÕs failure to mention any global evaluative
reasoning, his views on the development of character and his use of the
state-soul analogy. All these point towards the same conclusion: what the
democrat chooses to do is determined just by the strength of the desires that
he happens to have. There is no unity underlying his manifold lifestyle,
because there is no longer sufŽ cient reasoning power to provide it.[32]
Clare College, Cambridge
References Adam, J. (1963) The Republic of Plato. 2 vols. 2nd. edn.
Cambridge
Annas, J. (1981) An Introduction to PlatoÕs Republic.
Oxford
Cooper, J.
M. (1984) ÔPlatoÕs theory of human motivationÕ, History of Philosophy Quarterly 1: 3-21
—— ed. (1997) Plato, Complete Works. Indianapolis
Cross, R. C. & Woozley,
A. D. (1964) PlatoÕs Republic. London
Frede, D. (1996) ÔPlato,
Popper, and historicismÕ, Proceedings of
the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 12: 247-76 Irwin, T.
(1977) PlatoÕs Moral Theory. Oxford
—— (1995) PlatoÕs Ethics. Oxford
Lee, E. N.,
Mourelatos, A. D. P. & Rorty, R. M. eds. (1973) Exegesis and Argument. Phronesis Suppl. I
Kraut, R.
(1973) ÔReason and justice in PlatoÕs RepublicÕ,
in Lee, Mourelatos & Rorty eds. (1973) 207-24
Reeve, C. D. C. (1988) Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of PlatoÕs
Republic. Princeton
Penner, T. (1971) ÔThought
and desire in PlatoÕ, in Vlastos ed. (1971) 96-118
Scott, D.
(1999) ÔPlatonic pessimism and moral educationÕ, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 17: 15-36
Sorabji, R.
(1993) Animal Minds and Human Morals: the
Origins of the Western Debate. Cornell
Vlastos, G., ed. (1971) Plato. Vol. II. New York
White, N. (1979) A Companion to PlatoÕs Republic. Oxford
[1] Sometimes the
oligarchÕs goal appears to be the maximisation of wealth, at others the
satisfaction of necessary desire. I take it that Plato means to explain the
former in terms of the latter: wealth provides the security against being
unable to satisfy necessary desires.
[2] 571b4-572b8. The
examples of actions corresponding to lawless desires include bestialism and
incest.
[3] 561b3-5.
Translations of the Republic are by
G. M. A. Grube, rev. C. D. C. Reeve in Cooper (1997).
[4] True, in itting
between his different pursuits he is said to be giving in to any ¤piyumÛa that
arises (561c7), and this is the word that Plato sometimes uses to refer to the
desires of the appetitive part (cf. 439d7). But each part of the soul has its
own desires, and the word ¤piyumÛa can be used broadly to refer to all such
desires in general (cf. 580d8).
[5] For a robust
statement of the claim that the democratÕs desires are all appetites, see
Cooper (1984) 9 with n. 13. White (1979) 216 attributes to him desires of all
three kinds. Reeve (1988) seems to join White by saying that the democrat is
not always ruled by the appetitive (156-7; cf. 47), although elsewhere (257) he
describes the democratic psyche as Ôruled by nonlawless unnecessary appetitesÕ.
[6] Cooper (1984) 11-12
attempts to see his dabbling in philosophy as the satisfaction of an appetite.
[7]
See e.g. 436a10-b1, 439d1-8 & 580d11-581a1.
[8] 495c8-496a10, for
instance, alludes to people who dabble in what they take to be philosophy. I
agree with Cooper (1984) 5-6 that for Plato the desire to know is present in
everyone to some extent and in some form.
[9] See 438a1ff. with
Adam (1963) I 250-1 & White (1979) 124-5.
[10] 441c1-2 & 442c5-8.
[11] It has been
proposed that the issue of whether a desire is based on the good is the
underlying rationale for the tripartite distinction. See Irwin (1977) 192-3 &
(1995)
[12]
This is clear from a later passage, in which his son is said to repudiate what
his father would regard as virtues (560d2-6). Predictably, these include
temperance and moderation.
[13] See e.g.
443c9-444a2, esp. 443e1 & 520a3-4.
[14] Cf. 561d5 with
554c1 & d2.
[15]
Cf. 561d5- e 2.
[16] This claim, that
the democratic man embodies all sorts of characters, goes well beyond saying
that he fulŽ lls all sorts of desires. Taken literally, it implies that the
democratic man veers between one character and another (timocratic, for
instance, then oligarchic), as if he were the victim of a multiple personality
disorder. I assume this part of PlatoÕs description is a joke: such radical ux
is incoherent on his view of character as something developed over the
long-term. The point is rather that the democrat, in itting between his
desires, mimics the other characters. Plato makes an analogous exaggeration in
saying that the democratic state is full not just of different types of
citizens, but also of constitutions (557d8).
Again, we should not take him mean the democratic state is literally an
oligarchy one day, a timocracy the next.
[17] See Annas (1981)
302.
[18] When it comes to
diagnosing the democrat, Plato focuses primarily upon his internal state rather
than on the kinds of action he performs. This is to be expected from 443c9ff.
Nevertheless, although it is the oligarch who is accused of such things as
abusing orphans (554c7-9), there is nothing to rule out something similar with
the democrat; he would just do so more erratically.
[19]
This question could be asked of any of the four deviant characters, all of whom
are presented as undergoing the personal analogue of a political revolution and
as making a global change to their life-styles. Despite the importance of the
issue, it is not often discussed. One exception is Irwin (1994) esp. 286 who
argues that reasoning about ends is heavily involved in the lives and attitudes
of all four characters.
[20]
As I am interested in the oligarchÕs in uence on his son, I shall focus not
upon his own transformation from timocracy, but on the activity and strength of
his rational part once he is settled into the oligarchic character.
[21] Kraut (1973) 212-3
discusses this passage, and takes it to show merely that appetite has taken
what he calls Ônormative controlÕ over reason, i.e. that the oligarch prefers
wealth above all else. But Plato is saying more than this: he is talking about
what reason is allowed to reason about, not just what the person values.
[22] Flattering the
appetitive part is said to be typical of a weak rational part at 590c3-6.
[24] I am grateful to
John Cooper for clarifying this point for me.
[25] For the suggestion
that there can be value judgements in the appetitive part, see Rep. 442c10-d1 & Phaedr. 255e4-256a1 with Sorabji (1993)
10-11.
[26] In saying that the
oligarch does not persuade himself with reason, I am only talking of reasoning
about ends. In assessing the Ž nancial risks of yielding to unnecessary
desires, he will of course use instrumental reasoning. I also assume that
instrumental reasoning would play an important role in his attempts to warn his
son away from licentiousness (559e9-10).
[27] See, for instance,
558b1-c1 & 591a1. This, of course, is the thesis behind so many of PlatoÕs
proposals for moral education.
[28]
On this compare Aristotle N.E. 1146a31-4.
[29] Irwin (1994) 287,
in defending the rational interpretation, admits to having difŽ culties with
the analogy: Ô. . . one aspect of the political analogy has to be modiŽ ed . .
.Õ. This concession is somewhat understated: there is a radical difference
between PlatoÕs use of the analogy and IrwinÕs ÔmodiŽ cationÕ which
reintroduces reason at each stage as a transitional authority.
[30] The phenomenon of
non-rational belief formation has already featured in the Republic and re-appeared more than once. At 412b8ff., Socrates
addresses the problem of ensuring that the trainee guardians retain the beliefs
inculcated into them by their education. This leads on to a discussion of the
ways in which beliefs can be changed. One of these is that someone can be
forced to relinquish a belief out of pain
[31]
In allowing for this type of evaluation at the global level, we should also
think of the democratÕs individual or ÔlocalÕ desires. In section 2, I said
that none of these are derived from independently conceived evaluations. This
does not exclude the possibility that his desires are accompanied by some form of evaluation. He may conceive of
something as good merely from taking pleasure in it. In this way, each of his
desires might seem good to him, each as good as any other. (This is perhaps
suggested by 561c4.) Nevertheless, if value-judgements do accompany his desires
in this way, it is crucial to remember that they are not the source of his
desires, but their products.
[32] Earlier versions
of this paper were given to the Philosophy Departments of Pittsburgh and
Trinity College Dublin, and to the 1998 Princeton Colloquium in Ancient
Philosophy. I would like to thank all those who made comments and especially
John Cooper,
Vasilis Politis, Christopher Rowe, Susan SuavŽ Meyer and my
commentator at the Princeton Colloquium, Rosslyn Weiss. I am also grateful for
the support of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington D.C.
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