Plato was one of the first philosophers of a new era, where it became popular amongst a distinct group of individuals to think for themselves and create their own theories regarding the reasoning behind the world around us. This mindset would lead to Plato coming up with a lifetime of theories and ideas, in this essay I will be discussing a few within the topic of morality and politics.
Plato had many ideas and theories but probably one of the more well-known ones was his allegory of the cave, the idea of this theory is that a few men are chained up within a cave for their entire life, and all that they have ever seen of the world is shadows moving in front of them due to a fire being lit behind them that casts shadows onto the walls. One prisoner escapes, and witnesses the outside world for the first time and is in awe at what he has seen. In his excitement, he returns to his fellow men who still remain chained up in the cave and explains to them what he had witnessed. They don’t react in a positive manner, however, and believe that the outside world has made the freed prisoner insane as they choose to continue to believe all they have ever known.
This story is to show that Plato himself felt like the freed prisoner, amongst a society of lesser people intellectually than himself, who all choose to be content within their ignorant mindsets. The Allegory of the Cave is a political sided opinion coming from Plato as it deals with societal issues and the mindset of people who have been almost brainwashed into believing to follow the general curb of what is believed to be fact.
Further points of this come from other people’s interpretations “Likewise, we may acquire concepts by our perceptual experience of physical objects. But we would be mistaken if we thought that the concepts we grasp were on the same level as the things we believe” Marc Cohen. S. (2006) Allegory of the Cave.
Throughout his lifetime Plato came up with many theories which would help us understand where he leaned on the moral scale, as well as him showing why others were as moral or immoral as they are. Probably the biggest example of Plato trying to explain the morality and immorality of others is with the Ring of Gyges, a story where a man named Gyges finds a ring that turns him invisible, and he has to decide between many immoral and moral choices now that he knows he can get away with them, such as murder or stealing large amounts of money from an expensive party that he sneaks into which is filled with very wealthy people. Or, as interpreted by others, maybe the reason Gyges has such a conflicted opinion on whether to commit good deeds and bad deeds is that if he were to commit good deeds when invisible, nobody would be able to give him credit, so if nobody would hold him accountable for his good deeds, then why should they with his bad deeds? Morrissey. C (2016). Plato’s Ring of Gyges: Power & the Divided Self. With the general public, we would all commit immoral deeds, but what deters us from committing them is the idea that we know we will be caught, which leads us to believe, would we all commit murder, theft, or would we spy on our most idolised celebrities as long as we knew they would never found out or if we knew we would never be caught? This ring analogy shows us that Plato was trying to convey whether morality is a human trait indoctrinated within our conscious or whether we are all immoral but just don’t have the capabilities of getting away with it.
Another thought of Plato’s would come within the theory of Forms. The idea that as humans, our souls are all connected to this perfect realm that has the ideal form of everything we could have ever known, a bit like heaven, but not? The reason, we as humans know what “perfection” in every category looks like in our heads in many categories such as beauty, athleticism, or manufacturing despite it being impossible for us to ever have witnessed perfection in our world, shows that our connection to this perfect realm of perfect forms is where we draw our subconscious images of “perfection” from. This perfect real is also where our souls were before we were born and it will be where our souls go once we die. This soul is what makes us human, and it will be our ever-lasting being that will live on beyond our body, which is just a casing to withhold the soul during our lifetime. This is Plato’s opinion regarding forms and why we as humans have all opinions on what is “moral” or “perfect” despite it being impossible for anybody or anything to ever be completely moral or perfect. People cannot be educated on Forms or thought the idea of the forms however, as this can only be recalled from the mind of each individual who is connected personally to this realm, not through teaching, as, perfection mentally cannot be taught. Macintosh. D. (2012) Plato: A theory of Forms | Issue 90 | Philosophy Now.
Speaking of perfection, in terms of love and human relationships, Plato also had an opinion, regarding platonic love, which means a deep, loving relationship with another person which involves no sexual contact. Plato felt this form of relationship or bond with another person is the deepest form of love or relationship you could create with somebody. This shows his morality scale in relationships as he feels an emotional connection with somebody is a lot more important than a physical attraction to that person.
Plato had a self envisaged idea of a Utopian society, the ideal world in which it would upon his moral ideas and political ideas. Plato believed women could rule and lead in this society, but that would have little bearing as Plato can be seen as slightly hypocritical at times considering he had compared women to children in terms of how they are mentally on a scale. Plato wanted this Utopia to be ruled by “philosopher kings”, he regarded himself and fellow philosophers to be somewhat higher on a spectrum mentally than people within the general population, which I guess could make Plato come across as somewhat of an elitist. “Plato thought mainly that his Utopian society should be ruled based on knowledge and ideas(which philosophers such as himself possessed) rather than actual power. Matassa. G. (2013) Plato’s Argument for Rule by Philosopher Kings.
Plato created the rules of which this society would be based upon, and a class system which would keep the entire society in uniform to their roles. He came up with the myth that everybody was born with their body composed of one of three metals, bronze, silver and gold. Bronze would be the people who were born and destined producers of society, such as merchants, blacksmiths, farmers etc… Silver would be the soldiers or noblemen who fought for the land and would represent the society’s army and lastly gold would represent the leaders or kings of Plato’s Utopian society, people such as himself, who were higher on the intellectual scale than the rest. Obviously, a class system such as this one suggested would never work as it would require incredible amounts of control over the society to stop people stepping outside of their assigned metal category. Plato wanted no music or theatre within his Utopian society, as he didn’t like the idea of people stepping out of uniform or expressing themselves artistically. “The Republic as a whole is a powerful dominance of philosophy. To that end, The Republic as a whole is a powerful integration of philosophy, religion, education and politics, and its argument for the political suppression of most art follows from that integrated system” Hicks. S. (2012) Plato On Censoring Artists – A Summary. This level of immense control of society would create a toxic atmosphere and would also doom it to fail, such as any dictatorship would. This idea of Plato’s perfect society shows where Plato himself leaned politically in terms of how he himself would want things ran if he had his way with it.
In conclusion, Plato had many differentiating opinions regarding his moral and political philosophies. Despite his rare hypocritical views, Plato was a man of many views and paved the way for his views and ideas to be re-interpreted into many of the areas of society we see today.
Reference List
– Marc Cohen. S. (2006) Allegory of the Cave. Available at: https://facultywashington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm (Accessed: 10th of October 2018)
– Morrissey. C (2016). Plato’s Ring of Gyges: Power & the Divided Self. Available at: www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/04/platos-ring-of-gyges-power-divided-self.html (Accessed: 10th of October 2018).
– Matassa. G. (2013) Plato’s Argument for Rule by Philosopher Kings. Available at: https://www.e-ir.info/2013/04/17/should-philosophers-rule/ (Accessed: 10th of October 2018)
– Macintosh. D. (2012) Plato: A theory of Forms | Issue 90 | Philsophy Now. Available at: https://philosophynow.org/issues/90/Plato_A_Theory_of_Forms (Accessed: 10th of October 2018)
– Hicks. S. (2012) Plato On Censoring Artists – A Summary. Available at: www.stephenhicks.org/2012/01/21/plato-on-censoring-artists-a-summary/ (Accessed: 10th of October 2018).
Nathan Brennan 