They must reject any radical innovation | Plato's Republic, Book IV

Virtue, according to Socrates, is found in balance. It is the ‘health, beauty, and vigour in the soul,’ while vice is ‘disease, ugliness, and weakness’ (444e).

Today, we continue our read-along of Plato’s Republic, the latest installment in our philosophical read-alongs. (And don’t worry: I’m already thinking about the 2026 books.)

Here’s the schedule:

• March 31: Book I

• April 7: Book II

• April 14: Book III

• April 21: Reading Week

• April 28: Book IV

• May 5: Book V

• May 8: Members-Only Zoom Call, 3PM Eastern

• May 12: Book VI

• May 18: Members-Only Zoom Call, 8PM Eastern

• May 19: Book VII

• May 26: Reading Week

• June 2: Book VIII

• June 9: Book IX

• June 16: Book X

• June 22: Members-Only Zoom Call, 8PM Eastern

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Virtue, according to Socrates, is found in balance. It is the ‘health, beauty, and vigour in the soul,’ while vice is ‘disease, ugliness, and weakness’ (444e). This remark comes near the end of Book IV of Plato’s Republic, after Socrates has dealt – at length – with the objection that the guardians of the city would not be happy given the lives Socrates’ has laid out for them.

You can refresh yourself on the guardians in the last post:

The guardians live incredibly strict lives, remember, and even the stories they are told are regulated. Adeimantus points out that while the city belongs to them, ‘they derive no benefit from it’ (419). Other inhabitants of the city are able to:

• Acquire land, build beautiful houses, and collect furniture

• Make their own sacrifices to the gods

• Entertain foreign visitors

• Own things like gold and silver (‘everything which is regarded as necessary for people whoa re going to be happy’, Adeimantus says).

In contrast, it is as if the guardians of the city are mere bodyguards. Historically, this is not how a ruling class likes to view itself — maybe there is some sense of noblesse oblige, but there needs to be some material benefit to taking on the hard work of ruling. No amount of strict conditioning – brainwashing, in truth – could seem to produce a happy set of guardians if Socrates’ recommendations were followed.

But the happiness of the individual, or of any particular class, is not at issue, Socrates says. The guardians produce a happy city, and that is what is important. Further, if we were to give the guardians the wrong sort of life, they would cease to be guardians. As he puts it: ‘You mustn’t start forcing us to give the guardians the kind of happiness which will turn them into anything other than guardians’ (420e). Each part of the composition must be given the right color so that the cohesive whole can be most beautiful. And the guardians are much more important than, say, cobblers, as they enable the proper functioning of the city (421a).

The same will be said of the soul later in Book IV. Virtue is to be found in the vigor, health, and beauty of the soul; if the soul is unable to function, then one is in a state of vice; for the soul to be vigorous, healthy, and beautiful, the various parts must work as they are appointed. ¹

The Passion for Wealth

The guardians look out for the rest of the city, ensuring that it can function properly. Since it turns out that both wealth and poverty will have an ill effect on craftsmen, the guardians must keep both from creeping into the city. ‘One produces luxury, idleness, and revolution, the other meanness of spirit and poor workmanship—and of course revolution as well’ (422a). The guardians will similarly constrain the size of the city; the city may increase so long as that increase does not compromise the city’s ability to be united (423b). As with wealth, the key is finding a healthy balance. Everything is to be ‘shared among friends’ (424a).

Of course, to maintain this, the people of the city must be friends. To ensure this, the guardians will control education. ‘They must reject any radical innovation in physical or musical education, preserving them as far as they can unchanged’ (424b). (The guardians are like dogs, remember, reacting with suspicion and violence toward the unfamiliar. ) The entertainment of the city must also be regulated to a more disciplined kind (424e).

It is a rather conservative picture: we won’t amend many laws, and we’ll defer to traditional religious authorities. We’ll view the new with suspicion and prefer the old and familiar. This may be a safe strategy — but at some point, we have to ask if the city is properly flourishing, or if it is simply subsisting, perhaps even stagnating.

Is this actually a city with vigor, health, and beauty?

Socrates believes that this city is wise, courageous, self-disciplined, and just, and Glaucon agrees (427e). It is wise because it has good judgment, which comes in part from it containing many types of knowledge, though the wisdom is primarily located in the knowledge of the guardians. Courage is found in the army. Self-discipline is found in its willingness to be ruled by the worthy. But where is justice?

Socrates tells us:

The principle we laid down right at the start, when we first founded our city, as something we must stick to throughout — this, I think, or some form of it, is justice. What we laid down – and often repeated, if you remember – was that each individual should follow, out of the occuptations avilable in the city, the one for which his natural character best fitted him…justice is this business of everyone performing his own task. (433a-b)

Now we are prepared to ask if this applies as well to individuals. Socrates’ argument is that since ‘just’ can apply to both men and cities, then justice for men and justice for cities must be the same thing. It’s worth asking if this is so easily proven.

1. It may be that we equivocate here. Since many of us don’t have a definite sense of what we mean by ‘justice’ when talking of individuals, it should not be too easily granted that we mean the same thing. (Univocity is not the default!)

2. It may be that we can speak very schematically or abstractly, but that in the details, there are significant divergences. Consider Aristotle’s theory of flourishing. In some sense, flourishing is the same for all species: it involves fulfilling an individual’s telos. But for different species, this flourishing looks rather different. The details matter here.

But let’s have that discussion in the comments. Next week, we’ll return to our starting issue: the preferability of justice over injustice.

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Here are some of my favorite comments from our discussion of Book III.

Wisdom and Inquiry writes:

I wonder if this ideal city of Plato's is an aspiration or a warning. Plato's argument has a very idealistic approach to shape his city's society. Looking realistically at human nature, I can't see how this approach would succeed. I wonder if this is hyperbole that is being staged so that it can be questioned and confronted.

Plato's city strictly regulates most everything-stories, music, education, personal relationships... Citizens are expected to live according to a carefully crafted ideology. Reality is complex and human nature abhors strict control. How can people flourish if many expressions are banned? What consequences will arise if many of the pleasures of life and relationships are suppressed?

Plato's "Noble Lie" is intended as a necessary choice for social cohesion. The idea is that rulers alone are permitted to lie for the good of society. This sets a dangerous precedent. Truth can becomes plastic, what happens to justice? Does it become changeable? Does this practice breed distrust and manipulation?

The guardians were compared to dogs, emphasizing their loyalty and aggression. Are the guardians individuals? Or with the removal of things like sexual pleasure, are then more like machines? They are denied autonomy, being stripped of wealth, ambition, family ties... Sexual encounters are for procreation. Is this truly necessary? And if so, is the cost of this utopia too high?

Maybe it is just a thought experiment that grapples with governance and idealism. Maybe it is a warning against utopian thinking and makes the flaws of political systems more apparent. I am unsure.

In some ways, I think W&I anticipated Adeimantus’ objection in Book IV: the guardians can’t be happy in the city. So the natural follow up, in light of today’s discussion, is: has Socrates adequately addressed the concern?

Going back to W&I’s first line: I wonder if this ideal city of Plato's is an aspiration or a warning. This does not exhaust all of the possibilities. It could be a parody; it could be more subtly ironic; it could be purposefully esoteric.

In addition to writing on music (it is worth going back and looking at the comments in full, David writes):

Finally, I think the point of having the guardians as ascetic philosopher-knights who only get subsistence and nothing more (so as not to use their strength and cunning to accrue wealth and property, to become scum of the earth landlords) is a good one and while some commenters here appear to be fixated on state censorship, there are points like this which provide upward checks across the city's social structure. The idea here, recalling that we are using the city as a way to get at finding justice in the individual, if we reduce it all into one person, is that your bronze & iron faculties, while vital to survival, should not govern your overall spiritual being; but rather your gold & silver - your discipline, your education, your spiritedness, your appreciation for beauty in the arts and in nature, your cultivated goodness, should.

The part I have emphasized is more relevant given today’s reading. But I think we need to be careful. Yes, we are using the city to find a theory of justice for the individual, but remember how we got here: we couldn’t define justice for the individual, so Socrates proposes we look at a city. The city is supposed to be the more intuitive, obvious case that we can then apply to the individual. However, the picture of a just city has been incredibly odd and in some ways ugly. That’s the troubling part of the text.

1. You might want to look back at our discussion of Aristotle’s definition of virtue.