Notes on Plato's Five Types of Government:
Since organization of a society is more complex than Plato's descriptions of the forms of government, we should interpret his account as a description of general types and tendencies rather than as an exact description of the entire structural organization of any existing society.
2) Plato's account of the origin of various types of government should be taken as a reasoned projection of degeneration, for which there might well be some historical support. It should not be taken as an actual historical account of what has happened, since he never claims that the ideal state ever existed in the first place.
3) For the wealthy person, the democratic person, and also the tyrant, appetite turns out to be the dominant psychic agency, although in different ways. Aside from the appetite for wealth, the wealthy person's miserliness tends to curb unnecessary appetites such as lust and luxurious living, at least during the early stages of an oligarchy. The democratic person exhibits less control over the appetites but is still not wholly dissolute. The latter state, where none or little self‑control over the appetites is evident, is reserved for the tyrant.
4) The strongest possible opposition is found between the ideal state and tyranny, as shown in the personal qualities attributed to the philosopher‑ruler and the tyrant and in the basis for organization of the two types of government. If we take the opposition seriously, then we should conclude that people in the ideal state are, in some sense, the most free, because people in a tyranny are the most enslaved.
In democracy, the absence of self‑control produces twisted judgments. So the inability to make discriminating judgments between better and worse becomes "tolerance;" insolence becomes "good breeding;" anarchy becomes "freedom;" wastefulness becomes "munificence;" and shamelessness becomes "courage." The result is a life directed according to whatever whim captures one's fancy at a particular time. Plato says,
In his life thenceforward he spends as much time and pains and money on his superfluous pleasures as on the necessary ones. If he is lucky enough not to be carried beyond all bounds, the tumult may begin to subside as he grows older. Then perhaps he may recall some of the banished virtues and cease to give himself up entirely to the passions which ousted them; and now he will set all his pleasures on a footing of equality, denying to none its equal rights and maintenance, and allowing each in turn, as it presents itself, to succeed, as if by the chance of the lot, to the government of his soul until it is satisfied. When he is told that some pleasures should be sought and valued as arising from desires of a higher order, others chastised and enslaved because the desires are base, he will shut the gates of the citadel against the messengers of truth, shaking his head and declaring that one appetite is good as another and all must have their equal rights. So he spends his days indulging the pleasure of the moment, now intoxicated with wine and music, and then taking to a spare diet and drinking nothing but water; one day in hard training, the next doing nothing at all, the third apparently immersed in study. Every now and then he takes part in politics, leaping to his feet to say or do whatever comes into his head. Or he will set out to rival someone he admires, a soldier it may be, or, if the fancy takes him, a man of business. His life is subject to no order or restraint, and he has no wish to change an existence which he calls pleasant, free, and happy. (Republic, 561a-d, Cornford translation)
This spirit of anarchy affects everyone:
. . . the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic [resident alien] is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger [from abroad] is quite as good as either.
Yes, he said, that is the way.
. . . In such a state of society the master [teacher] fears and flatters his scholars [pupils], and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and the old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young.
Quite true, he said.
The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. (Republic, 562e-563b, Jowett translation)
Although democracy falls far short of the ideal state, we should remember that timocracy and oligarchy are not much better and tyranny is worse. Also, Plato grants that there is an attractive variety of individuals and lifestyles in a democracy. Moreover, because of this variety, we encounter “samples” of all the other types of government and character within a democracy. So we are likely to encounter persons very similar to the tyrant, the oligarch, the timocrat, and even the philosopher‑ruler―although the democrat is still the foremost representative person.
Since Plato thinks of the individual and society as existing in an organic unity, the conditions of one are essentially related to the other. Thus, for example, when oligarchy triumphs, the oligarchic character is soon evident in the foremost representative persons; and when the foremost representative persons exhibit an oligarchic character, the triumph of oligarchy is pretty well assured. Because of this essential relationship between the character of persons and states, Plato stresses the importance of environmental conditions in a society. Wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice are not likely to thrive in an environment where an appetite for wealth or for an indiscriminate freedom and equality or for lust are dominant. Hence, in an ideal state, Plato insists upon rigid control over the educational, cultural, and religious influences upon people.
Why Justice Is Better Than Injustice
Before turning away from Plato's political thought, we still have to deal with one more issue raised initially in the Republic, namely, why justice is better than injustice. At first, this issue may seem rather silly, since we ordinarily presume that justice is better. Early in the Republic however, this presumption is seriously challenged.
It is alleged that: (1) people actually prefer injustice but they accept justice out of fear, either the fear of being the victim of someone else's injustice or the fear of being caught in acts of injustice; (2) people do not view justice as good in itself but merely as a tool for assuring social respectability; (3) people view a just life as “difficult and irksome, whereas vice and injustice are pleasant and very easily to be had;”3 (4) they show respect for, and regard as happy, the unjust person who becomes wealthy and powerful; and finally, (5) they think that the unjust person has more resources with which to appease the gods. Moreover, given these allegations and the expectation that an unjust person benefits more in mutual transactions with just persons, it seems that the ideal life consists in living unjustly while giving the appearance of being just.
This is no trivial assault on justice; and Plato does not marshal his refutations until the latter stages of the Republic after he has considered the ideal state, human nature, the training of philosopher‑rulers, the nature of true knowledge, and the different types of government.
Plato proceeds by trying to show that an unjust life is the source of the greatest unhappiness. The most unjust person, namely, the tyrant, is also the unhappiest:
Is not that a picture of the prison to which the despot is confined? His nature is such as we have described, infested with all manner of fears and lusts . . . . You spoke just now of the despotic character, ill governed in his own soul, as the most miserable of men; but these disadvantages I have mentioned add to his wretchedness when he is driven by ill luck out of his private station to become an actual despot and undertake to rule others when he is not his own master. You might as well force a paralytic to leave the sheltered life of an invalid and spend his days in fighting or in trials of physical strength. Quite true, Socrates; that is a fair comparison.
He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions, and distractions, even as the State which he resembles; and surely the resemblance holds?
Very true, he said.
Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself. (Republic, 379d-380a, Jowett translation)
It follows that the opposite of the tyrant, namely, the philosopher‑ruler is the most just and also the happiest person.
Moreover, the judgment of what constitutes the happiest life should be made by the most qualified person; and this happens to be the philosopher, the wisest person by reason of training and ability, who judges the just life to be happier than an unjust one.
Finally, the tyrant, overcome by appetites and not directed by reason, is furthest removed from the knowledge of the Forms that constitute the truest and greatest pleasure attainable in life. Plato concludes his case by asserting that injustice can only make a person worse, because it is a triumph of appetite over reason. The worst part of us rules the best part. And anything that makes us worse can neither be good‑in‑itself nor profitable to us.
For those who find his arguments weak and unconvincing, Plato would issue a reminder: the superiority of justice to injustice requires prior knowledge of all those other issues that take up the discussion in the Republic.
In contrast with Plato who interweaves the issue of justice with a grand design for the integration of knowledge, the individual, and society, Aristotle takes a typically more particular, more mundane approach to the issue. This is not to say that Aristotle regards justice as being unimportant for, in some sense, justice is the most complete among the virtues. Moreover, “justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society” (Politics, 1253a37-39)— at least in any political society organized to serve the common interest. But Aristotle does not locate justice within the grand design of Plato's ideal state. For example, Plato's identification of the rulers' happiness with the best interests of the state is contrary to a human being's natural inclination toward self-interest, according to Aristotle; and the attempt to suppress or deny this natural inclination very likely leads to a lessening in interest or commitment by a person. Aristotle thinks that political society must rest on some common or “middle” ground between excessive self--interest, that is, selfishness, and excessive unity or harmony based upon the sharing of everything for the good of the whole.
Justice as Fairness and Lawfulness
Aristotle associates justice with “fairness” and “lawfulness,” with fairness being the more basic term. What is fair is always lawful; but what is lawful is not always fair. For example, a law may be stated so generally that it leads to unfair treatment in a particular set of circumstances―in which case, hopefully, an equitable person steps in to rectify the injustice.
Consider this case: As generally stated, a law guarantees persons the right to transfer their estate after their deaths through a legally constituted will: it happens, however, that a particular person, through a family misunderstanding, wills an entire estate to one favored child; although the transfer of the estate is lawful, it may well be unfair—in which case, hopefully, the favored child is an equitable person who shares the estate voluntarily with the other children.
The association of justice with lawfulness may seem highly questionable to those who have witnessed the legal excesses of a state such as Nazi Germany. We should remember however that Aristotle makes this association with the presumption that law must be the basis for order in a political society and that service to the common interest can be its underlying principle of organization. From this standpoint, the lesson of Nazi Germany is the need to establish a society serving the common interest rather than a dissociation of justice from lawfulness.
Given that the just is the lawful and fair, it applies to three spheres—the distribution of honors and material goods in a society, judgments in civil and criminal cases, and exchange in business transactions.
Distributive justice requires that honors, material goods, or any other limited resources in a society be distributed proportionately according to merit Its jurisdiction includes, for example, the distribution of political power, public offices, government services, tax burdens, wealth, and awards—although Aristotle grants that differences may well arise over what constitutes merit.
Remedial justice requires that any unfair inequality in transactions among persons be restored to a state of equilibrium. Depending upon circumstances, the transactions can be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary transactions include sales, loans, puchases, deposits of money or securities, rentals, and hiring. Deceit, for example, in these transactions would require restoration of equilibrium. Involuntary transactions may be done secretly or violently. Secret actions include, for example, theft, adultery, poisoning, bearing false witness behind someone's back. Violent actions include, for example, assault, imprisonment, murder, violent robbery, public defamation or character-smearing.
