Multi-Dimensional Man

By Copy of Silanion, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7831217

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.[1] Even though The Republic was written by Plato 2,400 years ago, a modern reader will sympathise with the everyman notions of justice presented by Socrates’s interlocutors in Book I who believe that:

1) Justice is “to speak the truth and to pay your debts.”[2]

2) Justice is “giving to each man what is proper to him.”[3]

3) Justice serves the “interest of the stronger.”[4]

This essay will focus on the third idea of ‘might makes right,’ Socrates’s argument against it, and formulate an alternative response of the multi-dimensional man, which Socrates may find hard to resist.

 

The Interest of the Stronger

Thrasymachus, an interlocutor, posits that various types of government make different types of laws according to their interests. Law formalises the abstract notions of justice into a set of concrete rules, such that breaking the law is an act of an unjust person, which then merits punishment. Hence the fundamental principle of justice is whatever it is that serves the interest of the government. Since the government has power, justice is what serves those who have power, in other words, justice is what serves the interests of the stronger.[5]

Socrates points out a contradiction with Thrasymachus’s argument: since rulers are liable to make errors, they will also make laws against their interest. Cleitophon attempts to refine Thasymachus’s point by positing that what is meant as the interest of the stronger is what the stronger thinks is his interest. Thrasymachus rebuffs this since he believes that one who is mistaken is no longer the stronger:

Neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. […] the ruler, in so far as he is the ruler, is unerring.[6]

Socrates capitalises on Thrasymachus’s line of argument, asking whether a true physician is a healer of the sick or a maker of money. Thrasymachus concedes that he is a healer. Socrates then delivers an axiom:

Every art has an interest […] for which the art has to consider and provide […] [That interest] is the aim of art […] and the interest of any art is the perfection of it [...] For every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true […] they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject of their art.[7]

Hence, in so far as a physician is a true physician, he cares about the good of his patient and not his own good. In the same way, a true ruler is one that cares about his subjects and not himself.

Thrasymachus is not about to give Socrates the satisfaction of winning the argument over such technicalities, although he was the one who suggested the notion of the ideal or true professional in the first place. Thrasymachus responds with a counterexample: the shepherd fattens his sheep not for its sake but for his own; likewise, rulers take care of the subjects with the aim of serving themselves. Socrates falls back on his previous strategy: the shepherd qua shepherd cares for the good of his sheep. In that role, he is not a diner who wants to eat or a trader who wants to sell a fattened sheep.[8] At this juncture, Thrasymachus fails to come up with a reasonable response, yielding the initiative to Socrates who makes further arguments supporting his position of the noble nature of a true ruler.

The Multi-dimensional Man

One possible counter Thrasymachus could have adopted is that a real shepherd is a true shepherd but also a diner and a trader, that is, he is a multi-dimension person with multiple roles. A ruler is a ruler, but she may also be a mother, a daughter, a taxpayer and/or a philanthropist with her favourite causes. The biases such a multi-dimensional ruler brings to her rule are palpable. As a parent of a young child, the ruler may introduce new legislation to direct more funding towards childcare. As a daughter, she may use her influence to secure a good pension for her retired parents. As a taxpayer, she may keep tax rates low for her tax bracket. As a philanthropist who love animals, she may create policies favouring endangered species. While none of these measures are egregious abuses of power, they demonstrate that a multitude of roles may interfere with the true purpose of her specific role as ruler.

How can Socrates counter this line of argument? In addition to the true nature of each role as he has idealised them, he can overlay a hierarchy of roles, where the role of ruler supersedes the other roles of mother, daughter etc. Hence if there is a conflict of interest, the role of ruler will take precedence. While such a hierarchy clarifies how a real ruler should act and remains consistent with his argument on the true nature of each role, it does not guard against abuse. To address this, Socrates might propose a system of checks and balance as a constitutional guard against abuse, though such ideas are ultimately left to later thinkers like Montesquieu[9] to formulate. By recognising the fallibility of man and the multiple roles that a person inhabits, Socrates may have been able to convince Thrasymachus in a way he was unable to by his insistence on a perfection of each role that a person plays.

Conclusion

Plato’s idea expressed through Socrates is that each person in his role has an aim to fulfil in keeping with that role. However, he fails to recognise that each person plays multiple roles, which may have conflicting aims. Solutions include formulating a hierarchy of roles and a system of checks and balances.

Bibliography

Plato. The Republic, Book I. Accessed March 26, 2020. https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Plato/republic_book_one.pdf.

Legal Information Institute. “Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances.” Accessed March 26, 2020. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-1/separation-of-powers-and-checks-and-balances.

[1] The more things change, the more they stay the same. The phrase was originally coined by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.
[2] Plato, The Republic, Book I, 4, accessed March 26, 2020, https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Plato/republic_book_one.pdf.
[3] Ibid., 6.
[4] Ibid., 15.
[5] Ibid., 15–16.
[6] Ibid., 18.
[7] Ibid., 19–20.
[8] Ibid., 23.
[9] “Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances,” Legal Information Institute, accessed March 26, 2020, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-1/separation-of-powers-and-checks-and-balances.