Plato and Democracy

Plato and democracy
By: Nadya Selma Karamy

2014050182
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the
most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the
most extreme liberty. Plato.
Plato, born around 427 bc, was originally called Aristocles, later acquiring the
nickname Plato (broad) because of his muscular physique. Plato was born into an
aristocratic Athenian family, and he grew up during the Peloponnesian War. It is likely
that he served in the cavalry in various campaigns against Sparta. Disgusted by the
belligerent and self-destructive policies of his native city, he stayed out of politics and
spent most of his time and energy pursuing philosophy. He became Socrates' most
illustrious student. When Socrates was executed in 399, Plato left Athens.
When he returned to Athens around 388, he founded what was later described
as the first European university, the "Academy. For the rest of his long life Plato was
a teacher and administrator of this school, which quickly attracted a great number of
outstanding students and faculty.
Platos best known and most comprehensive work is the Republic, possibly
published around 377. The two political parties or social classes that vied for power
in classical Athens, as in most other Greek city states, were the oligarchs and the
democrats. The oligarchs tried to establish a state in which only owners of substantial
amounts of property could vote and hold public office, while the democrats insisted
that all male citizens have the same rights. "An oligarchy is said to be that in which
the few and the wealthy, and a democracy that in which the many and the poor are the
rulers," as Aristotle put it in his Politics.
Athens was a democracy throughout most of the 5th and the 4th century. Only
in 411 and 404 did oligarchs succeed in establishing a government where the few and
wealthy ruled over the many and mostly poor. Neither oligarchic regime lasted even
as long as a year. But tensions between oligarchs and democrats were always present
in Athenian politics. There was rarely a time when the democrats did not suspect the
oligarchs of conspiring against the democracy, or when the oligarchs did not fear
hostile encroachments on their privileges and wealth. Commenting on the ever present
antagonism between the two classes, Plato notes in the Republic that every city
consists really of "two cities that are at war with each other." in the end Plato could
not see himself living a private life of the mind; he felt that he had to make his
contribution to the construction of a rational and just society. Reason and justice, he
thought, could not be a matter of personal conduct alone; they had to become
attributes of society at large. Thats what he thought when he wrote Republic.
Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world
have the spirit and power of philosophy, cities will never have
rest from their evils, as Plato suggests in the Republic.
PLATOS ARGUMENT AGAINST DEMOCRACY

In his two similes, and his arguments about why philosophers should be rulers,
Plato makes a number of assumptions about the nature of politics.
First, he assumes that politics should be an attempt to bring about the common
good. For example, a ship has a purpose for its journey. This purpose, and so what is
good for the ship, is independent of the desires of the crew. Again, what an animal
wants does not tell us whether what it wants is good. Likewise, what is good for the
state as a whole is not determined by what people want.
Second, Plato thinks there can be knowledge about what this common good is
and how to bring it about the true navigator must study the art of navigation.
Likewise, rulers need to have knowledge of the Good in order to rule well.
Plato was really strict about his argument, why philosophers should be rulers.
Plato came up with a philosophy of the ship. He used a metaphor of the ship of a state
to explain why philosophers should be kings. Though he does not seek power, the
navigator is the only one who can steer a proper course- much as the philosophers is
the only one with knowledge to rule justly.
1.
the ship owner, who represents the general populace, has no knowledge of
seafaring.
2.
The sailors, who represents politicians, vie with each other for the ship
owners favor.
3.
The navigator, who represents the philosopher, is not involved in the
struggle for power.
Democracy is rule by ignorance, because politicians have no knowledge of
what is good for the state as a whole; and rule by ignorance will be bad for everyone.
Later in the Republic, Plato also argues that democracy is based on freedom of a
particular kind the freedom to do what you want. But if you dont know what is
good for you, then this kind of freedom is actually harmful (555b-558c). Politicians
who just do what they want harm the whole state. The idea of such a dictatorship of
reason has been criticized as follows: Even if one admits that expert knowledge is
necessary for the government of a commonwealth, and that most ordinary people do
not have a sufficient grasp of all the social, administrative, legal, and other relevant
details that go into running a government, people nevertheless need not relinquish
their right to appoint the officials of an administration, or to recall them, if the results
of their performance seem unsatisfactory. The owner of a ship may not know how to
navigate, but he or she still has the right to determine where the ship will go. Hired
expert navigators may be necessary to figure out the best means of getting to some
place, but the owners of the ship should still be able to determine the ends. Voters in a
democracy may not know all or even any of the technicalities of running a
government, but they surely can judge the results. What is essential for a democracy is
not that citizens be able to understand and do everything themselves, but that they be
able to determine the major outcomes and their over-all destiny as a community.
Turning the ship analogy against Plato in this way is a persuasive move, but it
ultimately does not take care of Plato's challenge. For if it is plausible to argue that
voters may be too uninformed to decide on the best means to reach a certain goal,
then it is also plausible to argue that they may not be informed enough to choose the
right ends. A serious lack of knowledge can manifest itself not only in the way a state
is run, but also in the choice of destinations. What can and has to be criticized is not
only a citizenry's possible ignorance of the measures that a government might take to
reach certain goals, but also their ideas and expectations about where their society
ought to go--what goals they want to reach as a commonwealth. The democratic
election of a leader who plans to replace a capitalist democracy with a fascist warfare
state, for example, is a case in point. Hitler, it is worth remembering, was elected by a
democratic vote, and it is surely not irrelevant to ask whether those who voted for him
did not suffer from an unacceptable degree of ignorance and lack of political
education.
The democratic decision to engage in a series of expansionist wars, as
sanctioned by the Athenian Assembly, is a similar case in point. What Plato witnessed
as a young man was not a lack of understanding of the technicalities of governing on
the part of the demos, but rather poor judgment in the choice of major goals. Major
political destinies can be judged in terms of wisdom, feasibility, logic, moral
responsibility, and other criteria that make the general intellectual competence of an
electorate a relevant and urgent issue. It is obviously not a foregone conclusion that
whatever the majority decides is also the bestor even acceptable. Both short-term
and long-term expectations and decisions of a democratic polity may be quite
thoughtless, ill-advised, stupid, illusory, dangerous, or outright insane. In spite of the
above critique of the ship analogy, in other words, Plato's challenge to the idea of
democracy stands.

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Plato and democracy

By: Nadya Selma Karamy

PLATOS ARGUMENT AGAINST DEMOCRACY

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