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1 results

  • Chapter 4 - Plato and the dairy-maids: the distribution of happiness inside and outside the ideal city of the Republic

  • from Part I - The Republic
  • Myles Burnyeat, All Souls College, Oxford
  • Prepared for publication by Carol Atack, Newnham College, Cambridge, Malcolm Schofield, University of Cambridge, David Sedley, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy
    Published online:
    24 March 2022
    Print publication:
    31 March 2022, pp 96-118

  • Summary

    Does Plato in the Republic restrict to philosophers alone the possibility of achieving happiness in this life and the next? It is often thought so. But if that were the case, the dialogue would fail on its own terms, in its task of persuading the interlocutors Glaucon and Adeimantus that they should cultivate justice, not (as Thrasymachus argues) injustice. They are not philosophers, nor envisaged as likely to achieve the level of rational understanding that is the precondition of happiness. In truth, however, there is plentiful, if scattered, evidence that an approximation to perfect happiness is available for various categories of people figuring in the Republic who have not attained what the dialogue counts as knowledge, ranging from Socrates himself, to trainee philosophers and warriors, to farmers and craftsmen. The requirement to be satisfied is the habit of respect for the law, not from fear of its punitive powers, but internalised as the way to lead a life of justice.