Plato believed that man was not self-sufficient and that man would be most happy living in a State. Plato had specific ideas about an ideal society based on ideas of Socrates. Plato didn’t believe in equality between men. In order to create a perfectly just city each person must fulfill the role that he is best suited for and not the role that he may desire to fill in order. Based on four traditional Greek virtues (temperance, wisdom, courage and justice) Plato associates them with the class structure of the ideal state. Temperance is the unique virtue of the artisan class or ‘producers’; courage is the virtue peculiar to the military class, the ‘guardians’; and wisdom characterizes the rulers ‘the philosophers’. Justice characterizes society as a whole.
If each class will perform its own functions well without disobey with the other classes a human beings would be living a just state.
The parallels between the just society and the just individual are deeply interconnected.
Analogous to the three classes of a society, Plato claims that the soul of every individual consists a three parts: the intellectual, the emotional, and the appetites. Plato identifies the intellect with the Guardians, the spirit or emotions with the Auxiliaries, and the bodily appetites with the Producers. In a just individual, the rational part of the soul rules, the spirited part of the soul supports this rule, and the appetitive part of the soul submits and follows wherever reason leads. Put more plainly: in a just individual, the entire soul aims at fulfilling the desires of the rational part, much as in the just society the entire community aims at fulfilling whatever the rulers will. An individual may be said to be just when the bodily appetites and emotions are not only ruled over by the intellect, but do so willingly and without force.
Each part must function in moderation to contribute to the health of the whole. Desire must be inferior to reason, or else it will throw the...