Platonic Justice

September 22, 2003

 My friend Trent came by my apartment yesterday.  After exchanging pleasantries, he asked what I had been up to lately.  I explained to him that I was working through Plato’s Republic in my philosophy class, and that I had to write a short paper about the problems with being a tyrant and whether it would be better, at least for me, to be a tyrant or a philosopher king.  He told me that he would prefer to be a tyrant.

PETE:  Why would you want to be a tyrant?

TRENT:  A bunch of reasons. 

PETE:  Such as?

TRENT:  Money, power, the ability to enact my will over others.  I could do whatever I want, and no one could stop me.  Don’t get me wrong, though.  I wouldn’t be evil.

PETE:  So, you’d be a just tyrant?  I didn’t know such a thing existed.

TRENT:  At least it’s better than being a philosopher.

PETE:  How so?

TRENT:  Well, a philosopher would waste time thinking about stuff that doesn’t matter and making things up as he goes along.  A tyrant is concerned with his country.  A philosopher is just concerned with abstract ideas that have nothing to do with anything.

PETE:  But is a tyrant really concerned with just his country, or is he really concerned with how he can exploit it to benefit himself?

TRENT:  To benefit himself, obviously.  That’s what tyranny is.

PETE:  So, a tyrant is in it for selfish, unjust reasons, then?

TRENT:  Well, what is justice?  It’s too vague to hold any real meaning.  The way I see it, if I’m in charge, I can decide what justice is.

PETE:  According to you, maybe.  According to Plato’s Republic, justice is basically tending only to one’s own affairs.

TRENT:  That’s a stupid definition.  Justice is whatever the person in charge says is right.  As a ruler, I have to be concerned with the affairs of my people.

PETE:  First of all, justice is not whatever the ruling person or group says is right.  Plato established that 2,400 years ago.  Just now, you said that as a ruler, you will be concerned with the benefit of the people.  A couple minutes ago, though, you said that you’d be out to benefit yourself.  Which is it?

TRENT:  I think that I would be able to use my subjects to fulfill my desires while still helping the people.

PETE:  Example.

TRENT:  Suppose I run a country, and I set up businesses, like federally funded car dealerships or something.  The people would be able to work, and they’d get paid and there would be an economy.  Meanwhile, I’d take my tyrant’s share off the top.

PETE:  Like in Casino where the mob skimmed their share off the top of the casino’s income.

TRENT:  Yeah, only I’d make it work.

PETE:  How?  Dishonesty breeds dishonesty.  You saw what happened in the movie, and you know the movie’s based on real events, right?  If you’re going to have an embezzling scam, you have to expect your workers to try to exploit you.

TRENT:  Well, anyone who tries to exploit me will be removed from the society.

PETE:  And your subjects will be fine with this?

TRENT:  Well, if they aren’t, they get removed, too.

PETE:  Leaving you governing people who either worship you or are too afraid to say anything against you, until a scrappy group of rebels rise up and destroy your Death Star, so to speak.

TRENT:  I’d take precautions.

PETE:  Like what?

TRENT:  Like bodyguards, soldiers, people to protect me wherever I go.

PETE:  And you can trust these people with your life?  Anyway, wouldn’t you want some privacy?

TRENT:  Well, I’d have to make some sacrifices.

PETE:  Obviously, but don’t you think it’s a bit much having to be surrounded by underlings you can’t fully trust, confining yourself to your inner sanctum, and ruling your subjects through fear, while you live in fear for your own life every waking hour, hoping that some ragtag group of enemies doesn’t take you out in the middle of the night or have one of their spies infiltrate your personal guard squad and poison your food or something?  I mean, think about it.  You can say and do whatever you want, but the precautions you’ll have to take are staggering, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work.  You’d be performing an injustice to your subjects who already hate you for interfering with their lives and exploiting them for your own personal gain.  Furthermore, you’d be doing an injustice to yourself by putting so many restrictions on what you can and cannot do.  You’d be conflicted.  You will want to be able to go out and be heralded by your subjects, but you know they all hate you.

TRENT:  They would worship me!

PETE:  Out of fear!  They would still hate you, and eventually you would be overthrown, stabbed in the back by your own general, or removed by a foreign military force.

TRENT:  Well, it’s still better than being a philosopher.

PETE:  How do you figure?

TRENT:  Philosophers don’t do anything.  At least a tyrant would get things done.

PETE:  First of all, you have a very limited understanding of philosophy.  It seems your only exposure to it is through two of the laziest people you know.  There’s more to philosophy than just thinking about inconsequential theories concerning the nature of the universe.  Look at Aristotle.  He was one of Alexander the Great’s most trusted advisors.

TRENT:  And where did you learn this, the Internet?

PETE:  No, I’m a philosophy major.  I learned it in at least one of my numerous classes.  Anyway, if all philosophers did was think about inconsequential garbage all day, why do we still remember people like Socrates, Lao Tzu, Descartes, or Nietzsche?  They all contributed to society and challenged our ways of thinking.  Suppose I’m a philosopher king.  It’s my job to govern in such a way as to benefit the people as much as is possible.  As a professional thinker, I am able to logically deduce what is best for my subjects, as well as for myself, and the beauty of the whole thing is since my interests are directly in line with those of my people, everything I do for my people benefits me as well.

TRENT:  How?

PETE:  Suppose, for the sake of consistency, like you, I opened a federally funded car dealership.  My people would sell cars.  The money from the cars would go back into the car business and back to the people.   There wouldn’t be any skimming off the top for myself.  I’m doing what’s in the best interests of my people.  Since it is in their best interests to be ruled fairly and justly by a philosopher king, I would take a small portion of the dealership’s profits for myself so that I can survive and keep doing my job. 

TRENT:  How is that different from skimming?  Anyway, what’s to prevent you from turning into a tyrant?

PETE:  It differs from skimming in its purpose.  You take the money so you can lead a rich and extravagant lifestyle.  I take only what I need so I can lead my people to prosperity.  In a sense, my wage goes back to my people through my leadership.  As a philosopher king and using Plato’s definition of justice, my interests would lie with my people.  If they failed to supply me with what I need to survive, I will fail to lead them.  Quid pro quo, Clarice.  I depend on them, and they depend on me.  As soon as I start showing tyrannical attributes, I get financially cut off.

TRENT:  Why did you call me Clarice?

PETE:  It’s from Silence of the Lambs, but that’s not the point.  You choose anarchy because you want to exert your will upon others.  Ultimately, that will fail, as I’ve shown.

TRENT:  As you’ve tried to show.  You haven’t really proved anything.

PETE:  I’m already on page 5 of a 4-page paper.  I don’t have much room to go into great depth about anything.  Hopefully my instructor will take into consideration the fact that I opted to write in dialogue form, which tends to take up more space.  Anyway, I think I illustrated my point about tyranny enough, at least for our purposes.

TRENT:  Ok.

PETE:  The other option for the assignment was philosopher king, and I believe I’ve satisfactorily established it to be the better of the two, especially as far as justice is concerned.

TRENT:  All right, whatever.  When is this assignment due, anyway?

PETE:  Thursday.  Incidentally, is it ok if I use this conversation for my paper?

TRENT:  No.