The just city in Plato's Republic
On the 8th of April, at the course titled “The just city in Plato’s Republic”, with Damian Caluori’s careful guidance, the Lazar Justice team had the opportunity to explore one of the most important, ancient takes on the definition of justice.
Together, they observed that the main reason societies are formed is that humans aren’t self-sufficient and therefore need to collaborate in order to survive, which is exactly how cities came to be. Then, the course created a parallel between a civilized city and Plato’s just city by highlighting that, in a civilized city, desire is unlimited, which brings along the need for guardians that shall defend the city as a primary role because “desire naturally leads to war”. What does that mean? Students realized that keeping desire unlimited means that ultimately one would grow tired of the limits of the city and seek further beyond the border, thus initiating war with other cities in order to obtain and fulfill said longing. But in Plato’s just city, desire is limited and thus, the role of guardians shifts towards making sure that desire remains finite. That way just guardians are described as gentle to the insiders and fierce to outsiders. The guardian class that Plato established responsible is supposed to be made of auxiliaries and rulers, the latter being the ones to decide the best strategy to keep the balance of the city. Afterwards, the students talked about the four virtues of the city, first realising that these were justice, wisdom, courage and moderation, being put an accent on the limitation of desires in a just city. In this discussion, the four virtues were elaborated and they realised their importance. Then, the difference between justice and injustice was explained, as in the just city the thing that could be most considered as injustice would be not respecting the classes and meddling through them. What the students understood from this was the importance of each class in order for a just city to function properly.
As all the students learnt from this course, in Plato’s view a just city is one with limited desires, where each class does what should do and what is talented at, in order to properly function and for citizens to live a just life.
Text: Chrstina Horhocea&Maria Vasile