Moral Political City
Uploaded by Admin on Dec 12, 1999
Plato and John Rawls give to us an account of a moral community in which they both presupposed different views of the human person as order to such community. In this paper, I will attempt to examine what this moral political community is according to Plato and John Rawls. My thesis will support Plato's idea of moral political community which is better than John Rawls because it presents a community with order and a concern for the well being of all not just one. According to Plato in the words of Socrates, " I assume that if a community has been found properly, it has everything it takes to be good." The keywords from this phrase being "found properly" and "has everything to be good." In what follows I will defend this claim: first, by explaining briefly some divisions Socrates made in order to form the moral community; then, I will present the modern viewpoint of a moral political city by John Rawls; Finally, I will comparing these two points of view, and I will show that even though John Rawls view point seems to be more pleasant to many people in today's society, Plato's view point is a better choice for a community to choose.
In the Republic, in which Plato describes the meeting of Socrates and others to discuss the ideal community, Socrates first provided us with a class of farmers and worker to meet the basic needs of the community. He says "one member must be a farmer, another a builder, and another a weaver." After providing people with the basic needs, Socrates provides another class, the guardians, to protect the city's goods. Socrates says, "We need an army to go out and defend all the community's property and all the people." This army Socrates named the guardians. Next, Socrates makes a division out of the class of the guardians to be auxiliaries who will act as the militia, and other to be the guardians proper who will look over the welfare of all the community. Socrates says, "Shouldn't we decide which members of this particular class will be the rulers and which will be the subject." After making these distinctions Socrates, then, makes a story in order for the people to understand why a city is formed in a manner that it needs guardians, auxiliaries, and workers. Socrates says,
"Although all of you citizens are brothers...