Why philosophers should rule

Humans by nature are flawed and hate crimes would happen anyways due to human ignorance and a lack of understanding. The desire for superiority over another without good reason and self interest is animalistic and visibly has animalistic outcomes. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account.

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Skip to content. In practical terms, his idea is very controversial and not feasible, but serves as a good illustration of the implications of rule by a chosen elite rather than by the people Plato believed there were three parts to a human soul and proposed that people would be divided into three classes, depending on which part of their soul is dominant.

Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Previous The impact of the TCK phenomenon: why study it? Next Interesting. In the Republic, Plato argued for rule by philosophers.

Here I imagine Glaucon being a little more argumentative …. Only philosophers who after long study have embraced the Form of the Good, know from it what is truly valuable in life and thus for society as a whole.

Philosophers would not desire power, preferring philosophy, and would rule better for this than those who sought it such as tyrants. Indeed philosophers would have no individual interests such as the love of money in the rulers of oligarchies. Having no love greater than that of philosophy, truth and the Good, they would act only in the interests of the whole community. This I would insure further in my ideal republic by proscribing private property and family relations within the philosopher class.

He does not think that philosophic knowledge is necessary for getting right the vast majority of judgments about actions open to assessment as virtuous or vicious. I argue that in the Protrepticus Aristotle accepts similar reasons for the rule of philosophers, but goes beyond the Republic and seems to suggest that philosophic knowledge is required for getting right ethical and political judgments in general.

I close by noting some connections with Aristotle's later views in the Eudemian Ethics, the Nicomachean Ethics, and the Politics. Footnotesa For comments on an earlier draft of this paper, I thank the other contributors to this volume, as well as Aditi Iyer and Rachana Kamtekar. Political Theory in Social and Political Philosophy. Edit this record.

Mark as duplicate. Find it on Scholar. Request removal from index. Revision history. Download options PhilArchive copy. From the Publisher via CrossRef no proxy journals. Configure custom resolver. For this reason his argument is not only unpersuasive but is also unrealistic.

Nichols, Mary P. Reeve, C. Tim Stanton Date written: December Before you download your free e-book, please consider donating to support open access publishing. E-IR is an independent non-profit publisher run by an all volunteer team. Your donations allow us to invest in new open access titles and pay our bandwidth bills to ensure we keep our existing titles free to view. Any amount, in any currency, is appreciated.

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