Plato's Social Order

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Plato’s Social Order
Plato’s just social order is compromised of guardians, auxiliaries, and artisans, and this social order directly correlates to the classes in the city of wisdom-loving, victory-loving, and gain-loving in the city. Each specific class has a different virtue and make-up pertaining to its order. The city’s virtues of wisdom, courage, and moderation correspond analogously to the three virtues of the individual. According to Plato, the three parts of the soul are learning, spiritedness, and desiring, and these elements are embodied with a sense of righteousness in each man. This utopia that Plato envisions in the Republic is perfectly good and just. Additionally, justice influences all the virtues of the city, consisting of courage, wisdom, and moderation, and the parts of the soul. Every class of citizens is aware that the aim of the city is to have justice in the city as a whole, rather than just the happiness of the individual. The balance between justice in the individual and justice in the city allows for utilization of happiness. According to Plato, the individuals are perfectly just; and this utopia is intrinsically good, rather than an unjust city glorified by lies and indulgence of injustice. Through the city’s virtues of wisdom, courage, and moderation, justice prevails in each virtue to promote and secure a life of happiness for the individual.
The most important element of the social order is the class of guardians, who have the gift of learning in their soul, and the virtue of wisdom corresponding to their class. This class of wisdom-loving guardians possesses a preeminent kind of knowledge, counsel, and judgment in all areas of life. The virtue of wisdom suited for the guardians is represented by the words of Socrates in the Republic, “And this class, which properly has a share in that knowledge which alone among the various kinds of knowledge ought to be called wisdom, has, as it s...