Plato Ethics

1. PLATO
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is
that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
~ Plato

2. Background
• Plato, (born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died
348/347, Athens), ancient Greek philosopher, student
of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher
of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), and founder of the
Academy, best known as the author of philosophical
works of unparalleled influence. He is one of the most
important figures of the Ancient Greek world and the
entire history of Western thought.

3. Background
• Plato was born around 428 B.C., during the final years
of the Golden Age of Pericles’ Athens. He was of
noble Athenian lineage on both sides. His father
Ariston died when Plato was a child. His mother
Perictione remarried the politician Pyrilampes.
• He was educated in philosophy, poetry and gymnastics
by distinguished Athenian teachers including the
philosopher Cratylus.

4. Background
• The young Plato became a devoted follower of
Socrates—indeed, he was one of the
youths Socrates was condemned for allegedly
corrupting.
• Following Socrates’ forced suicide, Plato spent 12 years
traveling in southern Italy, Sicily and Egypt, studying
with other philosophers including followers of the
mystic mathematician Pythagoras including Theodorus
of Cyrene (creator of the spiral of Theodorus or
Pythagorean spiral), Archytas of Tarentum and
Echecrates of Phlius. Plato’s time among the
Pythagoreans piqued his interest in mathematics.

5. Background
• Around 387, the 40-year-old Plato returned to Athens and
founded his philosophical school in the grove of the Greek
hero Academus, just outside the city walls. The Academy he
founded was by some accounts the world’s first university and
in it he trained his greatest student, the equally influential
philosopher Aristotle.
The Academy

6. Virtue
Ethics

7. Wisdom
• Wisdom, or prudence, is the capacity to make
sensible decisions and judgments based on personal
knowledge or experience. It is the ability to
recognize, differentiate and choose between right
and wrong.

8. Courage
• Courage, or fortitude, is the ability to confront fear,
intimidation, danger, difficulty and uncertainty. It is
the ability to face a challenge without cowardice.

9. Moderation
• Moderation, or temperance, is the quality of
practicing self-restraint and self-control.

10. Justice
• The bond that unites the other three virtues is justice.
Justice is the quality of being fair and reasonable,
particularly in how decisions are made, and the way
people are treated. Plato believed that a person would
become just after having achieved the other three
virtues.

11. Platonic
Ideal
• Many of Plato's writings feature Socrates as a character
and are presented as dialectics, giving rise to the notion of
the Socratic method of inquiry. Plato established a
philosophy based around the notion of ideal forms, stating
that all ideas exist in a pure form apart from the material
world. From this philosophy comes the notion of a platonic
ideal.

12. Plato’s
“Theory of
Forms”
• Plato believed that there was only one
'real' version of anything—the perfect
version. Everything else that we see with
our senses is just an imitation of this
perfect version, or perfect 'form'.

13. Plato’s
“Theory of
Forms”
• The best way to explain Plato's theory of
forms is through an example: although
there are many types of beds (single,
double, four-poster), they all share one
thing in common that makes them beds:
they all try to achieve being a bed. This
ideal bed is what all physical beds that
we see are trying to imitate, making
them imitations and not real forms.

14. Plato’s
“Theory of
Forms”
• What Plato means by 'genuine
knowledge' is his idea that the world of
forms is timeless—i.e. nothing ever
changes—and therefore knowledge
about the world of forms is 'genuine'
knowledge. Knowledge about a certain
imitation of a true form

15. Plato’s
“Theory of
Forms”

16. ‘The
Allegory of
the Cave’ by
Plato
In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato distinguishes
between people who mistake sensory knowledge
for the truth and people who really do see the truth.
It goes like this:

17. ‘The
Allegory of
the Cave’ by
Plato
The Cave
• Imagine a cave, in which there are three
prisoners. The prisoners are tied to
some rocks, their arms and legs are
bound and their head is tied so that they
cannot look at anything but the
stonewall in front of them.
• These prisoners have been here since
birth and have never seen outside of the
cave.
• Behind the prisoners is a fire, and
between them is a raised walkway.
• People outside the cave walk along this
walkway carrying things on their head
including; animals, plants, wood and
stone.

18. ‘The
Allegory of
the Cave’ by
Plato
The Shadows
• So, imagine that you are one of the
prisoners. You cannot look at anything
behind or to the side of you – you must
look at the wall in front of you.
• When people walk along the walkway,
you can see shadows of the objects
they are carrying cast on to the wall.
• If you had never seen the real objects
ever before, you would believe that the
shadows of objects were ‘real.

19. ‘The
Allegory of
the Cave’ by
Plato

20. ‘The
Allegory of
the Cave’ by
Plato
The Game
• Plato suggests that the prisoners would
begin a ‘game’ of guessing which
shadow would appear next.
• If one of the prisoners were to correctly
guess, the others would praise him as
clever and say that he were a master of
nature.

21. ‘The
Allegory of
the Cave’ by
Plato
The Escape
• One of the prisoners then escapes from their
bindings and leaves the cave.
• He is shocked at the world he discovers
outside the cave and does not believe it can
be real.
• As he becomes used to his new surroundings,
he realizes that his former view of reality was
wrong.
• He begins to understand his new world, and
sees that the Sun is the source of life and
goes on an intellectual journey where he
discovers beauty and meaning
• He see’s that his former life, and the guessing
game they played is useless.

22. ‘The
Allegory of
the Cave’ by
Plato
The Return
• The prisoner returns to the cave, to inform the
other prisoners of his findings.
• They do not believe him and threaten to kill
him if he tries to set them free.

23. The
"Magnifice
nt Myth" or
"Noble Lie"
• In order to encourage loyalty from the people of
the state, Plato devised a lie about our origins:
that everybody was born fully formed out of the
ground, and memories of their upbringing were
just a dream. In this way, all citizens are
encouraged to regard each other as siblings
since they all came from Mother Earth,
encouraging loyalty to each other and the land
that they inhabit. This is known as the 'Noble Lie'
or the 'Magnificent Myth'.
• The myth also includes the idea that when God
created every person, he added either gold,
silver, or bronze to their composition. Those
people with gold were to be 'Rulers', those with
silver 'Auxiliaries', and those with
bronze 'Workers'.
• This meant that if two 'gold' composed 'Rulers'
had a child who was deemed to be made of
'bronze' then the child was to be a 'Worker'.
Plato devised this extension of the myth in order
to encourage people to be happy with their
position in life, which was given to them by God
and cannot be changed.

24. A
Just
State • Wisdom comes from the Ruler's knowledge and wise
decisions.
• Courage is demonstrated by the Auxiliaries who defend the
lands and selflessly help the Rulers.
• Self-discipline arises from the harmony between all three
classes.
• Justice comes from everyone doing what they are 'naturally'
fitted for.

25. Eudaimonia
and
Arete
• Eudaimonia, or "well being," is the virtue
that Plato teaches we must all aim toward.
• The ideal person is the person who
possesses eudaimonia, and the field of
ethics is mostly just a description of what
such an ideal person would truly be like.

26. Eudaimonia
and
Arete
• Arete, or “excellence.” Possessing arete is
the way that one can reach a state of
eudaimonia. A person with arete is a
person who has the character traits that
would lead to a eudaimonious life. If given
enough time, the set of virtues will help
anyone to become eudaimonious. Most of
Plato's writings about ethics focuses on
what arete is, with the idea that if one can
figure that out, then eudaimonia will follow
shortly after.
• Knowledge of all things is important, but
none is more important than knowledge of
knowledge itself, which Plato considers to
be the ultimate virtue and a necessary
component for any individual to achieve
eudaimonia.

27. The
Three
Parts
of the
Soul
1. Reason: This is much like 'wisdom' in societies and is the
element that considers all of the facts known to a person
and then decides what means are best to reach the
ends. Reason is also concerned with the love of truth.
2. Spirit: This provides emotional motivation and drives
people to act in certain ways when they are angry, upset,
etc.
3. Desire: This drives people to act from baser urges such
as lust, hunger, and thirst.

28. The
Three
Parts
of the
Soul