Socrates And Specialization

According to Plato’s Socrates in the Republic, justice in the ideal city consists in the fact that each ‘individual of the city should practice a single role to which their nature is most suited, among those relative to the city’(433a). For brevity, let us refer to this definition of justice as the principle of specialization. Socrates motivates this theory of justice with four clear arguments: (1) The theory fits with their society’s typical ways of thinking about justice: ‘minding one’s own business’(433ab); (2) Due to the fact that the principle of specialization explains the existence of other virtues, this definition itself must be an important virtue. Since the other virtues can be found in the city, by elimination this virtue must be
Socrates does not give an example to prove his claim but instead finds common ground with Glaucon, whom he is speaking to. He asks Glaucon if behaving justly is to mind one’s own business, and not to meddle in other’s affairs. Glaucon agrees that this is what it means for act justly because it is something that he has often said and that as a society, they believe to be true. With this definition accepted between the two of them, Socrates continues by applying his definition of justice to what it means to act justly. He says justice is minding one’s own business if ‘minding one’s own business’ is understood in a particular way: ‘that each single individual was doing the job that was his, and not meddling in what should be done by others’ (433d). Here Socrates relates his principle of specialization for the individual to a common definition of just actions. Glaucon finds no fault in Socrates’s claim and accepts this to be true. Now that Glaucon has accepted that the principle of specialization can relate to the definition of acting justly, Socrates uses this correlation to lead into his second
Since the other virtues can be found in the city, by elimination this virtue must be justice (433c). Glaucon and Socrates agree that there are four main virtues that all good things in a city come from: wisdom, courage, moderation and justice (427e). Then they agree that if they can recognize three of these virtues in the ideal city, then clearly what is left over would be the fourth virtue (428a). After agreeing upon this with Glaucon, Socrates says that his principle of specialization brings about wisdom, courage and moderation in the ideal city. The city is wise, he says, in virtue of the rulers’ having knowledge about decision making. This knowledge need not be dispersed throughout the three groups of the city as a whole, to count as wise. It is enough, he claims, for the rulers specifically to possess this knowledge for the city to be wise. The city as a whole is courageous, Socrates says, in virtue of the courage of the auxiliaries alone. Moderation, unlike wisdom and courage Socrates proves, is a property of the city only in virtue of the interrelation of its parts. Yet this is still specialization he claims because Socrates defines moderation as the agreement of the rulers and the rest about who specifically should rule. This agreement will lead, he claims, to the mastery of the