Justice Without Freedom: Castro as a model for the philosopher-king
W. Zachary Wolff, 2001

In Plato's Republic Thrasymachus conceives of an unjust man of unrivaled power. A tyrant such as this, he holds, will lead the best possible life. Socrates refutes his argument, but only by misrepresenting the unjust man Thrasymachus had in mind. Largely, this is because Thrasymachus is imprecise in his description of the tyrant. In Book 2 Glaucon shores up this description by making a distinction between internal and external consequences. He demands that Socrates consider an unjust man who suffers none of the external consequences of his injustice. This is a challenge Socrates never adequately answers. This unanswered challenge undermines the absolute truth of Plato's defense of justice. To what degree an unjust person can avoid the external consequences of his actions is an empirical question in the domain of political science, not of philosophy.

Thrasymachus never makes it clear exactly what the unjust man pursues. He states that the unjust man will gain more in every aspect of life, public and private (343d-e), but he gives only limited examples of what he means by this. Outdoing, for Thrasymachus, seems to consist both in profiting more monetarily, and in gaining more power and prestige (343d-3). Thus, the tyrant fulfills the desires of both the honor-lover and the money-lover. The desires of the knowledge-lover are ignored. I do not take this to mean that the tyrant is prohibited from pursuing them, only that this is not a necessary part of his constitution. Thus the spirited and appetitive parts of the tyrant's soul rule together.

The unjust man Thrasymachus envisions always outdoes the just man. Through deception he comes out the winner in every contract, pays less taxes on the same property, and wins friends (343d-e). In his refutation, Socrates ignores the third stipulation. Socrates holds that the tyrant must constantly stir up wars to insure his position, and that the people will hate him for this (566e). If the tyrant makes friends as Thrasymachus claims, this step will be unnecessary. The tyrant's problems follow from his making war. Thus, if Socrates' claim that war-making is necessary for every tyranny shows any weakness, so do his arguments against the tyrant's happiness. This claim is empirical and should be answered by those who study politics and history.

Even if war-making is granted as a necessary consequence of tyranny, Socrates' argument is not unimpeachable. The tyrant's problems follow from war-making, but not directly. Instead, the problems come about because the tyrant depletes his funds (568d-569a). Thus, if war-making does not necessarily deplete a city's funds, Socrates' arguments against a tyrant's happiness fail. It may be the case that a truly great empire led by a truly great tyrant could always refill its coffers through clever trade or outright theft. This is also an empirical question of politics and history.

Even if both these questions are answered in Socrates' favor, he has not met the challenge Glaucon sets for him. Glaucon asks him to defend justice in its own right, independent of its consequences (358d). By this distinction, it seems that Glaucon means something different than our modern conception of inherent and consequential properties. Glaucon does want to consider the consequences of justice and injustice, but only what we may call the internal consequences, that is, the consequences that follow regardless of whether or not anyone else considers you to be just or unjust. This distinction is illustrated by the tale Glaucon tells of the Ring of Gyges (359c-360c) and made explicit in the description of the extremes of justice and injustice that follows (360e-361c).

Socrates' denunciation of the life of the unjust certainly depends on the people recognizing the tyrant as unjust. Without this recognition the people would never come to hate the tyrant as Socrates claims they will. Socrates states this part of his argument directly, 'And because of this, isn't he all the more readily hated by the citizens,' (567b). He relies upon the people's recognition of injustice again, 'What if the people get angry and say, first, that it isn't just for a grown-up son to be fed by his father, but, on the contrary, for the father to be fed by his son;' (568e).

Fidel Castro seems to provide a perfect counterexample to Socrates' position. Despite many actions we consider unjust, he is widely liked by his people. He has not led his nation to war. Nor has he bankrupted it. It is exceedingly poor, but this seems to be more a consequence of external factors, namely the United States embargo, than any of Castro's policies. Perhaps though, Castro is more similar to Socrates' philosopher-king than to Thrasymachus' tyrant. His people are not free to pursue the occupation of their choice, to accumulate great wealth, nor to read and write what they please. These are exactly the societal restraints Socrates proposes for his ideal city (374b, 377 ff, among others throughout Books 2 and 3). The injustices we accuse Castro of are those of totalitarianism. This should not bother Socrates, who writes, 'Then, don't you see that in your city, too, the desires of the inferior many are controlled by the wisdom and desires of the superior few?' (431e-d).

It is important to note that Socrates considers the democratic city with its accompanying freedoms to be second in misery only to the tyrannical city (580a-b). As Americans, we may not be in a position to adequately assess Socrates' argument. Raised in a democracy, we confuse freedom with justice. For the purposes of this discussion, it does not matter whether it is Socrates or us who has a better conception of justice. However, it is important to note that Castro (or any other leaders we consider tyrants who are not considered such by their people) may not provide an adequate counterexample to Socrates' arguments, because Socrates is not forced to admit that he is a tyrant.

With this in mind, Socrates position begins to become clearer. First, it seemed that he failed answer the challenges of Thrasymachus and Glaucon. He never admitted a tyrant that is not recognized as such into the argument. Now it seems that perhaps an unrecognized tyrant is impossible by definition under Socrates' conception of justice. Socrates holds justice to be equivalent to a sort of harmony in which each does what he is best suited for, and all agree as to their respective positions (433a-434c). An unrecognized tyrant at least meets the second of these two demands. It remains to be seen if the first is met.

Could it be the case that a city could be ruled in such a way that all involved agree upon their respective positions and do not interfere with the work of others, yet each is not actually in the position for which he is naturally best suited? If we answer yes, Socrates must admit Castro as a counterexample to his arguments that a tyrant necessarily leads his city to war and bankruptcy. If we answer no, Socrates appears to be immune to such an attack. Under Socrates' conception of justice it seems that the answer is no. The only way this could occur is if the tyrant deceived all the citizens. Surely, the only way he could accomplish this is to be wiser than them. However, in a just city the wisest rule (431e-d), so by definition, this city has the correct ruler. What of the other citizens? If there is complete agreement in our city as we stipulated, they must work as instructed by the wise ruler. This is exactly Socrates' conception of justice.

What first seemed like a dodge to Thrasymachus' argument, now seems like a clever proof by contradiction. Suppose a man is a perfectly unjust tyrant. It follows that he is completely just. Thus, a perfectly unjust tyrant cannot exist. We are forced to abandon our notions of freedom and democracy as closely related to justice in order to understand Socrates' argument. Whether or not this abandonment is justified is a question for further inquiry.

References:

Plato, The Republic