Plato’s “city of pigs” in the Republic II occupies a particular position in the overall topic throughout the reading that coincides with to the in-depth analysis of selfishness. Accordingly, the onset of the discussion of true virtue was the conceptual inauguration of the “perfect city”, or Republic through which “justice” would be ripe for the “thought-experiment” (Plato, 38).
The “city of pigs” exemplifies the attempt(s) to bring the above notion into perspective, not least, of course, the pigs. It might said that Athens was not merely a city, but an idea. Yet, one of Western Civilizations greatest ironies is that two of its founders, Socrates and Christ, died trying to save it. Republic II follows Socrates, Glaucon and Adeimantus attempt(s) to construct the perfect little metropolis. Socrates uses pigs in what seems to be a clever metaphor––or cruel joke––for human nature throughout out the dialogue, which is later used to illuminate the crucial role of society’s “Guardians” to restrain public consumptionism within the margins of equilibrium.
Glaucon questions (Socrates) whether justice belongs to a category of things people partake in simply because they are “good”, or because they produce certain outcomes, or does justice simply fall into a category of things valued for themselves and consequences alike? Justice, Socrates’ believes, occupies the latter category (Plato, 36). Referring to Thrasymachus’, it can generally be understood that suffering injustice is “bad”, but committing injustice is “naturally good” (Plato, 37). Consequently, people develop laws and what those laws demand and enforce, they call “justice”, i.e. “excellent sentiments” in Glaucon’s words (Plato, 37).
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Remember, Glaucon wants to be convinced that righteousness is valued both for itself and its consequences by playing “devil’s advocate” (Plato, 41). Law, then, can be understood as an expression of reason, in the pretext then human will is always exercised as an act of freedom which does not take the moral determinant of a given action into account (Plato, 43). Justice, therefore lies in following the laws, similar to the definition given by Cephalus; justice is found in “speaking truth” and to “repay what one has borrowed” (Plato, 5). This is also justice as a social contract: the only right individuals have as citizens is the equal right to not be coerced by others (Plato, 37-8). The fact that the majority will suffer injustice is a given fact of life.
Glaucon, though his story of the Gyres ring contradicts the understanding that law is equated to righteousness, argues that if even the most “just” person were given the opportunity to take what they desired with impunity, they “would do not differently than the unjust person” (Plato, 39). Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, intervenes before Socrates has an opportunity to respond and claims that it is, in fact the “appearance” of justice that is praised (e.g. an person with a “just reputation” still lives a life of gratitude) (Plato, 45). In other words, they want Socrates to define the qualities of both categorical imperatives in their purest form, which Socrates proposes be approached from a “macro” level of the polis, to the “micro” between virtue and the cosmopolitan.
Socrates begins by sketching out the dynamics of the perfect metropolis, i.e. the “kallipolis”. The most apparent quality of Socrates’ metropolis is its temperament. According to Socrates, the grouping of individuals to form communities is driven by human necessity, whereby the basic necessities of the individual and the commonwealth are equally reconciled as a whole (do you see communism poking its head?) (Plato, 49). In order to achieve this, Socrates believes all individuals within a given society should engage in a practical process also known as “specialization”. “Well, then, would one person do better work if he practiced many crafts”, Socrates asks, “or if he practiced one?” (Plato, 48).
It is not possible to “perfectly” balance the capacities and needs of both individuals and the city as a whole, though it is a city where every individual’s capabilities are equally reconciled nevertheless. Thus, a well-balanced structuring of society’s individual contributions combined with that of demographic entirety is, theoretically speaking, sustainable. The cosmopolitan would require two social classes along the lines of “craftsman” and “merchants”; and “laborers”. Together, Socrates says, they provide the “right quality” and “quantity” of goods and services that reconciles with a notion of a healthy city (Plato, 49). The residents are also well-balanced in their consumption of alcohol, as opposed to the city of Hades; “as if thought eternal drunkenness was the finest wage of virtue”, he comments (Plato, 41). By contrast, what Socrates refers to as a “feverish” city is perceived by Glaucon as “fattened” by immoderate indulgences and “luxuries” all but removed from Socrates’ “ideal” perceptions.
Presumably, Socrates dismisses cross-class discrepancy, in the pretext that all all needs will be met by exercising what best suites individuals natural capacities through practice and specialization. Obviously, excessiveness will not be introduced into the second metropolis, and in which case, at least in theory, enough should be enough. For Socrates, all needs will be adequately met since this city is structurally tailored to nature. Moderation also seems to be the glue holding socio-dynamics together for Plato, in particular (Plato, 114).
This therefore implies that injustice arises when its subjects deviate from moderation (Plato, 51-2). For the notion of justice links various elements of the city with one another, whereby injustice and the “origins of war” are found in excess: “it comes from these same factors, the occurrence of which is linked to greater evils for cities and individuals in them” (Plato, 52). People will always want more. In the present mindset that enough is never enough, excess is certainly detrimental to equilibrium. The “city of pigs” comes to a close (Plato, 50-1). Glaucon, of course, rejects the notion that people would so selfishly “feast without any relishes”; these genuine specimens would, in observation of their appetite, be feasting on “noble cakes” of barely like, well, pigs; “isn’t that just what you’d provide to fatten them?” Glaucon asks (Plato, 51).
“In particular”, Socrates responds in rebuke, “we cannot just provide them with the necessities” (Plato, 51). Socrates admits himself into the city, but only when pressed. Albeit where Socrates sees a productive city conditioned by a well-balanced degree of moderation, Glaucon still seems to think it is wanting in other respects. In fact, one concrete understanding is made apparent: that it is only human to continuously live beyond given means wherever and whenever one can. Interestingly, Socrates seems to believe that the ailment to disease can be maintained by keeping society oblivious of excessive possessions (Plato, 55). Such an analogy certainly stands, but one cannot help but wonder whether it is too perfect.
The most important aspects of an ideal city are the practical notions that all individuals should specialize in a particular occupation, or “craft”. Its “darker” brother, the city Socrates referred to as “luxurious” or “feverish”, exemplifies everything removed from discursive reasoning (Plato, 315). Although all cities need people, goods and craftsmanship. All cities need merchants and necessitate trade with other cities as much as localities, and of course, all cities need labor. Luxury goods and services not only require but demand that all cities expand in size through territorial resource acquisition driven by more, until there is seemingly no relation with the basic essentials defined by the laws of nature.
The inevitability of war requires a military made up of soldiers who are particularly specialized in specific tasks and skills, and this time, Socrates says the city will require farms, and pigs––farms of pigs. “This animal did not exist in our earlier city, since there was no need for it, but we will need it in this one” (Plato, 52). Perhaps, in light of its rather compulsive nature, pigs indicate––let alone describe––the type of inhabitants any given city would otherwise be occupied by in a figurative, or even an understandably “literal” sense. Lust for more is what Socrates refers to as the “fever” of the city in question, but it “curiously” illuminates the role of what Socrates calls “Guardian” class, whose duty must be to restrain the disease of society’s natural inclinations reconciled with the need to structure the commonwealth. “But isn’t it of the greatest importance that warfare be carried out well?”
Socrates asks (Plato, 53). In book IV, socrates metaphorically uses disease as the antonym of health produced by imbalanced bodily alignment (Plato, 133). It is, more precisely, then, the reordering of the body that goes against nature, one in which the elements that would otherwise naturally align have been upset by the unnatural norm (excess) established in its place. Total excellence correlates with sound order that involves a balanced alignment in relation to the overall discussion of harmony and the Guardians.
Justice, in sum, is produced from intersection of these two analogies that form the entirety of its foundation, the cornerstone of civil society, previously hinted at by the notion of a “healthy city”. It might even be argued society’s rulers function to undermine the “progress” of cities because they enforce the rule of law as its guardians. Thus, according to Socrates, the Guardians must also be lovers of knowledge, educators, philosophers, intellectually enriched from childhood before practical specialization.
“Philosophy, then, and spirit, speed, and strength as well, must all be combined in the nature of anyone who is going to be a really fine and good guardian of our city” (Plato, 56). Notice the emphasis on education and philosophical literacy, in particular. Socrates––hence, Plato––contend with specific notions about the function of literature and significance of censorship. Poets such as Hesiod and Homer spread stories of gods carrying out impious actions which, at least in the eyes of Socrates and Plato, might actually drive immoral behavior (Plato, 59). Socrates sees them simply as the “stuff of fairy tales”, only stories depicting behavior within the margins of moral decency can influence cities in a positive manner.
