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2 1 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3VI.There is one final reductionist—or semireductionist—interpretation of theRepublic: that of Donald Morrison. Morrison argues that the happiness of thecity and the happiness of the citizenry are in fact distinct from one another.On one hand, the happiness of the city is constituted by the “goodness” ofthe city’s “structure”—that is to say, its virtue (justice, courage, temperance,and so forth). 35 A city is happy when it is structured in a way that allowsit to attain and exercise the virtues proper to a city, and this comes aboutwhen each class minds its own business; everyone is in harmony about whoshould rule and who should obey; the guardians preserve the lawful opinionabout what is truly terrible; and the rulers rule with a view to what is best forhow the city should relate to itself and to other cities (427e–434d). It followsthat, if the city’s happiness is its virtue, then this happiness obviously is notidentical to the happiness of the citizens. It is, rather, a property of the whole,and, as such, it is in principle compatible with both the temporary and thelong-term sacrifice of the private happiness of some citizens. 36Morrison further contends, however, that despite being different fromthe happiness of the citizenry, “the happiness of the polis is both conceptuallyand causally dependent upon the happiness of the citizens.” 37 The happinessof the city is conceptually dependent because it depends on the city’s beingstructured by good laws; but the aim of good laws is the well-being of thecitizenry. 38 Thus, the happiness of the city, properly understood, implies thehappiness of the citizens (or most of them), even though it is not synonymouswith it. The happiness of the city is causally dependent upon the happinessof the citizenry because (according to Morrison) the city’s virtue cannot bemaintained unless all the citizens do their part, while all the citizens doingtheir part requires that they be virtuous, and virtue (according to Plato) isnecessary and sufficient for happiness, which implies that the city’s virtue35Morrison, “Happiness,” 6–7. “The primary component of the happiness of the city is the goodnessof [its] structure. …The goodness of this structure is called by Plato the city’s virtue: justice, temperance,and courage in the city are aspects of the goodness of this structure” (7).36“When Plato contrasts the happiness of the city as a whole with the happiness of certain of its parts,what he has in mind is the goodness of the structure. The aim of the statesman is to promote the happinessof the city, rather than that of any special class, and therefore he will sacrifice the interests ofany particular person or group in order to promote or preserve the happiness, i.e., virtue, of the city asa whole” (ibid., 7; see also 13–14).37Ibid., 7.38“The goal or purpose of [the city’s] structure is to promote the greatest possible well-being of theindividual citizens, into the indefinite future” (ibid.). Morrison provides no supporting textual citation.