From the Beginning to Plato

378 PLATO: ETHICS AND POLITICS
Socrates assumes that aptitude for guardianship is genetically determined. He
notoriously embodies this assumption in a ‘noble fiction’ that is to be instilled
into all citizens (III.414b9–c2): everyone contains a trace of gold, silver, or iron
and copper that marks him as a natural guardian, auxiliary, or artisan (415a4–7).
Children commonly resemble their parents, but exceptions are to be demoted or
promoted (a7–b3, cf. IV.423c6–d2). How and when the traces are to be detected
is largely unspecified. Artisans will presumably receive some physical and
mental training, in addition to the ‘noble fiction’, to prepare them for temperance;
but it is not said what, nor whether it precedes or follows their assignment to that
class. (In recent English educational terms, one might think of them as failing the
eleven-plus.) Guardians and auxiliaries only divide in middle age when the
former advance from mathematics and administration to philosophy and
government. Relegation may occur at any time as occasion justifies: cowards in
battle become artisans (V.468a5–7). Late promotion is more problematic, as it
may be too late to catch up on education; parallel to demotion here is not
promotion (as at III.415b2–3, IV.423d1–2), but public honour and private
gratification (V.468b2–c4). Yet Plato’s human stratification is a meritocracy, and
not a caste-system.
In place of marriages, Socrates proposes the institution of eugenic matings
(458d9–e4) arranged ostensibly by lot but actually with an eye to personal merit
and stability of population (459d8–460b5). 8 This had better have the effect of
creating better guardians and auxiliaries, and not a shortage of natural
auxiliaries; it fits that courage, as well as intelligence, is a ground of selection
(460b1–5, 468c5–8). He permits some freedom of sexual activity to those past
the proper ages for breeding (461b9–c7), presumably because even they need
some sexual satisfaction; but, likening ‘erotic necessity’ to geometric (458d5–7),
he depersonalizes it. The only erotic attitudes that he allows to be discriminating
in their objects depend upon culture (cf. III.403a7–c2), and are satisfied by
kissing (V.468b12–c4). It may be wondered (as in [11.n], 159) whether their
very selectivity must not make them out of place within Plato’s all-embracing
community.
In one respect Plato is millenia in advance of his time. He accepts that his
principle of specialization applies also to women, but rejects an application that
would justify the status quo. 9 Different natures should indeed have different
functions within the city, but to infer that men and women should play different
roles would be like permitting bald men to be cobblers but not men with hair, or
vice versa; for most purposes it is irrelevant that the female bears and the male
begets (453e2–454e4). Recent writers, tired of debating whether Plato avoids
fascism, debate tirelessly whether he achieves feminism. Julia Annas has two
complaints that rest, I think, rather upon prejudice than upon perception. First,
she declares that Plato ‘sees women merely as a huge untapped pool of resources’,
and that his ‘only’ objection to the subjection of women is that ‘under ideal
conditions it constitutes an irrational waste of resources’ ([11.1], 183). She
implies that, although concerned about ‘production of the common good’ ([11.