GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

60 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
knowledge is achieved by members of the Guardian
class, are the Form of the Good and the Form of justice.
It is in the light of their knowledge of these Forms that,
when they are subsequently confronted with institutions
which manifest the Form of goodness and laws and acts
which participate in the Form of justice, the Guardians
will know not only that the institutions are good and the
laws and acts just, but why it is that they are good and
just; for, having recognized the Forms of goodness and
of the
justice, they will be able to attribute the qualities
institutions, laws and acts in question to the manifestation
of the Forms in them. In other words, the morals and
politics of the Guardians are based upon a knowledge of
reality, and it is in the light of this knowledge that they
frame the laws and determine the standards which are
to prescribe the conduct and form the moral and political
opinions of the citizens of the State.
Summary of the Foregoing. Thus Plato's contention
that virtue consists in a right relation between the
different parti of the soul and, more particularly, that
this is a relation in which the higher, or reasoning, part
controls and the lower, or appetitive, part obeys entails
the following positions.
First, there is a reality which consists of eternal Forms;
included among these Forms are the Forms of moral
goodness and ofjustice. Of this reality it is possible for the
soul of man, when suitably trained and educated, to have
knowledge. It is by means of the reasoning part of the
soul that this knowledge is obtained.
Secondly, the reasoning part of the soul, in the light of
this knowledge, prescribes not only what is right for itself,
but also what is right for the other parts of the soul,
including their right relationship to itself. Morality, there-
fore, consists in every part of the soul subjecting itself to,
and developing in accordance with, a law of life which
the insight of the reasoning part of the soul into the nature
of reality has dictated. Plato's conception of political virtue