>>>>The central idea of "The Republic," the
connection between political morality and
individual morality, the connection between
politics and ethics, is grounded upon the
city-soul analogy; an extended analogy that
runs throughout the central books of the text,
in which Plato says that there's a certain
kind of corresponding architecture that structures
the city and that structures the soul. Plato
says that the city, the ideal republic, has
three classes: the rulers who guide it, the
auxiliaries who support and protect it, and
the workers who produce for it. So Plato says
the individual soul has three parts: reason,
spirit, and appetite-- and these correspond
to the three parts of the city. The individual
has reason, that faculty that allows them
to think critically, to to find the true nature
of reality. They have spirit, that is, they
have a feeling that inspires them, that motivates
them. They have a kind of of spirit that that
makes them care about the world and that protects them
 They also have appetites. That is, they
have a part of their soul that is deeply connected
to the physical body, that pursues pleasure,
that wants food, that wants sex. Plato says
that the city is like a soul in its structure,
and that a city that is just is a city in
which the three elements are in harmony. That
is, that it is guided by the rulers, that
it is supported by the auxiliaries, and that
it is that it is provided for by the workers.
Plato says that the individual, like the city,
is just when these three elements are in harmony.
When reason is in charge, when the spirit
supports reason, and when the appetites are
firmly under the control of reason. Plato
says that justice is a state of harmony within
the individual. When the individual's appetites
are firmly controlled by reason, and this
reason allows the individual to pursue the
true common good of the soul, just as within
a city the justice is the pursuit of the true
common good. This is how Socrates ultimately
answers the question of whether justice is
something that's good for its consequences
or good in and of itself. Socrates believes
that justice is good in and of itself when
a soul has achieved a state of harmony among
its three parts.
