Tripartite Structure of the Soul

Plato believed that the human mind/soul is made up Reason, Passion (emotions and mental needs and wants), and Appetite (bodily needs and wants), which I think is fair division of the human soul.  Overall, this subject of the human mind is about where I only fully agree with Plato on.  It's important to ensure that no single triat of our conscience rules us.  Complete Reason would bring us to a world of bored yet safe automatons.  Complete Passion would lead to anarchy and Complete Appetite would lead to obese, drunk, high behemoths.  So its necessary that Reason keeps the other two in check, so if we wanted to go skydiving, we would do it safely and smartly.  It works out well when someone uses reason to make decisions about passion or appetite.  For example: You may want to binge eat chocolate, but that would be unhealthy and leave you feeling sick later.  It might be a better idea to save your money and go on a trip to Europe.  

The World of Forms

Does Plato's perfect abstract realm of ideals actually exist?  I'm skeptical on this higher dimension of existence. We discussed in class that noting everything has a counterpart in the World of Forms, like there is no Ideal iPod.  Instead there would be Ideal forms of the natural components that make up an iPod.  But can't that statement be taken further?  Anything physical, natural or not, breaks down into elements.  There is no Ideal horse, just Ideal carbon atoms.  So Plato's argument that our souls remember seeing an Ideal horse and that allows us to recognize horses is invalid since logically, shouldn't everything physical in the World of Ideas be atoms, something we can't see even today?   But what about the abstract concepts that can't be broken down, like Goodness?  I suppose that better question is: Does Good exist?  It's a subjective term that is varies to great degree with each culture.  But if I argue that Good is subjective, Plato could argue that some cultures don't truly understood Good.  So it's hard to argue away Good and other all of Plato's World of Forms.  

Q&A: Does knowing Good really make you good?

Plato and his teacher Socrates had the theory that a person who knows what good is, will always do good and never do evil.  At first the thought seems highly illogical for men such as these two foundations of Western philosophy.  Think about a situation where a single parent is struggling to feed his\her kids.  To help fill their stomachs, the parent steals bread from a local bakery.  Stealing is an evil thing to do, but nearly anyone wouldn't want the kids to starve, so is satisfying the kids' huger negate the evil act of thievery?  From my point of view I feel that is 'good' to steal under the circumstances.  I haven't a clue has to what kind of answer Plato might have.

Q&A: A Platonic Society

What would a Platonic society look like if one had ever existed?  While the book argues that Plato would be disgusted by the greedy engines of modern capitalism, I don't imagine that Plato would entirely remove capitalism form his Republic.  A person's reason should only check a person's impulses, but they would still want to buy luxuries that they don't really need.  As such, laws might be in place to limit how a person can buy or there would be increased taxes to pay for other services (like public health care) to limit how much a person can buy after necessaries.

The leadership of Plato's Republic would come to resemble something similar to the Emperors of Rome.  With the unchecked power given to the Guardians or 'philosopher-kings' (and queens I imagine too), they had unlimited potential for good and evil.  Since the succession of rulers is chosen by humans, the government could not pick a Marcus Aurelius everytime and sometimes might have picked a Caligula.  Even assuming that every Guardian was a philosopher, it would do no good as some philosophers have radical views that could kill or harm the populace, if said ruler felt a genocidal rampage was justified.

Q&A: A Confucian Society

Confucian was as much as a political philosopher as he theorized about human nature.  I think in Confucius's society, the rulers would rule with absolute power.  This would be the the ultimate test of a ruler's virtue.  If he was virtuous, than he would use the unlimited power invested in him wisely.  There would be system of checks and balance,  but the king or emperor would have advisors to help him rule effectively.
People would have laws in place to encourage virtue.  Adultery would be illegal since moral families are necessary for a moral society.  In a Confucian society, rewards would be generous and punishments in order to encourage a virtuous populace.  Like many of the military strategists who recommended a society based of a Confucian style of governance, these rewards and punishments would extended to everyone, regardless of social ranking or wealth.
As for the relationship between the economy and the government, I see none so I think it would be possible for a laissez faire economy to emerge.  That being said, I found it believable that someone could advocate Confucian Socialism so the people would have only their moral decisions left to handle.