The Road to Liberalism

        For as long as there have been philosophers, there have also been constant debates on what human nature truly is.  A pattern has formed which suggests that the philosophical thinkers of the day usually have a great impact on the political institution that citizens decide to put together.  This essay will show that throughout the centuries, a move from the classic approach to government has given way to liberalism.  This has taken place over hundreds of years with thousands of philosophers being involved.  Three of the most influential philosophers in this debate have been Plato, John Locke, and Jeremy Bentham.

        Plato was the earliest of the three philosophers and had the only classic approach to human nature/political institutions of the three.  Plato’s philosophy was that communal activities were more important than individual ones.  He believed corruption and evil were started when individuals created private property.  Plato went as far as to say that “wives, children and all education must be in common”(Plato 194).  This type of communal behavior was extremely important in Plato’s philosophy.  Plato also felt that everyone and everything had a purpose set out for it.  Whether it was individuals or the political institution of the time, there was a system that needed to be abided by.

        When it came to individuals, Plato believed that humans had three parts of the soul:  reason, will and appetites.  He believed that these three parts of the soul needed to stay separate from each other and not meddle in the other’s work.  In Plato’s theory, the reason should shape the will to control the appetites of the soul.  To Plato, the reason part of the soul should the most coveted and powerful.  He felt that the individual and a political institution should be set up in the same manner.  Everything he decided to put in his political institution came from what he believed the individual’s soul consisted of.  

Therefore, Plato believed that people were born into classes and that they could be molded into their respective places within society.  He used metals such as gold, silver and bronze to explain his theory.  The rulers were supposed to be the individuals with gold in their souls.  Guardians or military men had silver, and the working class had bronze.  Plato set up a system in his society to weed out the different individuals and put people where they belonged.  

Plato also wanted, in his form of government, philosophers (the gold souls) to rule.  He said, “cities will have no respite from evil…nor will the human race…unless philosophers rule as kings in the cities, or those whom we now call kings and rulers genuinely study philosophy”(Plato 133).  The reason he wanted cities to be ruled by philosophers was that he believed that philosophers could understand the Platonic Forms.  These forms were the true form of itness for Plato and were the way to a harmonious society.  Beauty and “the good” were two examples of these forms.  The only people who could really understand “the good”, in his view, were philosophers.  He used parables like the cave and the ship to make this understandable.  In both parables, Plato set up situations where the philosopher is the knower of the real truth and is responsible for relaying that knowledge to other citizens.  This relates directly with him believing that the reason (philosophers) should mold the will (military men) to control the appetites (workers) in the individual soul of a person.  

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         Another aspect in Plato’s philosophy is that of not trusting the common person.  He believed that the vices in life were too great to be overcome by the masses and related it to the appetites of the human soul.  He wanted philosopher kings to rule society just like he felt reason should rule the individual.  In another of his parables, Plato set up the story of the ring of Gyges and told of how a man came into possession of a powerful ring, took advantage of it and killed his king.  Parables like this clearly show that Plato did not ...

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