Plato and Aristotle

Like Jonathan, I found it much more enjoyable to read Aristotle than Plato. I found some things in Plato’s writing to be unsettling, and found more comfort in the words of Aristotle, though I recognize that they seem to reach similar conclusions. Plato’s ideas about how everyone has their own ergon, work, that they are supposed to do in their life doesn’t sit very well with me in the sense that I’ve been taught to believe in the American dream, and people’s ability to move up from nothing, and also because it goes against the more existential idea that people are completely free to choose their own path in life. But once I moved past these very initial concerns, I was able to focus on what was a rather large similarity between Plato and Aristotle, which is this idea of balance, or harmony. For Plato, he creates this City-Soul analogy, in which the rulers of the city, who are wise and virtuous, are analogous to the Reason of the soul. The Auxiliaries are comparable to the spirit, which is the part of the soul that wills things, and can be swayed either way, but most often towards wisdom. Lastly, he says that the craftspeople of the town are like the appetites of the soul, which are desires, and only aimed at satisfying themselves. Plato says that in both scenarios (the city and the soul), health, balance, and order equals justice. For Aristotle, he comes up with a lot of ways to talk about justice, and a lot of ways to break justice down into different categories. But overall, Aristotle says that justice is the absence of excess and deficiency, which he calls the Golden Mean, and goes on to say that virtues are always going to be the mean between excess and deficiency. There cannot be a golden mean of injustice because by its very definition, injustice is already an excess or deficiency. Another important measure for Aristotle is this idea of proportionality and Justice in Exchange, which is defined as getting what you earned, no more and no less. There should be a proportional relationship between what people get and what they merit. This idea comes up in Plato too, he talks about Pleonexia, which is the habit/tendency of people to get more than they are due. Both Plato and Aristotle would agree that this is injustice.

On a more personal belief level, I have found myself struggling with this. In theory, I like this idea that people get exactly what they deserve, merit, and believe that society will work best if people are appropriately rewarded based on what they are merited. But maybe because we do not live in the perfect world that Plato describes, it just seems like that is not always going to be possible. And moreover, how does this idea completely go against my political support of national healthcare, based on the belief that all Americans should have access to medical treatment, regardless of their job, income, etc.? I know we talked about this in class one day, but it just seems that there must be some way to reconcile the two.