plato's republic

"Why be good when bad people have a much better time?" Moral and Political Thought in the Republic Plato's most famous work, but remember it wasn't his last word. He was about 40 when he wrote it. His ideas evolved considerably during the second half of his life. Remember too that it is not primarily about an "ideal state." The state is constructed only in order to help solve a problem about human behavior. It is …

…- because they are presented as so deeply at odds with values of liberty and equality. So we need to know whether these different strands of the view can be separated out. And that means that we need to characterize more fully the content of the ideal of political community, and to see what drives Plato to value so highly the ideal of political unity. What makes divisions of thought, feeling, and objective so objectionable?