Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 2, Issue 2, 2018

Ancient Greek Philosophy: Classical Greek Philosophy

Platonic Ethics: Is it Applicable?

More than 200 countries are in the world and the number is still growing by the day. For the establishment of social system in any country there is one or other form of government. None of the five forms of government described by Plato is completely flawless or completely false. All the forms have been experienced by different states in the world and are being experienced even today. In every country there are some evils like. Secondly, before the year 347 BCE Plato said an ideal government is must for an ideal society. What does an ideal government mean? Plato answers; the king should be a philosopher, in order to rule as an ideal king applying philosophical thought, courage, wisdom, justice etc. I propose one additional thing here: that this philosopher does not necessary mean an academician of philosophy, but the person who has the sense of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, and the sense of practical utility. I think by this the concept of the ‘philosopher king’ is not a theoretical one but it becomes practical (not a 100% practical, but it will be helpful for maximum goodness). Thirdly, for any king or administrator - even with the above virtues 100% perfectness - or ideal king or ideal society can never exist. Ideal king, ideal government and ideal society of 100% perfection cannot be realized in this world nor can be realized in future. No one is perfect in this world and no one can use perfect king, government and society. Many reasons of that due to research paper restriction I am not able to explain here. But one point is clear here; Plato’s wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, if taken into consideration by any administrator and used with consciousness, then it can help to make better public administration oriented towards an optimum ideal society. From this point of view, Plato’s ethical theory is very important.