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Plato's Concept of the Good Life

Plato's Republic describes a society that is completely rational, based on Plato's concept of the good life and developed to create and protect that sort of life within the context of a civil state. What Plato seeks in this dialogue is a definition of the perfect life and the perfect state to promote and sustain that life. The Ideal State is a concept and not a reality, either in Plato's time or since. Much of what Plato embodies in the Ideal State is probably a reaction to imperfections in the government and society of his time. Plato lived in a time of turmoil and warfare, and he created a society that would be free of strife if it lived up to the ideal. The fact that few would want to live in the society Plato proposes may be because Plato ignores or subsumes human nature, and for his perfect society to work to protect the perfect life, it would have to be made up of perfect people. Plato tries to address this through education and other means, but in the final analysis his Republic must remain an ideal only, and to a great extent one man's ideal. The society depicted in the film Star Wars is also not a perfect society. Luke Skywalker lives in a time of turmoil as did Plato, and he and other members of his clique believe in the possibility of an ideal state and seek to overthrow their oppressors in order to institute it. An analysis of the moral dilemmas facing Luke and others in the film show how Plato's conceptions can illuminate some of the meaning in the film.

Certainly, the film does not follow Plato's conception, but Plato's views on the social virtues and on the form of states and personality types proper to leadership can be used to illuminate the characters and actions seen in the film. The four great virtues set forth by Plato through his spokesperson, Socrates, are wisdom, courage, discipline, and justice. These four conceptions can be seen as vital in the training of Luke Skywalker. They are also missing...

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Plato's Concept of the Good Life. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 21:29, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690879.html