The Individual & the State

Socrates is the voice by which Plato speaks, and there has always been some uncertainty as to the source of much of what Socrates has to say in the dialogues, whether Plato can be viewed more as a chronicler or as a philosopher putting words into the mouth of Socrates as a character. Much of Plato's theory of politics is found in The Republic, and the city referred to in that work by Socrates can be seen as any state. Socrates indicates that the reason human beings come together to form a state in the first place is because human beings have certain needs which can only be fulfilled by the presence of other people, and in the properly administered state the individual is enabled to fulfill his or her needs:

The healthy city satisfies the primary needs, the needs of the body. The proper satisfaction requires that each man exercise only one art. This means that everyone does almo

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promote happiness, and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. Happiness means the intended pleasure and the absence of pain, while unhappiness means pain and the privation of pleasure. While Mill agrees that those actions which produce happiness are good and those that produce pain are bad, it is not the happiness or pain of the person taking action that is necessarily the guide. Rather, it is a more abstract happiness overall that is being considered so that actions which add to happiness overall is good while actions reducing happiness are bad. Happiness for Mill is a unified way of life rather than an abstraction toward which we tend as we make our choices and behave as our analyses dictate. "Living right" is a moral proposition that is more than an abstraction based on concepts of pleasure and pain and the development of a sum total of happiness. For Mill, living right is itself part of the happiness and the pleasure we seek. He also sees the individual as a coherent part of a social whole, and as the individual develops as a social being, morality adds to the sum total of happiness on the individual and the social level as the individual acts in a conscious way to be part of and enjoy the soci
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Happiness Mill, David Ross, Republic Socrates, Stuart Mill, Crito Socrates's, , Crito Socrates, Chicago Press, Joseph Cropsey, prima facie, john stuart, John Stuart, prima facie obligations, facie obligations, obey laws, stuart mill, moral duty, relationship individual, political philosophy, mill individual, john stuart mill, university chicago press, strauss joseph, chicago press 1987, sir david ross,
Approximate Word count = 1641
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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