| "Valsts" 346E-347D |
[25. Maijs 2012|11:45] |
Šī, šķiet, ir viena no man mīļākajām vietām Platona meistarstiķī, tāpēc atļaujos ielikt visu salīdzinoši garo fragmentu (angļu tulkojumā gan; nav jausmas, vai latviešu kastrētajā izdevumā šī vieta ir tulkota).
"SOCRATES: Then, it is clear now, Thrasymachus, that no type of craft or
rule provides what is beneficial for itself; but, as we have been saying for
some time, it provides and enjoins what is beneficial for its subject, and
aims at what is advantageous for it—the weaker, not the stronger. That is
why I said just now, my dear Thrasymachus, that no one chooses to rule
voluntarily and take other people’s troubles in hand and straighten them
out, but each asks for wages. You see, anyone who is going to practice his
type of craft well never does or enjoins what is best for himself—at least not
when he is acting as his craft prescribes—but what is best for his subject. It
is because of this, it seems, that wages must be provided to a person if he is
going to be willing to rule, whether they are in the form of money or
honor or a penalty if he refuses.
GLAUCON: What do you mean, Socrates? I am familiar with the first two
kinds of wages, but I do not understand what penalty you mean, or how
you can call it a wage.
SOCRATES: Then you do not understand the sort of wages for which the
best people rule, when they are willing to rule. Don’t you know that those
who love honor and those who love money are despised, and rightly so?
GLAUCON: I do.
SOCRATES: Well, then, that is why good people won’t be willing to rule
for the sake of money or honor. You see, if they are paid wages openly for
ruling, they will be called hirelings, and if they take them covertly as the
fruits of their rule, they will be called thieves. On the other hand, they
won’t rule for the sake of honor either, since they are not ambitious honorlovers.
So, if they are going to be willing to rule, some compulsion or punishment
must be brought to bear on them—that is probably why wanting
to rule when one does not have to is thought to be shameful. Now, the
greatest punishment for being unwilling to rule is being ruled by someone
worse than oneself. And I think it is fear of that that makes good people
rule when they do rule. They approach ruling, not as though they were
going to do something good or as though they were going to enjoy themselves
in it, but as something necessary, since it cannot be entrusted to anyone
better than—or even as good as—themselves. In a city of good men, if
it came into being, the citizens would fight in order not to rule, just as they
now do in order to rule. There it would be quite clear that anyone who is
really and truly a ruler does not naturally seek what is advantageous for
himself, but what is so for his subject. As a result, anyone with any sense
would prefer to be benefited by another than to go to the trouble of benefiting
him. So I cannot at all agree with Thrasymachus that justice is what is
advantageous for the stronger."
Plato. "Republic", tr. by C.D.C. Reeve, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2004. |
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