The Virtue of Living Together in a City: Civic Moderation in Plato's Republic

This article examines Plato's underexplored conception of civic moderation in the Republic. I argue that civic moderation is the virtue of civic unity. It centrally involves friendship among all citizens, best understood as a communion (κοινωνία) characterized by shared goods, collaboration, coordination, and the proper acknowledgment of one another's contributions to the joint enterprise of living together in a city. The resulting unity is not that of a single person, as Aristotle and later critics contend, but that of colleagues jointly engaged in a shared undertaking. Civic justice provides the conditions under which civic moderation arises and persists. Along the way, I challenge prevailing thin interpretations that reduce moderation to a shared belief about rule or to the subordination of desires or to a combination of the two, and I argue that the virtue instead comprises two robust and mutually sustaining dimensions: a cognitive network of interrelated commitments about civic life, and affective dispositions of respect, trust, and concern that correspond to those commitments. This account illuminates Plato's view of psychic unity and his reflections on inter-polis relations.

Duke Scholars

Author Wenjin Liu Philosophy