"Is there a greater evil that we can mention for a city than that which tears it apart and makes it multiple instead of one alone? Or a greater good than the one which binds it together and makes it one?... And when all the citizens rejoice and are saddened by the same successes and the same failures, this sharing of pleasures and losses pains does not bind the city? (Republic 5.462b)Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned” Get the original essay Plato thus declares the necessity? to establish unity, so crucial to maintaining virtue in his "Just City." Interestingly, this modern and seemingly undeniably beneficial concept of unity is harshly criticized by Plato's greatest student, Aristotle. According to Plato, the guardians of the Just City must seek complete unity in order to prevent corruption and govern well. To achieve this goal, spouses and children of guardians should not be treated differently. Children must grow up without knowing their parents, nor their parents their children. Instead of having a simple family, all children will call men of a certain age "father", women of a certain age "mother", and children of the same age "brother" or "sister", thus increasing the joys of a single nuclear nucleus. family by providing a multitude of loved ones. In this way, Plato asserts, the joy of family ties will be immensely multiplied. Citizens will treat each other like parents and share each other's experiences: "Whenever something good or bad happens to one of its citizens, this city, more than all others, will say that the affected party is its own and will share the pleasure of pain as a whole" (Republic 5.462e.). To promote the establishment of unity, Plato also proposes the use of eugenic breeding among the guardians: "the best men must have relationships sexual relations with the best women as often as possible” (Republic 5.459e) in order to ensure wise rulers and eliminate nepotism The other important change that must be instituted to create unity is the abolition of property. private among guardians Earlier in The Republic, even before this proposition, Plato states that guardians must guard against “both wealth and poverty. The former leads to luxury, idleness, and revolution; the second to slavery, to bad work and to revolution too” (4.422). A). If all property and possessions are held in common, guardians will be free to worry about the acquisition of wealth and other mundane problems: "the smallest of evils from which guardians would therefore escape: the flattery of the poor towards the rich , the perplexities and sufferings it involves. raising children and earning the money to feed the household, going into debt... All the various problems that men endure in these areas are obvious, vile and not worth discussing” ( Republic 5.465c). Guardians will also avoid dissension among themselves “by not calling the same thing ‘mine’” (Republic 5.464d). Instead, leaders will be able to devote themselves entirely to governing well and to the good of the state. A complete community in matters of property, children and wives is therefore necessary to ensure complete unity, which in turn guarantees a perfect and virtuous city. Aristotle, in Book II of the Politics, attacks almost all the points made by Plato concerning unity and common property. First, Aristotle asserts that the nature of a city prevents it from experiencing natural unity. The essence of a city is in plurality: “Noonly the city is composed of a certain number of people: it is also composed of different kinds of people, for a city cannot be composed of those who are similar to one another” (Politics 2.2. 1261a22). The very attempt to unify the city, according to Aristotle, will destroy the city: "it is obvious that a city which becomes more and more a unity will eventually cease to be a city...it will first cease to to be a city. becoming a household instead of a city, then an individual instead of a household” (Politics2.2.1260a10). Furthermore, a viable city must be self-sufficient, a condition that requires a level of diversity that, according to Aristotle, is not present in a city with a high degree of unity. Another interesting point made by Aristotle is the distinction between the concepts of “all collectively” and “each separately”. When people call something "mine" and "not mine" simultaneously (adhering to Plato's vision of a unified city), according to Aristotle, it ceases to be one or the other. Common ownership provides that many people can call something “mine,” but they do so collectively, not separately. As a result, when people cannot say that something is "mine and mine only", they tend to care less about it because their ownership is only fractional, "determined by the total number of citizens » (Politics, 2.3.1262a1): “What is common to the greatest number receives the least attention… People are more inclined to neglect their duty when they think that someone else is looking after it” (Politics, 2.3.1261b32). Aristotle then explains that children will be neglected as a result: "each citizen will have a thousand sons... any son will be equally the son of any father... all will neglect them equally" (Politics, 2.3.1261b32) .Aristotle also criticizes the dilution of affection and friendship that would result from the common ownership of women and children. While Plato argues that a son would show the same affection for each of his thousand fathers, Aristotle argues that in reality these relationships will only be nominal and completely lose their meaning. A sort of "watery friendship" will ensue: "Just as a little sweet wine, mixed with a lot of water, produces an insipid mixture, so family feeling is diluted and insipid...there is so little reason for a father to treat his sons as sons, or a son to treat his father as a father” (Politics 2.4.1262a40), because people tend to only care about what is theirs. The lack of true family ties will also lead to an increase in crimes against relatives and incest, as parents do not know who their children are. When it comes to property, Aristotle believes that the Platonic idea of ​​unity. and common property is actually detrimental to the community. Aristotle states that the problems that Plato attributes to private property are actually caused by flaws in human nature. Aristotle states that common property will cause many conflicts, because people. may not be able to work well together and will compete for the same property. On the contrary, if everyone owns private property, there will be less room for discontent because people will tend to take care of their own property: "When everyone has their separate sphere of interest, there will not be the same ground of quarrels” (Politics 2.5.1263a21). Aristotle then argues that private property will enable "moral goodness" to the extent that people share their own property with friends for common use, according to the Pythagorean proverb: "The goods of friends are goods in common." In this way, private property actually enables generosity and virtue. People will also get more.