Discuss the views of Socrates and Plato in regards to what the best Essay

Discuss the views of Socrates and Plato in regards to what the best political system should be - Essay Example Democracy can be defined through its features: privacy, equality, affirming freedom and diversity. According to Socrates democracy is not good enough for an ideal republic. Socrates describes democracy as whimsical and with no stable character. Through this, Socrates paints a democratic state as unstable state that is in the act of doing the good thing and bad things whenever they feel like. According to Socrates, democratic states are so subject to things that are not necessary (Jowett and Plato 68). According to Socrates, democracy is hostile to all forms of authority. This is from the fact that one of the pillars that define democracy is freedom. Therefore an authority of any form will automatically be viewed as an attempt to limit freedom (Mara 43). Socrates says that democrats will prefer to die than to submit to authority. Socrates gives the situation where students start to disobey their teachers since they don’t want any form of authority. Plato views a republic to be determined by â€Å"Good Life.† To Plato, â€Å"Good Life† is a kind of harmony that is reached through the application of pure reasoning and justice with the product being a more perfect good life possible. In explaining this, Plato compares the operation of a society and an individual being (Jowett and Plato 58). Plato supposed that human beings have the same features and performs the same functions as city-states. That is a human being is similar to trees, buildings and other physical materials that make a city. Thus each human being is a complex structure made of different parts that has distinct roles. In addition, Plato believed that the human soul has three parts: reason, desire and emotion. He uses this to elaborate that one can’t do things with a part of his soul or the whole soul. According to Plato, accepting and pursuing one thing is opposite to the rejection and avoidance of the same thing and since they are opposite forces they can’t belong to the same part of the