How does Plato justify severe class distinctions in his society?
(630-32) Plato describes a society organized into three distinct classes, producers, warriors, and ruler guardians. The latter are known also as philosopher kings. People are selected for these classes based on their natural talents and their capacity for moral virtue, the degree to which they seem able or ready to serve the common good. In the ideal society, those with the greatest capacity for moral virtue will be given the most extensive moral and intellectual education; those with the least capacity for moral virtue will be given training in a particular productive craft. The result would be that the rulers would be the individuals who are both most inclined by nature to serve the public good and those with the most complete education. As Velasquez says (616) Plato does think that inequality is natural. That is, not everyone has the same innate readiness to become good and not everyone has the same talents that can be developed by education. 17. John Rawls’ two principles of justic
