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Pleasure and Pain in Plato's Laws and the Penal Code of the Second Best City

Publication |
2021

Abstract

The paper searches for the systematical link between the moral psychology of Plato's Laws and its theory of punishment. This link can be seen in the ability of emotions (i.e., pleasure and pain) to be harmonized in an individual soul; this very ability forms the precondition for the soul's curability by education and punishment.

The penal law thus contributes to the proper individualization of the soul by unifying its pleasure and pain; in the case of the rare philosophical nature, however, there is no need of punishment at all since it already presents a well-ordered unity.