In the philosophy of Socrates and Plato three parts of the human “soul” are identified. They are reason, spirit and appetite. Reason is the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom and is the province of the philosopher. Spirit is the pursuit of honor and glory—as in battle—and is the province of the warrior/gladiator. Appetite is the pursuit of wealth and the pleasure it affords and is the province of the oligarch.
“Souls” can be fully dominated by one soul-part or another. More commonly, and desirably, the parts express themselves in a variety of dominance/subservience configurations. Indeed, while Socrates and Plato felt reason was best suited to management of the soul of both individual and state, spirit and appetite have important roles. The best human soul is characterized by reason as the moderator of spirit and appetite.
As a basic model for human psychology, it lacks the scientific foundations and clinical efficacy that modern clinical psychology can claim, but i find it an appealing general model for examining the ways people and societies conduct themselves.
One of the conclusions I come to is that presently the vast majority of populations around the world are ruled by appetite, the lowest and most irresponsible of the three soul-parts. This is demonstrated by obsession with wealth, things obtainable through wealth and the willingness to ruthlessly exploit the planet and each other to gain wealth.
Capitalism is the organization of appetite into a global system of wealth extraction through the exploitation of planet and people. I don’t know that it can be said that the broad flow of history has ever produced a society governed by Philosophers.
Though we like to think of ourselves as being far more civilized than our distant ancestors and more recent indigenous societies, we are very little removed from our primal instincts, that is, from being ruled by our appetites.
It’s not through lack of effort on the part of at least some of us. Indeed, this system of the tripartite soul developed by Socrates and Plato is aimed at understanding how one might govern self and society in a more rational way. As a way of establishing a universal good and conducting affairs according to that good.
A contemporary of Plato’s offered an alternative way of looking at things. Thrasymachus challenged the Socratic-Platonic concept of the good as a universal principle, saying that the good is whatever pursues the interests of the more powerful. According to Bertrand Russell this challenge is swatted away like a bothersome fly and not effectively refuted. It’s been a long time since I have read the Republic, so I will accept Russell’s assessment that it stands as an effective challenge to the Socratic-Platonic vision of the world as it could be. Inspection of history and the present state of the world appears, to me, to support the position of Thrasymachus. Appetite has been and is largely immune from any attempts by reason or faith to subdue it.
Unfortunately, we have reached a place where we either moderate appetite or we are destroyed by it.
