3 - The unity of the soul in Plato's Republic

Summary

In Book Four of Plato's Republic, Socrates divides the soul. This chapter shows that according to Book Four's division of the soul, the soul's unearned unity must and can be complex. It identifies a Platonic account of complex unity that explains why the whole soul is a locus of moral responsibility and at least enables explaining the unity of consciousness. Although Socrates has left room for the soul to be a complex whole comprising multiple parts, he has also made it clear that the parts are separate sources of psychological activity. The unearned unity of the soul is, like earned unity, a function of agreement among its parts, but unearned unity does not require each part of the soul to recognize the aims that it shares with the other parts. So the moral responsibility of the whole soul is akin to the collective responsibility of a corporate agent.