Plato's Conception of the Relations Between Moral Philosophy and Medicine

The first part of this article construes crucial passages from the Platonic dialogues as evidence that Plato takes medicine as a model for moral philosophy and as one of the organizing principles for his writing of the dialogues. The second part reflects upon the significance of one of the most debatable implications of the model: the comparison between health and illness, on the one hand, and moral virtue and moral vice, on the other. It articulates 10 illuminating aspects of this comparison and two potentially serious objections to it. The third part of this article examines what the model implies about the roles of medicine and moral philosophy in the political community and about the natures of doctor-patient and philosopher-interlocutor relationships. It highlights Socrates' criticisms of a kind of politics that covers over moral causes of social disorders by means of Band-Aid legislation, and emphasizes that according to the model, both the doctor and the moral teacher confront agents who must cooperate in the process of reform and accept whatever responsibility they have for their conditions.