There was a part in Book V that just completely blew my mind. Socrates mentions it only briefly in Book IV and then winds up having to explain himself after being questioned about it in Book V. It is the part when he says that all men will share all women and children. Before he jumps into this issue he settles the issue about whether women will be considered equal with men. After coming to a conclusion that men and women are equal Socrates goes on to present the resulting law he thinks causes even greater problems which is, "That all the women shall belong to all the men and that none shall cohabit privately; that the children should also be raised in common and no child should know its parent nor the parent its child."(The Republic/ Book V /457d)
As soon as Socrates brings up the point about men sharing all the women and children Glaucon makes the comment that this is a far greater issue than the equality of man and woman. What Socrates is suggesting is that there will basically no longer be any more individual family groups. Socrates himself even questions if it is possible, but he comes to a conclusion that for the just city to be unified and for the state's greatest good women and children will be shared.
The end result of Socrates plan to actually makes this possible is that all men and women who have children will consider every single child theirs whether it is actually theirs or not. Thus, all the children will consider all the child bearers at that time to be their parents. If there are people in the city who are too old to have children then they will be considered the new generations grandparents. It is extremely confusing and very complicated. I could not imagine living in a world where I never knew who my real mom or dad was. I also don't know how I would function without knowing who my actual child was. Although, this is way too extreme for today's society to even find feasible Socrates does make a good point in it unifying the city. If we truly considered everyone in our society as family, everyone would be so much more respected and cared for. As a whole,our society would be more unified and we really would be like one big happy family. As Christians we are supposed to view everyone as our brother and sister in Christ so maybe this is Socrates way of making it actually happen. However, growing up in today's society and being a Christian I just cannot seem to find his plan plausible or morally okay or just.
p.s. commented on Katelyn Ewing's I don't want Socrates to be my doctor.
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