Wisdom, Over All of Plato's Journal

Wisdom is necessary to determine the capacity and limits imposed upon the warrior class to carry out this task.

Temperance deals with self-control and moderation. The state must be aware of its limits and determine the point at which excesses are achieved and learn to moderate them, or to deter itself from indulgence. Wisdom will help to establish discipline and ensure that excesses are not reached, or how to scale back and reduce gluttony and excess. Wisdom allows for the state, and individual, to reach a healthy medium between excess and deficiency. The ruler must also be wise enough to not put their state in peril, nor to engage in unnecessary warfare or expansion.

Justice is the culmination of wisdom, temperance, and courage. Justice may be broken down into two categories, societal and individual. Societal justice is the political arrangement in which an individual is expected to play an appropriate role. In society, an individual is assigned a role that best suits him or her as well as the well-being of the state. In this sense, one must utilize wisdom to determine how roles are assigned and the duties assigned to a particular role. Individual justice also determines the role of the other virtues within the individual, contributing to the well-being and balance of the whole. Through the use of wisdom, emotion and impulse is replaced by knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom helps to recognize and judge the functions of the other virtues and employs intellect to define the characteristics and parameters of each. Though each virtue contributes to the whole, wisdom helps to determine what each virtue's contribution is and how the virtue is employed. Works Cited Frede, Dorothea, "Plato's Ethics: An Overview," the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Retrieved from . Web......