SOURCE: Morrison, Donald. “The Happiness of the City and the Happiness of the Individual in Plato's Republic.” Ancient Philosophy 21, no. 1 (spring 2001): 1-24.

In the following essay, Morrison reflects on the relationship between the happiness of individuals and the happiness of the city as it is outlined in the Republic.

Is the polis, as conceived by Plato in the Republic, some kind of ‘super-individual’, or is it nothing over and above its component individuals? Is the happiness of the polis a separate and transcendent value, for which the happiness of its citizens might be sacrificed, or not? Answers to these questions are often grouped into two roughly opposed camps or tendencies. ‘Individualists’ tend to say that the polis is nothing but its citizens, and that the happiness of the polis is nothing but the happiness of its citizens.¹ ‘Holists’ tend to say that the polis is not identical to...