Plato wasn’t the first to recognize the connection that exists between morality and community, though he was the first to give it philosophical expression. In the Republic, Plato saw psychological integrity and political stability as analogous. The well-ordered soul is like the well-ordered city — apart from this organizational excellence, human flourishing, whether individually or communally, is just not possible.

This connection Plato saw was always more than a heuristic. There is a sense in which the polis has an outlook, the way its values, crystallized in the art it produces and manifested in the decisions it takes, are hierarchically arranged. And this arrangement, this organization, is either conducive to eudaimonia or it isn’t.

That a city can take a posture towards the good in this way was not lost on Augustine. His City of God is a sprawling, swerving polemic against a facile identification of earthly communities, which are always beset by the exigencies of human sinfulness, and the true community of God, a kingdom mostly hidden since its debut arrives far before its full realization in the eschaton.

Read the article “Plato, the Good City and the Good Citizen” on frontporchrepublic.com.