Lect3 Plato2

Lecture 3: 

Lecture 3 Is Morality Good for You?

Note on Text:: 

Note on Text: All Good editions of Plato will have, in the margin, Stephanus numbers – eg: 357a So, for example, “’To which category do you think morality belongs?’ he asked”, Republic, 357d. First extract: 357a - 362c Second: 439c - 444e

Is Murder Wrong? : 

Is Murder Wrong? Is there any basis – religious or moral – for our belief that it is wrong? Would it not be more ‘realistic’ to say that “might is right” – if you can get away with it, it’s okay.

Slide4: 

In Woody Allen’s movie Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) a man has his mistress assassinated because she is about to tell his wife everything. The man, who comes from a traditional Jewish family, is beset with guilt. He remembers a family dinner in which his Aunt, a Holocaust survivor, talks about Hitler and morality…

Slide5: 

This is Glaucon’s challenge restated in 20th Century terms. The Aunt claims that even Hitler really got away with it – or at least that he was only defeated by a greater ‘might’ (force) than his own. Her argument is largely anti-religious, showing that there is no God looking after us. But it is also a familiar argument for moral scepticism.

Slide6: 

And in fact, it turns out that, after a long period of guilt, the man does get away with murder, and he settles down to enjoy life with his wife. This goes against all our expectations – because we ‘know’ that the guilty are finally punished, that crime doesn’t pay, etc. But the fact is, that sometimes – often? – they get away with it. Just like Gyges.

Slide7: 

The challenge to Socrates (and Plato) is to show that even though you might get away with it, you are still worse off than the just person. How is Plato (Socrates) going to do that?

The Healthy Soul: 

The Healthy Soul Plato’s argument, ultimately, is based on the idea that it is better to be healthy than unhealthy. And morality, or justice, is a matter of the health of the individual’s soul; just as politics is a matter of the health of the city (polis)

Slide9: 

The extract we are now reading – Part II ‘Harmonious Soul’ – comes towards the end of the Republic. Socrates, as we saw, was challenged to show that the good (just) man is better off than the bad (unjust) man. He chose to do so by showing justice and injustice in the large-scale phenomenon of the city-state (polis).

Slide10: 

In his discussion of the city – the bulk of Republic – the character Socrates argues that the city has three types of people (producers, auxiliaries, rulers). And the health of the city – or its justice – depends on each group knowing its role and staying in it place to do its job.

Slide11: 

Now (in the extract we’re looking at) he is going to make the same argument about the individual soul. The first point to establish is that we are divided internally; the second point is to establish that there are three faculties or parts. And we should remember that ‘soul’ (psuche) for the Greeks was not at all like the Christian conception. It was the animating principle of the body (existing also in animals).

Slide12: 

These are: Appetite Passion Reason

Slide13: 

So, according to Plato’s theory of the self, we are fundamentally divided beings: we are a war zone of competing drives. However, it doesn’t have to be a war zone. Firstly he establishes that passion is always an ally of reason;

Slide14: 

Then, he argues that for a ‘healthy’ or peaceful or happy soul there must be the right relation between the parts – just like the relation between the parts of the city. Reason must rule; Passion must help reason; Appetite must obey.

Slide15: 

Now justice, or morality, in the individual is defined as the correct, natural, healthy balance between the parts of the soul. The assumption (or argument?) is that the vicious person is vicious because their soul is in turmoil; and that in some way they are worse off as a result of that.

Slide16: 

“Goodness, then, is apparently a state of mental health, bloom and vitality; badness is a state of mental sickness, deformity, and infirmity.” (444e)

Slide17: 

So, to return to the first question: Why be Moral? The answer: because morality is the natural, healthy and therefore BEST mode of being of the human soul.

Slide18: 

Does this answer the sceptics, the anti-moralists, Thrasymachus, you…?

Tutorial Note: 

Tutorial Note Tutorials will start NEXT week. Your 300 word summary of the ‘Ring of Gyges’ extract must be submitted to your Tutor at the Tutorial. Class lists – with time and place of tutorial – will be on the notice board outside my office (Rm. MB309) by Thursday morning.