PHIL 231 plato midterm

Polemarchus

• Thinks justice = giving each what is owed

• More specifically: help friends, harm enemies. “eye for an eye”

• Problem: people can be mistaken about who friends/enemies are

Thrasymachus

Claims justice = the advantage of the stronger

Rulers make laws to benefit themselves

Justice helps those in power, not the ruled

Glaucon

Revives Thrasymachus’ challenge in a stronger form

Argues people are just only because they’re afraid of punishment

Introduces pleonexia and Ring of Gyges

Thinks justice is a necessary evil, not good in itself

Socrates

Uses questioning (Socratic Method)

Ultimately defines justice as harmony

Thinks justice is good in itself and for its consequences

Builds the city → soul analogy

Claims to know nothing.

Protagoras

Sophist + relativist

Famous claim: “Man is the measure of all things”

Truth and morality depend on the perceiver

Pleonexia

desire to out do others and get more and more. Glaucon thinks people are driven by this.

ring of gyges

story that Glaucon says.

Would a good person become bad if they didn’t have the reputation of a bad one?

Polemarchus’ “Justice is giving to each what is owed” (331e)

Example: returning a weapon you borrowe

Problem: what if the owner is insane?

Shows that rules without wisdom can cause harm

Socrates’ Harm Argument (335b)

Justice cannot involve harming people

Harming makes people worse (more unjust)

A just person cannot make others unjust

• refute to Polemarchus’ “harm enemies” idea.

Thrasymachus’ “Justice is the advantage of the stronger” (338d–e)

Laws reflect rulers’ interests

Example: tax laws benefiting elites

Socrates responds: rulers can make mistakes → then laws don’t benefit them

The Socratic Method

“what is X?”

person gives answer, socrates proves them wrong.

Asking questions to expose contradictions

Goal is truth, not winning arguments

What Kind of Good Is Justice?

Glaucon

• Justice is a necessary evil

• Chosen only to avoid punishment

Socrates

• Justice is:

  • good in itself

  • AND good for its consequences

Glaucon’s hypothesis about why people decide to make laws and morality (358e)

People agree to laws as a compromise

Worst thing: suffering injustice

Second worst: committing injustice and getting caught

Laws minimize harm

Glaucon’s Overall Challenge (358d)

Prove that justice is good in itself and NOT just for its external benefits

Why Socrates prefers a “minimal” city with few luxuries

Why a Minimal City?

• Fewer desires → less conflict

• Luxury creates greed, war, injustice

How Socrates’ imaginary city (“the Republic”) is organized, including the Myth of Metals; how the classes live

Classes in the City (Myth of Metals)

• Rulers (gold) – own nothing. philosophers. (reason)

• Auxiliaries (silver) – guardians. educated and trained (spirit)

• Producers (bronze/iron) – produce everything. own things (appetite)

Each does its own job → justice

Socrates imagines his “one city” battling a city that is “a great many cities” (422e – 423a)

• Unified city = harmony

• “Many cities” = factions fighting internally

The meaning of “virtue” (arete) in Greek (in powerpoint on book IV)

Arete (Virtue)

• Means excellence, not morality

• A knife’s arete = cutting well

• A soul’s arete = functioning properly

Customs in Sparta discussed in class

• Militaristic

• Communal living

• Discipline over luxury

Plato borrows some ideas, not all.

Socrates’ Definition of Justice (433–434)

Justice is each part doing its own work and not interfering

Applies to:

• the city

• the soul

How the city is like a soul

Parts of the Soul

1. Reason (rational part)

2. Spirit (honor, anger) holds yourself accountable

3. Appetite (desires)

The arguments for the 3-Part soul, and how they work: for example, a thirsty person who doesn’t drink (438-9)

• A thirsty person who refuses to drink

• Same person has:

  • desire (appetite)

  • resistance (reason)

The right order in the soul, and what a wrongly-ordered person is like

Right Order

• Reason rules

• Spirit supports reason

• Appetite obeys

Wrong Order

• Appetite rules → chaos, injustice

The Cave Analogy (starts at 514)

• Prisoners mistake shadows for reality

• Philosopher escapes → sees Forms

• Education = turning the soul toward truth

• Returning philosopher is mocked

What The Forms are

• Perfect, unchanging realities

• Physical objects are imperfect copies

• Form of the Good = highest Form

How a philosopher-king rules differently than a tyrant (that is, an absolute dictator)

Vs Tyrant

• Tyrant rules for self-interest

• Philosopher-king rules for the Good

Vs Democracy

• Democracy values freedom over wisdom

• Everyone “rules,” regardless of knowledge

How a democracy is like a disordered young man (559e-561e)

• Chases every desire

• No hierarchy of values

• Leads easily to tyranny

Plato’s analogy of the ship, the ship owner, the sailors, and the true captain (488)

• Ship owner = people

• Sailors = politicians

• True captain = philosopher

• People trust flatterers, not experts

What relativism means at a very basic level

• Truth or morality depends on perspective

• No objective standard

• “man is the measure of all things”

Definitions of more specific types of relativism: David Wong’s “pluralistic relativism” versus Protagoras’ “extreme relativism” (know how these are different); understand these and be able to apply them to some examples

Protagoras: Extreme Relativism

• Whatever seems true is true

• No objective reality

David Wong: Pluralistic Relativism

• Multiple valid moral systems

• Still allows criticism across cultures

If I wanted to be a “sophist” when I grew up, what would that job involve day to day?

• Professional persuader. persuade anything to anybody.

• Teaches people whatever they are paid to teach

• ultra relativists

Why the Athenians saw the sophists as corrupting the city

• scummy

• Taught persuasion over truth

• Undermined traditional values

Why the sophist Thrasymachus (who thinks “justice is the advantage of the stronger”) also counts as a relativist

• Justice depends on who holds power

• No universal justice

Protagoras’ “a person is the measure of all things” saying (Kerferd) – what does it mean? Why is that an important claim?

• Truth depends on the individual. there is no objective truth.

• No objective cold/hot, just perceived cold/hot

• still no standard of anything

• you cannot exist outside of your own consciousness

Applying Protagoras to various examples like the “wind is cold/not-cold” example (Kerferd; in the powerpoint slides (slide #32) the example is about water instead of wind)

• Wind feels cold to one, warm to another

• Both are “true” for the perceiver

Why Socrates is not a relativist

• Believes in objective truth

• Believes in the Forms

• Uses reason to discover universal definitions