Transcript republic01

Ethical rationalism
Lecture 1: Introduction to
Plato's Republic
“Sincerity – if you can fake that,
you’ve got it made.” --Advice given
to Daniel Schorr about TV
journalism
Some central characters
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Socrates
Glaucon
Adeimantus
Thrasymachus
Historical background
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Cultural pluralism in the Mediterranean
Questioning of traditional Greek practices
Emergence of moral relativism
Relativism defined
There is no set of basic moral standards
that are applicable to all people. Rather,
different people are subject to different
basic moral demands, depending on the
social customs, practices, conventions,
values and principles that they accept.
Relativism vs. absolutism
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Absolutism: Right and wrong are basically
the same for everyone.
Relativism: Basic moral standards can vary
from group to group, society to society,
epoch to epoch, etc.
Sophists’ case for relativism
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Nature is the same for everyone
But morality is not fixed in the nature of
things; it is conventional.
Conventions vary from society to society.
2 versions of sophist relativism
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Moderate: A society’s moral conventions
apply to everyone in that society
(Protagoras).
Extreme: You have no good reason to follow
your society’s morality when it conflicts with
your own interests (Thrasymachus).
Thrasymachus in Book I
“Justice [morality] is nothing other than the
advantage of the stronger” (338c-339a; xiv).
Example
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Our society’s moral code contains:
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a strong requirement not to harm others
a much weaker requirement to help others
These work to the advantage of the wealthy
and more powerful
Challenge to Socrates
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Morality seems to be good only for its
consequences
Often a moral reputation will do just as well
Can S show that the moral person with an
immoral reputation is better off than the
immoral person with a moral reputation?
Socrates’s strategy
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Connect morality to the realization of human
nature and thus to our good.
Show that these are intrinsic connections.
Show that moral values belong to an
independent reality that we can all come to
know.
Human nature
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The human psyche contains three parts:
rational, spirited, appetitive
Healthy development requires harmonious
cooperation of these three parts under the
direction of the rational part (psychic
harmony).
Evidence for 3-part psyche
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Appetite different from reason: case of being
thirsty but refusing to drink because you
know the drink is bad for you.
Appetite vs. passion: wanting to look at a
corpse but at the same time feeling disgust.
Passion vs. reason: children, animals, cases
of speaking sternly to one’s heart.
Two claims:
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Full happiness = psychic harmony
Psychic harmony = justice in the individual
Analogy with justice in the city
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Correspondences
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reason-- wise rulers
spirit-- military class
appetite-- commercial class
Justice in the city = social harmony = each
class performing its proper function
Next time:
Plato as a rationalist