PHIL 1003: Ethics and society

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PHIL 1003 Ethics and society

• Plato II Community-Individual

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Discussion Board reminder

• School of Humanities
• Username student
• Password dike

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Logos (Greek)

• One faculty of speech and reason.

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Review

• Socrates and Plato

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Socrates

• Controversial figure
• Publicly questioned received ideas in
• Morality
• Politics
• Athens condemned him to death
• Influenced important thinkers
• Plato
• Xenophon

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First arguments in Republic

• Socrates arguments re moralitywhy are they
  unsatisfactory?
• expertise vs money-making (343aff.)
• superiority practiced by the immoral (349c)
• skill-morality analogy being immoral is like
  being stupid (348aff., 350d)
• can a person of lower IQ be moral?
• If so, then Socrates is wrong about the analogy.
• Good people only take power in order to avoid
  being oppressed by bad people ( 347b-d)
• Competition to avoid power in good society.

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These arguments fail

• So what can we do to stop the pursuit of power,
  and exploitation?

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Answer Platonic concept of soul, or anima

• Related words
• animate, animated, animation.

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Initial proposal two-part soul

• Reason
• Should supervise whole person
• Restrains desires
• Makes morality possible
• But in disordered souls reason may not rule.

• Desires
• Strive to be satisfied
• Food, Sex, power
• If reason does not maintain control,
• Desires take over
• Result anarchy (no ruler).

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Plato adds key third part passion (thymos, Gr.)

• Passion guardian of the soul
• Analogous to guardians of city
• Passion acts w/ reason to safeguard
  self-discipline and morality
• Exception in anarchic soul, passion may aid
  desire instead
• What happens to anarchic souls?

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Key concept

• Hierarchy relation of superior to inferior
  there has to be a ranking of unequal persons or
  parts, not equality.

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Structure of soul
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Structure of Platonic soul

• 3 parts
• each should do its appointed task
• Reason (like Philosopher-king) in charge
• Passion (like auxiliaries) keeps desires under
  control
• Desire (like rabble, children, women, slaves
  431c), subordinate to reason and passion
• This is order of nature (444d).

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Community-Individual Analogies

• Principle of Specialization (406c)
• Analogy to city
• each inhabitant should do his/her appointed task
• Analogy to craft
• shoemaker should make shoes
• House builder should build houses.

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The harmonious soul

• we call him self-disciplined when theres
  concord and attunement between these same
  partsthat is, when the ruler and its two
  subjects unanimously agree on the necessity of
  the rational part being the ruler and when they
  dont rebel against it? (442d)

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Questions?

• Comments?

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Achieving unity

• Platos vision of the city and morality

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Individual-community analogy

• human morality is the same in kind as a
  communitys morality (441d)
• Each part does its task
• unity of soul and city
• Unity health, morality, order
• Not a plurality no division or conflict
• Plurality illness, disorder
• Aristotle, Pol. Bk 2 prefers plurality.

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A noble lieMyth of the metals, 415a

• Some born gold, others silver
• Most are base metals (iron and copper)
• Gold are trained to be rulers rational
• Silver guardians
• passionate to protect and preserve city
• Base metals are commoners, workers,
• Have to be kept in check b/c ruled by desire.

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Question

• Is it moral to lie?

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Its ok for rulers to lie for a good end

• the gods really have no use for falsehood,
  although it can serve as a type of medicine for
  us humans, then clearly lying should be entrusted
  to doctors
• If its anyones job, then its the job of the
  rulers of our community they can lie for the
  good of the community, when either an external or
  an internal threat makes it necessary (389b).

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Do you see any problems with this argument?

• How can the rulers distinguish a good end from a
  bad one?

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Question

• What is done with children born into the wrong
  class?

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What about golds or silvers born as base metals?

• No problem!
• Educate them according to the status to which
  they should have been born (415c).
• But rabble just need to know their jobsno
  special education.

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Role of eugenics(selective breeding)

• Platos city resembles Sparta Breeding upper
  classes for best traits
• intelligence,
• physical prowess
• passion
• Arranged matings no families, no marriages
• No private property
• One big, unified family
• Aristotle dislikes the whole idea of Platonic
  unity.

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Role of Education for Auxiliaries and Guardians

• Topics
• Mathematics
• Gymnastic
• Music
• Who is educated?
• Guardians
• Philosopher-kings
• Rabble (majority) are excluded.
• W/out proper education, a gold child will turn
  out bad and cannot develop into a philosopher.

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Assessments of Republic

• J.J. Rousseau considered Republic a treatise on
  education
• Others have argued it is fundamentally
  anti-political
• Still others take it seriously as a political
  treatise.

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Question

• If immorality is caused by the three factors
  (rationality, desirous, passion) being in
  conflict with each other due to mental sickness,
  can you blame someone for being immoral?

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One answer

• if an act, which in by itself is immoral, is
  conducted while the person is suffering from
  mental sickness, then the person cannot be called
  an immoral person in so far as he does not have
  the intention to conduct the immoral act in the
  first place. However, if he or she possess even
  the slightest immoral intent and in turn
  committed an immoral act, then we can reasonably
  call the person immoral.