Glaucon\'s Challenge - Lecture notes Plato\'s Republic PDF

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This details Glaucon's Challenge and the three types of "good," notes are very helpful for later essays. Professor is Milofsky. ...

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Session 1 : Glaucon’s challenge 357a – 362c The three types of goods 357b-d: Good 1: intrinsic - joy and harmless pleasures; Good 2: intrinsic and instrumental – knowledge, sight, health; Good 3: instrumental – physical training, medical treatment, money-making activities. Glaucon asks Socrates to demonstrate that justice is a type 2 good although most people believe it is a type 3 good. However, Glaucon asks an even more specific question (358b): “I want to know what justice and injustice are and what power each itself has when it’s by itself in the soul. I want to leave out of account their rewards and what comes from each of them.” What Glaucon is asking is a much deeper account. What does justice do to me as a human being? How does it benefit me directly as a being and not just as a member of society? Origins of justice 358e- 359b: All the elements of the future social contract theory are here clearly spelt out: importance of bargaining power and original strength. Can it last for long? Problem of coalition and insecurity of wars… Hobbes’ state of war. Glaucon argues that the nature of morality is revealed by its contractual origin which in turn means that morality is practiced only unwillingly, only for the purpose of escaping a lawless state. Morality is therefore an instrumental good. The argument is logically valid but it assumes that men are naturally dangerous for one another and that they act upon their self-interest (for power, sex, resources). Such claims are extreme. We do have other motives for our action such as benevolence and a sense of reciprocity or fairness. Glaucon has not really proven his point yet. Ring of Gyges 359c-360d: If it was not the fear of punishment everybody would behave unjustly. The purpose of the experiment is to isolate our true motives. Very often we don’t know what is the ‘engine’ in our action. Example: I love teaching, I am paid for it and I like the title. What is my primary motive? If you offer me a position without a remuneration and without the possibility for me to say what is my job to anybody, would I accept it just for the pleasure to face the students and teach? If yes, then my love for teaching is the dominant motive. If not we need to do another thought experiment to identify my real motivation. Such thought experiment (laboratory of the mind) is hypothetical and might not provide true results (I could lie to myself). Glaucon offers such a thought experiment just to demonstrate that the only motive for just behavior is the fear of punishment. This fear removed, none of us would comply with the contract.

359c: “The reason for this is the desire to outdo others [Hobbes’ Fool] and get more and more [utility maximization]. This is what anyone’s nature naturally pursues as good, but nature is forced by law into the perversion of treating fairness with respect”. This is typically the basic assumption of game theory: individuals maximize their utility or their outcome from the game and if we want to modify their behavior, we must modify the game and introduce enforcement agencies. What would you do if you had such a ring? Is the ring of Gyges a valid thought experiment? Not really because if such a ring existed and we had one then we would not be human and we would have a different outlook on our relationship altogether. We would be like gds. The two lives 360e- 362c: Is it a fair thought experiment to distinguish between true and pretended justice? Can we really assess the intrinsic benefits from justice from the tale? Glaucon asks really two questions: What is the reason to act morally? And how important is that reason when compared to other reasons? We can act morally for several reasons and reputation can be one of them but how important is that reason compared to the other possible reasons to moral behavior....