Why should we be just?

in this module,

I will introduce the fundamental themes of Plato's Republic.

Plato's Republic is an attempt to answer a challenge,

a challenge to some of the most cherished practises and assumptions of our society.

And that assumption, roughly, is that there is a certain value to being just

by justice. We mean something very roughly. I want today refer to as morality

the various practises

sentiments, attitudes together

stop us from claiming more than our fair share,

being nasty to other people and trying to be good human beings.

Now in Plato's Republic, we find this questioned in this quite fundamental way.

Now the first thing we need to know about the Republic is that,

unlike most texts in the history of philosophy,

the republic is not a treatise.

The republic is not won or for simply talking at you

for hours about what he thinks about his subject matter.

Rather,

Plato's Republic is a conversation or, as is traditionally described, a dialogue,

and the characters in this dialogue all three historical figures,

all three of whom were well known to Plato.

The first of these and the most important one was Socrates.

Socrates, as you probably know,

was a historical figure who lived in ancient Greece,

was put to death by the people of Athens onto accusations first

that he was engaging young men in conversation and getting them to question

some of the most deeply valued practises and assumptions of his society.

And in that sense he was corrupting them.

And he was also accused of being impious

of simply not having the same reverence for the gods of the ancient Greeks

as his fellow citizens.

Now, this case was taken to a jury.

Socrates was tried.

He defended himself, but his defence didn't persuade. The jurors was convicted

and then put to death

by being made to drink hemlock,

one of the most potent poisons known to the ancient Greeks.

Plato was one of the many young men in Socrates a circle.

He was one of the people that, as other Athenians might have thought,

had been corrupted by him.

Now Plato found Socrates deeply inspirational figure.

He thought Socrates was a man both noble and courageous and kind and wise,

and part of the effort of his philosophical life was

to try to get the figure of Socrates and the

values that he stood for to a wider audience than

merely that small group of people who have known Socrates personally

in the republic. Socrates is in conversation

primarily with two young men

the place we knew very well because they were his brothers

blacken

and Adam Entous

blackened Adam Entous or two young men about town in ancient Athens.

Quite well off, aristocratic, well educated.

They're fairly intelligent that they're not exactly intellectual.

And they're up for a serious conversation about morality,

which is not something that can be said for most young men.

So black on and Adam Entous talking to Socrates.

And they both have a question for him,

a question that takes the form

of a challenge.

So here is glaucoma and Adam Entous challenge to Socrates.

Socrates. The brothers say.

We have a great deal said about this concept. Justice.

People get praised for possessing it.

People get praised for performing just actions and other people are criticised,

condemned, censured for performing unjust actions.

So

there's a question.

Here are people praising justice itself,

or are they simply praising your ability to get

away with being thought to be just when in fact

you're living a life of injustice?

Here's another way of putting it.

What is it that really attracts people's praise?

Is it genuine justice,

or is it simply the ability to get away with injustice?

If it turns out that really,

what people praise is the fact that you're cunning operator who manages to give the

impression of being noble and kind and wise and all the rest of it,

while in fact in secret you're living this life of vice?

If it turns out that that's what's really being praised,

then it might turn out that all of this thing we call morality

all of the institutions of our society are based on a basic deceit.

It turns out that we simply deceiving ourselves if we say

that we care about these virtues and condemn vices because really

the only thing we're concerned with is social reputation.

Now, if click on automatic, those worries are justified

that we have a serious problem here.

It might have to turn out that all of what we say

about morality and so forth turns out to be a farce turns out to be a bit of duplicity

Now. Socrates certainly doesn't take this view about justice.

Socrates thinks the justice is genuinely something of great importance.

Socrates thinks that when people praise justice,

what they ought to be praising, whatever it is that they're actually doing,

should be the actual value there is to being just and not being unjust

now black trying,

trying and gives us a sense of why it is that

we might want to be suspicious with these two stories.

You might call them thought experiments and the ways in which philosophers through

history have tried to challenge us to get beyond certain of our shallow,

superficial thoughts by getting deeper and what we

really think and feel about certain subjects.

So here's the first of these stories.

This is the story of a shepherd

called Guy Judges

and guy Jeez finds a magic ring one day, and he puts it on, and he finds,

to his great amazement and delight

that the ring makes him invisible

and he puts it on. He finds he can walk around, do whatever he likes.

No one knows what he's doing so he can steal, never gets caught,

and in the course of the story is glad compels it.

This shepherd eventually goes and seduces the queen of his kingdom,

killed her husband, the King, and becomes king himself. It's a triumphant story

of somebody who's performed

every injustice in the book,

someone who clearly has no thought at all

to any of the concepts or rules or principles of morality

and seems to be doing very well for it. He gets to be the king, marry the queen,

live a life of pleasure and wealth.

So here's blackens question about guides.

If any one of us,

we're one day to find ourselves with Guy Jesus ring.

If we could find ourselves with the power of invisibility, in other words,

the ability to get away with any kind of wrongdoing,

do you think would really use it for good?

What do you think we do? Exactly what guidelines did

and use it as he did,

to find

for ourselves more of the sorts of things we desire.

Food or drink or wealth or money or sex? And

if it turns out that we identify with the ideas,

if it turns out that we find in ourselves

some of the same impulses and motivations as guides,

maybe

we should be suspicious of what it is that other people say

in their high minded way about morality or principle and so forth.

Because really, all of that

is a farce.

All of that is simply a cover for these darker, more sinister motivations.

Really,

what we want to do is to get away with injustice in the same way that guides did.

That's the first of the two stories.

The second one, in some ways, is even more unsettling.

The second story is a kind of obverse or opposite

of the story of gauges

instead of someone

who is in fact unjust

and has a reputation for justice with only the other way around

someone who is, in fact, just

noble, brave, kind. Courageous has all the virtues in the book,

for some reason,

is thought by other people,

perhaps because he is framed or because of some

kind of unfair accusation that he's unable to disprove.

He saddled with a reputation for being injured, for being unjust,

for doing all the things that he spent his life avoiding.

Now this person is taken away,

tortured

with all kinds of dastardly punishments

and in this kind of situation that he has this just man

all the right kinds of feelings and motivations and principles is on the rack.

He's being tortured

now

black on our Socrates. Are you really telling me, Socrates,

that in this kind of situation,

when you are in fact just your motivations are pure

when in fact no one else seems to recognise that?

And people are putting you to death and torturing you for it?

Is there still any kind of value to be recognised

in being Just if no one knows that you are

this is a really difficult case for Socrates. Answer.

I mean, can Socrates really

look like him in the eye and say Yes,

there is still a value to being just even when no one else thinks that you are

and at this clearly is a serious challenge.

If it turns out that people would much rather be gouges

and get away with injustice

than be this just man of the rack

being punished unfairly for crimes he didn't commit,

it might turn out

that blackens worries are justified

that all of this talk of morality is simply humbug.

So here's the question that Socrates needs to answer.

Can Clark own an adamant this challenge be answered?

Can Socrates show them

that there is in fact reason,

the value being just

even when no one knows that you are.

In other words,

Socrates has to defend the radical position

that there's something to be said for preferring to be the just man being tortured in

Iraq than to be gauges getting away with

injustice because of his ring of invisibility.

Can Socrates manage it?

That's what we'll see in the next model.