Thursday 9/19

Thursday 9/19

Republic, Book V

Readings

Texts

Discussion Questions

Fourth Question from 9/12, repeated 9/17, on Book III: The Noble Lie

At 389b-d, Socrates argues that, while it is never permitted for a citizen to lie, circumstances can arise that justify lies by the rulers (and the rulers/guardians alone!):

Moreover, we have to be concerned about truth as well, for if what we said just now is correct, and falsehood, though of no use to the gods, is useful to people as a form of drug, clearly we must allow only doctors to use it, not private citizens.

Clearly.

Then if it is appropriate for anyone to use falsehoods for the good of the city, because of the actions of either enemies or citizens, it is the rulers. But everyone else must keep away from them, because for a private citizen [c] to lie to a ruler is just as bad a mistake as for a sick person or athlete not to tell the truth to his doctor or trainer about his physical condition or for a sailor not to tell the captain the facts about his own condition or that of the ship and the rest of its crew—indeed it is a worse mistake than either of these.

That’s completely true.

What is the argument here? Do you find it persuasive?

Then later at 414b Socrates provides an example of just such a noble lie:

[b] Then, isn’t it truly most correct to call these people complete guardians, since they will guard against external enemies and internal friends, so that the one will lack the power and the other the desire to harm the city? The young people we’ve hitherto called guardians we’ll now call auxiliaries and supporters of the guardians’ convictions.

I agree.

How, then, could we devise one of those useful falsehoods we were talking about a while ago, one noble falsehood that would, in the best [c] case, persuade even the rulers, but if that’s not possible, then the others in the city?

What sort of falsehood?

Nothing new, but a Phoenician story which describes something that has happened in many places. At least, that’s what the poets say, and they’ve persuaded many people to believe it too. It hasn’t happened among us, and I don’t even know if it could. It would certainly take a lot of persuasion to get people to believe it.

You seem hesitant to tell the story.

When you hear it, you’ll realize that I have every reason to hesitate.

Speak, and don’t be afraid.

[d] I’ll tell it, then, though I don’t know where I’ll get the audacity or even what words I’ll use. I’ll first try to persuade the rulers and the soldiers and then the rest of the city that the upbringing and the education we gave them, and the experiences that went with them, were a sort of dream, that in fact they themselves, their weapons, and the other craftsmen’s tools [e] were at that time really being fashioned and nurtured inside the earth, and that when the work was completed, the earth, who is their mother, delivered all of them up into the world. Therefore, if anyone attacks the land in which they live, they must plan on its behalf and defend it as their mother and nurse and think of the other citizens as their earthborn brothers.

It isn’t for nothing that you were so shy about telling your falsehood.

[415] Appropriately so. Nevertheless, listen to the rest of the story. “All of you in the city are brothers,” we’ll say to them in telling our story, “but the god who made you mixed some gold into those who are adequately equipped to rule, because they are most valuable. He put silver in those who are auxiliaries and iron and bronze in the farmers and other craftsmen. For the most part you will produce children like yourselves, but, because [b] you are all related, a silver child will occasionally be born from a golden parent, and vice versa, and all the others from each other. So the first and most important command from the god to the rulers is that there is nothing that they must guard better or watch more carefully than the mixture of metals in the souls of the next generation. If an offspring of theirs should be found to have a mixture of iron or bronze, they must not pity him in any way, but give him the rank appropriate to his nature and drive him [c] out to join the craftsmen and farmers. But if an offspring of these people is found to have a mixture of gold or silver, they will honor him and take him up to join the guardians or the auxiliaries, for there is an oracle which says that the city will be ruined if it ever has an iron or a bronze guardian.” So, do you have any device that will make our citizens believe this story?

I can’t see any way to make them believe it themselves, but perhaps [d] there is one in the case of their sons and later generations and all the other people who come after them.

What is the justification for the noble lie? Why must it, in Socrates' view, be told?

First Question on Book IV: The Unhappy Guardian

At the end of the Book III, Socrates suggests that the following substantial restrictions be placed on the guardians:

Now, someone with some understanding might say that, besides this education, they must also have the kind of housing and other property that will neither prevent them from being the best guardians nor encourage [d] them to do evil to the other citizens.

That’s true.

Consider, then, whether or not they should live in some such way as this, if they’re to be the kind of men we described. First, none of them should possess any private property beyond what is wholly necessary. Second, none of them should have a house or storeroom that isn’t open for all to enter at will. Third, whatever sustenance moderate and courageous [e] warrior-athletes require in order to have neither shortfall nor surplus in a given year they’ll receive by taxation on the other citizens as a salary for their guardianship. Fourth, they’ll have common messes and live together like soldiers in a camp. We’ll tell them that they always have gold and silver of a divine sort in their souls as a gift from the gods and so have no further need of human gold. Indeed, we’ll tell them that it’s impious for them to defile this divine possession by any admixture of such gold, because many impious deeds have been done that involve the [417] currency used by ordinary people, while their own is pure. Hence, for them alone among the city’s population, it is unlawful to touch or handle gold or silver. They mustn’t be under the same roof as it, wear it as jewelry, or drink from gold or silver goblets. In this way they’d save both themselves and the city. But if they acquire private land, houses, and currency themselves, they’ll be household managers and farmers instead of guardians—[b] hostile masters of the other citizens instead of their allies. They’ll spend their whole lives hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, more afraid of internal than of external enemies, and they’ll hasten both themselves and the whole city to almost immediate ruin. For all these reasons, let’s say that the guardians must be provided with housing and the rest in this way, and establish this as a law. Or don’t you agree?

Adeimantus opens Book IV challenging Socrates on just this point:

[419] And Adeimantus interrupted: How would you defend yourself, Socrates, he said, if someone told you that you aren’t making these men very happy and that it’s their own fault? The city really belongs to them, yet they derive no good from it. Others own land, build fine big houses, acquire furnishings to go along with them, make their own private sacrifices to the gods, entertain guests, and also, of course, possess what you were talking about just now, gold and silver and all the things that are thought to belong to people who are blessedly happy. But one might well say that your guardians are simply settled in the city like mercenaries and that all [420] they do is watch over it.

Yes, I said, and what’s more, they work simply for their keep and get no extra wages as the others do. Hence, if they want to take a private trip away from the city, they won’t be able to; they’ll have nothing to give to their mistresses, nothing to spend in whatever other ways they wish, as people do who are considered happy. You’ve omitted these and a host of other, similar facts from your charge.

Well, let them be added to the charge as well.

Then, are you asking how we should defend ourselves? [b]

Yes.

I think we’ll discover what to say if we follow the same path as before. We’ll say that it wouldn’t be surprising if these people were happiest just as they are, but that, in establishing our city, we aren’t aiming to make any one group outstandingly happy but to make the whole city so, as far as possible. We thought that we’d find justice most easily in such a city and injustice, by contrast, in the one that is governed worst and that, by observing both cities, we’d be able to judge the question we’ve been inquiring into for so long. We take ourselves, then, to be fashioning the happy [c] city, not picking out a few happy people and putting them in it, but making the whole city happy. (We’ll look at the opposite city soon.1)

Suppose, then, that someone came up to us while we were painting a statue and objected that, because we had painted the eyes (which are the most beautiful part) black rather than purple, we had not applied the most beautiful colors to the most beautiful parts of the statue. We’d think it reasonable to offer the following defense: “You mustn’t expect us to paint the eyes so beautifully that they no longer appear to be eyes at all, and [d] the same with the other parts. Rather you must look to see whether by dealing with each part appropriately, we are making the whole statue beautiful.” Similarly, you mustn’t force us to give our guardians the kind of happiness that would make them something other than guardians. We know how to clothe the farmers in purple robes, festoon them with gold [e] jewelry, and tell them to work the land whenever they please. We know how to settle our potters on couches by the fire, feasting and passing the wine around, with their wheel beside them for whenever they want to make pots. And we can make all the others happy in the same way, so that the whole city is happy. Don’t urge us to do this, however, for if we do, a farmer wouldn’t be a farmer, nor a potter a potter, and none of the [421] others would keep to the patterns of work that give rise to a city. Now, if cobblers become inferior and corrupt and claim to be what they are not, that won’t do much harm to the city. Hence, as far as they and the others like them are concerned, our argument carries less weight. But if the guardians of our laws and city are merely believed to be guardians but are not, you surely see that they’ll destroy the city utterly, just as they alone have the opportunity to govern it well and make it happy.

If we are making true guardians, then, who are least likely to do evil to the city, and if the one who brought the charge is talking about farmers and banqueters who are happy as they would be at a festival rather than [b] in a city, then he isn’t talking about a city at all, but about something else. With this in mind, we should consider whether in setting up our guardians we are aiming to give them the greatest happiness, or whether—since our aim is to see that the city as a whole has the greatest happiness—we must compel and persuade the auxiliaries and guardians to follow our other [c] policy and be the best possible craftsmen at their own work, and the same with all the others. In this way, with the whole city developing and being governed well, we must leave it to nature to provide each group with its share of happiness.

The upshot is that the luxuries of the Luxurious City are to be denied the guardians, since the happiness (flourishing) of the city as a whole of greater value than the happiness of their particular part of the city. Note that what we formerly were calling the guardians (soldiers bent on the protection of the Luxurious City) we are now calling 'auxiliaries'. From among their number we find the true guardians of the city, or the city rulers. Hence Adeimantus' perplexity: The very people who govern the city are denied any profit or comfort from it.

What is Socrates' response to Adeimantus' challenge? Setting aside any reassurances to them stemming from the Noble Lie, is it satisfactory?

Second Question on Book IV: Eat the Rich

421d begins a prescient discussion on one of the more important duties of the Guardians: To prevent the accumulation of wealth and the deprivation of poverty. Why are wealth and poverty both dangers to the Luxurious City? How shall the Guardians rule so as to guard against them?

Third Question on Book IV: The Virtues of the City

After a brief discussion of the Guardians' primary obligation, which is to the education of the citizens of the city, Socrates suggests (427e and following) that we have sketched out enough of the city to be able to identify within it the four virtues:

  1. Wisdom
  2. Courage
  3. Moderation
  4. Justice

What are the four virtues as they are each in turn identified in the City?