PHIL 310                               Is There a Fallacy in PlatoÕs Republic?                              Lesher

 

Part I   PlatoÕs Republic (358-360), The ÔGyges StoryÕ

 

Now that those who practice justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind:[359c] having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power [359d] as is said to have been possessed by Gyges the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, [359e] and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the stone of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible [360a] to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the stone outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result -- when he turned the stone inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers [360b] who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, [360c] or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. [360d] For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers -- on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part II  From David Sachs, 'A Fallacy in Plato's Republic', Philosophical Review, Vol. 72, 1963, pp. 141-58:

 

Toward the end of Book IV Socrates formulates the Platonic conception of the just man: a man, each part of whose soul attends to its business or function, performing no tasks but its own. Further, Socrates says that if an action preserves or helps to produce the condition of the soul in which each of its parts does its own task, one ought to believe the action just and name it so, and believe an action unjust and name it so if it has a contrary effect (443e-444a2). In accord with this, Socrates suggests that acting justly is to be understood as acting in a way that will produce the condition of justice in the soul, and that acting unjustly is to be understood as behavior which produces a contrary condition. Glaucon, I take it, is sounding a like note when he affirms that just acts are necessarily productive of justice, unjust ones of injustice.

 

It will be recalled that Thrasymachus, in stating his position, mentioned among unjust acts temple robbing, kidnapping, swindling, thieving, and so forth. This list, again, was enlarged by Glaucon's mention of sexual relations with whom one pleases, killing, freeing from bonds anyone one wishes, and so forth; that is, acts commonly judged immoral or criminal. The man of whom it was to be proven that his life will be happier than other lives is the man who does not commit such acts.

 

What Plato tries to establish, however, is that a man each of the parts of whose soul performs its own task, and who conducts himself throughout his days in such a way that this condition will remain unaltered, leads a happier life than any men whose souls are not thus ordered. Regardless of Plato's success or failure in this endeavor, for it to be at all relevant he has to prove that his conception of the just man precludes behavior commonly judged immoral or criminal; that is he must prove that the conduct of his just man also conforms to the ordinary or vulgar canon of justice. Second, he has to prove that his conception of the just man applies to--is exemplified by--every man who is just according to the vulgar conception. For, short of this last, he will not have shown it impossible for men to conform to vulgar justice and still be less happy than men who do not. Plato had to meet both of these requirements if his conclusions about happiness and justice are to bear successfully against Thrasymachus' contentions and satisfy Glaucon's and Adeimantus' demands of Socrates. There are passages in the Republic which show that Plato thought there was no problem about the first requirement [ie. no problem in showing that Platonic justice implies vulgar justice]; there are however, no passages which indicate that he was aware of the second [i.e. of the need to prove that vulgar justice implied Platonic justice]. In any event the fact is that he met neither requirement; nor is it plausible to suppose that he could have met either of them.