PHL 105Y September 29, 2004

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PHL 105YSeptember 29, 2004

• For Mondays class, read to the end of chapter
  four (412b) of the Republic
• Your tutorial should start TUT02 if it doesnt,
  or if you have any confusion surrounding your
  tutorial registration, see Julie Waters in North
  Building 227 she will fix it.
• This year's first meeting of the UTM Philosophy
  Club is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday,
  September 30 at 5pm in the Dean's Lounge (North
  Bldg. Room 262N). Ebony Roberts will be the
  student organizer this year. The club will
  gather, snack, and do a little planning. First
  year students always VERY welcome.
• The bookstore should have more textbooks in today
  for this course, if you have had trouble finding
  Weston or Plato.

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First essay topic(sneak preview)

• At 350e Socrates says to Thrasymachus, you must
  never go against what you actually believe. Why
  does he say so? Do you think that Socrates is
  right to say this to Thrasymachus? Explain.
• Your first draft will be due October 13 it
  should be 3-4 typed, double-spaced pages.
• Just start thinking about that question now Ill
  say more about this assignment next week.

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Tutorial homework for Friday

• Write a page on one of the following passages in
  the text
• 336b-337c
• 343d-344c
• 357b-358a
• You dont have to recap everything that goes on
  focus on something interesting and controversial
  agree or disagree with something, and say why.

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Can a moral person harm anyone?

• What is it to inflict harm on X?
• - To worsen X, in respect of a state of goodness
  for X.
• When people are harmed, they deteriorate in
  respect of what it is to be a good human
• But the state of goodness for humans is morality
  so people who are harmed become less moral
  (335c)

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people who are harmed become less moral (335c)

• Musicians cannot use music to make people less
  musical
• Skilled horsemen cannot use their skills to make
  people bad horsemen
• So, moral people cannot use morality to make
  people immoral.

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Thrasymachus

• Why does he object to Socrates method?
• What would he prefer to see?

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Thrasymachus

• morality is .. the advantage of the stronger
  party
• What is meant by stronger here?

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Thrasymachus

• morality is .. the advantage of the stronger
  party
• What is meant by stronger here?
• A democracy makes democratic laws a dictatorship
  makes dictatorial laws, and so on
• The ruling class ensures that the laws and
  morality of the society work to its own advantage

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morality as obedience to rulers, and the
advantage of the stronger party

• Do the rulers ever make mistakes about what is to
  their advantage?

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morality as obedience to rulers, and the
advantage of the stronger party

• Do the rulers ever make mistakes about what is to
  their advantage?
• Thrasymachus When they do, they are at that
  instant not really rulers (or not really the
  stronger party) rulers AS RULERS, dont make
  mistakes
• So morality is still always what is advantageous
  to the stronger.

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morality as obedience to rulers, and the
advantage of the stronger party

• We are now concerned with rulers IN THE PRECISE
  SENSE OF THE TERM.
• Doctors, in the precise sense, care for the sick
• Sea captains, in the precise sense, exercise
  authority over sailors
• So, the raison detre of a branch of expertise
  is to consider the welfare and interest of each
  party and then procure it

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morality as obedience to rulers, and the
advantage of the stronger party

• medicine does not consider the welfare of
  medicine, but of the body (342c)
• horsemanship considers the welfare of horses,
  not of horsemanship (342c)
• In short, no branch of expertise considers its
  own advantage (342c)

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morality as the advantage of the stronger party

• Socrates Therefore, Thrasymachus, no one in any
  other kind of authority either, in his capacity
  as ruler, considers or enjoins his own advantage,
  but the advantage of his subject, the person for
  whom he practices his expertise. Everything he
  says and everything he does is said and done with
  this aim in mind and with regard to what is
  advantageous to and appropriate for this person.
  (342e)

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Thrasymachus counter-attack

• Was Socrates analogy really right? What about
  shepherds? Do they work for the benefit of the
  sheep? Dont people with power exercise
  authority to their own advantage?
• morality and right are actually good for someone
  elsethey are the advantage of the stronger
  party, the rulerand bad for the underling at the
  receiving end of the orders. (343c)

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Thrasymachus counter-attack

• In any and every situation, a moral person is
  worse off than an immoral one. (343d)
• The succesful dictator is most immoral, and most
  well-off.
• (True that crime doesnt pay for petty criminals,
  but their problem is that they arent immoral
  enough.) 344a-c

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Thrasymachus counter-attack

• immorality if practised on a large enough
  scale has more power, licence and authority
  than morality. morality is really the advantage
  of the stronger party, while immorality is
  profitable and advantageous to oneself. (344c)

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Socrates defends his analogy

• A shepherd, in the precise sense, takes care of
  the sheep at the end, when he sells them for
  slaughter he does so as a businessman, not as a
  shepherd.
• when we distinguish one branch of expertise from
  another, dont we do so by distinguishing what it
  is capable of doing? (346a)
• Also we pay our rulers salaries, on the grounds
  that they wont be directly rewarded just by
  having power.
• Moneymaking isnt really an intrinsic part of
  medicine, or sheepherding (etc) its something
  you also do

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Socrates attacks the notion that immorality is a
kind of cleverness

• The moral person doesnt want to be superior to
  other moral people, or superior to morality
  itself
• The immoral person does want to outdo other
  immoral people, and gain the upper hand over them

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Superiority and expertise

• Do skilled musicians want to gain the upper hand
  over other musicians?
• Do skilled doctors want to be superior to other
  doctors or superior to medicine itself?
• (How compelling is this?)

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Is immorality advantageous?

• How should the members of an immoral gang behave
  toward each other, to be most successful? (351cd)
• If immorality causes conflict among the members
  of a group, would it also cause internal conflict
  within an individual? (351e-352b)
• Should Thrasymachus grant this point? How
  sincere is he now? (See especially 352b)

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The moral person has a good life (a very quick
argument!)

• Does the mind have a function?
• Is morality a good mental state?
• Why is Socrates dissatisfied at the end of
  chapter one?

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Chapter 2 The Challenge to Socrates

• Is morality really better than immorality in all
  circumstances?

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Chapter 2 The Challenge to Socrates

• Is morality really better than immorality in all
  circumstances?
• Or is it a compromise of some kind?

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The three kinds of good

• 1. Those that are valued just for their own sake,
  and not for the sake of their consequences.
• 2. Those that are valued both for their own sake,
  and for the sake of their consequences.
• 3. Those that are valued just for their
  consequences.
• What kind of good is morality, according to most
  people? and according to Socrates?

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Glaucon Morality as a compromise

• Why be moral? Just for the sheer good-in-itself
  satisfaction of being moral?
• We dont want other people to treat us immorally.
• But it would be fun if I myself could act
  immorally and get away with it.

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Glaucon Morality as a compromise

• The worst scenario other people wrong me, and I
  get no compensation
• The best scenario I can do anything (even
  immoral things) and other people cant strike
  back
• The social compromise we enter into a contract
  that bars everyone from wrongdoing.

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Glaucon Morality as a compromise

• Since morality is a compromise, it is endorsed
  because, while it may not be good, it does gain
  value by preventing people from doing wrong.
  (359a)
• The story of the ring of Gyges is supposed to
  convince us that morality is only ever practiced
  reluctantly did it convince you?

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Glaucon the extremes of morality and immorality

• Is it always better to be moral?
• Imagine an extremely successful, well-regarded
  immoral person

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Glaucon the extremes of morality and immorality

• Is it always better to be moral?
• Imagine an extremely successful, well-regarded
  immoral person
• and an impoverished, suffering, ill-regarded
  moral person
• Who is better off?

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Adeimantus on the extrinsic rewards of virtue

• Fathers tell their sons to be moral, not for the
  sheer joy of being moral, but for the sake of
  getting advantages, especially the advantage of a
  good reputation (among people, and among the
  gods)
• If morality is so good-in-itself, why do we bribe
  children with stories of how the moral will be
  paid off with couches and nice things to eat and
  drink in the afterlife?

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Adeimantus on the extrinsic rewards of virtue

• Why do our poets talk about morality as something
  difficult, requiring great self-discipline?
• Why do our poets say that immorality is often
  more rewarding?
• Why do we admire people who are immoral but
  powerful, and look down on moral people who are
  powerless or poor?

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Adeimantus on the extrinsic rewards of virtue

• What impression of morality does the young person
  end up with?
• Morality is not good-in-itself, but good on
  account of its advantages the best thing would
  be to get those advantages while still profiting
  from immorality
• Most advantageous to seem moral, not actually to
  be moral

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The challenge, summed up

• Socrates is challenged to prove that the worse
  possible thing that can occur in the mind is
  immorality, and that morality is the best. 366e
• Socrates is asked to show that morality itself is
  good and immorality itself is bad.
• whether or not it is hidden from the eyes of
  gods and men we are not concerned with the
  appearance of morality, but morality itself