Intrinsic Valuing and the Limits of Justice: Why the Ring of Gyges Matters

Commentators such as Terence Irwin (1999) and Christopher Shields (2006) claim that the Ring of Gyges argument in Republic II cannot demonstrate that justice is chosen only for its consequences. This is because valuing justice for its own sake is compatible with judging its value to be overridable. Through examination of the rational commitments involved in valuing normative ideals such as justice, we aim to show that this analysis is mistaken. If Glaucon is right that everyone would endorse Gyges’ behavior, it follows that nobody values justice intrinsically. Hence, the Gyges story constitutes a more serious challenge than critics maintain

Republic 382a-d: On the Dangers and Benefits of Falsehood

Socrates' attitude towards falsehood is quite puzzling in the Republic. Although Socrates is clearly committed to truth, at several points he discusses the benefits of falsehood. This occurs most notably in Book 3 with the "noble lie" (414d-415c) and most disturbingly in Book 5 with the "rigged sexual lottery" (459d-460c). This raises the question: What kinds of falsehoods does Socrates think are beneficial, and what kinds of falsehoods does he think are harmful? And more broadly: What can this tell us about the relationship between ethics and epistemology? The key to answering these questions lies in an obscure and paradoxical passage in Book II; at 382a-d Socrates distinguishes between "true falsehoods" and "impure lies." True falsehoods are always bad, but impure lies are sometimes beneficial. Despite Socrates' insistence that he is not saying anything deep, his distinction is far from straightforward. Nevertheless, in order to determine why some falsehoods are beneficial and why some are always harmful, we must understand what exactly true falsehoods are and how they differ from impure lies. In this paper, I argue that true falsehoods are a restricted class of false beliefs about ethics; they are false beliefs about how one should live and what one should pursue. I refer to these beliefs as "normative commitments." False normative commitments are always pernicious because they create and sustain psychological disharmony. Unlike true falsehoods, impure lies can be about anything. Nevertheless, they are only beneficial when they help produce and sustain true normative commitments. I argue that the upshot of this is that practical concerns have a kind of primacy over theoretical concerns

The Problem of Intermediates, an Introduction

Provides a brief introduction to the Problem of Intermediates in Plato and the stances taken toward this issue in this volume of the Plato Journa

The Problem of Intermediates, an Introduction

https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_18_3https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_18_

Truth, Knowledge, and the Value of False Belief in Plato

In this dissertation, I challenge common readings of Plato according to which epistemic vice is either always bad, or is merely beneficial for non-philosophers. On my reading, false beliefs and defective forms of reasoning can benefit everyone in two ways. First, there are commitments--to care for the health of your soul, to care for the well-being of other human beings--that a person needs to have in order to live well, and a reliably good life requires that these commitments be entrenched and unwavering. For those people and soul-parts that lack philosophical understanding, some falsehoods can help sustain these crucial normative commitments. I argue that this is how the Noble Lie and the Preludes work in the Republic and the Laws, respectively. Second, there are some questions that outstrip our ability to answer them with full justification--questions, for instance, that concern the nature of the soul, the gods, and death. Nonetheless, sometimes the demands of living well require us to form beliefs about these questions even though we risk error. I argue that this occurs in Socrates\u27 attitude towards death and the afterlife in the Phaedo. This interpretation has far-reaching consequences in that it reshapes how we understand the relationship between Plato\u27s ethics and epistemology

Modesty as a Global Perspective

In this paper I give an account of modesty that focuses on having an appropriate global perspective of your achievements. Unlike other philosophers, I take a disjunctive approach, arguing that there are at least four ways one can have an appropriate global perspective of her achievements. Additionally, I argue that if one is to be modest she must not brag about or dwell on her achievements and she must believe with sufficient reason that she has achievements. I argue that modesty defined as such is both extrinsically and intrinsically valuable. Its extrinsic value derives from the positive social consequences it elicits, while its intrinsic value is that the person who holds this virtue is a certain kind of person. Namely, she is the kind of person who understands the global significance of her achievements with respect to the available evidence

On the Value of Drunkenness in the Laws

Plato’s attitude towards drunkenness (μέθη) is surprisingly positive in the Laws, especially as compared to his negative treatment of intoxication in the Republic. In the Republic, Plato maintains that intoxication causes cowardice and intemperance (3.398e-399e, 3.403e, and 9.571c-573b), while in the Laws, Plato holds that it can produce courage and temperance (1.635b, 1.645d-650a, and 2.665c-672d). This raises the question: Did Plato change his mind, and if he did, why? Ultimately, this paper answers affirmatively and argues that this marks a substantive shift in Plato’s attitude towards anti-rational desires. More precisely, this paper argues that in the Republic, Plato holds that anti-rational desires are always detrimental to health and virtue, while in the Laws, Plato maintains that anti-rational desires can be instrumental to health and virtue