minding gaps in republic

8/12/2019 Minding Gaps in Republic

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ERIC BROWN

MINDING THE GAP IN PLATOS REPUBLIC

1. THE APPARENT GAP IN THE REPUBLIC

In Book Two of Platos Republic , Glaucon and Adeimantus chal-lenge Socrates to show that it is always better to be just than unjust. 1

They want to see that one is better off refraining from injustice, evenif one has the power to escape detection. By the end of the Book Four, Socrates has made the form of his answer clear: he is trying toshow that it is always better to have a just soul than an unjust soul.In other words, Glaucon and Adeimantus ask whether it is better tobe practically just than practically unjust, and Socrates answers thatit is better to be psychologically just than psychologically unjust.

The past generation of scholarship on the Republic has beenhaunted by the worry that there is a gap between this questionand its answer. For why should we assume that everyone who ispsychologically just is also practically just? 2 After Book One hasraised trouble for traditional accounts, Glaucon and Adeimantusdo not constrain Socrates with a xed account of practical justice,but Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Socrates agree that there are certainactions that are forbidden by justice and other actions that arerequired by justice. 3 This agreement means that Socrates cannotdene just actions as those performed by the psychologically just. 4

He must have reason to believe that the psychologically just performthose actions agreed to be just, and the worry is that he does nothave any such reason. 5 This worry is most intense in the matter of positively helpful actions that are required by practical justice: whysuppose, for example, that the psychologically just philosophers willbe motivated to rule the ideal city? 6

To assuage this worry, scholars have attributed to Plato a strategy

to ll the gap between psychological justice and practical justice.The strategy depends upon the motivational power of knowledge. 7

When Socrates rst reveals psychological justice at the end of Book Four, he leaves his picture incomplete. We learn that the psycho-

Philosophical Studies 117: 275302, 2004. 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.


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logically just are those in whom each part of the soul does whatit is supposed to do (441d12e2; cf. 443c9e2): the rational partknows what is good for the whole person and rules the other parts

(441e45),8

the spirited part allies itself with rational judgmentsabout what is good (441e56), and the appetitive part is governedby the others, limited to desires deemed good by the rational part(442a4b3). Although Book Four tells us that the psychologically just must know what is good, it does not tell us about what is goodor about knowledge of what is good. The scholars locate the gapbetween psychological justice and practical in this lacuna at the endof Book Four. On their view, Socrates lls the gap when he discussesknowledge of the good in Republic VVII: he says that knowledgeof what is good motivates practical justice, and thereby shows howeveryone who is psychologically just is also practically just.

In this paper, I will argue that the gap-lling strategy should notbe attributed to Plato because he has another, better strategy. I willstart by raising some questions about the gap-lling interpretation(2): I will call into question the evidentiary support for the gap-lling strategy (2.1), and I will argue that the gap-lling strategyis inconsistent with what Socrates says about the philosophersdecision to rule (2.2). These questions will not by themselvessufce to rule out attributing the gap-lling strategy to Plato, butI hope that they will motivate openness to a different interpretation.

Then I will introduce the strategy that I think we ought to attribute

to Plato (3). On my view, Plato never imagines that a gap betweenpsychological justice and practical justice could arise not at theend of Book Four, and not anywhere else because he believes thatthose who are educated well do what practical justice requires andthat those who are not educated well cannot be psychologically just(3.1). This interpretation attributes to Plato two beliefs about thepower of moral education, and I will spend a considerable amount of time justifying the attribution of these two beliefs to Platos Republic(3.23.3).

I will conclude by offering some reection on how my approachchanges our view of the Republic s ethics (4). Having argued that

the new strategy is better supported by the textual evidence than thegap-lling strategy, I will suggest that the new strategy also reectsa more promising moral psychology.


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2. FILLING THE GAP

2.1. Evidence for the Gap-Filling Strategy

I rst want to show that the strategy to ll the proposed gap is unsup-ported by the text of the Republic . But those who want to ll the gapdisagree about the exact details. John Cooper asserts that the philos-opher who knows the Form of the Good is necessarily motivatedto maximize the amount of goodness in the world. 9 Terence Irwinargues that the philosopher who knows the Form of the Beautiful isnecessarily motivated to give birth in the beautiful, to propagatehis virtue in others. 10 Richard Kraut argues that the philosopherwho knows the Forms in general is necessarily motivated to imitatethe harmonious relations of the Forms. 11 To show that the general

gap-lling strategy is undersupported by the text of the Republic , Iwill argue that each of these three prominent variants of the generalstrategy lacks supporting evidence.

Take the view that those who know the good want to maximizethe good. Cooper does not cite any textual evidence for his remark-able insistence that one who knows the Form of the Good recog-nizes a single criterion of choice: What, given the circumstances,will be most likely to maximize the total amount of rational order inthe world as a whole? 12 Rather, he infers this criterion of choice inorder to solve an interpretive puzzle that he creates in three steps. 13

First, Cooper notes, correctly, that anyone who knows what the goodis will value other things as good only to the degree that they approx-imate the good. Then, he characterizes the good as rational order.Finally, he supposes that the philosopher would nd in intellectualwork generally, and contemplation of the good-itself in particular,the most nearly adequate instances of rational order in the naturalworld. 14 The resulting puzzle is, why would the philosopher wantto live anything other than a contemplative life? Cooper answers byasserting that a just person is a devotee of the good, not his owngood. 15 On Coopers view, then, although the young philosopher-in-training starts out wanting her own good, her devoted study of

the good eventually leads her not only to realize that her life isgood insofar as it approximates the good, but also to want some-thing quite independent from her own good, namely, goodness in theworld.


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In the next section, I will be arguing for a different picture of why the philosopher would abandon the purely contemplative life,one that avoids Coopers inference of the criterion of choice. For

now, I just want to underscore the point that Coopers criterion of choice arises by inference and not from direct textual evidence.It is true that when Socrates introduces the good, he insists thateveryone seeks the things that really are good . . . every soulpursues the good and does whatever it does for its sake (505d8,d11e1). But this is immediately intelligible as a claim about everysouls own good. In fact, the context practically demands thatSocrates be understood in this way, since he has been consideringthe view that the good is pleasure or wisdom without hinting thatanyone would think to bring about pleasure or wisdom for the worldas a whole (505b5-6). 16

It might seem possible to nd some textual support for Coopersinterpretation by stitching together a passage from the Timaeusand an important Platonic doctrine that appears in the Republic . Inthe Timaeus , we are told why the divine maker made the universe(29e130a3, trans. Zeyl, in Coopers edition):

He was good, and one who is good can never become jealous of anything. And so,being free of jealousy, he wanted everything to become as much like himself aswas possible. In fact, men of wisdom will tell you (and you couldnt do better thanto accept their claim) that this, more than anything else, was the most preeminentreason for the origin of the worlds coming to be. The god wanted everything tobe good and nothing to be bad so far as that was possible . . .

According to the Timaeus , in other words, god is motivated to createas much good as possible. But in the Republic , Plato holds thatbeing just is a matter of becoming as much like god as possible(613a7b1). So we might conclude that being just requires beingmotivated to create as much good as possible. Unfortunately, thiswould be an over-hasty inference, for it is by no means clear that the Republic s injunction to become like god requires becoming exactlylike the Timaeus divine maker of the universe. It may well be thatthe Republic s injunction is a formulaic call to be just rather than a

hint of what special activities are required by justice.17

The Timaeusitself does not tell us otherwise, as its discussion of becoming likegod focuses more on the cultivation of contemplative virtue than oncreating goodness (90a2d7). So we cannot say that the Republic


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tells us to assimilate ourselves to the divine maker by creating asmuch goodness as possible, and again, Coopers interpretation goeswithout direct support. 18

The evidence for Irwins expressivist interpretation of howknowledge motivates benecial actions is similarly problematic.The thought that one who knows will want to express his knowl-edge in action depends principally on Diotimas speech in theSymposium , according to which those who wish to give birth inthe beautiful will include those who instill proper ordering in citiesand households (209a). 19 But it is not clear that the Republic wantsto explain just action as the effect of erotic desire in those who haveknowledge. There is no passage in the Republic that says exactlythis. 20 In place of direct textual evidence, Irwin, like Cooper, relieson his interpretations explanatory power in making sense of thephilosophers decision to rule, but as we shall see in the next section,this does not provide Irwin with the support he needs.

Before we turn there, however, we should consider Krautsimitationist interpretation of how knowledge motivates practical justice. This interpretation draws on the clearest evidence in the Republic for the motivational power of knowledge. In a passagethat is fundamental to every gap-ller, Socrates describes the philos-ophers motivations:

No one whose thoughtsare truly directed towards the things that are, Adeimantus,has the leisure to look down at human affairs or to be lled with envy and hatred

by competing with people. Instead, as he looks at and studies things that areorganized and always the same, that neither do injustice to one another nor sufferit, being all in a rational order, he imitates them and tries to become as like them ashe can. Or do you think that someone can consort with things he admires withoutimitating them?

Thats impossible, he said.Then the philosopher, by consorting with what is ordered and divine and

despite all the slanders around that say otherwise, himself becomes as divine andordered as a human being can.

Thats absolutely true. 21

Here Socrates and Adeimantus agree that there is something special

about what the philosophers know that affects their motivations. Butthey do not say that the philosophers will be charged with the desireto help other people. Quite the contrary. On their account, the philos-ophers will desire to avoid regular human affairs. In fact, there is no


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mention of helping other people, until Socrates continues as follows(500d48):

And if he should be compelled to put what he sees there into peoples characters,whether into a single person or into a populace, instead of shaping only his own,do you think that he will be a poor craftsman of moderation,justice, and the wholeof popular virtue? 22

Socrates is explicit. The philosopher will turn to helping otherpeople pursue virtue not because his grasp of the Forms instillsin him a desire to do this but if he is compelled to shape otherscharacters. Far from supporting the gap-lling strategy, this passageundermines it.

The problem facing the three variants of the gap-lling strategyis not simply that they are undersupported by the evidence of the

Republic . The gap-llers believe that Socrates argument at the endof Book Four has a gaping hole in it, but on their account, Socratesgives little explicit attention to this gaping hole. 23 Hence, it wouldseem that Plato has quite badly underestimated the importance of addressing gaping holes in ones main argument.

2.2. Contradiction with the Philosophers Decision to Rule

There are more direct signs that Plato does not have the gap-llingstrategy in mind, for what Socrates says about the philosophersdecision to rule in the ideal city contradicts the presuppositions of gap-lling. 24 If the gap-lling story were true, then the philosopherswould be motivated to rule the ideal city by their knowledge of what is Good, or Beautiful, or the rest. But Socrates says that thephilosophers have to be compelled to rule. We have already seenthis claim made once, obliquely (500d48), and Socrates repeats thepoint six times .25 Because we ordinarily do not say of people whoare motivated to act that they have to be compelled to act, the gap-lling story is belied by Socrates seven total claims that compulsionis necessary to get the philosophers to rule.

The gap-llers, however, have a response to this problem. Theyrespond by deating the references to compulsion, and they offer

two main ways of doing this.26

The rst is to suggest that thecompulsion or necessity in question expresses the fact that rulingis necessary in order to do what justice requires. On this view,the compulsion or necessity is only the hypothetical necessity of


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needing to do x in order to achieve y.27 Alternatively, the point of the compulsion or necessity might be simply to note that rulingqua administrative work is disagreeable even though ruling qua just

return to the city (i.e., expression or imitation of justice) is entirelyagreeable.

But there is a problem with these deationary readings. 28

Socrates not only says that the philosophers are compelled to rule,he says why the philosophers must be compelled to rule. They mustbe compelled because they do not want to rule: they prefer a life of philosophy to a life that mixes political work in with the philosophy(519c46, 520e4521b11). Moreover, Socrates not only says thatthe philosophers prefer not to rule, he says why it is good that thephilosophers prefer not to rule: only people who prefer not to rulecan be good rulers (520e4521b11).

This last point is crucial. Because Plato is committed to the prin-ciple that the best rulers are unwilling rulers, he is committed tothe claim that the philosophers are not motivated to rule. We cannotignore the claim that the philosophers prefer not to rule as an unfor-tunate mistake, a temporary intrusion of a contemplative ideal thatis otherwise out of place. 29 Nor can we say that the philosophersprefer not to rule until they realize that they have been conferredgreat benets by the city but then change their mind. 30 Socratesquite clearly says that philosophers prefer not to rule even after theyhave received the great benets and when they presumably already

know that they have received great benets. Moreover, he is quiteclear that the philosophers continue to prefer not to rule long afterthey have begun to rule (esp. 540b5). The principle that good rulersare unwilling rulers explains why Socrates must say these things.

The gap-llers have two further responses to make. First, justas they deate the talk of compulsion, they can deate the claimthat the only good rulers are those who do not want to rule. On thisview, Socrates merely means that good rulers do not want to rulefor exploitative reasons. Now, it is surely possible that this is all thatSocrates means. But, I insist, it is not all that Socrates says. Thegap-llers are unable to take at face value what Socrates says about

the nature of a good ruler or what he says about the nature of thecompulsion applied to the philosophers. 31 If the line I am takingin this section is correct, then we can take Socrates says at face


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value without difculty. And if my larger argument in this paperis correct, then a philosophically more fruitful moral psychologyemerges when we take Socrates words at face value. So I suggest

that we should take Socrates words at face value.But to make good on this suggestion, I must answer a second

response from the gap-llers. They might assert that I can no bettertake Socrates words at face value than they. On my view, the philos-ophers are compelled to rule. But Glaucon and Socrates also suggestthat the philosophers are somehow required by justice to rule (cf.520e1). So it would seem that on my view, the philosophers donot perceive what is required by justice to be in their interests,and if this is so, then Socrates has no hope of persuading Glauconand Adeimantus that it is always better to be practically just thanpractically unjust.

A full response to this objection would take us far aeld, but letme quickly sketch an outline of the full response that is available. 32

First, the passages that attach compulsion to the philosophersdecision to rule also characterize the compulsion: they say that thecompulsion takes the form of a law made by the founders of thecity. 33 The natural supposition to make sense of this evidence is thatthe founders make a law that requires those who are educated tobe philosophers in the ideal city to take turns ruling the ideal city.Given this supposition, everything that Glaucon and Socrates saysis intelligible and consistent. Consider rst the founders motiva-

tions. They are nowhere said to be obligated by justice to make thislaw. Rather, they are said to make the law in order to ensure thecontinuation of the maximally happy city (519e1520a4, 520c3d4). 34 Next, note the status of the law. Though the founders are notobligated by justice to make the law, they are justied in makingthe law: it is just to ask the philosophers to sacrice because thephilosophers have received great benets (520a6520c3). 35 Finally,against this background, consider what Glaucon and Socrates sayabout the philosophers decision (taking all the passages aboutcompulsion with 520e1): the philosophers rule because they arerequired by justice to obey just laws.

This reading renders consistent the philosophers preference notto rule and their decision to do what is just. For on this reading,they prefer that there were no law in that case, they would be


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justied in refusing to rule and philosophizing all the time butgiven the existence of the law, and given that the law is just, thephilosophers realize that they would not be justied if they were

to refuse to rule.36

This reading also renders consistent the mainthesis of the Republic and the philosophers decision to rule. Foron this reading, justice does not force the philosophers to sacricetheir happiness; the law does. Socrates can consistently maintainthat justice is a necessary condition of maximal happiness, becausehe can recognize that the maximal happiness available to us dependsupon our circumstances, including the laws. So with this reading, wecan take Socrates references to compulsion at face value withoutgiving up on his thesis that it is always better to be just than unjust.

I conclude, then, that the gap-lling strategy cannot takeSocrates words about the philosophers decision to rule at facevalue, though there is a competing interpretation that can take themat face value.

3. NOT MINDING THE GAP

3.1. The Alternative Strategy

Given the difculties of supposing that there is a gap betweenpsychological justice and practical justice in Republic IV that islled by Republic VVII, I will draw on Republic IIIV to show

that there is never such a gap in the Republic . I propose to attributeto Plato the following two beliefs, one concerning the sufciency of good education for good motivations and the other concerning thenecessity of good education for perfect motivations: 37

(Sufciency) Those who are raised well help others as justice requires.(Necessity) Those who are not raised well cannot becomepsychologically just.

From these two beliefs, it follows that all those who are psycho-logically just help others as justice requires.

The rst advantage of this interpretation is that it makes senseof Platos silence about the alleged gap in the Republic . If Platoholds these two beliefs, then he would not need to entertain anygap between psychological justice and practical justice. Second,


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the interpretation ts not only the Republic s silence but also itsthunderous noise. No reader of the Republic can fail to be struck bythe depth of Platos concern for early childhood education. Books

Two and Three are lled with claims about how youngsters shouldbe educated, and Books Eight and Nine are lled with cautionarytales about what happens when education goes awry. 38 The twobeliefs that I am proposing to attribute to Plato simply articulate thevery deep importance of early childhood education. But these arevery general reasons to accept the proposed interpretation. For morespecic reasons, we need to make a more thorough investigation of the sufciency and necessity beliefs.

3.2. The Sufciency ThesisFirst, then, the sufciency belief. If Plato accepts that good educa-tion sufces to make people consistently motivated to do whatis right, then we should see signs of this in his treatment of thenon-philosophers and their education in the Republic .39

The evidence is easiest to come by for the members of theguardian classes, whose education is described in some detail inBooks Two and Three. There we see that the ideal citys best andbrightest are told carefully expurgated stories so that they mightimitate gods and heroes doing only the right things. These earlypatterns of habituation seem to target especially the spirited partof the soul, as the youngsters are being trained to respond to goodthings as ne and honorable and to bad things as ugly and shameful.But Socrates states quite clearly that this habituation of spiriteddesires is supposed to be enough to motivate the youngsters to gofor good things for their own sake and enough to make the young-sters good. He insists that each guardian-in-training will praise nethings, be pleased by them, receive them into his soul, and, beingnurtured by them, become ne and good, and that each will rightlyobject to what is shameful, hating it while hes still young andunable to grasp the reason. 40 Moreover, Socrates records clearly

the belief that this habituation of spirited desires will stain the soulwith the right dispositions of evaluation so deeply that they will bepreserved through everything. 41 So the well-educated auxiliariesand pre-philosophical guardians are held to be reliably good.


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Taken by themselves, these claims about the education of youngguardians-to-be strongly support attributing to Plato the belief that good education sufces for good motivations. But there are

three questions we might raise. First, we might question whetherthe education of spirited desires sufces to harness the appetitivedesires in the young guardians-to-be. If appetitive desires cannotbe controlled, then good education cannot sufce for good motiva-tions. In fact, however, appetitive desires can be controlled. ThoughSocrates does not give much explicit attention to the training of appetitive desires, he does suggest two strategies. First, do notfeed them. 42 Second, divert attention from them. Plato seems to besupposing that if we avoid unnecessary appetitive desires, indulgeonly to the minimum the necessary appetitive desires, and cultivatenon-appetitive desires, then we can avoid problematic appetitivedesires. 43 Crucial to this scheme is what we might call Platoshydraulic principle of psychology: when someones desires inclinestrongly for one thing, they are thereby weakened for others, justlike a stream that has been partly diverted into another channel(485d68). Given this hydraulic principle, the appetitive part of theyoung guardians souls does not need to receive directly specicinstructions. Rather, its necessary desires need to be regularly satis-ed, and the energy with which it might call for more satisfactionneeds to be devoted to the spirited part of the soul.

These suggestions concerning the education of the young

guardians appetites might also help us with our second questionabout the sufciency belief. If Plato believes that good educationsufces for good motivations in the case of some very special,spirited people, what does he believe about the power of educa-tion for the rest of us, whose ends are set by appetitive desires?The education of Books Two and Three evidently does not applyto members of the producer class in the ideal city (see especially376c48), and there is some controversy about exactly what educa-tion the producers receive. 44 But there is no doubt that they receivesome training in a craft (cf. 456d10). Given what we have seen aboutthe education of appetitive desires, this training in a craft might

be enough. So long as the young producers are not introduced tounnecessary appetitive desires and are committed deeply to theircraft, then genuine disorder in their souls will not arise. Moreover,


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if they can see that the stable order of the ideal city is crucial to thesuccessful practice of their craft, they will be motivated to contributeto the civic order, and they will hail the overseers of the order as

saviors (463b1). In this way, even the producers can be educated todo good things. 45

But still we might have doubts about the sufciency thesis,on the grounds that it underappreciates what is special about thephilosophers. Here comes our third question: does Socrates talk of the philosophers special motivations t with the claim that goodeducation is sufcient for good motivations?

To answer this question, we need to realize that the specialmotivations of philosophers, acquired during the second stage of their education (Book Seven), do not generally replace their pre-philosophical motivations, acquired during the rst stage (BooksTwo and Three). Socrates is clear about this when he describes theyoung guardian after his early education: Hell rightly object towhat is shameful, hating it while hes still young and unable to graspthe reason, but, having been educated in this way, he will welcomethe reason when it comes and recognize it easily because of itskinship with himself (402a14). This paints a picture more familiarto us from Aristotle: one needs rst to be educated to appreciatethe that of what is appropriate before one can study philosophy inorder to appreciate the because. 46 Of course, something importantchanges when the guardian completes her higher education, but

what principally distinguishes a non-philosopher who has the rightmotivations from a philosopher is that the latter knows what is good,and thereby can appreciate with full justication what is good abouther own motivations. The non-philosophers motivations might begood, but any judgment of his that this is so is at best an opinion. 47

It is difcult to know exactly how the philosophers will relatetheir standing motivations to their knowledge of what is good forthem, because Plato is not perfectly explicit in the Republic aboutwhat goodness (or the Good) is. But it seems clear enough thatthe Good is supposed to be unity or coherence or harmony, as thiswidely shared hypothesis explains the importance of mathematics

to the ascent to the Good (through mathematics an account of theunit is learned), the superiority of the Good over the other Forms(the Good is the unity or coherence of them, and not another along-


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side them), the goodness of the other Forms (they are good bybeing part of the unied or coherent order), the intelligibility of the other Forms (they are fully known only teleologically), and the

overwhelming importance of unity and harmony to the ethics andpolitics of the Republic (see especially 462ab). 48 If this hypothesisis correct, then the philosophers embrace their standing motiva-tions as good precisely because they cohere harmoniously with eachother. The philosopher, on this understanding, tracks her good notas a consequence to be brought about but as the coherence of herheterogeneous beliefs and desires.

Once we recognize this way of relating the motivations of earlyeducation to the philosophers perfect motivations, we need notdeny that the philosopher-in-training acquires some new motiva-tions in the second stage of her education. Most obviously, shewill pick up the desire to do mathematics and to contemplate theessences that she discovers. No one has these desires before highereducation everyone has to be dragged out of the cave andthere is no doubt that the fully educated philosophers do havethese desires. Moreover, we should realize that these new desiresare powerful enough to supersede any desire the philosophers-to-be might have had to engage in political activity. (In accordancewith Platos hydraulic principle of psychology, the new desires drawenergy away from spirited and appetitive desires.) But still we haveto remember the background already established by early educa-

tion. The development of new motivations does not amount to awholesale rejection of all earlier motivations. To the contrary, thephilosopher who contemplates the Good itself is now able to recog-nize her well-trained desire to do what is honorable as a good desireto do what is good, and she will now desire to maintain her deeplystained motivations to do what is honorable. To suppose otherwise,we would have to maintain that the philosophers desire to contem-plate the Good replaces her desire for her own good. But this wouldbe absurd. The philosopher always does everything includingcontemplate for the sake of her own good (505d8, d11e1).

Having come this far, we can also concede that there may be

other motivations that a guardian acquires in the second stage of education. He might become motivated to express his knowledge byeducating others, especially when inspired by beauty. Moreover, his


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motivation to do what is right might become stronger because henow sees himself not only as motivated in a good way to do whatis good but also as imitating the Forms. There is no reason to deny

that Irwins references to the Symposium and Phaedrus and Krautsreference to Republic 500bd pick out ways in which knowledge of the Forms motivates. We can accommodate these motivations evenwhile denying that they properly explain the philosophers desire tohelp others. 49

So the philosophers motivations are not exactly like the non-philosophers, and yet it is still the case that the philosopher who isdeveloping in the ideal city is ratifying and adding to old motivationsto help others, and not generating afresh an entirely new set of other-regarding motivations. The claim that good education sufces forthe motivations to help others is supported by the ways in which thephilosophical education does and does not change the guardiansmotivations.

3.3. The Necessity Thesis

Moreover, the account of the higher education of the philosopher-rulers straightforwardly suggests that being raised well is necessaryfor coming to have the perfect motivations of the philosopher. Sincemost of the motivations that the philosophers acquired in their earlychildhood education persist, proper training at a young age wouldseem to be indispensable to the formation of the philosophersharmonious soul.

Socrates makes several remarks in the Republic that conrmthis impression. When he enumerates the traits necessary for thesoul that is going to have a sufcient and complete grasp of whatis (486e13; cf. 491a9b2), he includes the harmonized desiresthat entail moderation and justice (485a486b). When he completeshis discussion of the ascent out of the cave, he suggests that aperson can be brought to look at true things only after havingbeen hammered at from childhood and freed from the bonds of kinship with becoming (519a8b1). In addition to such remarks

that suggest that good early childhood education is necessary forthe cultivation of philosophers perfectly just motivations, Socratesvery explicitly says that people who are philosophical by nature butare raised poorly will be corrupted and will fail to attain the philo-


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sophical way of life and its perfectly just soul (490e24, 491e13,495a48). If being raised poorly is sufcient to prevent the devel-opment of psychological justice, then not being raised poorly is

necessary for developing a just soul. So if Socrates also thinksthat being raised poorly and being raised well are contradictories,with no tertium quid between them, then he is committing himself to our necessity thesis. At least one passage suggests that beingraised poorly and being raised well are contradictories (492a15),and so there is good reason to infer that Socrates is committed to thenecessity thesis.

Yet Socrates also suggests that there are some exceptional people,who manage by a divine dispensation (493a12) to becomephilosophers despite living in non-ideal circumstances, and wemight worry that these people constitute exceptions to the necessitythesis. Socrates mentions ve kinds of people in non-ideal circum-stances who manage to consort with philosophy in a way thatsworthy of her (496a11e2):

(1) the noble and well brought-up character, kept down by exile;(2) a great soul living in a small city, who disdains the citys affairs

and looks beyond them;(3) the very few who might be drawn to philosophy from other

crafts that they rightly despise because they have good nature;(4) those who, like Theages, are not physically well enough to trade

in philosophy for a life in politics; and

(5) those who, like Socrates, hear divine voices.The rst of these is clearly not an exception to the necessity thesis.No mention of the education of the other four is made. We can besure that none of these four is raised poorly, but can we, by leaningheavily on the thought that being raised poorly and being raised wellare contradictories (492a15), assume that they are all raised well?

Even if we cannot, we can nevertheless condently minimizethe challenge that these apparent exceptions make to the neces-sity thesis. First, it must be noticed that Socrates does not identifythese apparent exceptions as full-edged philosophers, paragons of

perfect psychological justice. He says only that they consort withphilosophy in a way thats worthy of her (496a11b1). Moreover,he names himself as one of the listed exceptions, even thoughhe most denitely falls short of the Republic s standards for full-


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edged philosophers because he fails to know the Form of the Good(506c23). Finally, from the way in which Socrates discusses theseapparent exceptions, it would seem that in order to do more than

consort with philosophy, one needs very favorable conditions. ForSocrates explicitly declares that under a suitable constitution, thephilosophers own growth will be fuller (497a4). So we should notbelieve that anyone will come to have perfect motivations withoutreceiving the education offered in the ideal city. Thus, even if werefuse to lean heavily on the passage that suggests that good educa-tion and bad education are contradictories (492a15), the letter of the necessity thesis survives intact.

Its spirit survives, too, if we take note of a second point. Evenif we allow that some people come to be nearly perfect philos-ophers without good education, we do not have to assume that thereare some nearly perfect philosophers who lack the motivation tohelp others as justice requires. Socrates underdescribes not only theeducation but also the motivations of these exceptional people, but itseems as though especially good fortune does for them what carefultraining does for those in the ideal city. Hence, whether we see theirgood fortune as good education or as the mere absence of corrup-tion that allows their philosophical nature to ourish, the results of the good fortune would seem to approximate those of the carefultraining in the ideal city. If this is the right way to understand theseexceptional cases, it is also enough to conclude that nearly perfect

motivations require the development of basic motivations to helpothers as justice requires.

4. PLATOS REPUBLIC WITHOUT A GAP

I have attempted to exorcise from the Republic the ghost of a gapbetween having a just soul and doing what justice requires. I haveargued that Plato never imagines a gap in the Republic becausePlato believes that good education is both sufcient to producemotivations to do what justice requires and necessary to produce

a just soul. Now, by way of conclusion, I should like to entertaintwo general questions about where this interpretation leaves Platos Republic , one historical and one philosophical. A decisive reply tothese questions would carry us far beyond the project that I have


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here undertaken, but some reply might help to situate and furthermotivate my interpretation.

First, someone might ask about where my interpretation leaves

Platos Republic historically, for it might seem as though I haveanachronistically Stoicized it. On my view, Plato like the Stoicsinsists on the development of certain basic motivations beforethe perfection of these motivations by the crowning attainmentof knowledge, and especially knowledge of the good, where thisknowledge is represented in coherentist terms. I do not see how thisgives rise to a criticism, though, for it seems perfectly reasonable tosuppose that there is continuity between Platos Republic and Stoicethics. 50 We simply need to suppose that both Plato and Chrysippusdevelop the Socratic search for knowledge of the good life as some-thing that consists in a coherent set of motivatingbeliefs. What Platoadds to the Socratic program is the insistence that mathematics willcarry a person with consistently good motivations forward to thegrasp of Goodness as unity and thus forward to the realization thather own harmonious motivations really are good. What Chrysippusadds to the Socratic program is the insistence that physics will carrya person with consistently good motivations forward to the graspthat goodness is the rational order of the cosmos and thus forwardto the realization that her own harmonious motivations really aregood. 51

Someone else might question the two beliefs that I am attributing

to Plato. These beliefs entail that harmoniously integrated motiva-tions require motivations to help others as justice demands. But whyshould we think that? Well, maybe we should not. Perhaps the claimis false, and the strategy that I am attributing to Plato fails. Thatwould not make my interpretation worse off than the gap-lling one.After all, the gap-lling interpretation attributes to Plato the viewthat just action is motivated by knowledge of the Forms, and that, Itake it, is not a view whose truth we will roundly defend. Moreover,the strategy I attribute to Plato has other merits that make it superiorto the gap-lling strategy. Because the gap-lling strategy attributesspecial motivations to do what is right to knowledge, it raises

questions about whether those who lack knowledge (i.e., all non-philosophers, by the standards of the Republic ) can have anythinglike those motivations to do what is right. The strategy I attribute


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to Plato, by contrast, insists on much more continuity between themotivations of non-philosophers and motivations of philosophers.This gives us interpretive advantages: it makes it easier to under-

stand Socrates insistence that ordinary folk can approximate the justice of the philosophers (472c4d1) and his insistence that thewhole city should be made happy (519e1520a2). It also seems tome a more plausible moral psychology, full-stop.

But let me shift from defense to offense, because it is far fromclear to me that the essential claim I am attributing to Plato is false.So far as I can see, it is an empirical question whether psychologicalharmony requires motivations to help others as justice demands.This is not to say that the claim is conrmable or falsiable. Platosays some things in its favor by drawing our attention to the massivepower of acculturation and moral education, but he cannot directlyshow that his claim is true. 52 My questioner might try to falsify theclaim by producing evidence of someone who has perfectly coherentmotivations without motivations to do what is right, but how wouldwe know that this person really has perfectly coherent motivations?(We certainly could not take his word on it, and even long-termobservation would leave residual questions, given the complexity of the human soul.) What we have here is a broad empirical gener-alization, but just as some broad empirical generalizations abouthuman beings linguistic capacities might well be true, so too thisbroad empirical generalization about human beings psychological

motivations might well be true.53

I have not shown here that Platos Republic anticipates Stoictheorizing or that it depends upon fully plausible empirical claims of moral psychology. But I do hope to have raised the possibility thatthese claims are true. For in that case, we not only can return to the Republic without minding the alleged gap that has created so manyproblems for so many readers. We can also return to the Republicin the expectation of nding fresh challenges for our reections onwhat it is to live a good human life.

NOTES

This paper was rst composed for an April 2002 conference in honor of IanMueller, and it is my pleasure to dedicate it to him, in gratitude for the support


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and inspiration he has given me. I would like to thank the conferees on thatoccasion and more recent audiences at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville,the Pacic Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and theUniversity of Missouri-Columbia. I would also like to thank Ryan Balot, ChrisBobonich, Carl Craver, Clerk Shaw, and Ellen Wagner, all of whom commentedgenerously on a written version of the paper. Special thanks to Rachel Barneyfor the initial invitation and some timely suggestions, Myles Burnyeat for along and rich conversation, Rachana Kamtekar for an excellent set of commentsin Chicago, and Richard Bett for another excellent set of comments for thesymposium in San Francisco.1 Unless otherwise noted, all parenthetical references to Platos works are to thetext in Burnets edition, and the translations of the Republic offered here aregenerally very light revisions of the rendering by Grube and Reeve, which isreprinted in Coopers edition of Platos oeuvre. Fuller bibliographic details aboutall modern sources cited follow the paper.2 Credit for putting this worry at the top of the agenda goes to Sachs, A Fallacy

in Platos Republic . Sachs charged that Socrates answer was irrelevant to his task of defending the vulgar conception of justice, and that Socrates answer wouldremain irrelevant unless it could be shown that the class of the psychologically just is coextensive with the class of the vulgarly just. Others have noted thatGlaucon and Adeimantus do not require a defense of vulgar justice, exactly, giventhe uncertainties concerning the vulgar conception of justice revealed in Book One. Others have also noted that Socrates has no need of showing that everyonewho acts justly has a just soul. (See especially Demos, A Fallacy in Platos Republic ?, Irwin, Platos Ethics , pp. 256261, and Dahl, Platos Defence of Justice.) Despite these points, the core of Sachs charge remains, in the form of the general worry that I focus on.3 Note how Socrates seeks agreement that a person with a harmonious soul willnot engage in prototypically unjust activities in order to secure the conclusion thatthe harmonious state of the soul is rightly called a just state of the soul (442d10443b6). I take it that Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Socrates also assume that justicerequires doing certain positively helpful activities (in addition to refraining fromcertain harmful activities). They agree that justice requires respect for parentsand care for the gods (443a910), they treat the principle that each should do his job (and thereby contribute to the city) as the image of justice (443c48), and asRachana Kamtekar has reminded me, no one ever rejects Polemarchussuggestionthat justice requires helping friends.4 The problematic denitional response to Sachs problem is not far from theone offered by Schiller, Just Men and Just Acts in Platos Republic . I believethat there is something broadly right about this response, and my interpretationin this essay might be seen as a way of slowing down and justifying the movethat Schiller makes too quickly. I seek to turn a denitional equivalence into anempirically grounded claim.5 The passage at 442d10443b6 does not give any such reason. It baldly assertsthat the psychologically just will not steal, etc.


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6 Since this is the side of the worry that has attracted the bulk of the attention,and since any powerful solution to this side of the worry will also explain why thepsychologically just will refrain from unjust actions, I concentrate on the connec-tion between psychological justice and the helpful actions required by justice.Refraining from unjust actions will be a direct concern only in 3.2, where Idiscuss the hydraulic principle of psychology that Socrates invokes at 485d486b.7 See Demos, A Fallacy?,p. 55, for the initial formulation of this interpretation.It has received diverse development from many, but since it is not my purpose toprovide a comprehensive and compelling refutation of this interpretation, I will just be focusing on the especially inuential developments offered by Cooper,The Psychology of Justice; Irwin, Platos Ethics , esp. pp. 298317 (whichsupersedes Platos Moral Theory , pp. 164174 and pp. 233243); and Kraut,Return to the Cave and The Defense of Justice.8 The text at 441e45 says only that the rational part is wise and has concern inadvance over the whole soul, but the explanation of wisdom makes it clear thatthe rational part is wise when it has in it the knowledge of what is advantageous

for each part and for the whole in common of the three parts (442c58).9 Cooper, The Psychology of Justice, esp. pp. 145146.10 Irwin, Platos Ethics , pp. 298317, superseding Platos Moral Theory ,pp. 164174 and 233243.11 Kraut, Return to the Cave and The Defense of Justice.12 Cooper, Psychology of Justice, p. 145.13 The whole three-step move is at Cooper, Psychology of Justice, pp. 144145.14 Cooper, Psychology of Justice, p. 145.15 Cooper, Psychology of Justice, p. 145.16 I believe that similar conclusions should be reached for non-maximizing rela-tives of Coopers view, e.g., Waterlow, The Good of Others in the Republic , andAnnas, Introduction .17 In fact, it had better be that the Republic s injunction is a formulaic call to be just rather than a reference to what special activities are required by justice, forotherwise, we would have to say that Socrates is revealing what is required by justice only after he has completed his argument that it is intrinsically better to be just than unjust.18 For the call to become like god, see also Theaetetus 176b13 and Laws 715e718c, and the discussions by Sedley, The Ideal of Godlikeness, and Annas,Platonic Ethics, Old and New , pp. 5271. I owe the idea of offering Cooper thisline of argument to Rachel Barney, who draws attention to Timaeus 29e30c inan unpublished comment delivered at the December 1999 meeting of the EasternDivision of the American Philosophical Association.19 The connection is already drawn by Demos, A Fallacy?, p. 55.20 Platos Moral Theory includes the following (p. 237): The philosopher bringsforth real virtue because he knows what is really just, good, and admirable ( Symp .211e3212a7; R. 520c36); his admiration for the moral Forms stimulates him tomake other people virtuous and undertake legislation (500b8e4, 501b17). But


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520c36 discusses how the philosophers will rule knowledgeably, assuming thatcompulsion has been applied (519e4, 520a8), and a similar point will be madeabout 500b8e4 and 501b17 below. So it cannot be said that these passagesunproblematically show that the philosopher is freely motivated to express hisknowledge in benecial actions. In fact, given what Socrates says about the natureof the compulsion (see 2.2), these passages offer no support to the expressivistinterpretation.21 500b8d3. The importance of this passage is already seen by Vlastos, AMetaphysical Paradox, pp. 5253.22 The opening clause, which speaks of tis anank coming to be, is susceptibleto other interpretations. My interpretation will be supported in the next section,where other references to this anank will make clear how it is in fact compulsion.23 Myles Burnyeat has suggested to me that it is especially problematic that thegap-lling strategy makes Books Five through Seven the key, since these booksare called a digression in Book Eight. I would be able to get past this problemif the evidence in Books Five through Seven were more convincing than it is.24 The argument in this section draws on Brown, Justice and Compulsion forPlatos Philosopher-Rulers, which offers a fuller argument against alternativeinterpretations of the philosophers decision to rule.25 The six other references to compulsion are at 519e4 (You have againforgotten, my friend, that the law ( nomos ) is not concerned that any one classin the city fare especially well, but that this result be contrived to come to be inthe whole city, harmonizing the citizens by persuasion and compulsion ( anank ). . .), 520a8 ( . . . we shall say just things to them when we compel ( prosan-ankazein ) them to take care for and guard the others), 520e2 (Yet each of themwill approach ruling as something compulsory ( anankaion ) . . . ), 521b7 (Whatothers, then, will you compel ( anankazein ) to take up the guard of the city . . .),539e3 (For after that, they will be sent down by you into that cave again, and theywill be compelled ( anankasteoi ) torule . . .), and 540b5 ( . . .each of them toilingon behalf of their fellow citizens and ruling for the sake of the state, doing thesethings not as something ne but as something compulsory ( anankaion ) . . .).26 For exemplary expressions of these deationary approaches, see Irwin, Platos Ethics , p. 299, and Kraut, Return to the Cave, pp. 4647, 55.27 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics D5 1015a2026.There is no doubt that Plato occa-sionally uses anank in this way, but I disagree with those (e.g., Kraut, Egoism,Love, and Political Ofce, p. 342) who think that 519c9 and 540a7 provide suit-able examples. (The former describes as part of the founders task to compel(anankasai ) the best natures to attain the learning which we earlier said wasgreatest, and the latter says that those philosophers who have completed theirfteen years of military and political administration must ( anankasteon ) raise thevision of their soul to gaze on that very thing which sheds light on all.) Anyonewho has seen the Form of the Good presumably needs no compulsion to gazeupon it, but it should not be surprising that compulsion would be needed to inducethe work that provides the initial sighting. Education frequently employs compul-sion for the greater good of the students themselves, but this does not reduce the


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compulsion to mere hypothetical necessity. Compare the talk of dragging in theparable of the cave.28 I here skip over the ner details of the seven passages, which should by them-selves sufce to convict the deationary strategies of error. The passage at 500d48, for example, clearly says that philosophers who are already contemplating theForms will take the time to shape others characters if some compulsion comesto be, and this conditional adds nothing if the compulsion is exhausted by theknowledge of what the Forms require.29 Contrast the views of Irwin, Platos Moral Theory , p. 242 and 338n61, andAnnas, Introduction , esp. pp. 260266. On my view, all of the passages that seemto introduce an objectionably contemplative model of the good life are in factexpressing the more acceptable point that the philosophers turn their backs onpolitical activity.30 Contrast Kraut, Return to the Cave, pp. 4849.31 The face value of Socrates words might of course be disputed. All I can dois to refer to 520e4521b11 for the characterization of the good ruler, and to notes

28 and 33 for discussion of the passages about the compulsion.32 The fuller version is in Brown, Justice and Compulsion for PlatosPhilosopher-Rulers.33 I think that this is clear if one simply reads the seven passages without anyspecial agenda. Three of the seven passages say that the compulsion is applied bythe founders (520a8: we; 521b7 and 539e3: you, to Glaucon), whom we knowto be the law-givers (378e7379a1,458c6, 497d1).One of the passages associatesthe compulsion with law (519e4). The other three passages are justiably silentabout the nature of the compulsion, since one of them merely anticipates the mainpassage (500d48), and the other two concern the philosophers attitude towardruling, for which the exact nature of the compulsion is neither here nor there(520e2 and 540b5).34 You might object. First, the maximally happy city is the maximally just city,and so the founders are required by justice to bring about the maximally happycity. But why are you supposing that justice obligates a person to bring aboutmaximally just states of affairs? Socrates never says that, and it seems to me avery good thing that he does not. For if he did say that, then the philosopherswould be obligated to rule the ideal city even in the absence of the law, and histalk of compelling the philosophers to rule with a law would be otiose. To takeSocrates words at face value, we have to attribute to him a less demanding (andmore plausible) conception of justice. You might also object like this: if justicedoes not demand that the founders create the ideal city, then why do they doit? I answer: they dont. True, we might worry that if philosophers in the bestcircumstances have to be compelled to perpetuate the ideal city, then it would bequite difcult to explain why philosophers in ordinary circumstances would bemotivated to create the ideal city. But I think that we are supposed to worry aboutthis, that the founding of the ideal city is supposed to be difcult to explain. Thatis why Socrates insists that we should not hope for the ideal city to be anythingmore than a pattern (472c473b, 592ab). Socrates does not say that the ideal city


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is impossible it does not require that a violation of the laws of human psychology but he clearly states that no one is likely to found it. One way of appreciatingthis point is to realize that anyone who would found an ideal city would have to bemotivated as the divine maker of the Timaeus is, which is a possibility for humanbeings but not much of a probability. This latter way of making the point, for whatit is worth, accords with traditional Greek views of founders as divine.35 It should be easy to suppose that there is a clear distinction between actions(and laws) that are required by justice and actions (and laws) that are not requiredbut are justied by justice.36 Nor would they be justied in changing the law. Rulers who remake the lawto benet themselves are acting in a paradigmatically unjust way, as Socratesinsists in his colloquy with Thrasymachus. You may ask, but why wouldnt thephilosophers behave unjustly? I answer: because they are just. You may press: butwhat reason do they have for being just? I answer: they know that justice is itsown reward. Why is justice its own reward? Well, that is what the culminatingproofs of Book Nine are designed to show. Note that we should not explain the

philosophers decision to rule exclusively in terms of their desire not to be ruledby worse people or by their selsh need to continue the ideal citys existence,for this would make the philosophers out to be doing what is just for exclusivelyinstrumental reasons, which undermines the main thesis of the Republic IIIX.37 I use the word motivations here quite broadly, so that motivations includethe emotional and intellectual capacities that are shaped by moral education andthat help to give rise to action. I use the word in part because of hesitance aboutapplying belief and desire talk to Plato, when common Humean assumptionsabout beliefs and desires seem to t Plato badly. See also Brown, Platos Ethicsand Politics in the Republic , 2.1.38 This is to say nothing of the beginning of Book Six, which will be discussedin 3.4 below.39 Much of my discussion in this section and the next is indebted to work by C.Gill (The Education of Character, Ethical Reection and the Shaping of Char-acter, and chapter four of Personality in Greek Ethics, Tragedy, and Philosophy )and by Kamtekar (Imperfect Virtue).40 401e4402a2. Note that the youngsters do not choose mere means to beinghonored; they respond immediately to good things as honorable and bad things asdishonorable. This crucial point explains why Socrates thinks that they becomene and good ( kalos te kagathos , a phrase which connotes gentlemanly ratherthan intellectualized virtue). The point is accordingly central to Kamtekars argu-ment (in Imperfect Virtue) that the auxiliaries in the ideal city are successfullyeducated to have genuine and stable, though imperfect, virtue. To see the pointas Socrates evidently intends it, we have to recognize, rst, that something canbe chosen for its own sake though it is not known for what it is (for an appropri-ately broadened condition on choosing something for its own sake, see Kamtekar,Imperfect Virtue, p. 322), and second, that the young honor-lovers being trainedin the ideal city are not identical to the honor-lovers who are described as timo-crats in Book Eight (the latter live in decidedly non-ideal cities).


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41 The metaphor of dyeing wool is introduced at 429d4e5, and the phrasethrough everything ( dia pantos ) is used three times, at 429b8, 429c8, and430b23.42 Cf. 442a7b3:The rational and spirited parts will watch over the appetitivepart to see that it isnt lled with the so-called pleasures of the body and that itdoesnt become so big and strong that it no longer does its own work but attemptsto enslave and rule over the classes it isnt tted to rule, thereby overturningeveryones whole life.43 The distinction between necessary and unnecessary desires is explained at558d-559c. For the general optimism that I am recording about the training of appetite, see 559a37 and especially 431c57: But you meet with the desiresthat are simple, measured, and directed by calculation in accordance with under-standing and correct belief only in the few people who are born with the bestnatures and receive the best education. I would explain this claim as follows.If one has only the necessary appetitive desires (simple, measured desires),then one will have only the appetitive desires that are good for one to have

(ones appetites will be in accordance with understanding and correct belief).Moreover, these desires can be directed by calculation to the best course of satisfaction, as opposed to those unnecessary desires that at least sometimesoutrun our rational capacities to direct their satisfaction.44 I am here agreeing with Hourani, The Education of the Third Class in Platos Republic , about Books Two and Three but showing some skepticism toward hiscondent assumption that the producers education is exhausted by apprenticeshipin a craft. Note the way in which Socrates explains the introduction of the noblelie: Ill rst try to persuade the rulers and the soldiers and then the rest of thecity that the upbringing and the education we gave them , and the experiences thatwent with them, were a sort of dream . . . (414d26, emphases added).This mightsuggest that the city gives some common education to the producers in additionto whatever training in a craft that each producer obtains. Houranis condentassumption is more thoroughly argued for by Reeve, Philosopher-Kings , pp. 186191, but Reeve does not comment on the introduction of the noble lie.45 I leave aside the question of whether the producers have non-slavish virtue. Itdepends in part upon what slavish virtue is. See Phaedo 69b, Republic 430b, and Republic 590cd (and cf. Republic 486ab). It also depends upon exactly what sortof evaluation of good things the producers are capable of. There is no doubtingthat they do not know good things or even correctly grasp good things under thedescription that makes them good. (I will return to this point in a later note.) But Ido not believe that they have a merely instrumental concern for good things. Theyshould not be assimilated to those described in Book Eight as oligarchs and demo-crats (the latter live in non-ideal circumstances), and it should not be assumed thatthey are motivated exclusively by desire for money on the grounds that they aregenerically money-lovers. Compare my remarks about the auxiliaries and thepre-philosophical guardians in an earlier note.46 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I 4 1095b38. For discussion, see Burnyeat,Aristotle on Learning to be Good, pp. 7173. My view of the relation between


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the pre-philosophical education and the philosophical education in the Republicconverges with a principal theme of C. Gill, The Education of Character,Ethical Reection and the Shaping of Character, and Personality in Greek Ethics, Tragedy, and Philosophy , pp. 240320. Gill specically cites Aristotlesdistinction (Ethical Reection and the Shaping of Character, p. 200; Personalityin Greek Ethics, Tragedy, and Philosophy , p. 273).47 This difference should not be trivialized. First, someone who knows whatis good is in a much better position to help others become good than someonewho has been habituated to become good without knowing what is good. That isone reason why Plato wants his rulers to be knowers. Second, because the non-philosophers respond to what is honorable or viscerally pleasurable rather thanwhat is good, it is not clear that they will readily formulate true beliefs about what,generally, is good. So well-trained non-philosophers may recognize the rightparticulars as good without grasping what is good about them. See 484cd, andfor discussion of the cognitive limitations of the non-philosophers, see especiallyBobonich, Platos Utopia Recast , Chp. 1. These points, and Socrates manifest

desire to guide Glaucon and Adeimantus toward the philosophical way of life,help to explain the remarkably stark language with which Socrates distinguishesbetween knowledge and belief in Books Five through Seven.48 I take myself to be summarizing a widely held view. See Cooper, ThePsychology of Justice, p. 144; Fine, Knowledge and Belief in Republic 5-7,p. 228; Irwin, Platos Ethics , pp. 272273; Annas, Platonic Ethics, Old and New ,p. 108; and Burnyeat, Plato on Why Mathematics is Good for the Soul. Forwhat it is worth, the external evidence concerning Platos infamous Lecture onthe Good further tells in favor of this hypothesis, since it records that the One (orunity) is the Good. See, e.g., Aristoxenus, Elementa Harmonica II 1.49 This more limited appeal to the Symposium and Phaedrus offers the resourcesto motivate the teaching of the higher education. Cf. later Stoic accounts of broadly pederastic education, in Zenos Republic , Chrysippus On Republic , andChrysippus On Lives (see Schoeld, The Stoic Idea of the City , Chp. 2, andBrown, Stoic Cosmopolitanism , 6.2 and 7.4), but I am wary of introducing athreat to the unity of the guardian classes. An erotically charged education wouldseem to run the risk of favoritism shown by lovers towards beloveds, in violationof Socrates strictures in Book Five.50 This is easier to do now, in the wake of Annas, Platonic Ethics, Old and New ,but my own take on the Republic as proto-Stoic is quite different from hers. I putless faith than she in the support provided by Middle Platonist readings of Plato; Ireject some of her readings of Plato (especially concerning the depoliticization of the Republic ); and I draw attention to other proto-Stoic features of Plato that shewould, I think, oppose(especially concerning the relation of Platonic mathematicsto Stoic physics, see below). The parallel that I propose here is closer to the onesuggested by C. Gill, Ethical Reection and the Shaping of Character.51 This view of the Chrysippean ascent is defended in Brown, The Good, theCosmos, and De Finibus III. The parallel between the Chrysippean ascent andthe Platonic ascent is also noted by Menn, Physics as a Virtue.


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52 If I am right, then Platos strategy is ingenious. Since he cannot simply assumeor directly establish that everyone with a harmonious soul is motivated to do whatis right, he tries to nudge us toward that conclusion by asking us to reect onhow psychological harmony is fostered and how we come to be motivated todo what is right. If we can be brought to see that successful moral educationis necessary and sufcient for both, then we should entertain the thought thatpsychological harmony occurs only where there are motivations to do what isright. Note that the particular details of Platos proposed system of education areneither here nor there for this maneuver, just so long as he gets us to see the all-importance of moral education. After all, if it is true that psychological harmonyrequires motivations to do what is right, then there will be a further empiricalquestion about what kind (or kinds) of educational system foster psychologicalharmony.53 If my questioner were to demand an explanation of how Platos broad claimcould be true, we could offer an explanatory account. Just as, for example, AllanGibbard ( Wise Choices, Apt Feelings , esp. Chp. 4) offers a just-so story that gives

a biological function (of coordination) to our psychological state of accepting anorm, so too, we might offer a just-so story that gives a biological function topsychological harmony and the cooperative motivations. Of course, Plato wouldprobably prefer to offer a different (more explicitly teleological) explanation, butI am here simply trying to assess the philosophical prospects of the contentiousclaim that I am attributing to Platos Republic .

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Cornell University Press.Bobonich, C. (2002): Platos Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics ,

Oxford: Oxford University Press.Brown, E. (2003): Platos Ethics and Politics in the Republic , in E.N. Zalta (ed.),

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Summer (http://plato.stanford.edu).Brown, E. (forthcoming): The Good, the Cosmos, and De Finibus III.Brown, E. (2000): Justice and Compulsion for Platos Philosopher-Rulers,

Ancient Philosophy 20, 117.Brown, E. (forthcoming): Stoic Cosmopolitanism .Burnet, J. (ed.) (19001907): Platonis Opera Omnia , 5 vols, Oxford Classical

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Gill, C. (1985): Plato and the Education of Character, Archiv fr Geschichte der Philosophie 67, 126.

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