Lecture 03 Notes

A.   Thrasymachus Tries Again

• To refute Thrasymachus’s position, it is not enough to reply that it’s repugnant or morally wrong.  Socrates must show that the position is intellectually untenable.  This is what Socrates tries to do by drawing out contradictions.
• Thrasymachus replies by modifying his claim...How?
• Thrasymachus agreed that exercising power is a skill, a craft.  And then:
  

1. To exercise power for one’s own benefit = to exercise it effectively.
2. To exercise power effectively = to exercise power skillfully.
3. To exercise power skillfully = to exercise power well.
4. To exercise power well = to exercise power morally, justly.
5. Therefore: to exercise power for one’s own benefit = to exercise it morally.
6. Therefore: morality requires that the weak comply with orders of the strong, when the strong exercise power well.

• The equations in the argument above are crucial--Socrates goes after the first of these:

1. Ruling is a craft like horsemanship, shepherding, seamanship.
2. The practitioner of any craft looks to good of her subjects.
3. Those who rule well look to the good of their subjects. "there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does."  (342e)
4. To rule well cannot be to rule in one’s own interest.
5. Since ruling justly is the same as ruling well, it follows that ruling justly cannot be ruling in one's own interest.
   

•  Thrasymachus Loses Again!

B.   Why Was Thrasymachus's Position Appealing?

• Remember the context: Who is Thrasymachus teaching?
• Answer: bright young people who will be in positions of power in Athens.  These young men will have opportunities to enrich themselves.  Thrasymachus teaches them how to do so and that it is right to do so.  
• In this way, Thrasymachus is similar to a good teacher at a professional school.

C.   Fundamental Problems With the View

Thrasymachus's view is riddled with problems.  Let us focus on four:

1. No group that openly adopted T’s view would be an authority but rather a self-professed gang of thugs.
   
2. Morality plays an important social role, which his view can’t accommodate - social cohesion.
   
3. Morality plays important role in shaping character so that there is some coincidence between what one wants and what it’s good for one to get. 
   
4. In light of (1), (2) and (3), Thrasymachus overlooks an important distinction.  It is the distinction between dispensing with morality altogether and revising it (i.e., by arguing that people are morally obligated to obey in ways that violate the accepted common view of morality).  Thrasymachus wants to dispense with morality, not revise it.

A.   Introduction

• The argument against Thrasymachus depends on challenging the first equation.  It is crucial to Socrates’s view that moral behavior is performing a craft/job well.
• We want to figure out just what Socrates’s view is.  More specifically we want to know:

1. Why does Socrates think of morality as he does?
2. How does his view that moral behavior is performing a job well fit with the discussion of politics that comes later in the Republic?

B.   The Main Features of Excellence as a Craft

• Socrates prefers to make his case by talking of crafts like carpentry, horsemanship and medicine. For our purposes, it is more illuminating to discuss sports.
• Note that excellence in sports:   

1. Presupposes organized forms of activity in which there are recognized standards of good performance.
2. Is perfected with practice.
3. Can master only if sports itself (the institution) is in good shape.
4. Involves learning to see and feel things that new initiates cannot.
5. Involves learning under the tutelage of an expert.
6. Is such that the rationale for training is only partially communicable.
7. If all players are experts, then sport itself (the institution) is in good shape.

• Morality as Socrates conceives it presupposes:

1. That our society includes organized forms of exercising authority, eating and drinking, sexual practices and family life, property ownership, and shared standards of doing well.
2. The possibility of regular performance of good acts (achieved through practice).
3. Some level of agreement about who moral experts are.
4. A distinctive “feel” or perception to morality.
5. The availability of experts to communicate their wisdom.
6. That the rationale for moral education is partially communicable.
7. That good people make a good community.

C.   The Main Features of Sports and Their Political Analogues