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A Community of Parts

Sachs, David 1963. A Fallacy in Plato's Republic. The Philosophical Review 72(2): 141-158. DOI: 10.2307/2183101

Recent writers on the Republic tend to refrain from detailed discussion of the argument about justice and happiness, the main argument of th work. In the last decades there have been few assessments of Plato's conclusions about the relationship of justice and happiness, namely that just men are happier than any men who are unjust, and that the more unjust a man is, the more wretched he will be. Equally rare have been attempts to examine critically th eargument by which Plato reached those conclusions. In this paper I make such an attempt. (Sachs 1963: 141)

The road is much more interesting than the destination.

Certainly no doubt is cast upon one repeatedly implied claim, a claim taken for granted in the later books and presupposed by the over-all structure of the Republic: namely, that whether one should lead a just or unjust life is to be decided by determining which life is the happier. It is, however, indispensable for evaluating the main argument of the Republic to realize that this claim cannot be understood in the same way throughout; it cannot, because of the two conceptions of justice in the Republic. I will call the first the vulgar conception of justice, the second the Platonic conception. (Sachs 1963: 142)

Hence the hypothetical perfectly just and perfectly unjust persons.

As Plato states them in this passage, the vulgar criteria for justice consists in the nonperformance of acts of certain kinds; and, of course, injustice, according to the vulgar conception, consists in performing such acts. The passage shows that Plato supposes that the just man - as he conceives him - is less likely than anyone else to perform those acts, to embezzle, thieve, betray, behave sacrilegiously, fail to keep oaths or agreements, commit adultery, neglect his parents or the service he owes to the gods. Plato thinks the conduct of his just man, for from being at variance with the vulgar conception of justice, will exemplify it. (Sachs 1963: 143)

Just don't do things that are bad, mkay.

The classification appears to be roughly the following: goods valued for their own sake, goods valued for their [|] own sake and their effects, and goods valued only for their effects. The second type of goods is the one better in every way and Socrates says that, if a man is to be happy, he should thus regard justice; that is, value it both for its own sake and for its effects. (Sachs 1963: 144-145)

Effects/consequences.

The difficulty to which it has given rise is this: on the one hand, Socrates states to Glaucon than justice is to be valued for its own sake as well as for its effects, and Glaucon and Adeimantus stress in their speeches that they want Socrates to praise justice in itself (358d 1-2; 363a 1-2; cf. 367c 5-d 5); on the other hand, throughout the Republic, Socrates confines himself to an attempt to show that being just eventuates in happiness and pleasure for the just man; that is, he praises justice solely for what he alleges are its effects. Consequently, it has been charged that Plato, at the start of Book II, misconceived the task he thereafter tried to carry out; that he promised to prove that justice is good both for its own sake and for its effects, but addressed himself only to what he presumed were its effects. (Sachs 1963: 145)

The footnote only now (1/3 in) gives an indication that this discussion had begun with Foster's paper "A Mistake of Plato's in the Republic" (1937).

"That is not the opinion of most people. [...] The yplace it in the troublesome class of good things, which must be pursued for the sake of the reward and the high place in public opinion which the ybring out which in themselves are irksome and to be avoided." Glaucon's words are clear; according to the many, he is saying, justice in itself, since it is harsh or painful, should be avoided. [...] Glaucon's classification of goods, then, proves quite complex: first, items which by themselves (or on their own) are productive of good and of nothing else; second, those which by themselves are productive of good and, in conjunction with other things, have additional good effects; third, those which by themselves have bad effects but also have good ones which outweigh them. (Sachs 1963: 147)

A valuable clarification. The third class is actually something like "bads" in themselves but goods by their consequences.

Plato's consideration of the matter, it should be observed, is developed in terms of his own conception of justice. Thus in Book IV, Socrates states that there is one form of ἀρετή, or excellence, of the soul but limitless ones of κακία, or defect (cf. 445c 5-d 1; also 449a 1-5), four of which are worth special notice; they [|] are the defects responsible for the timocratic, oligarchical, democratic, and tyrannical polities of the soul, the famous discussion of which occupies Books VIII and IX. (Sachs 1963: 150-151)

Reminiscent of what is called the Anna Karenina principle: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

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 (see 443e 4-444a 2). In accord with this, Socrates suggests that acting justly is to be understood as acting in a way which 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 (444c 1-3; 444c 10-d 2). (Sachs 1963: 152)

This is easy enough to imagine macrocosmically: everyone tending to their own business. But what does this actually mean microcosmically? Is acting justly when he exercises moderation and eats only a little bit of cake, as a treat?

On Plato's view, the fulfillment of the functions of the soul's parts constitutes wisdom or intelligence, courage, and self-control; and if these obtain, justice, according to Plato, also obtains. Intelligence, courage, and self-control are, however, prima facie compatible with a variety of vulgar injustices and evil-doings. [|] Neither as usually understood nor as Plato characterizes them are those virtues inconsistent with performing any of the acts Thrasymachus and Glaucon mention as examples of injustice. In this regard it is tempting to assert that the most than can be said on behalf of Plato's argument is that crimes and evils could not be done by a Platonically just man in a foolish, unintelligent, cowardly, or uncontrolled way. (Sachs 1963: 154-155)

Doesn't Plato deal with this exact issue around 519a?

Demos, Raphael 1964. A Fallacy in Plato's Republic? The Philosophical Review 73(3): 395-398. DOI: 10.2307/2183665

Sachs makes a vital distinction which helps clear up a confusion in Plato's argument. Sachs insists that we must keep apart two questions: (a) Does justice entails happiness? (b) Does justice entail vulgar or conventional morality (φορτικὸς; Republic, 444e 3)? He rightly insists that an answer to the first questions has no bearing on the answer to the second. In other words, were we to succeed in proving that a just man will be happy, we should still not know that he will be conventionally moral. (Demos 1964: 395)

Justice could make one happy without it corresponding to the vulgar conception of justice?

A very important use of "justice" by Plato is the rendering to every man his due. This is the refrain running throughout Republic I; it is the ordinary, the conventional meaning of justice; it is the conception of justice as a social virtue. But in Book IV, Plato comes up with a different and unconventional definition of justice; it is, so far as I know, unique with Plato among Greek philosophers, and indeed Sachs calls it Platonic justice. This is the view of justice as (a) the state of the soul in which no part of the soul interferes with the functioning of the other parts - call it the principle of nonintervention - and (b) the state of the soul in which the various parts are working in mutual harmony and friendship (ὁμόνοια, φιλιά; 351d 3; 433e 2-4). Should anyone wonder whether there is any significant difference between [|] the two notions, let him reflect on this pair: desegregation and integration. (Demos 1964: 395-396)

A familiar distinction: "Justice is a principle of differentiation and specialization of the parts: Sophrosyne is a principle of agreement, harmony, unity." (Cornford 1912: 248)

Plato likens the soul to the city. In contrast to the outer city, the soul is an inner city; it is a community of parts - of reason, thumos, and innumerable appetites. Can he then be charged with changing, or even stretching, the meaning of the word, if by Platonic justice he means giving every part of the soul its due? The change, if change there be, would seem to be in the conception of the soul as a community, not in the conception of justice. And if my suggestion is correct, it should throw light on the lacuna, or what Sachs calls the fallacy of irrelevance. (Demos 1964: 396)

Not even attempting to translate thumos, the most suspect part. Saying outright that the soul is a city ignores the nature of the analogy. The soul is still only metaphorically a city.

In short, there seems to be a leap from the conception of justice as caring for one's own good to caring for other people's good. Plato asserts that justice is to the human soul what health is to the human body; but surely no living body aims at anything but its own health. Platonic justice is the proper ordering of one's own life; why then should a just man in this sense of justice care to bring about a proper ordering of other peolpe's lives? (Demos 1964: 397)

Unless, of course, you have working ultrahyperimmunity, that is, your immune system is so good that it doesn't just protect you but also has area of effect damage and heals anyone who comes near you. The addendum "working" is necessary because, as the documentary titled Unnatural Selection showed, sometimes it may cause rapid aging in those you come into contact with.

Foster, M. B. 1937. A Mistake of Plato's in the Republic. Mind 46(183): 386-393. DOI: 10.1093/mind/xlvi.183.386

I have not observed that any commentator has noticed that the book opens with a false statement of the point at issue. Glaucon begins by distinguishing 'good things' into three classes. There is (i) the good which "we should like to possess not through a desire of its consequences, but for its own sake, such as enjoyment, and pleasures which are harmless and which have no subsequent results other than enjoyment"; (ii) "that which we love both for its own sake and for the sake of its consequences, such as wisdom and sight and health"; (iii) goods of which "we should say that they are troublesome, but that they benefit us, and we should not wish to have them for their own sakes, but for the sake of the rewards and other things which result from them". Examples of this third class are "gymnastic exercises, submission to medical treatment, the practice of medicine or of any other money-making pursuit". It is then required of Socrates that we shall prove that justice belongs to the second of these classes, against his opponents, who would place it in the third. (Foster 1937: 386)

A pretty concise statement of the problem. The three types of good are probably going to be the kind of thing that I collect various expositions of, perhaps to construct a table from (some fine day). I should start tagging them "Glauconic goods" or something.

According to the views represented by Glaucon and Adimantus, the beneficial consequences usually ascribed to justice are in reality consequences, not of justice, but of seeming to be just. It wolud follow that The reputation of justice belongs to the third division of good things, but that justice itself belongs to none of the three. The examples which Glaucon quotes of his third class of goods make it amply clear that none of Socrates' opponents could have ranked justice among them. Thrasymachus would not have maintained of gymnastic exercises that it is something which no man would undergo unless compelled by superior force; nor would Adimantus have argued that the benefits commonly tatributed to medical treatment can be equally well attained by pretending to submit to the treatment. (Foster 1937: 387)

This raises a curious question: what else belongs to this third class? And if this goes for reputation of justice, are other reputations also in this third class? What would this analysis yield if applied on modern social media, where e.g. exercising at the gym is accompanied by constant visual updates of exercising at the gym - is this not a case where something like reputation for going to the gym becomes a good over and above the exercise itself?

It has now appeared that Socrates nowhere maintains that thesis, nor his opponents that antithesis; that both Socrates himself, and his interlocutors subsequently, assume that a different problem from this has been proposed; and that the speeches of Glaucon and Adimantus, if we ignore Glaucon's opening passage and a few subsequent references to the threefold division of goods, really do propose a different problem. Only one conclusion is possible. It is necessary to recognize that the threefold division of goods is irrelevant to the issue, and that Plato made a mistake in inserting the passage of Glaucon's speech in which it is contained. A true interpretation of Plato's meaning in the Republic requires us to dismiss what he says in that passage. (Foster 1937: 390)

It is almost as if the Glauconic goods were some extraneous bit of sophistry inserted into the discussion because it had the appearance of aiding the discussion along and needed to be tested out. That is, as if it might have been a piece of pythagoreanism, as Iamblichus' biography suggests.

Foster, M. B. 1938. A Mistake of Plato in the "Republic": A Rejoinder to Mr. Mabbot. Mind 47(186): 226-232. DOI: 10.1093/mind/xlvii.186.226

This is obvious, and of course Mr. Mabbott does not deny it. He defends Plato against the charge of inconsistency by maintaining that the third division of goods was never intended by Plato to represent the class in which justice was placed by the opponents of Socrates, but only that in which it was placed by οἱ πολλοί. [...] When I read this passage, I can only rub my eyes and recur to the text of the Republic. (Foster 1938: 227)

What a minute thing to quibble over.

I should not dream of committing the solecism of calling Plato's doctrine Utilitarian, and I can applaud the arguments which Mr. [|] Mabbott directs against that error, because it is not my feathers that are made to fly. (Foster 1938: 227-228)

Define:solecism - "a grammatical mistake in speech or writing." "a breach of good manners; an instance of incorrect behaviour." Greek: speaking incorrectly. As to the idiomatic expression "it is not my feathers that are made to fly", ChatGPT explains that it "means that the speaker believes they are not suited or equipped for a particular task or situation. The phrase is often used to express humility and self-awareness, acknowledging one's limitations and admitting that they cannot do everything."

Plato's doctrine is not Utilitarian, but neither is it Kantian. Though we have only to see what justice really is in order to see that it is worth while being just, that is because the insight into the nature of justice makes it immediately evident that happiness is its necessary consequence; it is not because an insight into the nature of justice makes it clear that justice would be worth having whether it resulted in happiness or not. (Foster 1938: 228)

Instead, platonism is utilitarian kantianism, right?

What evidence does he produce for this conclusion? In the whole course of his article he cites only one passage which supports it; that is the passage of the Republic in which the duty is imposed upon the philosophers of "returning to the cave" on the ground that justice demands it, in spite of the fact that this will entail a diminution of their happiness. I admit this single passage, but as I have already devoted an article to the attempt to show that its implicatinos are inconsistent with all the rest of the moral philosophy of the Republic, I may perhaps be excused from dealing further with it now. (Foster 1938: 230)

This is another one of those things that completely missed me when I read the book, but which J.O. picked up immediately. What to make of it, I still do not know. (It is likely that I'll be dealing with the Republic for a while, so I expect this to turn up again sooner or later.)

On the other hand, I think that Mr. Mabbott's account of the relation in which the argument of these books stands to that of Book IX is as erroneous as mine was previously. He says: "I believe that Book IX could have disappeared [...] without shaking the central edifice of the ethical position at all". "As soon as it is clear that justice is the state of thes oul described in Book IV, the battle is over. [...] Why then raise the question in Book IX? Because our ideas of the justice of the Universe would be shaken if justice and pain were necessarily connected."
This is not the true answer to the question which Mr. Mabbott asks. The battle is not over at the end of Book IV, because it is not sufficient for Socrates to prove that the just man is happy. He has to prove also that the unjust man is unhappy, or less happy; for the proof of the happiness of the just would not be a reason for preferring justice if it could be supposed that the unjust were equally happy. Therefore the proof of Book IV must be followed by an account of the unjust soul and an exhibition of its unhappiness. (Foster 1938: 231)

Concerning the overall structure of the Republic and why the latter books are even necessary, although they seemingly don't add much to the theory expoused in Book IV.

Of the three arguments with which the passage opens, the first (576b-580c) proves the supreme happiness (not pleasure) of the just man, and the supreme unhappiness (not pain) of the unjust. (Foster 1938: 231)

Plato is not a Utilitarian.

Skedzielewski, Sean 2020. Justice and the Supposed Fallacy of Irrelevance in Plato's Republic? Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought 37(2), 317-337. DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340277

The kinds of actions Glaucon has in mind are all of those actions conventionally thought of as unjust: theft, adultery, murder, prison-escape, and 'all the other things that would make him like a god among humans' (360c1-2). But Socrates, allegedly, responds to Glaucon by praising and defending a narrowly defined and technical-philosophical concept of justice which has little in common with justice as conventionally understood. In this sense Socrates is said to have answered Glaucon's challenge in an irrelevant way. Glaucon wanted to hear conventionally just acts like truth telling praise - so the critique goes - but instead Socrates praises useful falsehood (414b7-c2)! (Skedzielewski 2020: 318)

There is indeed a kind of lacuna between the conventional or vulgar conception of justice (concerning the kinds of actions listed here) and Socrates' grand theory of the harmony of the soul. The ideal does not, as if, come in contact with the real.

One goal of Plato's Republic is to establish a theory that successfully responds to what Reeve calls 'Thrasymacheanism'. Thrasymachus supports the realist definition of justice (διϰαιοσύνη) that justice is the advantage of the stranger. Here, by 'realist' I simply mean that Hrasymacheanism adopts the position that moral claims about justice are true or false, based on whether the specific moral claim is or is not indeed to the advantage of the stronger. Meanwhile, Thrasymachus along with Glaucon and Adeimantus both espouse the nominalist definition that whatever laws the ruling party in a given city wants its subjects to obey will be called 'just' by the rulers. By 'nominalist' I mean that the rulers do not believe that the subjects obeying the laws they offer are actually just; the application of the word 'justice' to such behaviour is a cynical ploy to oppress those who are ignorant of the realist definition of justice as the advantage of the stronger. These two conceptions of justice make it possible for Thrasymachus to assert that the tyrant acts justly by ruling (realist justice) and that the tyrant perpetuates the most extensive acts of injustice (nominal justice). (Skedzielewski 2020: 319)

I'm not a fan of these terms but here they do indeed seem to work. It's a way to conceptualize the thrasymachean trickery of painting injustice as justice - the trope that "rhetoric" is the art of turning black into white at will comes to mind.

The answer that Socrates provides to the question 'What is justice?' apparently must live up to conventional thought or else his interlocutors will be left disappointed that they have not had their challenge met. Whatever answer [|] is given to this question, Socrates' theory of justice (P-justice) seems to need to live up to the widely agreed upon basis of the conventional conception of justice (C-justice) or suffer from irrelevance. (Skedzielewski 2020: 321-322)

The author is following Reeve's manner of naming things, I see. Lets hope this does not get too confusing as it did for me when reading his Philosopher-Kings (Reeve 2006).

For each part to do their own in the city means that the guardians must rule with wisdom, the auxiliaries must defend with civil courage, and the producers must, in moderation, agree to be ruled by their better. Analogously, justice in the soul is the proper governance of its parts by reason, aided by spirit in rendering the appetites compliant and obedient. These images and instances of Justice, as Socrates is well aware, make P-justice in the city and soul unconcerned with 'external' actions, but rather [|] with an internal state of being wherein a proper rulership obtains, producing an 'inner' harmony among the three parts (443c8-e6). Proper psychic rule, then, is distinct from proper conduct. (Skedzielewski 2020: 322-323)

That's the thing for me: it is pretty clear how this 'everyone tending to their own' business works in the city but how exactly the same is supposed in the soul remains a bit vague. Especially when it comes to the question of how, for example, the 'agreement to be ruled' is supposed to work out between the appetitive part and others. Presently I can only see a threat of violence type ordeal, as with the dogs sheparding the sheep, or the lion roaring (perhaps even pawing) the many-headed beast. But this is indeed somewhat off-topic at the moment. In any case the point is very valid: P-justice is about the inner harmony of the soul, C-justice is about external actions.

One apparent answer to Glaucon's challenge is that having proper psychic rule, which is indeed an internal relation, will lead to C-just actions for the soul so organized because such harmony in the soul will prevent the P-just person from committing C-unjust acts. But Socrates has not established this at the close of the argument at the end of Book IV, as Sachs himself notes. (Skedzielewski 2020: 323)

I should really organize my reading notes to have them handy because at the momont I'm blanking where I'm fairly certain - I have a vague recollection - that the P-just person will have no need to commit C-injustices... But as to why, I cannot tell.

In his influential paper, Sachs gives the fallacy of irrelevance its distinctive formulation which is in turn taken up by many other commentators. He thinks that Socrates needs to show two things and that he fails to do either: P-justice will invariably produce C-just actions, and that being truly C-just is sufficient for being P-just. He thinks that this is so because of the nature of Glaucon's challenge. Glaucon's challenge was to have Socrates show that he who commits injustice is less happy than he who always performs just actions. (Skedzielewski 2020: 324)

The footnote clarifies that this is what is meant by "a bi-conditional relationship between P-justice and C-justice". Personally, I would not have thunk it that any amount of C-justice can amount to P-justice. P-justice is a precondution for the harmony of the soul, but C-justice isn't, not necessarily. The problem may be aimed at the very nature of C-justice: what is conventionally just is socially relative.

It has been perceptively suggested that the link between these two unrelated topics - that of mating agreements nad child rearing practices on the one hand and philosopher-kings on the other - is eros. P. Ludwig, 'Eros in the Republic', in G. Ferrari (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 202-232. Ludwig claims that Socrates introduces eros in a propadeutic way via the sexual arrangements of the Kallipolis, and then, in a more detailed and metaphysically robust way in the metaphor of sun, the divided line, and the allegory of the cave. All of these are, in part, needed to explain the important point that the philosophers are not better off merely because they possess justice, but because possessing justice allows them to possess the greatest goods: the forms, It is eros then - which as appetite, is held in contempt, but as ladder to the intelligible realm, is praised - that leads Socrates into his discussion of the philosopher-kings, and the nature of their rule. (Skedzielewski 2020: 325, fn 18)

Not out of the question. Indeed, it looks like everyone all around is having trouble connecting parts of the Republic to the whole. The connection between eros and appetite is even supported by Aesara and her substitution/original of "love" and "friendship" where Plato has appetite. Sadly, it would be proper to check out Ludwig's paper only after I've read the Symposium.

It turns out that, at least on Socrates' theory, the right-making feature of just actions has been conventionally misunderstood. One can perform all and only C-just actions, but still not be governed by the rational part of the soul, thereby lacking P-justice. P-justice, then, is not unrelated to C-justice, it simply is not related causally, or by sufficiency. Rather conventions about justice should be thought of as blind and grasping attempts at delineation but rising only to the level of belief (πίστις) concerning objects, not to thought (διάνοια) concerning hypotheses (ὑποθέσεις) nor to knowledge (ἐπιστήήμη) concerning forms (εἰδή). (Skedzielewski 2020: 329)

Right to the point.

This altered allegory is intended to show that possessing a harmonious soul and knowing the truth produces P-just rulers competent to govern in the beautiful city only if that truth is something in particular: namely that the intelligible realm is constituted by unchanging, beautiful forms, ultimately illuminated by the form of the Good; that the intelligible realm does indeed contain objects worth imitating, and propagating in one's own city, thereby giving the P-just philosopher king good reason to bring Justice itself (not C-justice, as Sachs and Irwin would have it) into being as much as possible in the sensible realm. (Skedzielewski 2020: 330)

That's the rub: Sachs is trying to overcome the gap between P-justice and C-justice on, what amounts to, textual basis: the argument of the Republic for him requires that P satisfy C, whereas the actual point is, in my opinion, that C-justice is pretty much worthless; by analogy it's like trying to make gold look like iron or bronze. Why even?

The difference between the C-unjust acts of the philosopher-kings and the C-unjust acts of tyrants is that the former perform such acts with the fulfillment of their rational desires in mind, and the desire to bring the people and city around them into a condition more closely approximating Justice itself; whereas tyrants perform such acts in an attempt to satisfy their warped and perverted appetitive desires. (Skedzielewski 2020: 332)

Here's where I take issue with "reevesianism": I'm not satisfied that the philosopher-king/queen has only necessary rational desires. I see, as of yet, no reason why they cannot have unnecessary rational desires. Call them, idk, thesic affections, if you will. The philosopher is not infallible.

The chimera - human, lion, and the beastly hydra identified with the rational, spirited, and appetitive parts respectively - serves (at least) three functions: it 1) makes the explanatory link between P-justice and C-justice clear through the conspicuous nature of the analogy; 2) persuades rhetorically by identifying the rational part with the properly human; and 3) lays the groundwork for the startling (though tentative) disavowal of the tripartite soul foud in the Glaucus analogy. (Skedzielewski 2020: 332)

Hydra - ooh, that's good. It implies that the appetitive part is, in a way, snakish. That is to say... reptilian. That the rational part is human-figured is purely rhetorical I also do not buy. It is supposed to be the most god-like part, 'made in his image' yada-yada.

Then let us persuade him gently - for he isn't wrong of his own will - by asking him these questions. Should we say that this [P-justice] is the original basis for the conventions about what is fine and what is shameful [C-justice]? Fine things are those that subordinate the beastlike parts of our nature to the human - or better, perhaps, to the divine; shameful ones are those that enslave the gentle to the savage? (589c4-d2)
And don't you think that licentiousness has long been condemned [by convention] for just these reasons, namely, that because of it, that terrible large, and multiform beast is let loose more than it should be [P-injustice]? (590a4-6)
And aren't stubbornness and irritability condemned [by convention] because they inharmoniously increase and stretch the lionlike and snakelike part [states of soul]? (590a7-b1)
And aren't luxury and softness condemned [by convention] because the slackening and loosening of this same part produce cowardice in it [P-injustice]? (590b3-4)
Socrates is constantly emphasizing the distinction between what everyone believes, and the justification for those conventional beliefs, in order to show that popular morality itself - implicitly and without awareness - sees the origin of injustice in states of the soul, not in deeds or agreed upon rules of conduct. (Skedzielewski 2020: 333)

Oh damn, even Reeve had "snakelike element" (590a) that I completely missed in favour of the more appealing "moblike" (590b).

The P-justice hypothesis provides an answer to the meta-ethical question, 'what makes an action good?'. Socrates answers that it is the impact an action has on the soul which makes the action good or bad. The confusion in the literature comes from misunderstanding the normative component of the theory. Sachs and others expect that the normative component of P-justice needs to prescribe C-just acts. But this is mistaken. The hypothesis of justice as psychic harmony prescribes P-just acts, i.e. acts that produce the proper condition in the soul. Socrates' theory is related to conventional beliefs about morality in an explanatory, meta-ethical way, but not in a normative way. (Skedzielewski 2020: 334)

If I refuse to return a borrowed firearm to a drunken friend whose girlfriend has just cheated on him and he found out, and I know where she's hiding from him and he doesn't... My soul is free from truly lying and stealing when I say that I "don't know" where she might be and "forgot" where I placed his gun.

No man should idnetify with the hydra, he implies, for that would be to choose the part that is not fully human, that is beastly and brutish, blindly craving both what is good and bad for itself; to so misidentify oneself with the beast is to be enslaved by something that ought to naturally be a slave itself, a theme echoed in the degeneration story from democracy into tyranny. (Skedzielewski 2020: 334)

Reign in your reptilian brain.

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