Dang Don Diaz and welcome back to the new thing. My name is David Barr. How are you doing? I'm doing a real live-time interview.
I was doing a live-time interview. I'm doing a live-time interview. I'm here to play. How are you doing?
Beach game, baby, beach keen. Pretty much in on there. Well, Cracker. What else is the story?
Did he tell us in the last episode? He told us in the last episode, which we did not report in an hour. Yeah. So Greg, Greg in the last episode, we're recording too, so we're getting loopy.
Greg revealed that in the best episodes that his boss informed him that some of the work he performs for the university, he had not received a check in over a year. And so that, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, it's just how wealthy one of our co-hosts are. He's missing revenue stream. But still, a little part of that Georgia boy just won't die.
So today, on his way to his back to his office, where he records the podcast from Greg, notice an open box of crackers. Bad. It was shut. Bag.
And he thought he looked around and he said, there's a lot of untritionally what you're doing, but he's nobody's claiming he's crackers. So he prodded into his room. He's consuming right now. That's right.
I assume it was a gift from a fan of this. Yeah. It doesn't work. It wasn't my little list.
The kind of guy you put a dollar bill on a fish hook and you can get him to do anything. True story. Yes. This is acceptable.
So if any of your students are listening to this, if you want to kill your professor, you know, pre food, a poison bag of crackers. Yeah, probably you. They're really nice crackers, by the way. He's going to have a bag that says rat poison if it's going to have an extra do it and then sloppy head ready crackers.
Yeah. It's a small, tight green. You see that? I see that one.
I think that's true. They're young. So what are we talking about today? But his republic again.
Again. Getting a book too. The episodes have gone much more smoothly than the supposing episodes. We still have one recording supposing.
We've got a concluding episode. We've got to put a bow on down the road. So you're also going to put a bow on it. Yeah.
So book two, Alex, and beginning of book two, would you marry this to our book one episode on the theme of justice? And I don't mean, of course, it's one of the one of the things we discussed in that episode of book one is how sloppy the conversation is how ugly it is. Right. And I like to draw attention to that because it's such an obvious thing.
Students, I think are often like taking it back. What the hell are these arguments? What's going on? Why are they behaving like this?
And it's important to realize that that's intentional. This reflects this sort of ugly sort of back and forth set of ideas in post plague Athens. Right. Leaving that aside.
By the end of book one, Socrates has expressed his dissatisfaction. The Semicos has not been persuaded as Socrates had told Glaukeny would about midway through book one. And the Semicos just seems frustrated into silence, like beat up into silence. And so book two opens up with Glauken saying, you have not persuaded me.
I'm not convinced you're right. Don't you actually want to persuade me that justice is better is more advantageous than injustice. And so book two is a kind of new beginning, right? Or book one has allowed them to pose the question or a lot of Glauken to pose a question more seriously.
I think one of the things Glauken has really been convinced of is that for Semicos, his way of treating this question is inadequate. He's a bad person to make the case against justice. And he's not a serious person. At the very least, he's inclined or he's more inclined towards a philosophic or somewhat philosophic treatment of the issue.
And so what we're going to read or discuss today is his speech and then his brother's follow up speech, which is sort of prompted by Glauken speech. What we're going to do is look at those two and see how they present a more philosophic articulation of the problem of justice than we've seen so far. We're going to get something a little cleaner, a little apparently more direct getting us to the issues. So I have a serious question asking a kind of joking manner.
Socrates has already had to suffer through a conversation with capitalists in the first Semicos. Why not at this point? Just say, what I don't give a goddamn. What you guys understand about this?
I'm out of here. I'm going to go somewhere else. Talk to somebody more interesting. Why does he stick around?
Alex is just great. I thought he had something to say. No, I feel really obvious. We can we can we can know it's not obvious actually.
I think that's a perfectly good question. I think it's I think it's deeply problematic. And I think the question of Socrates' motivation is really important. I think the text doesn't necessarily make it clear.
I think in the run a show, Alex has already put up there that one of the things we're going to discuss is, oh, after these guys give their speeches, the two brothers, Socrates sort of professes that he can't actually do what they've asked him to do. And he does it anyway. He says out of something like piety. And so something like piety keeps him going.
I don't know. I mentioned in when we did our Republic overview episode, I believe that Zenithin can actually be very helpful here. I think Zenithin tells us that Socrates took an interesting glaucon for the sake of Plato who asked Socrates to look after him because Plato apparently expressed the concern that his brother glaucon was too politically ambitious. I don't know why maybe from the who knows?
I mean, you should jump in here, Alex. But I wonder if part of this, he's not initially thinking, well, maybe there's some press of young men. Maybe glaucon's worth talking to, although I think glaucon over the course of the public reveals himself not to be the most serious thinker. There's also the possibility that the audience is actually not that people with whom Socrates is speaking.
Maybe Socrates realizing Mason progress with polemachus and he's willing to keep talking for polemachus to say. I think anytime there's a dialogue, one should be sensitive to the possibility that Socrates, his audience might not be the person with whom he's actually speaking. So I don't yeah, let me let me he says it's piety to glaucon and I mean, right? And this is the sticks with glaucon because he refers to a veteran.
But he tells the people he's relating, remember that republics are narrated dialogue. He's narrating this conversation today. He tells them that he admired the nature of glaucon and it's a fact both glaucon and item. Now, I would suggest that as much as it's like pious for him to come to the defense of justice, the people he's speaking to, he says, this is really interesting.
There's something very interesting. And without getting too ahead of ourselves, glaucon essentially tells glaucon is proof to me justice is good even if I get put to death for it. Whereas itemantis is naturally inclined towards a kind of moderation to not be overindulgent. And he thinks it's bad to justify it in terms of consequences.
He thinks it's intrinsically enjoyable to be restrained and to be just, right? And so what a peculiar situation to be put in. That's just one of the many difficulties I've reconciled them. It's an interesting situation.
I have to prove that martyrdom is as sweet as honey, right? As pleasant as just relaxing and having a leisurely time, right? A moderately leisurely time. That's a pretty remarkable thing.
And what comes out of the tension between the brothers and again, there's just one aspect of many is a pretty remarkable sort of product or creature, right? The argument or the city and speech that's meant to satisfy in some way, both of them. In addition, I'll suggest I put in the run show kind of feigns surprise. I think it's pretty clear if you read book one with any kind of attention to the drama that he's kind of trying to provoke glaucon to see if he'll be satisfied, right?
His defensive justice has so far just been to discredit the more moralist, right? There's some of this, right? To make to show him to be confused. And perhaps that's the best that one could do.
But he also, I think is provoking glaucon to say to answer, are you satisfied? Now he feigns surprise, but it might be that he's sort of interested in this and he's feigning surprise to his audience to sort of have them see that there's more to be thought about, right? That you need to take this issue more seriously. So it might be that even this same thing might apply for glaucon that as much as it might be a kind of pain to satisfy a glaucon, it seems to be sub philosophic, right?
I think by the end of the dialogue, that's really clear. But it might be like a pain, but at least you're at the very least, you're sort of exploring an interesting question and you're impressing upon him as seeing the degree to which you can impress upon him, the seriousness of the issues that he's treating much too lightly, right? So I think there's an interesting observation one can have about people like glaucon to work. We're not uninteresting from a standpoint of political philosophy.
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Why don't you tell about it, Greg? I think I will. This next semester, they're doing a course on Aristotle, which is a direct engagement with the works of. Well, Aristotle, you guessed it.
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Dave. Uh huh. Davey. Got it.
And then Nant. And then Nant. And then T. Yeah.
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Right. It's too much for you. Dave Nant Hall. Yeah.
And now back to the show. Back to the show. But it's fair to say both, or each glaukon and Nant as each has his limitations. And in general, Socrates doesn't spend such an excessive amount of time speaking with person Plato doesn't present as dialogues of significant length with whereas show Socrates speaking with not entirely impressive young people.
Was that fair? Yeah. I mean, one thing I'd say is exceptional in that way. You think you wanted a cuddle?
Always. You picking up on a putting down. That's our fans name, right? They're the little buggers.
Right. Oh, geez. So, but I think it's a state. It depends the degree to which the dialogues are compelled.
Right. In certain dialogues. And this is one of the more compulsory though. It's a playful compulsion.
Right. But there are times where he's physically stopped from getting up and leaving, asking yourself what's compelling him to stay there is interesting. But yeah, I mean, certain times I get in Alcibiades. It's obvious that there's something possibly there that he wants to see or in the gorgias, which is very voluntary.
He wants to go see gorgias and those who hang around with them. And here, it seems like he could just sort of go away. But something is sort of set off a light bulb in his head by these speeches. But to grace point, I think when you attend to these speeches, this is really Glaucon and Idemates is first showing us where they really act.
Right. We've heard from them before and we have little intonations of their character, but now they kind of steal their hearts out of it. Right. Or they sort of show themselves a bit.
And these are from this, we now have the two brothers being the primary interlocutors as the dialogue unfolds. These are really our first real glimpses at the sort of concerns that they have. And it's important to pay attention, try to pin them down. Because if you can pin them down, I think you can make sense of why certain topics come up and why Socrates treats them a certain way.
And so, why certain questions you and I might ask don't even occur to Glaucon or Dydemates. Why they object and interrupt each other at certain points, either to object or to join in in the conversation. There's a lot at state I think you're reading these carefully. I will say also, the last time I read this with students, as the book goes on, there are a few times where Glaucon gives really impressive answers.
And the students who have come to know Glaucon fairly well with course, as Mr. Thought, there's no way Glaucon gave that impressive answer right. And so, like, sometimes I just wonder if Socrates doesn't embellish what these guys say, they're cutting in their responses to someone. I guess just to dive into the text a little bit, it begins because as you mentioned, Glaucon, I'm sure others, but especially Glaucon is not persuaded by Socrates' refutation of their semicolon book one.
And he wants to be shown, in fact, that justice really is better than justice. And so, we're going to go through Glaucon's challenge and then Adam Antis as well. And Glaucon's challenge falls into two main parts as far as I see. There's the challenge proper, which is the first thing we see him do, which is beginning at 357A and goes till what, 358, something or other.
And basically here, he challenges Socrates to prove that justice is good. After he does that, he turns to an account of the origin, then he says, now I'm going to do these three things. I'm going to give you an account of the origin of justice. I'm going to show you that all who are just are unwillingly so, and I'm going to show you that the life of the unjust man is better than the life of the just man.
But I'm going to talk first about this thing where he says, prove to me that justice is good by categorizing it into a type of good. What type of good thing is justice? And when Glaucon goes through it, he says, don't you agree, Socrates, that there's this one type of good? Yes, the second type of good, this third type of good?
Yes. So, according to Glaucon and Socrates agrees, there are things that we believe are good for their own sake, things that we delight in for their own sake. There are things that are good for their own sake and for what comes from them. And then there are instrumental goods, so-called goods, goods that sort of lead to something else that's good.
As for examples, with respect to the third quality of the character of the instrumental good, it's something like exercise or medicine, something that you don't delight in for its own sake, but you only delight in it for the stuff that comes from it. As for things that we delight in their own sake, Glaucon says, these things are like enjoyments and pleasures that are harmless, so harmless pleasures and enjoyments. He gives no examples of anything that falls into this first category. And I can't really come up with much laughter, seeing something pleasant, I don't really know.
Smells. Yeah. That might be the only one. Harmless pleasure.
Yeah. So, what's interesting is that, so there's this first thing, they're good, only for their own sake, we just delight in them for their own sake. There's things they're good, and they're going to say, and for comes from them like health, and then they're the instrumental goods like medicine, exercise, gymnastics. Now, it's clear that what Glaucon wants to be shown is that justice falls into this first category of things that are good that we delight in for their own sake.
He asks, Socrates though, first, where would you, Socrates plays justice? And Socrates says, I put it in the second category, something that's good for its own sake and for what comes from it. And one of the things I like to draw with students is that basically the rest of the book, Glaucon, the charge that Glaucon puts to Socrates is proved to me that justice falls into category one, despite the fact that Socrates has just said in his own name that he thinks it falls into category two. So, Socrates aims to prove something that he has told us he doesn't hold to be the case.
Yeah. I mean, already a minimum, Glaucon says, okay, fine. It gives you a good reputation, whatever else, right? But also just focus on what makes it good in and of itself, right?
Even when it seems so manifestly bad. Can I add something to that, Greg, or do you want to know? No, of course, of course. That's why maybe you would want to say.
He also says that the many put in the third category, right? Right, right. That says just to oil. By the way, on the point of him saying exercise is not good for its own sake.
The peak of this book is going to be an education that's called on exercise. That's really good. And specifically, Glaucon is going to be like, oh, that's too much work. And he's always focused on what comes from it, right?
How it makes you capable of ruling, rather than why it might be enjoyable as someone's. So I think little things like that, again, in this passage, you realize have echoes far far later in the book. That's really it's a Glaucon doesn't like exercise. Yeah, no, he doesn't.
I think he's I like exercise. I enjoy for his own sake. I mean, I do enjoy his benefits, right? It's nice to not have high cholesterol, for example, but I like it.
I just enjoy it. I don't know why. Yeah. Well, you do.
I can see why you like it. Oh, I don't know what that means. It means that we know what you do with your exercise group. Anyway, so the many put it in the third category, right?
It's just tools. And here he says, that's not at all my opinion. He's a little more torn than he lets on, but I think he does want to be just, right? On the third level.
Glaucon. Yeah. He says, that's not at all my own opinion. I'm at a loss.
I've been taught deaf by the argument against justice. They attribute this this this attraction to justice to fear. But it's clear that it's kind of sense of shame. In fact, he's I think, uninclined to admit the degree to which he really does care about the justice, right?
And he tries, I think he's more inclined to it. They're not like he's just completely not inclined to justice, right? And so one of the things I think that's implicitly happening here with him, and it's very, how much more obvious I think of Adamantas is that Athens doesn't answer these questions anymore. Athens is full of people like their semicolors.
They're semicolors as a popular speaker. And so what he's essentially asking for is, can you give me something that maybe I could say to Athens? Could you make Athens better? Could you give me a new city, right?
A better city, right? And so what we have here is a kind of already the hint I really would like to be a revolutionary, right? Or I would like to live somewhere better than where I live right now. And so there's no accident that Socrates I think goes on to build a city and speech because there aren't these, I think, longings, but we don't have to do with how unlovable and how unattractive Athens is.
But I'll say if Glaucon were simply attracted to justice, he wouldn't be in need of this argument, right? So he's become corrupt. So he's kind of confused, right? He wants to be persuaded that justice is better than justice.
But you know, to openly say you need to be persuaded that justice is better than justice means you're not persuaded, right? And so he's afraid that actually these cynical sophists might be right. And so what we persuade me otherwise, but the problem is I see it, they've been corrupted by these sophists and such that traditional Athens is gone, right? The idea that the poets hold sway for these young impressive aristocrats is that's over.
They're sophisticated. And once that tradition's gone, can there be a new foundation or can there be a new argument behind why one should be remained committed to justice now that in the face of this attack by the writers from the sophists? I mean, even the old generation, right? Keflos and his friends.
He's the only one who believes that he's not even in the Athenian, right? The only other person who seems really God about justice is Paul and Marcus. That's Keflos is fun. He's not even really in it, right?
And so you get this, I mean, I always draw a connection between this and in Bookhorn of Thucydides when the Corinthians go to complain about Athens, Chutas Barnes and Edoides Athenians there, they draw attention to the fact that in the Battle of Solomis, the old Athens is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. And we're fighting for a city that's to be hoped for, right? Almost sounds like Aristotle in the politics, right?
The best regime is the city to be hoped for. What is that going to be, right? Glaucomis saying, well, it's not Athens now. It's pretty, you know, it's pretty ugly, but I don't know where else to go.
And I think this is why, to jump ahead a little bit, why Sothry says it would be impious for not to defend justice, right? He's taking the place of the poets, right? Of the poets who are the ancestral, the traditionalists. Yeah.
And so, I mean, one of the big questions I have coming out of here is the old answer to this would be, well, the gods are going to punish you. So, and I didn't answer that. It's not adequate, but can philosophy take the place of religion? Can it have that kind of civic edifying quality?
For some, maybe? Yeah, maybe, maybe for a certain kind that can buy into some of the more hopeless, pogasy metaphysics, right? I will also say, if it could do that, that would resound to the benefit of philosophy very well. Like if all of a sudden it's the, it can now defend what it can defend tradition when tradition isn't capable of defending itself.
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I mean, that's the way it reminds of our episode on Aristotle's politics that we just did, right?
The idea of nature taking the place of the gods, if you could pull that off. Yeah. So, let's jump into the first part of Glaucom's speech, the origins of justice. This is a passage that always reminds me a bit of Nietzsche, right?
John Locke. Oh, okay. John Locke maybe. But what he says, he says, this is the genesis and being of justice.
It is a mean between what is best doing injustice without paying the penalty and what is worse, suffering injustice without being able to eventually sell, right? So, oh, yeah, an issue. Yeah. So, well, he goes on to say the just is in the middle between these two cared for not because it is good, but because it is honored due to a wants of bigger in doing justice.
So, the weak are the ones who want society, right? The weeks are the ones who set up this compact. But yes, he goes on, he says the man who is able to do it and is truly a man, a manly man, would never sit down in contact with anyone not to do injustice and not to suffer it, he'd be mad, right? And so, it was interesting, it's the civic has argued that justice is the advantage of the stronger.
Glaucom kind of flipsizes justice is the advantage of the weaker, the weak band together and put the blonde beast in a cage, right? I'm getting too big, but right, there's this sense that they're restraining them. And so, what you need to do, right? If you want to prove your strength, if you want to be happy, is committing justice, break the compact, right?
Take what's yours, right? And by nature and break this sort of really conventional justice. This does fit. We're speaking of that, we're having a dinner party, me and Alex, and we wanted to come on, come on, by get there a little bit early.
Okay, deal. I always write early. That's right. And we're Butterworth is not invited to this one.
Don't bring your hat. Greg, we want to murder you. Those are all references to rope. I know what it was.
I'm telling the listeners. Oh, yeah. We record that episode. It's a little bit good.
Yeah. So, one of the things that does connect to our politics episode, because I mean, again, here, what you see is, Glaucom advancing a version of the notion that the polis, the city, the political community, does not exist by nature, but by convention. And so, this is a version of this office argument that it's only power. Now, it's the combined power of the week over the actual superior types.
But yeah, I mean, still, so what's interesting, of course, is when you teach history, but what I do is to say, well, this social contract theory is a novel thing invented by the moderns. It's like, no, the agents were very well aware of this understanding of politics, and they chose not to present it as their own. Like, they were aware of this alternative and disagreed with it or offered an alternative account of what brings us together as human beings. Yeah, I just taught the Hippodomist passage of book two of politics.
And I'm like, here are the arguments against innovation simply, right? Why don't we have a culture of innovation? And like, these engineering students are like, I guess, it's kind of makes sense. This maybe you're right.
This is going to start talking about how AI can lead to a change in the regime. And like, you get a sense like, yeah, they have, they saw it, and they're like, I'm not doing that. Right. And then now here we are thinking we're superior.
We don't realize all of our problems, or how is that? I was intrigued by the, there are several things in this origin of Justice story that Glaucom gets is, and one is that Justice is a mean between the greatest, good and the worst bad. So like, what do you give up? Well, I give up having committing injustice against others, but I avoid suffering and justice.
So it's like the middle, the best case would be actually to inflict great injustice on everyone else. But I'm kind of weak. So I'll give that up in exchange for not having to suffer justice. No real man would do this, as you said.
But the second thing Glaucom tells us first, I'm going to tell you where Justice comes from. The next thing I'm going to do is demonstrate to you, which by the way, I think is a fairly, I mean, like, ultimately, maybe we can disagree, but it's kind of persuasive. It's pretty good. But the second thing he's going to do is show us the unwillingness of the just to be just.
So he's going to show us that no one is willingly just. And this example is interesting. And I find it really compelling. But I don't know that it's immediately persuasive because in order to show that everyone who is just is unwillingly so, he tells us a myth or a story, your accounts are meant for us, the famous ring of Guy G's myth.
This is a 359 C. So did you want to take us through that myth, Alex, just briefly and summarize it. We're like, this is the story meant to show us that no one is just willingly. Yeah.
So I don't know how in depth and detail you want to notice, just to be if I pass over something, you want to talk about this is borrowed from Rodidus or this was just a common tale. It's kind of adapted. I think the changes are significant. But so there's a this is the ring of Guy G's, right?
Yeah. This is a right. So the license of which I speak would best be realized that they should come into possession of the sort of power, the justice to come into possession of the sort of power that is said the ancestor of Guy G's the leading one's God. They say he was a shepherd tooling the service of the man who was then really Lydia.
They came to pass a great thunderstorm on the earthquake. This chasm opens up, finds this weird hollow bronze horse. There's a little, there's a big body right inside of it. What's that big body?
Yeah, big body. Yeah. What's he wearing? What's that big body wearing?
He's wearing a gold ring. That's it. Goddamn. Really good.
Why is he naked? There's a story in Herodotus about finding the bones of Orestes. Yeah. It seems to be mixed with the ring of Guy.
It's a strange to tease it all out with the difficult. Is that the line with the long coffin? Yeah, it's like a slightly large coffin. He gets this ring and he's hanging out with his friends and his fellow shepherds and he turns the ring and he goes invisible and they disgust him as though he were away, which I don't understand.
I thought they'd be like, I thought they'd be like, where do you go? This is the answer to a guy who's just disappeared. Yeah, but it's pretty good. They disgust him as though he were away.
Now, that guy's using me and I hate that dude. So invisibility matters for the argument that God presents specifically matters because you don't get caught. But in the story of Guy's that's in Herodotus, okay, it has to do with seeing the wife of the King of Lydia naked. And he doesn't want to do it.
He says this is wrong. It's immoral. I'd be ashamed to do it. She finds out he's did it and she's like, look, either you die or my husband dies and you become a husband.
Right? So the actual story centers around invisibility and shame and there's no ring or anything like that. But this one centers around invisibility and getting caught. I take this to be a subtle indication that the reason you don't want to be seen is not so much because you don't want to get caught because you're afraid of getting caught and at 360 B specifically mentioned sphere.
The suggestion might be that no, it's it's shame that makes you not want to be seen. Right? That guarantee that you won't be seen is a way of avoiding, you know, the eyes. I say this because you focus on this all the way.
The last time I mean, it just interrupts, he makes a joke at glock on expense. That indicates he's kind of overreaching, right? That he's not going to be part of this great city and glock on takes it. Right?
I think he has a sense of shame by the end of his brought in touch with the shame. He doesn't think of it. He doesn't realize the chain. The word he uses is fear because people don't talk about shame and happens anymore.
Right? They talk about power. They talk about advantage. Right?
They talk about profit and tyranny. They talk about fear, but they're not in touch with their own shame, which turns out to be a big problem for the opinion. So there's I think a lot going on here, but the argument is that the only reason you don't do it is because you're afraid. And if you had an invisibility ring, you would do it anytime.
Right? You would do whatever you want. You're doing it out of that. I guess, first off, I mean, like, this is a story or a myth meant to sort of show a point that he's making.
And I'm not sure just logically that it's sound, but it is persuasive. And I mean, I think I think I've taught this a bunch of times and one of the fun things to do is ask students, what would you do? Now, of course, has been ruined in part by this Lord of the Rings movie. But what would you do if you had a ring that could give you these powers and that's Jurassic Park.
Anyway, the vast majority of them concede that they wouldn't firstly would do something. Right? They of course, they would do something. They rob a bank, right?
It's federally insured up to $400,000. So they would do all these things. I once had a student actually confess that he would like to murder his ex wife. I thought that was a little something serious.
Was he serious when he said that? I mean, was this like, is this like, this like, I'm gonna be like, I give this argument. Listen, I'm just saying I'm not saying I'm just saying, I understand. I'm just saying, I understand.
Right? 18 year old student married into worst already. Okay. But I want to say is like, I think this argument has a plausibility to it.
If you could do anything without consequences, would you? I mean, that's the thought experiment, right? Would you, would you actually change nothing about your life if you could live it completely free of consequences? Yeah.
I think that most people, if they're being asked for themselves, it's hard to say I would live exactly the same. You know, I asked my students, I posted a same question. What would you do? You had this ring and then we said, Oh, I would steal a billion dollars from Jeff Bezos.
Yeah. I'm like, a billion dollars. First of all, you wouldn't do that much. But also it's kind of hard to get to Jeff Bezos and get his money.
Why don't you just steal a bunch of old ladies retirement? And they say they feel bad. Right? That's hilarious.
You wouldn't do just anything, right? You would still have, I mean, something in you, but this makes it sort of relatable. You would still have a super ego, which is like, I think you have a conscience. I just think, you know, God put it in you and you would know what's wrong.
And that's the sense of shame. Yeah. Until that chain goes away after it just repeated transgression. And you turn into a, let me know what that character's name was.
You just hand it before you know it. You're like, who's saying? Don't forget, who's saying? Who's saying?
Who's saying? Don't you move on to the next part? Yeah. So the next thing what he does is, I think that's some upper space, but then he says, look, you know, the, I don't know what the right phrase is here.
But the third point he makes is that the unjust man's life is better. And he says, look, he dresses them up. He's like, look, show me the, I'm going to show you the unjust man who has a reputation for justice and the just man has a reputation for injustice. So let's just swap the reputations.
And he says, look, the guy who has a reputation for the stream of injustice, imagine him being on the rack, tortured, having his eyes gouged out, castrated, having to listen to episodes of, what's that podcast? Partially examine life. Obviously examine life. I mean, show me that that guy's worried during interest or potopticon.
Or medical theory, which I'm not sure. Or what is it called? Oh, that one's, I can't talk about that one. I'm the executive producer of the American idea.
This next piece is a crapping. So he wants to, he wants to know, like, show me that that guy is actually happy, the guy that's being castrated and listening to Alex Prius' lectures on the public. Show me that that guy is happy. And I'll just point out that I think this third point is where Glaucon reveals his deep confusion about what it is that he actually wants.
Because on the one hand, what he wants is to see that justice all by itself is good. But then he wants to show that justice is efficient for happiness. So he actually, he wants it to be free from any prizes, but he wants it to be that which is those the single greatest prize that cannot be shaken. Happiness.
Yeah. And that's at 361D. Yeah. Let me add something a couple of things here.
One, something that he has an interesting point where he says, you take a guy who's like, he's doing everything right. He thinks he's just, and people whip him and burn his eyes. He's like, do you think at some point you'll think, maybe I am unjust. Like maybe you question it if everybody, right?
So I think that shows the degree to which Glaucon really does think justice is good. Like, deep down, right? He doesn't imagine that conviction being shaken. Can you see the life of Brian, by the way?
I always, I'm always sort of asked such a good movie. Like where the, at the end, they're all being crucified, but then they're like singing a happy song. Like that's what I sort of think about like in this context, like that's ridiculous. And by the way, in the ethics, Aristotle says nobody could defend the notion that such a person actually is happy.
Let me add something about the perfectly unjust guy. Sure. It says, first he rules in the city because he seems to be just then he takes a marriage from whatever station he wants and gives him marriage to whomever he wants contracts and his partnerships with whomever he wants. And besides benefiting himself and all this, he gains me as he has no qualms about doing injustice.
So then when he enters contests with private and public, he wins and gets the better of its enemies. And getting the better, he's wealthy does good to friends and harm to enemies to the God to make sacrifices. He sucks up votive offerings, adequate and magnificent and cares for the gods and those human beings he wants to care for far better than the just man. So in all likelihood, it is also more appropriate for him to be dear to the gods than is the just man.
I'm like, I would read this, I'm like, I wish we had a city of people like this. I'm like, do I try and live like that? Who please everybody, right? Who please everybody to gods, even who benefit their friends?
I mean, yeah, he contracts with whomever he wants. But on some degree, people have to at least feel happy with this guy. Like, yeah, I love being in a contract with Greg, right? I mean, you can't screw them over so wildly, right?
So it's, it's, I look at this, I'm like, how bad is this guy really, right? When I read it, I'm like, if that to maintain the reputation, right? I mean, you can't get into a contract, every guy gets in a contract with goes broke and is like found dead by the road, right? They're not gonna, but can you give me a better picture, Alex?
So the perfectly unjust man, since the imagination is so limited. I just think I just think there's, if you really imagine somebody who's unjust, but maintains a sort of reputation for justice and goes through contracts and marriage and everything, he's got to keep up appearances so much. So maybe somebody, well, maybe not fully just, but maybe somebody who's just kind of a little inscoupialist to get at, right? But, but always sort of covers covers his tracks enough.
It's not like, it's not like, just like, he's even murderous of villain, right? Right. Because all the Kennedys. Man, that's like an old, lost that's always, they're all like dead now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the things I want to say is, as he's going through his whole speech, he starts off, this is the first thing he says, they say that doing injustice is naturally good, right? And then as he goes for it, he starts speaking in the first person singular and plural. Socrates then at 361 D says, my, my dear glock on how vigorously you polish up each of the two men, the perfectly just man and the perfectly unjust man, just like a statue for their judgment.
Right. Glock on his mouth are saying, as much as I can, like, oh, I'm doing the best I can, right? With two such men is no longer hard, I suppose to complete the speech by description of the kind of life that awaits each, it must be told then. And if it's somewhat rustically told, don't suppose that it is I who speak Socrates, rather those who praise injustice ahead of justice, they'll say a little further, they will say, so he again goes back into the third person.
That subtle ship from third to first back to third and kind of distancing himself. I think there's some things like that. And in the point about the perfectly just man not questioning his notions of justice show how glock is really pulled by these two longings in his soul. On the one hand, he seems to really believe justice is good.
On the other hand, he's really attracted to the life of the justice. And so he set up these these stories, these choices of lives. Should I be a tyrant? Should I be a martyr?
Where do I go? And he has this tension within him that I think is what's kind of funny. What's just really curbing, which is kind of funny is that there are these, like probably just going to be a normal dude. Probably you're not going to be like this perfectly unjust criminal or the martyr model of justice, right?
I mean, probably turn it into somebody like Cali-Ci goes down the unjust route, right? Cali-Ci goes down the unjust route, right? Cali-Ci goes down the mass of the manipulator, but then he goes into the courts and he's just getting pushed around by the man. He doesn't really have much power at all.
So one thing I'll just say is that I think what you see in glock on speech is he wants to speak us life. The lives he envisions himself are tyranny and martyrdom, or somebody who's not a martyr would be a kind of revolutionary, somebody who succeeds in the pursuit of justice. So he has these desires for a conspicuous life that I think is tied to what Glock-Sonkers calls his courage on the way in. On the other hand, he has this sense of shame.
So the question is, how does he put together Glock on his desire for a conspicuous life with his sense of shame? I think the idea of being a founder of transforming Athens would appeal to him. And that's indeed what the dialogue ends up going. So there's a lot of psychological tension here that becomes right for him.
Is the key here that the founding is fictional or imaginary because it seems like we just recorded an episode on Machiavelli. It seems like Machiavelli's account of founders is that founders in fact had to be quite shameless, with respect to the ancestors. Like a founder has to dispose of the prior orders, which would mean you're not at all a shame in front of them. So is that this isn't speech?
And it allows him kind of vicarious. He gets to enjoy this vicariously without actually having to endure any of the shame of predisposition and moving people out who have previously been there. Well, I think, I mean, there is that brutal moment at the end of book A, where they have to banish everybody and take their children. But he imagines that being by persuasion.
So I think, yeah, yeah. But I think, I mean, I think Socrates wants to keep it purely theoretical and show him that he can't do this, right? But I think at a certain point, where someone sees specifically, for glocken, it becomes, he really wants it to happen. Right?
He really, no question. But I mean, this really is sort of like a people spontaneously appearing on the earth, right? He's not like in Athens, we're going to overthrow the Athenian order and institute this new thing. Although maybe that's lurking in the background.
It's really is more like, of course, at least officially, it's like out in the woods, there's some people eating honey and singing songs, you know, nowhere it seems, but that's not sufficient. So we build it out. Yeah. So that's, and he says, that's like the countryside.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at one point, when he asked, how do I make this regime come to be in a city? It's on the heels of talking about how the Greeks all fight amongst one another and specifically how Greeks burn the fields of the other Greeks, which is exactly what Sparta was doing to Athens.
So I think there, I think there is not so subtly in the background, the idea that possibly he could change Athens away from what their civic is doing. So I mean, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I think it's also good that we're, we're laying out what it is that's happening here that really starts really sets the table really perfectly in a way for the rest of the Republic. Yeah. Well, there is something missing from Glaucon's account of justice and injustice.
And it's something that, and Amantus, when he jumps in, he adds to the argument, says it hasn't actually stated. And that's what about the gods, right? So ostensibly like this guy that's been unjust or the guy that's been just, but has a rotation for injustice and punished so that the humans around us, we all can't recognize that this guy has been wrongfully persecuted, but ostensibly all seeing gods could see that and rectify it. And so the concerns that Amantus brings to the table, and maybe this speaks about, there's between two, maybe Adam Antis has a greater sense of piety than Glaucon.
Maybe Adam Antis is more in line with the traditional stories of the gods than Glaucon, although you have to think that through it. He's like, look, we also have to think about the gods. And one of the problems is that the poets, Homer and he, they praise the just, but on the other hand, other poets also tell us how difficult justice is and they tell us that the life of vice is easy. So there's this, on the one hand, there's this inconsistent story with respect to justice that they were told about the gods and by the poets.
Excuse me. And so he's really interested in this. Another thing is that Adam Antis, although he isn't interested in the gods seems to be a bit more dissatisfied with the popular council than because he implies that the popular council portrayed gods that can be bribed. And if gods can be bribed, then there's no reason to be just and then just bribed them at the end of your life.
Like, Kefel is trying to do. But he's ultimately, I think he's also saying that if there are no gods, why should I care about justice or injustice? That seems not to be a question. I mean, whether they just add a couple things here, it's not he says that this isn't just something else that he hasn't had a good sense of what most needs these set.
So I think this is essential. One of the things I think it's essential is he thinks it's essential is that he says no wonder Glock just gave a speech. You want to know why he's torn, go read the poets, right? They say if you're just you'll get a lot of honey, right?
And if you're unjust, you'll be punished, right? And if you're not going to be punished, you're going to be punished. And if you're unjust, you'll be punished, right? Implying that it's not good in itself, but only because the gods fix things, right?
I think I'd am anxious. Maybe it's hard. I mean, he seems to be more traditionally biased in a certain way, though. He's completely irreverent towards Homer and he's right.
But he seems to have a sort of intrinsic limitation of his desires that Glock does not have, right? I think in many ways, I'd am anxious and likes living in an empire. It's nice. It's comfortable.
You don't have to worry. We're wealthy, right? And it's safe, right? We're safe.
The problem is is the people like Glock on, right? Who are running around and want to be tyrant, right? These desires are out of control. Just sit back, enjoy what you have with your moderate needs.
There's no reason to go over the top like this, right? And so he, I think he says, is most necessary because he draws a tradition, a line from the poets, the gods of the poets, Homer and he's in it, too, Athenian moral corruption. He seems to be a very I think that's a stretch, but I think it's real. And one of the bits of evidence for this is that Glaucom tends to imagine, sorry, I didn't mean to mention little conversations, right?
And he talks about a conversation between two people, two young people who have been raised. And one of them has really got a good nature. I think he's talking about Glaucom there. And he reads it and he's been careful.
He's been thoughtful. He says, look at what the poet's saying. And the other one's sort of taking it back. Doesn't know how to respond.
In the second dialogue, they're kind of paired together, right? And they're now making this argument to Socrates. That sounds kind of familiar. And then by the end, he says, take away the reputations as Glaucom told you to do.
And so now he admits that this is a thing that Glaucom says. It's basically coming around. So I think what he's implying is, look, I can say, I can see that Homer and he see they've corrupted Glaucom. They're just figuring out what they've already told him.
The whole theology is messed up. I don't have a response. I hear him arguing. He's smart, right?
He's obviously knows what's going on in the poets. I can't respond. Tell me and help us fix this, right? It's no accident that I'm anxious is that I'm going to be the person who comes in after the city gets really decadent and they introduce a very else-year education.
And specifically, they revise and throw out all the stuff for the poets that he hates, right? This is exactly where he's going. He wants to revise theology, a newer theology. That doesn't require these perverse incentives for being just, but just makes it be intrinsically good, right?
I don't want to shift gears too much, but in response to this, this actually says, I think it's around 368A that I am unable to defend justice and he'd already said it once before. So I wonder why he can't defend it, why he says that he can't. But I suspect that one of the reasons is the tension that I've already alluded to in the Brothers Demand. On the one hand, they're dissatisfied with the notion that justice pays.
They want it to be free from that pay. They want to be shown that justice is good all by itself, but he no rewards. Show me that the man who's just but racks tortured and has his eyes burned out as happy. But they also want to be shown that the just man is happiest.
And so then the confusion in my mind is whether or not happiness is a reward. They never sever this concern with their own happiness. Maybe what's going on here is understanding this might be a key for us in understanding our own demands or concern with justice. Can we ever sever the connection between justice and happiness?
Now, in other words, yeah, I think that's fair enough. Yeah, let me add to that. I think one of the things you could say is that, if everything for book two on is like just a pious hoop or something like that, right? In some way that that was seem to apply that meet that, that what he came up and he says this, right?
That what he did with the semikis is the best, right? And so you have to say, well, he discredited the amalist. That's clear. And maybe the best he can do is it shows somebody like Laukham that you need to take justice more seriously.
You have this long and within yourself, even for semikis has moral trappings as much as he tries to be in more or less. You need to turn within and think about this sort of thing. Laukham in a way does that. He starts being a bit more confessional.
But ultimately, he wants Socrates to do it for him. I think there's something interesting about Laukham, though he pushes the argument, there's a kind of laziness to him. A couple of times, Socrates will say, where's justice? And he says, no, you do it.
And he says, oh, well, I can find it, but only as someone who follows, right? And there's three or four moments like this, where you're just like, wow, Laukham, you're just a big F, right? You're just trying to follow along. And that's not somebody who's equipped to rule, right?
And so maybe, I think Laukham takes his ambition for granted, he will not give up on that, right? And so he's always gonna have unrealistic expectations about the kind of lives that are available to him, right? He's always gonna want too much. And this noto, on this note of Socrates saying, it would be impious not to try to come to justice as aid.