Vote for Me -- Here's Why!!

Suppose the gods were to flip a coin on the day of your birth. Heads, you will be a supremely honest and fair person throughout your life, yet everyone around you will believe you’re a scoundrel. Tails, you will cheat and lie whenever it suits your needs, yet everyone around you will believe you’re a paragon of virtue. Which outcome would you prefer?

"Plato’s Republic" — one of the most influential works in the Western canon— is an extended argument that you should pick heads, for your own good. It is better to be than to seem -- virtuous. Early in "The Republic," Glaucon (Plato’s brother) challenges Socrates to prove that justice itself— and not merely the reputation for justice— leads to happiness.

Glaucon asks Socrates to imagine what would happen to a man who had the mythical ring of Gyges, a gold ring that makes its wearer invisible at will: Now, no one, it seems, would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice or stay away from other people’s property, when he could take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do all the other things that would make him like a god among humans. Rather his actions would be in no way different from those of an unjust person, and both would follow the same path.

Glaucon’s thought experiment implies that people are only virtuous because they fear the consequences of getting caught— especially the damage to their reputations. Glaucon says he will not be satisfied until Socrates can prove that a just man with a bad reputation is happier than an unjust man who is widely thought to be good.

It’s quite a challenge, and Socrates approaches it with an analogy: Justice in a man is like justice in a city. He then argues that a just city is one in which there is harmony, cooperation, and a division of labor between all the castes. Farmers farm, carpenters build, and rulers rule. All contribute to the common good, and all lament when misfortune happens to any of them. But in an unjust city, one group’s gain is another’s loss, faction schemes against faction, the powerful exploit the weak, and the city is divided against itself.

To make sure the city doesn’t descend into the chaos of ruthless self-interest, Socrates says that philosophers must rule, for only they will pursue what is truly good, not just what is good for themselves. Having gotten his listeners to agree to this picture of a just, harmonious, and happy city, Socrates then argues that exactly these sorts of relationships apply within a just, harmonious, and happy person. If philosophers must rule the happy city, then reason must rule the happy person. And if reason rules, then it cares about what is truly good, not just about the appearance of virtue. Plato had a coherent set of beliefs about human nature, and at the core of these beliefs was his faith in the perfectibility of reason.

Reason is our original nature, he thought; it was given to us by the gods and installed in our spherical heads. Passions often corrupt reason, but if we can learn to control those passions, our God-given rationality will shine forth and guide us to do the right thing, not the popular thing.

Do you believe that people care a great deal more about appearance and reputation than about reality?

What is the function of moral reasoning, and does it seem to have been shaped to help us find the truth, so that we can know the right way to behave and condemn those who behave wrongly (rationalist)? 

Or does moral reasoning seem to have been crafted to help us pursue socially strategic goals, such as guarding our reputations and convincing other people to support us, or our “team” (Glauconian)?

Thoughts?

Haidt, Jonathan (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.