Handout for Plato's Republic, II

Glaucon's Question: What kind of value does justice (i.e. your being just) have (for you)?

How does Socrates answer this?

Glaucon's Challenge to Socrates' View of the Value of Justice

Glaucon's Strategy to Press the Challenge

Glaucon's Account: Begins with a psychological claim about human nature, and proceeds with a story about how consequent problems led to the emergence of a social contract, which fully explains the nature of justice. (This will be filled out in lecture.)

Background for Understanding Glaucon's Account: The Prisoner's Dilemma

Scenario: You and your neighbor have been arrested, charged with a crime, and taken to separate rooms for questioning. (It makes no difference whether you're actually guilty or not. Let's assume you're both actually innocent.) The main crime with which you've been charged carries a 2 year prison sentence. You each have two options, and no way of knowing which option the other has chosen: you can either keep mum, or betray your neighbor and say that she did it while maintaining that you're innocent.

If you choose to betray your neighbor, and your neighbor chooses to keep mum, the authorities will believe your story and convict your neighbor; she will get a 2 year prison term, while you go free. The reverse is true if your neighbor betrays you and you keep mum.

On the other hand, if you both betray each other, you will both be convicted (they'll believe what you say about the other, but not what you say about yourselves)--though as a reward for helping prosecute the other, your sentences will be reduced to a month in prison.

Finally, if you both keep mum, the authorities will not have enough evidence to convict either of you of the main crime, but you'll still both be given a $500 fine for a lesser crime that they have enough circumstantial evidence to convict you of.

Assumed Preferences (first to last, for each person):

1: Go Free

2. $500 Fine

3. 1 Month Prison

4. 2 Years Prison

		What You Do
		Keep Mum	Betray
What Your Neighbor Does	Keep Mum	You: $500 fine Neighbor: $500 fine	You: Go free Neighbor: 2 Years Prison
	Betray	You: 2 Years Prison Neighbor: Go free	You: 1 Month Prison Neighbor: 1 Month Prison

Question: What is the purely self-interestedly "rational" thing for each of you to do? Do you see the dilemma? (We'll go over this in lecture.)

On the other hand, if you could communicate and agree not to betray, and you could trust each other, you could lift yourselves out of this bad situation: You could both move from the lower right quadrant to the upper left quadrant, and you’d both be much better off.

Now something parallel to this arises in the sort of social context Glaucon imagines. Consider a simple example:

Suppose you and your neighbor are first of all in a state of nature, and a situation arises where each of you will have the opportunity to take something valuable from the other--your neighbor will be able to take your horse, you'll be able to take his cow. The time comes. Should you take the opportunity and take his cow--from the point of view of self-interest?

Again, assume the following preference ranking, in order from most desirable to least desirable for each of you:

1: Keep own stuff and get other's stuff too.

2: Each keeps own stuff.

3: Lose own stuff, but get other's stuff. (Worse than 2 because violating others doesn't generally make up entirely for the injury of being violated oneself.)

4: Lose own stuff and get nothing in return.

So it looks like this (where the numbers in the box represent that person's ranking of the situation):

		What You Do
		Refrain	Take
What Your Neighbor Does	Refrain	You: 2 Neighbor: 2	You: 1 Neighbor: 4
	Take	You: 4 Neighbor: 1	You: 3 Neighbor: 3

Now, again, what is the rational thing for each of you to do, assuming you're pursuing the very best for yourself?

But now notice where this "rational" pursuit of self-interest leaves you both!

However, there is a way out of this problem, which involves setting up a social contract and reliable methods of enforcement. (This will be discussed in lecture.)

According to Glaucon's account (on behalf of the common view he is articulating, as devil’s advocate), this is basically what happened in a more general way when people made the transition from the state of nature to civil society: we have formed a compact, and we call people who follow such rules "just". That's Glaucon's picture of the origin and nature of justice.

What answers, then, does this suggest for the earlier questions about the value of justice to its possessor, and whether one has reason to be just even where one could get away with injustice?

What obvious problem does this pose for Socrates?