Phil final

Short Answers/Essays
• They will focus mostly on the second half of the course, but it’s still good to know general
ideas from the first half of course, e.g. what the Republic is about, or what a Socratic question
is and why Socrates thinks knowledge of such questions is important.
 Three conceptions of justice:
o Cephalus: telling the truth and giving what is owed (borrow weapons objection)
o Polemarchus: doing good to friends and harm to enemies (The just person
doesn’t harm others)
o Thrasymachus: doing what benefits the stronger (Do arts and skills benefit their
practitioner)
o Socrates: justice as a ground of unity and community. Justice even among
thieves
 Three kinds of goods:
o Good for its own sake
o Good for the sake of other things
o Both. Justice

• They will focus on topics that we have discussed in class e.g. the natural human being vs the
civilized human being (Rousseau), the state of war (Locke, Hobbes), property (Locke),
resentment (Nietzsche).

Locke defined war as a state of “enmity and destruction”.The state of war occurs when
people make designs of force upon other people, without a common authority. In this case, the
attacked party has a right to war. Locke’s use of the term “war” really means “conflict” since
he addresses clashed between individuals rather than nations.
Hobbes: considers humans to be naturally warlike, and so seek to dominate others and
demand their respect.

Republic IV
Parts of the city
 Guardians-Rational part (reason): Wisdom lies with the guardians because of their
knowledge of how the city should be run.
 Auxiliaries-Spirited part (anger, determination, honor): Courage lies with the auxiliaries
and only their courage that counts as a virtue of the city because they are the ones who
must fight for the city. Preservation of opinion about what is to be feared according to
guardians/ reason
 Commoners Tradespeople-Irrational part (desire): Moderation. Agreement between
parts of the city/ soul about who rules and who is ruled
Parts of the soul:
 Rational part: seeks after truth and is responsible for our philosophical inclinations
  Spirited part: desires honor and is responsible for our feelings of anger and indignation
 Desire part: lusts after all sorts of things, but money most of all (since money must be
used to fulfill any other sorts of things)

Justice in the city: A society is just when relations between these three classes are right. Each
group must perform its appropriate function, and only that function, and each must be in the
right position of power in relation to the others. Justice is a principle of specialization: requires
that each person fulfill the societal role to which nature fitted him and not interfere in any
other business
Justice in the soul: the three parts of his soul achieve the requisite relationships of power and
influence in regard to one another. In a just individual, the entire soul aims at fulfilling the
desires of the rational part.

Republic V-VII
Philosopher-Kings
 Socrates believes that the best kings are philosophers and that philosophers should be
rulers because they have a combination of political and wisdom on them.
 The philosophers are the people who actually have the knowledge of justice, the good,
and piety. They should have these characteristics:
o Men born with philosophical nature: courageous, high-minded, quick learners,
with faculties of memory.
o Lover of truth& wisdom. His entire soul strives after truth---- the rational part of
his soul must rule.

What kind of wisdom would they have?

Spectator V.S. Philosophers:
Spectators love beautiful objects and many beautiful things (Particulars---always changing)
Philosophers love beauty itself (Form---unchanging/always the same---knowledge)
Socrates: There is no knowledge in the physical world because everything can change. All
knowledge is on what is always the same.

The supposed uselessness of philosophers

Adementus thinks that philosophers are useless to cities.
Socrates objects and believes they are useless to the cities now only because the
society does not make use of them. For example, ship leading. All of the sailors on the
ship quarrel over who should be captain, though they know nothing about navigation. In
lieu of any skill, they make use of brute force and clever tricks to get the ship owner to
choose them as captain. Whoever is successful at persuading the ship owner to choose
him is called a “navigator,” a “captain,” and “one who knows ships.” Anyone else is
called “useless.” These sailors have no idea that there is a craft of navigation, or any
knowledge to master in order to steer ships. In this scenario, Socrates points out, the
true captain—the man who knows the craft of navigation—would be called a useless
stargazer.
-The Cave (corresponds to the progression of the divided line)
The cave: the visible’sensible world
The sun: the principle/the form of the good
 Demonstrates the effects of education on the human soul, and how we move
from one grade of cognitive activity to the next.
 People in the inner cave: facing towards the wall and looking at the shadows and
guessing the objects/ trying to predict what is going to happen next. Gets
honor/prizes if guessed most correctly. Image level in the divided line graph.
 People bringing the objects: visible things level in the divided line. They form
beliefs.
 People ascending the cave: in the thinking state of mind and see the fire, which
plays the role of the sun in the cave. mathematical objects.
 People outside the cave: the philosophers who have seen the nature of good.
They broke free and the light was painful to them. Since they have seen the
nature of good and have true good, they look upon political competitions as
meaningless and have no interest in ruling. But Socrates believes that the
philosophers are the best to rule. The people in the cave attack them because
once they are out for a long time, when they return to the cave they won’t
succeed in things like they did before, such as sewing and ect.

-The Divided Line

 The visible realm: we can grasp with our senses. When the prisoner is in the cave
 Intelligible realm: we can only grasp with the mind. When the prisoner ascends into the
daylight
 The lowest rung on the cognitive line: imagination. Represented as the prisoner whose
feet and head are bound, so that he can only see shadows. What he takes to be the most
real things are not real at all. These shadows are meant to represent images from art. The
prisoner derives his conception of himself and his world from these art forms rather than
from looking at the real world.
 Beliefs: when the prisoner frees himself and looks at the statuses. The statues are meant
to correspond to the real objects of our sensation- real people, trees, flowers. The man in
 the cognitive stage of belief mistakenly takes these sensible particulars as the most real
things.
 Forms: when he ascends into the world above, there is something even more real. The
sensible particulars are imperfect copies of forms. He is at the stage of thought in his
cognition.
 The ultimate form: the sun (understanding)- form of the good. The cause of all other
forms, and is the source of all goodness, truth, and beauty in the world.

Augustine
-Original Sin
 Humans are corrupted from the start. People are born with a built-in urge to do
bad things. Tendency/ proclivity to sin. Darkening of the intellect and desires/will.
 God does not create sin; God creates human beings who are good.
 We see the effect of original sin even as toddlers. Augustine sees the continuity
of children & adults and sees punishments as beneficial/ necessary because it
draws us from desire.
 Humans can be better through God’s love/grace.
 Cannot be overcome without divine assistance.
-Evil for its own sake
 Stealing pears from pear tree example: he did it out of no other motive than a
desire to do wrong. "I loved my fall [into sin]," he writes. The pears were not
stolen for their beauty, their taste, or their nourishment (there were better pears
at home), but out of sheer mischief. He enjoyed the mere fact of sinning.
 Virtuous person: doing good things for its own sake, not necessarily for anything
else.
 Vicious ax person: evil for its own sake.
 Moderate people: evil for otherwise.
 -Love as our fundamental motivation
All desires are a kind of love. Sin is the matter of loving things in the wrong way and
loving creation more than the creator.
-Similarities to Plato:
 Ideal human nature as harmony, every part performing its proper function
 Sin or corruption is giving into desire, using our capacities in the wrong way
 This causes psychological strife and unhappiness

Hobbes
-Fundamental concept: People are naturally warlike, society restrains them
-The State of Nature, Causes of War
 “The state of nature”: what would exist if there were no government, no
civilization, no laws, and no common power to restrain human nature. The
state of nature is a “war of all against all”, in which human beings
constantly seek to destroy each other in an incessant pursuit for power.
Life in the state of nature is “nasty, brutish and short”
 Causes of war:
o Humans are naturally fragile, fearful, impressionable and
psychologically prickly creatures susceptible to ideological
manipulation, whose anger can become irrationally inflamed by
even trivial slights to our glory
o The primary source: disagreement.

-Motivations for Peace

 Fear of death
 desire for “commodious living”
 Hope, that it is within our power to achieve it
-The contract/covenant
 The mutual transferring of right
 The act of giving up certain natural rights and transferring them to
someone else, on the condition that everyone else involved in making the
contract also simultaneously gives up their rights
 People agree to the contract retain only those rights over others that they
are content for everyone else to retain over them
-The nature of the commonwealth/Leviathan
 Leviathan >- an artificial person whose body is made up of all the bodies
of its citizens.
o Head- sovereign.
o Constructed through contract by people in the state of nature in
order to escape the horrors of this natural condition. The power of
leviathan protects them from the abuses of one another
o Primary function is to settle the meaning of the most controversial
words implicated in social life, minimize public disagreement,
neutralize glory, magnify the fear of death, and root out subversive
doctrines.
  Commonwealth: a multiple of people who together consent to a sovereign
authority-government, established by contract to have absolute power
over them all, for the purpose of providing peace and common defense.
-How to achieve peace
1. A contract which everyone agrees to, not to injure one another
2. We transfer our rights to harm and coerce people to the government,
which will enforce the contract
3. The state, or commonwealth: Leviathan

Locke
-Fundamental argument: people are equal and invested with natural rights in a
state of nature in which they live free from outside rule. Humans are naturally peaceful,
society preserves the peace. Reason is what guides men in this state of nature, for if
they comprehend that preserving other men will lead to their own preservation, then the
state of nature is ideal.
-The state of nature and personal property
 State of nature:
o Equality of strength and of rights to property and to punish
wrongdoers.
o Abundance: No competition, You have the right to do whatever you
can use, Preferable to tyranny
-The possibility of war
 No authority to solve disputes
 The right to self-defense
 Minor differences can cause permanent enmity
-The purpose of government
o an established, settled, known law, received and accepted by
common consent as the standard of right and wrong and as the
common measure to decide all controversies. (Law of nature is
plain and intelligible to all reasonable creatures, but men are biased
by self-interest, and ignore of the law of nature)
o a known and impartial judge, with authority to settle all differences
according to the established law
o a power back up and support a correct sentence, and to enforce it
properly
o Obligated to secure everyone’s property, exists to serve the people

-Explicit/tacit consent to government and right of revolution

 Right of revolution: under the social contract, people could instigate a
revolution against the government when it acted against the interests of
citizens, to replace the government with one that served the interests of
citizens.
 By enjoying the property with the sphere of a commonwealth, I make the
consent and follow its laws
 Explicit: an explicit consent of a man entering into a society makes him
perfectly a member of that society, a subject of that government
  Tacit: if a man owns or enjoys some part of the land under a given
government, while that enjoyment lasts he gives his tacit consent to the
laws of that government and is obliged to obey them

Rousseau
Main idea:
 The passions were more important than reason
 His political theory is differ to Locke: emphasizing the collective rather than the
individual citizen
 Also against Locke: direct democracy rather than republic. He was opposed to
absolute monarchy, because he wants the equality among societies
 Find a way of preserving human freedom in a world where human beings are
increasingly dependent on one another for the satisfaction of their needs
o Political route: construct political institutions that allow for the co-
existence of free and equal citizens in a community where they
themselves are sovereign
o A project for child development and education that fosters autonomy
and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-
interest
 Humans are naturally peaceful, society corrupts them

Principles of human nature

 Self-interest
 Pity
 Do what is good for you with as little harm as possible to others
 Nature men would be roving individual. Has no relationship with other or “loose
relationship”.
 People have complete physical freedom and are at liberty to do essentially as they wish.
(More positive than Hobbes’s conception: viewed the state of nature as essentially a
state of war and savagery.)
 We all have two parts Natural sentiments or feelings:
o Amour de soi: self-love develops in society: especially after we know the right of
our own property. It can also be self-respect or self-preservation
o Pitie: sympathy or compassion. It is not altruism. It is like a desire not to hurt
others.
Features of natural man vs civilized man
 Natural man:
 Agile, healthy, keen senses, unconcerned about the future, fewer needs,
weaker appetites, not jealous or possessive, no knowledge of morality, no
wisdom.
 “He does not have a mind for marveling at the greatest wonders, and his soul
is given over to the single feeling of his own present existence”
 Civilized man:
  Degenerazied from their good state of nature
 Feels pressured by the constraints of others to live up to a certain expectation
and therefore are “inauthentic”
 Want to be liked or adored by others for public attention

How civilization slowly comes into being and creates inequality, war, etc.
The interactions between men bread corruption in society: a phenomenon where the rich and
powerful offer protection to the weaker ones. The social contract that is formed is a means to
enslave another man. The political society is corrupt because it is based upon the deceitful
exploitation of those who believed they have freedom.
Create inequality: the unnecessary needs of civilized people establish differences between
those who are superior and those who are inferior. spring from private property, luxury
idleness and a false political constitution.
War originates from the idea of private property.

Nietzsche
Main idea:
Human are naturally warlike and the society corrupts them into peaceful.
Good and Evil vs Good and Bad
 Good and Bad (aristocratic values)
o Good: high social rank, warrior traits, nobility, selfishness, pride, aggression,
power
o Bad: Low social rank, traits of the common people, altruism, humility, passivity/
meekness, weakness
 Good and evil (slave morality)
o Good: Low social rank, traits of the common people, altruism, humility,
passivity/ meekness, weakness
o Evil: high social rank, warrior traits, nobility, selfishness, pride, aggression,
power

Resentment as the motivation that cause this change in morals

Resentment as the motivation that cause this change in morals

The origin of punishment and guilt

Punishment originates from revenge and then the right of revenge was administered by
the state (government)
Humans turning their violent instincts against themselves when restrained by society

Republic VIII-IX
The progression of types of government from Aristocracy to Tyranny
Different kinds of soul associated with each kind of government.
 Aristocracy: ruled by a philosopher king and thus grounded on wisdom and
reason.
o Three caste-like parts:
 the ruling class, made up of the philosopher-kings: who are identified
as having souls of gold, forbidden from owning property in order to
preclude that the policies they undertake to be tainted by personal
interest
 the auxiliaries class, made up of soldiers: whose souls are made up of
sliver, job is to force on the majority of the people
 the majority of the people, whose souls are bronze or iron, allowed to
own property and produce goods for themselves, also obliged to
sustain with their own activities their rulers
o The ruler class: a just ruler through a rigorous education system designed to
train intellectuals that are selfless and upright, and souls have been made
calm and aware of the absolute Good.

 Timocracy: completely obsessed with honor and glory

o Honor-driven man who resembles and rules that sort of government
o The wrong sort of people occupy positions of power and want to change
things so that rulers can have private property and focus on wealth.
o The good rulers want to preserve the old order and focus on virtue.
o After battling, come into a compromise. The rulers distribute all the land and
house as private property and enslave the producers as serfs. Focus on
making war and guarding against the enslaved producers.
o The rulers still be respected and the warring-ruling class will not take part in
farming, manual labor, they will devote themselves to physical training for
war.
o Though they desire money, the love of honor and victory will be predominant
 Oligarchy-ruled by a man driven by his necessary appetites.
o Necessary desires: we cannot train ourselves to outcome, the ones that
indicate true human needs (enough sustenance to survive)
o Whoever has wealth and property above a certain amount will be allowed to
take part in ruling.
o Have 5 faults according to Socrates
 Ruled by people who are not fit to rule
 It’s not one city but two: one city of rich people and one of poor. These
two functions do not have common aims so cannot make up a single
city
 This city cannot fight a war because in order to fight, the rulers would
have to arm the people, but they are more afraid of the people
 It has no principle of specialization.
 The rulers also have peripheral money-making occupations. This city
is the city to allow the great evil: people who live in the city without
belonging to any class or having any role.
 Democracy: ruled by a man driven by his unnecessary appetites.
o Unnecessary desire: desires we can train ourselves to overcome (luxurious
items and a decadent lifestyle)
o The insatiable desire to attain more money leads to a practice of lending
money at high interests
o The poor revolt and kill some rich, and expelling the rest. They set up a new
constitution in which everyone remaining has an equal share in ruling the city.
o The guiding priority is freedom. Everyone is free to say what they like and to
arrange their life as they please
o Can’t find any order or harmony. No one occupies the appropriate roles.
 Tyranny- the most enslaved
o The insatiable desire for freedom causes the city to neglect the necessities of
proper ruling.
o Two classes other than the drones: who are most naturally organized and so
become wealthy, and those who work with their hands and take little part in
politics. The drones deceive both classes and incite them against each other.
Convince the poor that the rich are oligarchs, and convince the rich that the
poor are going to revolt.
o The drones become the tyrant when the poor people triumph. Kill all the
good people for fear and enslaves everyone else so that they can steal from
them to support their lavish and extravagant lifestyle.
o Constantly make war to distract people from what he is doing.