Plato on the Soul

Recall…

Socrates wishes to respond to Glaucon and Adeimantus, by showing how justice is more like dancing than like pull-ups.

We should be just (according to Socrates), both for the results and also for its own sake. We should want to be just even if being just didn't bring about the usual results.

If Socrates can persuade us of this, then you should think it's rational to be just, even if you're able to escape the usual consequences of unjust behavior.

Basic assumption: you care about the health of your ψυχή (soul/mind)

You don't just care about feeling like your soul is healthy, you care about it being healthy.

Socrates' theory of the soul

Three parts:

The part responsible for thinking, and responding to reasons

The part responsible for emotion

The part responsible for appetites (hunger, thrist...)

A human, a lion, and a multi-headed beast:

Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer hull, may believe the [three together] to be a single human creature”

A healthy soul (according to Socrates) is one in which the emotional part and the appetitive part work for the part that responds to reasons.

And in fact (according to Socrates) this condition of the soul is exactly the same thing as being just.

A healthy soul is like a just government, one that is directed by reason, and with the well-being of the whole in mind, rather than the interests of any faction.

A unhealthy soul is like a tyrannical government, in which the interests of just one group (a desire or appetite) dominate.

So, if the health of your soul matters to you (for its own sake), then being just should matter to you as well.

Evaluation

So, is this this theory true?

Socrates’ Argument for the parts of the ψυχή

Fundamental evidence: the phenomenon of self-control.

You want to do something, and you stop yourself.

But why do you stop yourself? You wanted to do it!

You also don't want to do it.

How can one person want to do something and not want to do something?

It's a contradiction, like something being both red and green at the same time!

One part wants to do the thing.

The other part wants to not do it.

Similar ideas:

St. Augustine, De Trinitate

• A part that perceives (Perception)
• A part that understands (Intellection)
• A part that decides (Will)

Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id

• A part with impulses (Id, "the it" )
• A part that decides (Ego, "the I")
• A part with principles (Superego, "the over-I")

So why these three parts?

Well, babies don't have reason, but they do have emotion.

So reason is different from emotion.

Emotion can conflict with desire, as when we feel guilt

So emotion is different from desire.

Reason can conflict with desire, as when we are hungry for something we shouldn't eat.

So reason is different from desire.

Can emotion conflict with reason?

How is this different from the Protagoras?

Recall…

The Protagoras Theory of Evil:

Evil is error. Evil comes from mistaking the worse for the better, and vice versa.

In the Republic, Plato doesn't think evil is error, exactly.

It still involves a failure to follow reason.

But that failure is the result of a disordered soul.

The Plato/Republic Theory of Evil:

Evil is disorder of the ψυχή. Evil comes from the wrong part of the soul dominating the other parts.

Some Objections

Objection 1: What about moral worth?

Evil is disorder of the ψυχή, as sickness is disorder of the body.

This would explain why being evil is undesirable.

But does it explain why evil is despicable?

We shouldn't blame the sick.

St.Augustine again:

… unless the movement of the will towards this or that object is voluntary and within our power, a man would not be praiseworthy when he turns to the higher objects nor blameworthy when he turns to lower objects, using his will like a hinge.”

Really, most of us still agree with Augustine.

Example: Phinias Gage:

A head injury changed his personality for the worse.

He seems tragic, not blameworthy.

Similar cases:

1. Dementia
2. Lead poisioning
3. Some mood disorders

Objection 2: Why think the rational part of the soul is moral?

Maybe it is different from the appetites.

But does Plato just secretly presuppose that evil is irrational?

Not quite. But he ends up proposing a very unusal theory of reason.

Can we do better?

Next time...