Abstract
While the reality of human existence may appear to be an unfair and unreasonable arena, we humans are nevertheless called on to live fairly, justly, and morally. If a just and moral action and life includes elements of self-restraint, of waiving of what would seem to be in one’s interests, a question may very reasonably be asked regarding the motivation (not in terms of the general social realm, i.e. fear of social punishment or interest in gaining a social advantage) for acting and living justly and morally in such an unfair and unreasonable reality. From a moral education point of view, it may seem that, as teachers and parents, we have every reason, and even a duty and responsibility, to advise our students and children (face-to-face and behind closed doors—far from the general social realm) that, if they have an option to increase their relative advantage without risk to themselves or of being caught (let alone risking themselves for a big moral idea), they should do so without hesitation. Would you advise your children, students or yourself otherwise? If so, why? What is the rationale for moral education in our prima facie unfair and unreasonable world? After showing the limitations of another recently proposed answer to the question, one based on Meillassoux’s ethic of immortality, I suggest an alternative based on a reading of Plato’s Republic. In my reading I focus on Plato’s idea of the soul and suggest an interpretation of the allegory of the cave.
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Notes
I use interchangeably the terms: reality, being, existence.
For more on the idea of reasonable faith see Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason.
“Soul” is a translation of the classical Greek ψυχή, psychê or psuchê (Lorenz 2009).
See for example Symposium 210e-211b where he describes the “final object” which is “… neither comes to be nor perishes, neither waxes nor wanes”, and keeps on to “describe” it in negative form, closing this description of the absolute indescribable One with the obscure line “existing ever in singularity of form independent by itself” (Plato 1925, Sym. 210e-211b). Or the special character of the philosophers vs. the “doxophilists” (lovers of opinion) (Plato 1969, Rep. 6.480a). While the “[…] philosophers are those who are capable of apprehending that which is eternal and unchanging, […] those who are incapable of this but lose themselves and wander amid the multiplicities of multifarious things, are not philosophers” (Plato 1969, Rep. 6.484b).
It is worth mentioning here that Plato did not foresee (as he did with timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and the tyrannical state and individual types), the theocratic corruption of the best state and the individual.
As Plato describes: “[…] would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out?” (Plato Rep. 7.515e).
I use interchangeably the terms: “constant unchangeable form of existence”, “constant unchangeable aspects of reality”, “reality as a whole”, “constant metaphysical context”, “the Form of reality” and so on. In Meillassoux’s terms it is the senselessness of being, the absolute of contingency and the essential spectres.
Of course, that the last deed is one of waiving one’s advantage due to feeling that their comfortable life in the face of a persecuted refugee is an unfair advantage.
One may reasonably ask if the above idea is not just an opposite basic assumption to that of Meillassoux and Oral. While they assume a contingent unreasonable order in the world, I suggest a Platonic rational order. I do not believe that it is so simple. Because I agree with their first intuition regarding what they call the essential spectres of reality. I.e. the starting point regarding the human existential experience is the same. Yet my suggestion shows that knowledge of what is changeable vs. what is unchangeable, plus moral actions and life, can develop a soul, a psyche, that sees these unchangeable aspects, and which condition reality as a whole as good.
The last demand is being put forth in order to refrain as much as possible from social or group pressure or a disposition to either please or provoke others.
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Segev, A. Rationale for Moral Education: A Reading in Plato’s Republic. Interchange 50, 39–56 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-019-09347-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-019-09347-3