WEBVTT 00:00.714 --> 00:06.444 PROFESSOR: So today's lecture is about the question of the 00:06.440 --> 00:09.190 challenge that Glaucon posed in the story 00:09.190 --> 00:11.690 of the ring of Gyges. 00:11.690 --> 00:17.060 The question is: what sort of motivations do we have for 00:17.055 --> 00:21.005 acting morally, and what expectations should we have 00:21.013 --> 00:25.493 with respect to those around us about whether they act in 00:25.490 --> 00:30.110 that way, for reasons intrinsic to moral motivation, 00:30.110 --> 00:35.640 or simply because they wish to appear a particular way? 00:35.640 --> 00:39.300 So what I want to start by doing, is tell you a little 00:39.300 --> 00:45.560 bit about the extraordinary person whose dialogue, The 00:45.560 --> 00:49.500 Republic, we read excerpts from today. 00:49.502 --> 00:56.612 It's hard to overestimate the influence of Plato on the 00:56.605 --> 00:59.805 Western intellectual tradition. 00:59.810 --> 01:06.290 There is no educated person in the Western world in the last 01:06.290 --> 01:12.030 2500 years who wasn't influenced in some way or 01:12.030 --> 01:18.130 another by the thought and by the framework of understanding 01:18.130 --> 01:24.370 that Plato provided for us some 2500 years ago. 01:24.372 --> 01:28.542 Plato was an extremely interesting figure. 01:28.540 --> 01:34.980 He was born into an aristocratic family in Athens. 01:34.980 --> 01:37.980 Some think that he was descended from one of the 01:37.977 --> 01:40.917 Athenian kings, but regardless, it's clear that 01:40.920 --> 01:45.000 the family of which he was a part were among the leaders of 01:45.000 --> 01:47.100 Athenian political society. 01:47.100 --> 01:50.600 Several of his uncles had been part of a coup in the 01:50.601 --> 01:54.351 government that took place several years before Plato 01:54.350 --> 01:56.490 came to maturity. 01:56.490 --> 02:01.870 And the expectation of people like Plato was that they would 02:01.870 --> 02:05.880 go into civics or government. 02:05.880 --> 02:07.120 Public leadership. 02:07.120 --> 02:12.550 It was as if he were a Kennedy or a Bush or a Clinton. 02:12.550 --> 02:16.710 He came from a family with a long history of political 02:16.710 --> 02:17.970 engagement. 02:17.970 --> 02:20.700 And the assumption was that he would become politically 02:20.700 --> 02:23.140 engaged, himself. 02:23.140 --> 02:27.450 But interestingly, for reasons about there are great 02:27.450 --> 02:34.920 speculations, Plato came under the influence of a man about 02:34.920 --> 02:40.040 thirty years his elder named Socrates, who, in the 02:40.040 --> 02:42.990 portraits that we have of him, looked 02:42.990 --> 02:44.970 remarkably like Plato himself. 02:48.530 --> 02:52.680 Socrates was a gadfly. 02:52.680 --> 02:59.540 He wandered around Athens and asked people to reflect on 02:59.540 --> 03:00.970 their commitments. 03:00.972 --> 03:05.972 Asked people to think about what the nature of fundamental 03:05.970 --> 03:11.040 things like justice, and truth, and reality, and 03:11.040 --> 03:15.970 friendship, and love, and honesty were. 03:15.970 --> 03:22.040 He asked people to reflect on common opinion, and to ask 03:22.036 --> 03:26.406 themselves what, of the things that they believed, were 03:26.410 --> 03:30.570 well-grounded, and what, of the things that they believed, 03:30.570 --> 03:35.850 were simply matters of received opinion. 03:35.850 --> 03:41.470 And in part because of his provocation, Socrates was 03:41.470 --> 03:47.120 sentenced to death in 399, before the Common Era. 03:47.120 --> 03:53.440 When Plato was roughly thirty years old, Plato attended the 03:53.440 --> 03:56.940 death of his great teacher. 03:56.940 --> 04:02.520 And he describes the story of the trial at which Socrates 04:02.520 --> 04:07.760 was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens in an 04:07.760 --> 04:12.520 extraordinary dialogue known as The Apology. 04:12.520 --> 04:17.800 And the legacy that The Apology provides is something 04:17.800 --> 04:21.460 like the legacy that the Gospel provides 04:21.460 --> 04:24.920 for the life of Jesus. 04:24.920 --> 04:32.380 It's a story of a person willing to die for the sake of 04:32.380 --> 04:38.260 principle in a way that became a trope for Western 04:38.260 --> 04:40.070 civilization. 04:40.070 --> 04:43.660 So in an extraordinary painting, which you can see if 04:43.660 --> 04:47.660 you go to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, there 04:47.656 --> 04:51.986 is a depiction of the death of Socrates. 04:51.990 --> 04:56.710 And here is Socrates, drinking from the chalice of hemlock, 04:56.710 --> 04:59.930 which is to put him to death. 04:59.930 --> 05:05.040 Here are his disciples, including Plato, calmly at the 05:05.040 --> 05:09.130 end of the bed, and Crito, holding his leg. 05:09.130 --> 05:12.720 Up the stairs here, which you can't see, are some other 05:12.720 --> 05:14.480 figures leaving. 05:14.478 --> 05:18.888 But what's extraordinary about this picture is that it was 05:18.890 --> 05:28.730 painted in 1787 by one of the artists involved in the French 05:28.730 --> 05:30.100 revolution. 05:30.100 --> 05:34.980 It was, in fact, displayed to Thomas Jefferson, who admired 05:34.983 --> 05:37.593 it greatly. 05:37.594 --> 05:41.734 And one of the striking things about its composition, is that 05:41.725 --> 05:45.885 in some ways, it echoes Leonardo da Vinci's famous 05:45.890 --> 05:49.830 painting of The Last Supper, where those of you who are 05:49.830 --> 05:52.760 familiar with the painting know, Jesus sits at the center 05:52.760 --> 05:57.830 of the table, surrounded by disciples. 05:57.830 --> 06:04.660 Whereas that is a story of death for the sake of faith, 06:04.661 --> 06:11.431 Socrates's story is a story of death for the sake of reason. 06:11.430 --> 06:18.130 And the idea that a life lived on the basis of principle, 06:18.130 --> 06:23.730 recorded by disciples, who can explain the motivation for 06:23.730 --> 06:29.330 that life, the idea that that can influence thousands of 06:29.330 --> 06:35.410 years of history and can inspire political change and 06:35.410 --> 06:39.290 principled commitment, is one of the legacies 06:39.290 --> 06:43.280 that Plato left us. 06:43.276 --> 06:50.926 After Socrates's death, Plato devoted himself to a life of 06:50.930 --> 06:56.980 learning, in 385 before the Common Era, started what many 06:56.980 --> 07:04.510 call the first university, or academy, in the Western world. 07:04.510 --> 07:11.340 At that academy, Plato trained many of the thinkers of 07:11.340 --> 07:16.320 ancient Athens, including Aristotle, whose work we'll be 07:16.320 --> 07:19.490 reading next week. 07:19.490 --> 07:23.260 While there, Plato composed a number of 07:23.260 --> 07:26.580 works that have endured. 07:26.580 --> 07:29.830 Among them is The Republic, which we read 07:29.830 --> 07:32.580 excerpts from for today. 07:32.580 --> 07:35.450 And here's a particularly beautiful third century 07:35.452 --> 07:40.222 manuscript of The Republic, one of the tens of thousands 07:40.220 --> 07:45.100 of documents discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, roughly 07:45.100 --> 07:46.730 a century ago. 07:46.730 --> 07:50.660 And I've put the spelling up there, so that those of you 07:50.663 --> 07:54.393 who are intrigued can go and read about the story of the 07:54.390 --> 07:57.580 Oxyrhynchus papyri, which is one of the most incredible 07:57.580 --> 08:03.650 detective stories of discovery of a huge trove of documents. 08:03.652 --> 08:08.552 As I said again, only a century ago, many of them 08:08.550 --> 08:13.020 retrieved only during and after the First World War. 08:13.020 --> 08:16.760 So Plato's Republic, as I mentioned, is one of roughly 08:16.760 --> 08:19.860 thirty dialogues that Plato composed. 08:19.860 --> 08:22.420 You might have noticed in the course of reading it, as the 08:22.420 --> 08:24.650 reading guide indicated, that it's not 08:24.647 --> 08:26.887 written as a treatise. 08:26.890 --> 08:30.820 It's written in the form of a conversation. 08:30.820 --> 08:35.340 And except for some letters that we have of Plato, nearly 08:35.340 --> 08:38.370 all of the work of his that we have comes 08:38.370 --> 08:41.220 in the form of dialogue. 08:41.220 --> 08:44.640 And they address almost every philosophical topic 08:44.640 --> 08:46.060 imaginable. 08:46.060 --> 08:48.960 The nature of knowledge, the nature of truth, the nature of 08:48.960 --> 08:53.210 love, the nature of friendship, and so on. 08:53.210 --> 08:58.520 The Republic, in particular, is focused on the question of 08:58.520 --> 09:03.350 how society ought to be structured to allow human 09:03.350 --> 09:05.630 beings to flourish. 09:05.630 --> 09:08.930 And the work, as we've inherited it, is structured 09:08.930 --> 09:14.300 into ten books, of which we will read in this class 09:14.302 --> 09:19.392 excerpts from the second book and most of the tenth. 09:19.390 --> 09:23.820 In the particular part that we're reading, we overhear a 09:23.815 --> 09:27.795 conversation among three characters. 09:27.800 --> 09:30.960 One of them is Plato's teacher Socrates, the fellow with the 09:30.960 --> 09:34.090 snub nose that I showed you the slide of earlier. 09:34.090 --> 09:38.480 And the other two are Plato's brothers, Glaucon and 09:38.480 --> 09:40.220 Adeimantus. 09:40.220 --> 09:43.600 And the conversation that we hear takes place first between 09:43.600 --> 09:47.320 Socrates and Glaucon, and then between Socrates and 09:47.320 --> 09:49.340 Adeimantus. 09:49.340 --> 09:52.060 But we're, of course, not reading off 09:52.060 --> 09:54.570 the Oxyrhynchus papyrus. 09:54.570 --> 09:57.600 We're not even reading, as some students at Yale are this 09:57.600 --> 10:00.130 semester, the text in the original Greek. 10:00.130 --> 10:03.340 There's a seminar being offered in my department on 10:03.340 --> 10:06.920 Plato's Republic, a whole semester, during which they 10:06.920 --> 10:08.700 are reading the text in ancient Greek. 10:08.700 --> 10:13.230 And there's an extraordinary Yale-London collaboration of a 10:13.230 --> 10:17.500 decade during which one week each year, professors from 10:17.500 --> 10:21.570 Yale and professors from London get together and read 10:21.570 --> 10:24.880 one book of Plato's Republic. 10:24.880 --> 10:28.260 So this is a book that is read seriously here. 10:28.260 --> 10:31.820 We, however, are fortunate enough to be reading an 10:31.820 --> 10:35.280 edition, which I've asked all of you to purchase, which 10:35.280 --> 10:36.870 looks like this. 10:36.870 --> 10:39.320 And I want to explain to you why I've asked you to buy a 10:39.320 --> 10:43.730 book given that, as many of you might have noticed, the 10:43.730 --> 10:46.910 translation of the Republic, a late nineteenth century 10:46.910 --> 10:49.270 translation by Benjamin Jowett, is 10:49.270 --> 10:51.300 available, on the internet. 10:51.300 --> 10:55.390 And I just want to say a few words about what value there 10:55.390 --> 11:00.580 is in getting editions of books which are designed to 11:00.580 --> 11:05.670 help students engage seriously with the material. 11:05.670 --> 11:09.380 So in the copy of The Republic that I've asked you to 11:09.380 --> 11:13.380 purchase, there are extensive introductory materials. 11:13.380 --> 11:16.270 There are extraordinarily helpful footnotes. 11:16.270 --> 11:19.470 There's an annotated bibliography in the 11:19.466 --> 11:22.646 preparatory material that tells you what books to look 11:22.650 --> 11:25.410 at if you're interested in Plato. 11:25.410 --> 11:28.280 There's an incredibly valuable index. 11:28.280 --> 11:32.260 And in the margins are what I've told you are called 11:32.260 --> 11:36.540 Stephanus numbers, which allow you to make reference to any 11:36.540 --> 11:39.290 other translation. 11:39.290 --> 11:43.260 So let's now move to the substance of the material that 11:43.255 --> 11:46.075 we read for today. 11:46.080 --> 11:52.400 What is it that Glaucon, Plato's brother, is seeking to 11:52.400 --> 11:57.960 do in the course of his conversation with Socrates? 11:57.955 --> 12:02.005 There are three questions that Glaucon wants to answer. 12:02.006 --> 12:05.316 The first is that he wants to say something about the nature 12:05.320 --> 12:07.880 and origin of justice. 12:07.884 --> 12:13.984 How is it that people come to behave in cooperative ways, 12:13.981 --> 12:17.661 and what is it that we speak of when we talk about the 12:17.660 --> 12:20.440 norms of justice? 12:20.440 --> 12:23.360 This is a topic that we'll discuss when we get to Hobbes, 12:23.355 --> 12:26.785 and so I'm not going to say more today about the 12:26.790 --> 12:29.700 particular argument that Glaucon offers there. 12:29.700 --> 12:33.840 What I want to focus on, instead, are two things: 12:33.840 --> 12:37.290 Glaucon's second and third question. 12:37.291 --> 12:40.151 The first is Glaucon's claim that people act justly 12:40.150 --> 12:41.340 unwillingly. 12:41.340 --> 12:45.120 That the only reason people act and conform with the laws 12:45.120 --> 12:48.760 of morality is because they will gain 12:48.760 --> 12:52.130 good reputation thereby. 12:52.130 --> 12:54.760 And the second is Glaucon's claim that they 12:54.760 --> 12:58.370 are right to do so. 12:58.368 --> 13:02.878 So the text begins with a fundamental contrast. One that 13:02.875 --> 13:07.325 is useful, not only in the context of Glaucon's 13:07.330 --> 13:12.200 discussion of justice, but one that is fundamental throughout 13:12.200 --> 13:13.720 Plato's work. 13:13.720 --> 13:19.340 And that's the contrast between the way things seem 13:19.340 --> 13:22.980 and the way things are. 13:22.980 --> 13:29.170 And it's a crucial insight to recognize that seeming and 13:29.170 --> 13:35.500 being can come apart, and that in some cases, our concern is 13:35.500 --> 13:38.870 with the way things appear, and in other cases, our 13:38.870 --> 13:42.480 concern is with the way things are. 13:42.480 --> 13:47.030 So the text actually begins with a challenge that Glaucon 13:47.030 --> 13:48.100 raises to Socrates. 13:48.100 --> 13:52.160 He says: do you want to seem to have persuaded us that it 13:52.162 --> 13:56.672 is better to be just than unjust, or do you want truly 13:56.670 --> 13:59.610 to have persuaded us? 13:59.610 --> 14:03.490 And clearly, Socrates's goal is the latter. 14:03.490 --> 14:08.510 He wants to engage in true persuasion. 14:08.510 --> 14:13.990 This theme of seeming versus being is then taken up by 14:13.990 --> 14:19.620 Glaucon, who asks Socrates the question, whether there's 14:19.620 --> 14:26.650 value in being just or whether the value of justice comes 14:26.650 --> 14:32.550 merely from appearing to be that way. 14:32.550 --> 14:37.740 So we find a contrast in the opening pages between three 14:37.740 --> 14:43.070 kinds of values that things can have. Things can be 14:43.070 --> 14:47.620 intrinsically valuable, valuable as ends in 14:47.620 --> 14:53.070 themselves, valuable for what they are. 14:53.070 --> 14:57.800 Socrates gives the example here of things like joy, and 14:57.800 --> 14:59.560 harmless pleasure. 14:59.560 --> 15:03.090 These are things we value not because of what they provide 15:03.085 --> 15:07.745 in addition, but things that we value as ends in 15:07.750 --> 15:10.160 themselves. 15:10.158 --> 15:13.198 There are, by contrast, things that are merely 15:13.200 --> 15:15.790 instrumentally valuable. 15:15.790 --> 15:18.980 Things that are valuable as means. 15:18.980 --> 15:22.850 Things that are valuable in enabling us to do something 15:22.850 --> 15:27.890 else, or in seeming to be a particular way. 15:27.890 --> 15:31.910 And into this category fall things like money, which is 15:31.910 --> 15:37.370 valuable, let me remind you, not as an end in itself, but 15:37.370 --> 15:40.600 as a means to other ends. 15:40.600 --> 15:44.740 And, for example, things like seeming dangerous. 15:44.740 --> 15:48.660 It's what you're trying to do in an evolutionary sense, or 15:48.660 --> 15:53.980 as a nation, is to prevent others from attacking you, it 15:53.980 --> 15:57.520 doesn't matter whether you are dangerous. 15:57.520 --> 16:02.230 What matters is that you seem dangerous. 16:02.226 --> 16:05.516 And there are, of course, things that are valuable for 16:05.520 --> 16:07.260 both of these. 16:07.260 --> 16:11.900 Things like, Socrates says, sight, which we value both 16:11.900 --> 16:15.940 because it enables us to do things, and because it brings 16:15.940 --> 16:18.150 pleasure in itself. 16:18.150 --> 16:20.420 Or health. 16:20.420 --> 16:22.450 Or learning. 16:22.450 --> 16:25.010 Or knowledge. 16:25.010 --> 16:30.880 And the question which Glaucon and Socrates are disputing is, 16:30.880 --> 16:35.320 into which category justice falls. 16:35.320 --> 16:38.770 Now, if we had our clickers, this would be a chance for me 16:38.770 --> 16:43.870 to reengage all of you by asking you into which category 16:43.873 --> 16:47.453 Glaucon thinks justice falls, and into which category 16:47.450 --> 16:49.650 Socrates thinks justice falls. 16:49.650 --> 16:52.990 But in our last low-tech day, I will instead ask you to 16:52.990 --> 16:54.660 raise your hands. 16:54.660 --> 16:58.480 Into which of the categories, intrinsically valuable, 16:58.480 --> 17:03.280 instrumentally valuable, or both, does Glaucon think 17:03.280 --> 17:04.830 justice falls? 17:04.830 --> 17:07.740 How many think he thinks justice is merely 17:07.740 --> 17:11.310 intrinsically valuable? 17:11.310 --> 17:13.720 How many think he thinks it's merely 17:13.720 --> 17:15.130 instrumentally valuable? 17:18.200 --> 17:21.950 And how many think he thinks it's both? 17:21.950 --> 17:24.610 By contrast, Socrates. 17:24.610 --> 17:27.710 Intrinsically valuable. 17:27.710 --> 17:28.980 Instrumentally valuable. 17:31.900 --> 17:34.090 Both. 17:34.088 --> 17:35.928 So it's a dispute between them. 17:35.930 --> 17:40.820 Both of them expect that there is value to seeming just, but 17:40.820 --> 17:45.860 the dispute between them is about whether, in addition, 17:45.860 --> 17:52.070 there is value to being just. Does it matter that you 17:52.074 --> 17:56.974 actually act in a just way, or does it matter only that you 17:56.970 --> 18:01.180 seem to act in a just way? 18:01.180 --> 18:06.720 Now, in order to answer this question, Glaucon, as a 18:06.720 --> 18:11.400 character in Plato's Republic, makes use of a technique that 18:11.400 --> 18:16.850 is and has become one of the fundamental techniques in 18:16.850 --> 18:18.780 philosophical thought. 18:18.780 --> 18:23.000 It's basically an application of scientific 18:23.000 --> 18:26.770 method to our idea. 18:26.766 --> 18:31.676 If you're trying to figure out what makes a seed grow, does 18:31.680 --> 18:34.660 it require soil, does it require water, does it require 18:34.660 --> 18:38.200 light, does it require air, does it require you to sing 18:38.200 --> 18:40.950 sweetly as you walk past it? 18:40.950 --> 18:44.370 What you do is, you conduct a controlled experiment, and you 18:44.370 --> 18:47.990 look and see: If you have the seed with water but no soil, 18:47.990 --> 18:49.140 does it grow? 18:49.140 --> 18:53.790 If you have a seed with air but no singing, does it grow? 18:53.790 --> 19:01.070 In this way, Glaucon engages in a number of imaginative 19:01.070 --> 19:07.930 exercises to ask what people would do if just behavior were 19:07.930 --> 19:12.510 divorced from its typical consequences. 19:12.510 --> 19:17.470 So he asks us to imagine somebody who acts either in a 19:17.470 --> 19:21.170 just or an unjust way. 19:21.170 --> 19:26.360 And to think about what their motivations would be if the 19:26.360 --> 19:30.460 consequences were one of a certain kind. 19:30.460 --> 19:36.400 So in ordinary cases, if you act morally, you are perceived 19:36.400 --> 19:40.880 as acting morally, and if you act immorally, you are 19:40.875 --> 19:44.715 perceived as acting immorally. 19:44.718 --> 19:48.528 The question that he asks us to consider in the story of 19:48.530 --> 19:52.320 the ring of Gyges, which I related last lecture, is how 19:52.324 --> 19:57.524 people would act if they were perceived identically, 19:57.520 --> 20:02.570 regardless of how it is that they genuinely behave. If your 20:02.565 --> 20:09.325 act of immorality were invisible to the world, if you 20:09.330 --> 20:16.010 could behave immorally and nobody would see you, so that 20:16.010 --> 20:21.170 your reputation remained unscathed, how is it that you 20:21.170 --> 20:23.670 would behave? 20:23.670 --> 20:28.340 Glaucon's suggestion with the story of the ring of Gyges is 20:28.335 --> 20:31.465 that under those circumstances, you would 20:31.470 --> 20:36.190 behave as the unjust one does. 20:36.190 --> 20:40.460 But in case you aren't convinced by that story, he 20:40.464 --> 20:43.434 tells a second story after the ring of Gyges. 20:43.430 --> 20:48.200 It's the story of the inversion, and he says this. 20:48.196 --> 20:53.506 Suppose the person who acts justly is perceived by 20:53.510 --> 20:57.900 everyone as acting unjustly, and the person who acts 20:57.895 --> 21:03.475 unjustly is perceived as acting justly. 21:03.480 --> 21:08.210 Would you continue to behave in accord with the standards 21:08.210 --> 21:16.980 of morality if the opposite reputation attached to you? 21:16.980 --> 21:22.310 Now, we can contrast this question about morality with 21:22.310 --> 21:27.490 two cases where it seems clear in the first that we value 21:27.490 --> 21:31.320 something merely instrumentally, and where it 21:31.318 --> 21:35.088 seems clear in the second that we value something both 21:35.090 --> 21:38.510 intrinsically and instrumentally. 21:38.510 --> 21:43.290 So if the act that you are engaged in is one of taking a 21:43.290 --> 21:47.570 repulsive medicine, and if under normal circumstances 21:47.570 --> 21:50.430 when you take the medicine, you get better, and when you 21:50.430 --> 21:53.340 don't take the medicine, you stay ill, then you will 21:53.340 --> 21:58.420 presumably, if you want to get better, take the medicine. 21:58.420 --> 22:02.200 In a Gyges scenario, where regardless of whether you take 22:02.200 --> 22:06.350 the medicine, you get better, you won't be inclined to take 22:06.350 --> 22:07.680 the medicine. 22:07.680 --> 22:11.160 And certainly in an inverted scenario, where if you take 22:11.164 --> 22:13.344 the medicine, you'd stay ill, and if you don't take it, you 22:13.340 --> 22:18.550 get better, you won't be inclined to take the medicine. 22:18.550 --> 22:23.780 When things are of merely instrumental value, we can 22:23.780 --> 22:29.910 read the motivation off the consequences. 22:29.914 --> 22:33.174 The question is this. 22:33.174 --> 22:39.354 Is justice just like taking a medicine, something that we 22:39.350 --> 22:43.380 value because of an end that it produces, but not because 22:43.380 --> 22:49.990 of the medicine itself, or is it more like sight? 22:49.990 --> 22:54.250 Suppose that, as is the case in normal circumstances, when 22:54.250 --> 22:59.410 you see, you have visual experience of the world, and 22:59.410 --> 23:01.710 when you engage in motor activity, you 23:01.710 --> 23:03.560 don't bump into things. 23:03.560 --> 23:07.450 Because I can see this podium, I'm able to regulate my body 23:07.445 --> 23:12.475 in such a way that I don't bump into it In a ring of 23:12.480 --> 23:16.570 Gyges scenario, I wouldn't need to see to be able to 23:16.570 --> 23:20.250 avoid bumping into the podium. 23:20.246 --> 23:24.756 It seems to me clear that in that case, I would nonetheless 23:24.760 --> 23:29.250 prefer to have vision, even if I could get the consequences 23:29.250 --> 23:32.740 of seeing without having vision. 23:32.744 --> 23:36.454 And the question of what I would do in the inverted case, 23:36.450 --> 23:39.890 where I could have either sight and the ability to avoid 23:39.890 --> 23:45.930 objects, or the ability to avoid objects and not sight, 23:45.930 --> 23:50.160 is one where I don't know how to answer. 23:50.160 --> 23:56.270 So the challenge that Glaucon poses to you is the following. 23:56.270 --> 24:00.090 Is morality, for you, something 24:00.090 --> 24:02.270 merely like taking medicine? 24:02.272 --> 24:07.612 Do you behave morally so that you have the reputation of 24:07.610 --> 24:13.070 behaving morally, or do you behave morally because 24:13.070 --> 24:18.230 morality, like being able to see, is something that's 24:18.230 --> 24:23.950 valuable in itself to you, and valuable to you because of the 24:23.950 --> 24:28.000 consequences that it produces? 24:28.000 --> 24:31.750 That's the challenge of Plato's Republic. 24:31.750 --> 24:35.910 And in next week's class, and the week after that, we'll 24:35.910 --> 24:40.740 hear some of answers that are offered 24:40.740 --> 24:43.750 to Glaucon's challenge. 24:43.750 --> 24:49.880 What I want to move to now is the second text that we read 24:49.880 --> 24:55.500 for today, a text by the contemporary psychologist 24:55.500 --> 25:00.570 Daniel Batson, which addresses the question of moral 25:00.570 --> 25:04.970 integrity and moral hypocrisy from an empirical 25:04.970 --> 25:08.110 psychological perspective. 25:08.110 --> 25:12.060 Batson's question is this. 25:12.060 --> 25:21.050 Is it the aim of people to be moral, or is it the aim of 25:21.050 --> 25:27.090 people merely to appear to be so? 25:27.090 --> 25:31.630 Baston looks somewhat unlike Plato and Socrates. 25:31.630 --> 25:33.700 He's a living man. 25:33.700 --> 25:35.680 Teaches at the University of Kansas. 25:35.680 --> 25:37.600 He even has a computer printer. 25:40.716 --> 25:45.976 And in the work that we read for today, we get a 25:45.980 --> 25:49.810 description of empirical studies that Batson did on the 25:49.805 --> 25:54.535 question of how people behave when they think they are not 25:54.540 --> 25:57.080 being observed. 25:57.080 --> 26:01.560 How do they think through their actions to themselves, 26:01.562 --> 26:06.182 and what factors, if any, lead them to behave 26:06.180 --> 26:09.950 in more honest ways? 26:09.954 --> 26:14.854 So Batson presents subjects with a very simple 26:14.850 --> 26:17.450 experimental scenario. 26:17.450 --> 26:21.650 People who participate in his experiment come into his 26:21.650 --> 26:27.700 laboratory, and they're told that their job is to decide 26:27.695 --> 26:32.445 which of two tasks they are assigned to, and which of two 26:32.450 --> 26:36.500 tasks a second person, whom they won't be meeting, will be 26:36.500 --> 26:38.070 assigned to. 26:38.070 --> 26:42.740 One of the tasks is fun and interesting, and each correct 26:42.740 --> 26:46.930 answer that you give provides you with a lottery ticket for 26:46.930 --> 26:51.290 a lottery in which you'll win a certain amount of money. 26:51.290 --> 26:55.850 And the other task is described as kind of dull, and 26:55.850 --> 26:59.470 each correct answer that you give will not result in your 26:59.470 --> 27:00.660 being entered in the lottery. 27:00.660 --> 27:04.400 So people are told, you can decide to assign yourself to 27:04.400 --> 27:08.180 the fun, interesting lottery-chance task and the 27:08.180 --> 27:12.730 other person to the boring, no lottery task, or you can 27:12.730 --> 27:16.100 decide to assign the other person to the fun, interesting 27:16.100 --> 27:21.680 task, and yourself to the boring, no lottery task. 27:21.680 --> 27:27.530 Now, what psychologists call the DV, or dependent variable, 27:27.530 --> 27:31.980 the thing with respect to which Batson is looking for 27:31.980 --> 27:38.940 differences, is the percentage of times people assign 27:38.935 --> 27:43.165 themselves to the positive task, and the other person to 27:43.170 --> 27:45.110 the neutral task. 27:45.110 --> 27:48.470 So if we were just doing it by chance, if you were literally 27:48.470 --> 27:53.870 just flipping a coin, what percent of the time would the 27:53.870 --> 27:56.360 self-positive task be assigned? 27:56.360 --> 27:59.070 What percent of the time would the person assign themselves 27:59.070 --> 28:00.880 to the positive task? 28:00.880 --> 28:05.270 Hold up the number of fingers times 10, such that it would 28:05.272 --> 28:06.592 be that percent of the time. 28:06.590 --> 28:09.440 You've got them on one hand: 50%. 28:09.440 --> 28:14.250 So if you were just merely flipping a coin, 50% of the 28:14.252 --> 28:17.322 time you would end up with the positive task, 50% of the 28:17.320 --> 28:20.570 time, the other person would end up with the positive task. 28:20.566 --> 28:24.236 So that's one of the things that Batson is 28:24.240 --> 28:26.480 measuring in his study. 28:26.480 --> 28:29.310 And the other thing that Batson is measuring is in his 28:29.310 --> 28:34.900 study is the point value that people assign to themselves 28:34.900 --> 28:39.480 with respect to how moral their action was. 28:39.480 --> 28:43.260 If they think their action was perfectly moral in making the 28:43.260 --> 28:46.130 assignment, then they give themselves a nine. 28:46.130 --> 28:49.730 If they think the action was perfectly immoral in making 28:49.730 --> 28:54.740 the assignments, they give themselves a one. 28:54.740 --> 28:57.580 So those are the things that Batson is measuring. 28:57.580 --> 29:00.480 So that's psychology term number one. 29:00.480 --> 29:02.260 Dependent variable. 29:02.260 --> 29:06.420 That at which you're looking to see differences among in 29:06.420 --> 29:08.570 your study. 29:08.570 --> 29:11.720 Now, those of you who have taken psychology courses, who 29:11.720 --> 29:14.700 have had roommates who have taken psychology courses, know 29:14.700 --> 29:19.750 that when psychology studies are conducted, subjects are 29:19.750 --> 29:22.720 presented with what are called conditions. 29:22.720 --> 29:26.470 That is, when they come in, one thing happens to them or 29:26.470 --> 29:28.350 another thing happens to them. 29:28.350 --> 29:31.500 The bean that I described in the science study might be in 29:31.497 --> 29:35.477 the condition where it has soil plus water and no air, or 29:35.475 --> 29:38.945 it might be in the condition where it has soil plus singing 29:38.950 --> 29:41.110 and no water. 29:41.110 --> 29:46.420 Likewise, subjects in Batson's experiment might be in a case 29:46.415 --> 29:47.845 where they just have come in, and they're told there are 29:47.850 --> 29:49.750 these two possibilities. 29:49.750 --> 29:52.530 You can assign yourself positive or this other person 29:52.530 --> 29:57.350 negative, or they're told that they're in some sort of 29:57.350 --> 30:02.590 scenario where they can use chance to make the decision. 30:02.590 --> 30:07.310 Now, I asked you in the reading guide to try to 30:07.310 --> 30:12.690 understand the chart in which Batson presents his results. 30:12.690 --> 30:15.720 And what I want to do in the next few minutes of lecture, 30:15.720 --> 30:20.480 is to explain to you what the extraordinarily interesting 30:20.480 --> 30:24.370 results that he came up mean. 30:24.370 --> 30:29.240 So in the first condition, when subjects just come in, 30:29.240 --> 30:33.300 and are told they can make the assignment however they want, 30:33.304 --> 30:39.024 80% of subjects, 8 out of 10, assign themselves to the 30:39.020 --> 30:44.630 positive condition and assign the other character to the 30:44.630 --> 30:45.720 negative condition. 30:45.720 --> 30:45.910 Right? 30:45.910 --> 30:50.300 So 80% of people do the selfish thing, but they don't 30:50.295 --> 30:52.025 consider themselves to have done something 30:52.030 --> 30:54.060 particularly generous. 30:54.055 --> 30:57.735 They rate themselves at four on a scale of one to nine, 30:57.740 --> 30:59.300 with respect to morality. 30:59.300 --> 31:02.290 And those who assign the other person to the positive 31:02.290 --> 31:05.410 condition rate themselves extraordinarily highly. 31:05.410 --> 31:09.830 They think they have done the right thing. 31:09.830 --> 31:13.520 Now, if you bring subjects into a room, and you tell 31:13.520 --> 31:17.540 them, they can flip a coin, but they don't have to, 31:17.538 --> 31:21.918 roughly half of them don't flip the coin. 31:21.920 --> 31:26.830 And among those half, 90% of them still assign themselves 31:26.830 --> 31:28.600 to the positive condition. 31:28.600 --> 31:31.620 No surprise there. 31:31.620 --> 31:34.040 The next number is the one that gives us 31:34.040 --> 31:36.910 the surprising results. 31:36.910 --> 31:42.750 What happens when subjects come into the room, are told 31:42.750 --> 31:48.770 that they can flip a coin, flip a coin, and on the basis 31:48.770 --> 31:53.470 of that coin flip, assign themselves to one condition, 31:53.470 --> 31:57.160 and the other person to the other? 31:57.160 --> 32:03.480 What happens is that upon flipping the coin, 90% of them 32:03.480 --> 32:07.180 assign themselves to the positive condition. 32:07.180 --> 32:13.000 Now, we all just held up five fingers of one hand. 32:13.000 --> 32:15.040 So what's going on here? 32:15.040 --> 32:17.930 Well, why don't you think about what would happen if you 32:17.930 --> 32:22.690 flipped the coin, and it he came up heads? 32:22.690 --> 32:23.750 What does heads mean? 32:23.750 --> 32:24.800 Ah, heads! 32:24.800 --> 32:28.130 Heads must mean I assign myself to the positive 32:28.125 --> 32:30.525 condition, and I assign my opponent to 32:30.530 --> 32:31.480 the negative condition. 32:31.480 --> 32:32.820 Comes up tails. 32:32.820 --> 32:33.380 Tails. 32:33.380 --> 32:33.980 Hah. 32:33.980 --> 32:34.600 Tails! 32:34.600 --> 32:37.820 That means I assign myself to the positive condition, I 32:37.815 --> 32:40.235 assign my opponent to the negative condition. 32:40.240 --> 32:42.620 But here's what's striking. 32:42.620 --> 32:48.050 90% of the people flipped the coin, assigned themselves to 32:48.050 --> 32:54.040 the positive condition, and rate themselves as having 32:54.040 --> 32:58.500 acted in an extraordinarily moral way. 32:58.500 --> 33:03.330 Seven on a scale of nine, with respect to how morally they 33:03.330 --> 33:07.420 behave. And the one guy who actually did follow the coin 33:07.420 --> 33:09.830 flip, gives himself a nine. 33:09.826 --> 33:10.286 All right. 33:10.288 --> 33:13.258 So Batson's worried about this, and so he says, OK. 33:13.260 --> 33:16.110 Let me see whether I can control for that by actually 33:16.110 --> 33:18.550 not making the coins say heads or tails. 33:18.550 --> 33:22.510 I'll make the coins say, on one side, self to positive, 33:22.508 --> 33:23.908 and I'll make it say on the other 33:23.910 --> 33:25.420 side, opponent to negative. 33:25.420 --> 33:27.140 What happens in that case? 33:27.144 --> 33:30.274 What happens in that case is that 86% of the people who 33:30.270 --> 33:34.820 flip up the coin when it says, opponent to negative, do what? 33:34.820 --> 33:37.040 What would you do? 33:37.040 --> 33:39.690 You flip it again, until it comes up--"That's not the one 33:39.690 --> 33:40.580 that counts! 33:40.580 --> 33:43.850 The one that counts is--oh, oh, it must be the fourteenth 33:43.850 --> 33:46.740 flip that actually determines." And those people, 33:46.740 --> 33:51.430 again, rate themselves as having acted in an incredibly 33:51.430 --> 33:54.790 morally appropriate way. 33:54.790 --> 34:00.940 Even when Batson labels it with colors, so that he can 34:00.940 --> 34:06.700 see through the window who is doing what, he gets the same 34:06.700 --> 34:11.920 extraordinary, astounding pattern of results. 34:11.915 --> 34:17.695 In eight out of ten, nine out of ten cases, people, given 34:17.700 --> 34:22.750 the chance to represent to themselves that they have 34:22.745 --> 34:29.445 behaved morally, will do that even if what they've really 34:29.450 --> 34:34.420 done is taking advantage of an ambiguous situation. 34:34.420 --> 34:38.380 It appears, says Batson on the basis of this, that what 34:38.376 --> 34:44.226 people care about is seeming moral to themselves, and not, 34:44.230 --> 34:50.200 in fact, about acting in a way that's fair. 34:50.200 --> 34:56.750 But what can one do to induce in people 34:56.750 --> 35:00.580 prosocial moral behaviors? 35:00.580 --> 35:06.310 Here's the extraordinary next study that Batson did. 35:06.310 --> 35:09.580 He put the subjects, who are engaged in the same 35:09.580 --> 35:18.220 experimental design, in a room with a mirror. 35:18.220 --> 35:22.180 Now, if the mirror is facing away from the subject so that 35:22.180 --> 35:26.750 there's no reflection of them in it, you get exactly the 35:26.750 --> 35:28.420 same results as last time. 35:28.420 --> 35:31.430 Roughly 85% of people assign themselves to 35:31.430 --> 35:33.990 the positive condition. 35:33.990 --> 35:40.590 But if the mirror is facing towards them, so that the 35:40.590 --> 35:47.300 subject is facing the mirror and flips the coin, only 62% 35:47.295 --> 35:52.355 of them assign themselves to the positive condition. 35:52.355 --> 35:55.845 And so if the mirror's facing them, even when they don't 35:55.850 --> 36:00.140 flip the coin, 62% of them assign themselves to the 36:00.140 --> 36:03.030 positive condition, that is, that they're behaving almost 36:03.030 --> 36:04.830 completely fairly. 36:04.830 --> 36:09.030 And if they are facing the mirror and flipping the coin, 36:09.030 --> 36:16.560 they behave 50% exactly as chance would predict. 36:16.560 --> 36:19.980 What's going on here? 36:19.980 --> 36:27.110 It looks like the simple act of feeling as if one is 36:27.110 --> 36:33.370 observed, even when one is observed by oneself, is 36:33.370 --> 36:38.400 sufficient to provoke prosocial behavior. 36:38.396 --> 36:41.696 And an extraordinary study, carried out about five years 36:41.697 --> 36:45.987 ago in England, bears that out. 36:45.994 --> 36:50.094 So in this study, there was an honor system about putting 36:50.090 --> 36:56.490 money into a cup if you drank coffee in the department. 36:56.490 --> 37:00.440 And some weeks, taped above the cup of the coffee machine 37:00.440 --> 37:02.450 were pictures of flowers. 37:02.450 --> 37:04.070 There's the flowers, there's the 37:04.070 --> 37:06.640 flowers, there's the flowers. 37:06.640 --> 37:12.240 And those weeks, almost nobody put money into the pot. 37:12.240 --> 37:16.720 The other half of the week taped above the pot 37:16.716 --> 37:19.566 were pairs of eyes. 37:19.570 --> 37:25.240 And those weeks, subject donated large amounts of money 37:25.240 --> 37:27.200 into the pot. 37:27.200 --> 37:33.070 There is something about us as social beings that encourages 37:33.070 --> 37:39.520 us to behave in moral ways when activated within us, 37:39.520 --> 37:42.340 consciously or unconsciously, is the 37:42.340 --> 37:45.820 scent of being observed. 37:45.820 --> 37:49.610 If you want to complete your assignment without 37:49.610 --> 37:55.220 procrastinating, put a pair of eyes on your computer and a 37:55.220 --> 37:57.630 mirror behind your desk. 37:57.630 --> 37:59.680 I kid you not. 37:59.680 --> 38:06.720 The profound and shocking insight of Glaucon's story of 38:06.720 --> 38:11.900 Gyges in Plato's Republic is, in light of this contemporary 38:11.900 --> 38:15.810 research, almost chilling. 38:15.810 --> 38:19.800 That he would tell the story of how it is that we can 38:19.796 --> 38:25.966 expect somebody to behave if he conceives of himself as 38:25.970 --> 38:30.310 unobserved--the story of our shepherd, who finds the ring 38:30.310 --> 38:34.910 of invisibility, and when he gets it takes over the 38:34.910 --> 38:42.560 kingdom--is the story that Batson's research tells us 38:42.560 --> 38:47.280 about an inclination on the part of human beings. 38:47.280 --> 38:53.890 There is a worrisome tendency on the part of at least those 38:53.890 --> 38:56.580 about whom these stories are told. 38:56.580 --> 39:00.810 That is, ancient Greek civilization seemed to feel 39:00.810 --> 39:03.110 that this rings true. 39:03.110 --> 39:07.870 Contemporary American college students in Kansas seem to 39:07.870 --> 39:09.690 bear that out. 39:09.690 --> 39:15.660 When we think of ourselves as unobserved, it is difficult to 39:15.656 --> 39:21.846 act in conformity with moral codes. 39:21.850 --> 39:25.040 And the question which will reoccur throughout this 39:25.040 --> 39:28.790 semester--both in the unit on morality and in the unit on 39:28.790 --> 39:33.430 political philosophy--is the question of how society can be 39:33.430 --> 39:39.390 structured in such a way that there are the equivalent of 39:39.390 --> 39:47.510 eyes above our computers and mirrors in our room so that we 39:47.507 --> 39:54.857 can act in keeping with rules that allow societies to 39:54.860 --> 39:58.040 provide the kind of stability that allows 39:58.040 --> 40:01.130 human beings to flourish. 40:01.130 --> 40:05.950 So we have a couple of minutes left, and let me just ask what 40:05.950 --> 40:08.760 questions you have about today's lecture. 40:16.140 --> 40:17.560 Questions? 40:17.560 --> 40:19.500 STUDENT: Would you talk about the consequences of 40:19.500 --> 40:21.930 [INAUDIBLE] morality, you [INAUDIBLE] 40:31.630 --> 40:32.000 PROFESSOR: Good. 40:32.000 --> 40:34.290 So the question is, when I talk about the consequences of 40:34.290 --> 40:37.520 morality, I've restricted discussion's consequences for 40:37.520 --> 40:39.930 you, things like your reputation. 40:39.925 --> 40:42.415 And the question is, what about other sorts of 40:42.420 --> 40:43.110 consequences? 40:43.110 --> 40:45.630 What about when acting in immoral ways 40:45.630 --> 40:48.040 brings harm to others? 40:48.040 --> 40:51.170 One of the things that we'll talk about next week, and 40:51.170 --> 40:55.360 again is the section on justice, is human beings' 40:55.360 --> 40:58.310 capacity for empathy and sympathy, and the ways in 40:58.312 --> 41:02.932 which those features might be leveraged to help do some of 41:02.925 --> 41:06.045 the prosocial work that mirrors and eyes do. 41:06.052 --> 41:07.472 So excellent question. 41:07.466 --> 41:09.406 STUDENT: [INAUDIBLE] when Glaucon is talking about it, 41:09.410 --> 41:11.840 [INAUDIBLE] 41:11.840 --> 41:14.050 PROFESSOR: So the question is, when Glaucon is talking about 41:14.050 --> 41:16.880 it, is he only talking about issues of reputation? 41:16.880 --> 41:19.820 So there's a very interesting thing going on in Book 2 of 41:19.820 --> 41:20.550 The Republic. 41:20.550 --> 41:25.090 Glaucon and Adeimantus are taking on a conversation that 41:25.094 --> 41:29.064 Socrates has been having with Thrasymachus in book one about 41:29.060 --> 41:29.740 recitation. 41:29.740 --> 41:33.600 So that's part of why that's being invoked as a reason. 41:33.600 --> 41:37.190 But there are also, you'll hear, when Socrates gives his 41:37.190 --> 41:40.910 answer, it's about the integrity of the person who 41:40.910 --> 41:43.120 acts in moral or immoral ways. 41:43.120 --> 41:46.810 And what Socrates is basically going to go on to say is, it 41:46.810 --> 41:51.300 may seem to you like all you care about is what you appear 41:51.300 --> 41:53.050 to be to others. 41:53.050 --> 41:56.760 But as a matter of fact, when you let your soul get out of 41:56.760 --> 42:00.720 order, when you behave in ways that are impulsive, that are 42:00.720 --> 42:03.940 insensitive to the needs of others, you, yourself will be 42:03.940 --> 42:06.100 unable to flourish. 42:06.100 --> 42:08.620 And that's the answer we're going to be exploring Glaucon 42:08.620 --> 42:11.430 hasn't raised that as a question yet. 42:11.430 --> 42:12.890 Socrates is going to introduce it into the conversation. 42:15.760 --> 42:16.990 Good. 42:16.990 --> 42:19.420 It is 11:20. 42:19.420 --> 42:22.410 I hope that the density of today's lecture doesn't scare 42:22.405 --> 42:23.675 off too many of you. 42:23.680 --> 42:25.760 It gets more more fun after this. 42:25.761 --> 42:29.381 And I look forward to seeing many of you next week.