On Glaucon (In Plato): Justice as an Intrinsic Good
In this blog post, I will be analyzing Glaucon’s first thesis in his theory of justice as presented by Plato in The Republic and outline the similarities it has with psychological egoism. I argue that desire and punishment are the two most essential components that guide us in acting in a just or unjust manner. I disagree with Glaucon, however, on the instrumental nature of justice and argue instead that justice should be sought as an intrinsic good for its own sake.
Glaucon’s Conception of Justice
Glaucon argues that justice exists purely in the form of a social construct that individuals agree upon (358e-359a). In other words, people must agree that suffering is undesirable and that safety is desirable if they are to be consistently just (372c-e). Glaucon, thus, sees justice as a compromise and an agreement between those that do not want chaos to ensue between them (359a). To put that differently, we must bear the burden of maintaining justice to prevent the much worse burden of a chaotic dystopia. Justice is, thus, not an intrinsic good for Glaucon but an instrumental good (357b-358a). He argues that we do not want justice for its own sake but rather for what it provides us with, mainly: stability, peace, and consistency. For Glaucon, we are only just because we do not want the alternative world for ourselves.
Glaucon’s theory is in direct support of the view of psychological egoism in which one acts ethically solely because of our self-interest and not because of a desire for others to be better off for their own sake. I can understand Glaucon’s perception of justice and make sense of it. I, however, do not think that justice is primarily maintained in society because of our own self-interest.
We could similarly argue that the only reason we perform good acts to one another is because of a selfish need for the act to be reciprocated to us in the not-so-distant future, as is understood by the term reciprocal altruism in evolutionary psychology and biology. In it, we scratch our kin’s back only because we can then expect them to do the same for us in the future. Surely, however, our desire for justice extends beyond our desire for reciprocity.
My Conception of Justice: The Lost Wallet
The two most essential components of performing a just act are desirability and punishment. Imagine, for example, that we find ourselves alone cleaning up after a party alone and see a forgotten wallet on the table of someone that we do not find familiar. The options are either to contact the individual to whom it belongs or take it for ourselves. Since we are alone, no one will ever know, so we remove the potential for punishment. If we do not have an underlying desire that guides our choice at that moment, then apart from a justice system, we do not have any reason to not take the wallet for ourselves.
The desire to return the wallet can arise because of our knowledge of the person, or because of some intuitive moral compass that makes us feel wrong even in the act of debating whether to take the wallet, let alone by taking it. In each of these circumstances, however, we are guided primarily by desire. Glaucon argues that that desire is selfish.
If my desire was purely selfish, however, it would be the deciding factor in choosing between the two options available. It would be more desirable for myself personally to alleviate the suffering of the person that had lost their wallet than to take it for myself because the concern for the other outweighs the concern for myself.
I can both imagine the pain that the person that lost their wallet feels and the satisfaction I am able to get from giving the person their wallet. The self-interest in providing the wallet to the person is self-interest only to the extent that it helps the person. In other words, the act is good only because it is good for the other. It is not merely selfish. Glaucon, then, fundamentally misunderstood the nature of a just act.
The same applies to relationships, we desire to make our partners happy, so when we are physically intimate with them, we choose to do what they want instead of focusing only on our own wants and needs. Our satisfaction derives from the pleasure of the other. By no means, however, are we acting that way solely for ourselves. If that were the case, we would have an unsuccessful model for happiness, let alone justice.
It is possible to imagine a world where our individual self-interest is the deciding factor in determining whether to act justly. In it, conflicting selfish drives would wreak havoc on the stable society that we expect to live in. The entire utility of justice loses what it seeks to provide. We would not want to live in a world where people act justly exclusively because they think it will make them happy. That is strangely reminiscent of a dystopian world where justice is preserved because it distills harmony at all costs and not because of the simple and satisfying truism that, as citizens, we receive pleasure from doing good for its own sake and not because of what it does for us. The latter is much more attractive and desirable.
Conclusion
I have briefly discussed Glaucon’s first thesis for justice and pointed out where I disagree with.
In order to act justly, I argue, we must (1) desire to do so and (2) have repercussions if we do not.
Then I clarified that our desire to act justly is primarily dependent on the other and not ourselves. Glaucon, thus, is wrong in determining why individuals act justly because he claims that our own good is the deciding factor.
In the end, it is more praiseworthy to act justly if it is an intrinsic good and not if it serves as an instrumental good. With that knowledge, we can provide a more logically feasible model for behaving in a just manner in an unjust society.
That is strangely reminiscent of a dystopian world where justice is preserved because it distills harmony at all costs and not because of the simple and satisfying truism that, as citizens, we receive pleasure from doing good for its own sake and not because of what it does for us.
Works Cited
Cooper, John M. Plato: Complete Works. Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.
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