Justice In Plato's The Republic
In the Republic, Socrates creates an imaginary city that is just known as Kallipolis in order to locate or find out what “justice” is. Justice is the last of the four virtues and can only be located once the other three virtues (wisdom, courage, and moderation) are found. To locate all of these virtues and ultimately justice, Socrates creates three classes in the city: craftsmen, guardians, and rulers. Wisdom is represented through the rulers, courage is represented through the guardians, and moderation and justice is represented by the city itself and how its citizens conduct themselves. To be more specific however moderation involves the mastery of desires and justice is represented through the citizens doing the one task they are best suited for. Let’s focus on the ruler’s however because Socrates gives them a special
…show more content…
“privilege”, which is lying. The rulers of Kallipolis are allowed to lie to their citizens (or enemies) if it for the good of the public. (P., & Jowett B.) For a ruler to be able to tell a lie to the public, is a major controversial issue in the modern world. People simply do not like to be lied to and if they find out they were lied to, they generally get offended, but does this mean that lying is wrong or unjust? To truly understand if lying is unjust, it’s important to first, gain a basic understanding on how lying starts and how it impacts us as individuals, second, to see how lying impacts the modern day world and how the public view lying, and third, take a philosophical approach to the issue to see if lying is truly ever just.
I. The origin of lying and how it impacts us:
To truly understand lying itself, it is important to understand the origin of lying and why people lie. Origin meaning how it starts in human beings and not when it appeared in human history, as lying is probably as old as verbal communication itself as one might deduce from reading below. So the inquiry remains, what is the origin of lying and why do people lie? The origin of lying, as revealed by the Sigma XI Science Research Society and a few other parties, starts when a child is very young.
The exact age is difficult to determine because all children are unique in development, however exactly how they learn to lie often comes from the people that discourage lying later on. Yes, as one might imagine, children learn to lie from their parent. While it is difficult to put an exact age on when children learn to lie, by the age of two and a half almost all children have been introduced to lying through deception. The easiest method of explain a lie through deception would be through the analogy: Little Bob is learning how to walk however he tumbles then falls. The fall scares little Bob, thus he starts to cry. Little Bob’s parents rush to his side, telling him he is alright, thus little Bob believes he is alright too, despite how scared or hurt he may be. This is a very light form of deception but it does introduce the bases of deception to children. Over time children will refine and develop this deception and eventually it will be used to avoid punishment and to avoid harming other people. (Lewis.
2015)
What is written above may or may not be observations that anyone can notice, the following information was gathered in sociology experiment attempting to understand the origins of lying by Sigma XI Research Society: Children by the age of two and a half are capable of deception. The specific study used to gather this information was called the “no peeking” experiment. Basically children are set into a room and faced towards a door. The experimenter shows the child a box which has a toy in it. He unboxes the toy, without letting the child see the toy and tells the child that they will be right back. If the child doesn’t peek at the toy before they get back, they can play with the toy together. The experimenter leaves the two and half year old child for 5 minutes to see if the child can resist looking at the toy and if they will admit to looking at the toy should they fail to resist. In this study, thirty-eight percent of children peeked, thirty-eight percent of children did not peek, and twenty-four percent of children did not respond. This however isn’t the limit to the experiment, because the Sigma XI team also conducted a follow up experiment and found that within two years almost all of the children seemed to learn to lie when they violated a rule and when they tested six year olds, they found out that children were better able to resist the urge to look, but all of the six year olds that looked at the toy denied looking. (Lewis. 2015)
From the information above, it is unlikely anyone would argue that lying originates during childhood, but why do children lie? Simply put, children lie for one of three reasons: to protect another person’s feelings, to avoid punishment, and to protect their mental self (meaning they will lie to themselves to make themselves feel better). Adults however have another reason to lie, which is to cause harm to others. One might argue that children also lie to harm others, and they can, but for the most part a child’s lie that causes harm to others is actually a lie for them to escape punishment. Now what exactly are the benefits of lying and are there any? There is a study mentioned in the Academic journal “Origins of Lying and Deception in Everyday Life” that states something along these lines: “lying and deception may be subjected to evolutionary pressure and are positively related to other cognitive capabilities associated with psychological fitness.” In the same journal, it also stated that:
“Children who lied and those who did not were compared on several tasks that assessed moral judgement, theory of mind, and functionality, which included the challenges of inhibiting certain responses. In all of these assessments, children who had lied scored better than those that told the truth. As a result, this strongly suggests the ability to lie is positively related to cognitive competencies.”
There are many studies backed by people such as Richard Byrne (an anthropologist), Roy Baumeister (a psychologist), and Francesca Gino that also show that lying has a positive relation to mental development. (Lewis. 2015)
“privilege”, which is lying. The rulers of Kallipolis are allowed to lie to their citizens (or enemies) if it for the good of the public. (P., & Jowett B.) For a ruler to be able to tell a lie to the public, is a major controversial issue in the modern world. People simply do not like to be lied to and if they find out they were lied to, they generally get offended, but does this mean that lying is wrong or unjust? To truly understand if lying is unjust, it’s important to first, gain a basic understanding on how lying starts and how it impacts us as individuals, second, to see how lying impacts the modern day world and how the public view lying, and third, take a philosophical approach to the issue to see if lying is truly ever just.
I. The origin of lying and how it impacts us:
To truly understand lying itself, it is important to understand the origin of lying and why people lie. Origin meaning how it starts in human beings and not when it appeared in human history, as lying is probably as old as verbal communication itself as one might deduce from reading below. So the inquiry remains, what is the origin of lying and why do people lie? The origin of lying, as revealed by the Sigma XI Science Research Society and a few other parties, starts when a child is very young.
The exact age is difficult to determine because all children are unique in development, however exactly how they learn to lie often comes from the people that discourage lying later on. Yes, as one might imagine, children learn to lie from their parent. While it is difficult to put an exact age on when children learn to lie, by the age of two and a half almost all children have been introduced to lying through deception. The easiest method of explain a lie through deception would be through the analogy: Little Bob is learning how to walk however he tumbles then falls. The fall scares little Bob, thus he starts to cry. Little Bob’s parents rush to his side, telling him he is alright, thus little Bob believes he is alright too, despite how scared or hurt he may be. This is a very light form of deception but it does introduce the bases of deception to children. Over time children will refine and develop this deception and eventually it will be used to avoid punishment and to avoid harming other people. (Lewis.
2015)
What is written above may or may not be observations that anyone can notice, the following information was gathered in sociology experiment attempting to understand the origins of lying by Sigma XI Research Society: Children by the age of two and a half are capable of deception. The specific study used to gather this information was called the “no peeking” experiment. Basically children are set into a room and faced towards a door. The experimenter shows the child a box which has a toy in it. He unboxes the toy, without letting the child see the toy and tells the child that they will be right back. If the child doesn’t peek at the toy before they get back, they can play with the toy together. The experimenter leaves the two and half year old child for 5 minutes to see if the child can resist looking at the toy and if they will admit to looking at the toy should they fail to resist. In this study, thirty-eight percent of children peeked, thirty-eight percent of children did not peek, and twenty-four percent of children did not respond. This however isn’t the limit to the experiment, because the Sigma XI team also conducted a follow up experiment and found that within two years almost all of the children seemed to learn to lie when they violated a rule and when they tested six year olds, they found out that children were better able to resist the urge to look, but all of the six year olds that looked at the toy denied looking. (Lewis. 2015)
From the information above, it is unlikely anyone would argue that lying originates during childhood, but why do children lie? Simply put, children lie for one of three reasons: to protect another person’s feelings, to avoid punishment, and to protect their mental self (meaning they will lie to themselves to make themselves feel better). Adults however have another reason to lie, which is to cause harm to others. One might argue that children also lie to harm others, and they can, but for the most part a child’s lie that causes harm to others is actually a lie for them to escape punishment. Now what exactly are the benefits of lying and are there any? There is a study mentioned in the Academic journal “Origins of Lying and Deception in Everyday Life” that states something along these lines: “lying and deception may be subjected to evolutionary pressure and are positively related to other cognitive capabilities associated with psychological fitness.” In the same journal, it also stated that:
“Children who lied and those who did not were compared on several tasks that assessed moral judgement, theory of mind, and functionality, which included the challenges of inhibiting certain responses. In all of these assessments, children who had lied scored better than those that told the truth. As a result, this strongly suggests the ability to lie is positively related to cognitive competencies.”
There are many studies backed by people such as Richard Byrne (an anthropologist), Roy Baumeister (a psychologist), and Francesca Gino that also show that lying has a positive relation to mental development. (Lewis. 2015)