Ethically Yours

Link to the Prison University Project:  http://www.prisonuniversityproject.org/

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

From these we might check out the "Problem of Evil" or consider modern medicine…

"Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely is. And if we ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no such essence." 164

"For the Almighty God, who, as even heather acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil. For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present–namely, the diseases and wounds–go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance — the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils–that is, privations of the good which we call health–are accidents." 169

"There can be no evil where there is no good." 170

"In the case of these contraries which we call good and evil, the rule of the logicians, that two contraries cannot be predicated at the same time of the same thing, does not hold. No weather is at the same time dark and bright: no food or drink is at the same time sweet and bitter: no body is at the same time and in the sample place black and white: none is at the same time and in the same place deformed and beautiful." 171

"The fact that evil as well as good exists, is a good." 171

"If a bad son wishes his father to die, when this is also the will of God." 172

"God accomplishes some of His purposes, which of course are all good, through the evil desires of wicked men: for example, it was through the wicked designs of the Jews, working out the good purpose of the Father, that Christ was slain; and this event was so truly good, that when the Apostle Peter expressed his unwillingness that it should take place, he was designated Satan by Him who had come to be slain." 172

"If, then, we be asked what…the supreme good and evil is, … [we] reply that life eternal is the supreme good, death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we must live rightly…we do not as yet see our good, and must therefore life by faith; neither have we in ourselves power to live rightly, but can do so only if He who has given us faith to believe in His help do help us when we believe and pray." 173

"As man has a rational soul, he subordinates all this which he has in common with the beasts to the peace of his rational soul, that his intellect may have free play and may regulate his actions, and that he may thus enjoy the well-ordered harmony of knowledge and action which constitutes, as we have said, the peace of the rational soul." 177

"And this is the order of this concord, that a man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the second, do good to every one he can reach." 177

"For they who care fro the rest rule — the husband the wife, the parents the children, the masters the servants; and they we are cared for obey — the women their husbands, the children their parents, the servants their masters. But in the family of the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to the celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others — not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy." 177

"For the first freedom of will which man received when he was created upright consisted in an ability not to sin, but also in an ability to sin; whereas this last freedom of will shall be superior, inasmuch as it shall not be able to sin." 185

Interesting how many ideals from Stoic philosophy can be found in later interpretations of Xtianity…and in AA. Good read if death bothers you. Also fun if you compare to zennish ideals.

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

"Of things some are in our power, and others are not." (150)

"If it relates to anything which is not in our power, be ready to say, that it does not concern you."

"Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things." (152)

"Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life." (152)

"On the occasion of every accident (event) that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use.’ (152)

"Practice then this which you are able to do. He is the master of every man who has the power over the things, which another person wishes or does not wish, the power to confer them on him or to take them away. Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observer this rule, he must be a slave." (153)

"For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given you; but to select the part, belongs to another." (154)

"You can be invincible, if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to conquer." (154) (C.f. The Book of Five Rings)

"Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your own opinion which has irritated you. Therefore especially try not to be carried away by the appearance. For if you once gain time and delay, you will more easily master yourself." (154) (C.f. Roadhouse…3:00-3:16)

"As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world." (156)

"You must be one man, either good or bad." (157)

"Duties are universally measured by relations." (157)

"For another will not damage you, unless you choose: but you will be damaged then when you shall think that you are damaged." (157)

"For if it is any of the things which are not in our power, it is absolutely necessary that it must be neither good nor bad." (158)

"Refuse altogether to take an oath, if it is possible: if it is not, refuse as far as you are able." (159)

"If your companion be impure, he also who keeps company with him must become impure, though he should happen to be pure." (159)

"As to pleasure with women, abstain as far as you can before marriage: but if you do indulge in it, do it in the way in which is conformable to custom. Do not however be disagreeable to those who indulge in these pleasures, or reprove them; and do not often boast that you do not indulge in them yourself." (159)

"If a man has reported to you, that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make any defense (answer) to what has been told you: but reply, The man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have mentioned these only." (159)

"When you are going to meet with any person, and particularly one of those who are considered to be in a superior condition, place before yourself what Socrates or Zeno would have done in such circumstances, and you will have no difficulty in making a proper use of the occasion." (159)

"When you are decided that a thing ought to be done and are doing it, never avoid being seen doing it, thought the many shall form an unfavorable opinion about it. For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid for those who shall find fault wrongly?" (160)

"These reasons do not cohere: I am richer than you, therefore I am better than you; I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better than you. On the contrary these rather cohere, I am richer than you, therefore my possessions are greater than yours: I am more eloquent than you, therefore my speech is superior to yours. But you are neither possession nor speech." (161)

"At a banquet do not say how a man ought to eat, but east as you ought to eat." (162)

"For even sheep do not vomit up their grass and show to the shepherds how much they have eaten; but when they have internally digested the pasture, they produce externally wool and milk. Do you also show not your theorems to the uninstructed, but show the acts which come from their digestion." (162)

"When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself, If Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have nothing to be proud of." (162) (C.f. Derek Parfit)

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

Epicurus

These quotes touch on many common themes we have seen in PHI101: 

• Philosophy as a spiritual or developmental quest
• Being careful to ascribe attributes to a thing
• Short term v. long term pleasures
• The “happy” life
• Friendship
• The Harm Principle
• Justice

"Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of the soul. " (143)

"First of all believe that god is a being immortal and blessed…and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness. " (144)

"And the impious man is not he who denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many." (144)

"Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us…the wise man neither seeks to escape life nor fears the cessation of life." (144)

""We must then bear in mind that the future is neither ours, nor yet wholly not ours, so that we may not altogether expect it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it, as if it will certainly not come." (144)

"Sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to use as the result of them: and similarly we think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater pleasure comes to use when we have endured pains for a long time." (145)

"It is not continuous drinking and revellings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives of all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit." (145)

"A man cannot dispel his fear about the most important matters if he does not know what is the nature of the universe but suspects the truth of some mythical story. So that without natural science it is not possible to attain our pleasures unalloyed." (147)

"Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship." (148)

"The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and save them from being harmed." (148)

"If a man makes a law and it does not turn out to lead to advantage in men’s dealings with each other, then it no longer has the essential nature of justice." (149)

More quotes…

"Since virtue is concerned with passions and actions, and on voluntary passions and actions praise and blame are bestowed, on those that are involuntary pardon, and sometimes also pity, to distinguish the voluntary and the involuntary is presumable necessary for those who are studying the nature of virtue, and useful also for legislators with a view to the assigning both of honours and of punishments." (110)

"Both the terms, then, ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary,’ must be used with reference to the moment of action. Now the man acts voluntarily; for the principle that moves the instrumental parts of the body in such actions is in him, and the things of which the moving principle is in a man himself are in his power to do or not to do. Such actions, therefore, are voluntary, but in the abstract perhaps involuntary; for no one would choose any such act in itself." (111)

"What sort of act, then, should be called compulsory?" (111)

"Acting by reason of ignorance seems also to be different from acting in ignorance; for the man who is drunk or in a rage is thought to act as a result not of ignorance but of one of the causes mentioned, yet not knowingly but in ignorance." (112)

"That which is done under compulsion or by reason of ignorance is involuntary.’ (112)

"Choice, then, seems to be voluntary, but not the same thing as the voluntary; the latter extends more widely. For both children and the lower animals share voluntary action, but not in choice, and acts done on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary, but not as chosen." (113)

"Do we deliberate about everything, and is everything a possible subject of deliberation, or is deliberation impossible about some things?" (114)

"We deliberate not about ends but about means. For a doctor does not deliberate whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall produce law and order, not does any one else deliberate about his end." (114)

"We therefore choose the pleasant as a good, and avoid pain as an evil." (116)

"In all the states of character we have mentioned, as in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man who has the rule looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly, and there is a standard which determines the mean states which we say are intermediate between excess and defect, being in accordance with the right rule…but if a man had only this knowledge he would be none the wiser." (118)

"The virtue of a thing is relative to its proper work." (119)

"Let it be assumed that the states by virtue of which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e., art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom, intuitive reason; we do not include judgment and opinion because in these we may be mistaken." (119)

"The object of scientific knowledge is of necessity." (119)

"All art is concerned with coming into being…a state concerned with making." (120)

"Practical wisdom…is a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man." (120-121)

"Philosophic wisdom…is intuitive reason that grasps the first principles." (121)

"Wisdom must be intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge." (122)

"Man is not the best thing in the world." (122)

"Practical wisdom is concerned with action." (122)

"When young men become geometricians and mathematicians and wise in matters like these, it is thought that a young man of practical wisdom cannot be found. The cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with universals but with particulars, which become familiar from experience, but a young man has no experience, for it is length of time that gives experience; indeed one might ask this question too, why a boy may become a mathematician, but not a philosopher or a physicist. It is because the objects of mathematics exist by abstraction, while the first principles of these other subjects come from experience, and because young men have no conviction about the latter but merely use the proper language, while the essence of mathematical objects is plain enough to them?" (123)

"Practical wisdom issues commands, since its end is what ought to be done or not to be done; but understanding only judges." (125)

More quotes for my students. 

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

"Intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name ethike is one that is formed by a slight variation from the work ethos (habit)." (101)

"Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit." (101)

"The things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g., men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts." (101-102)

"States of character arise out of like activities." (102)

"It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes very great difference, or rather all the difference." (102)

"It is the nature of things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see in the case of strength and of health…both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it." (102)

"The agent also must be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his actions must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character." (104)

"Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are such as the just of the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as just and temperate men do them." (104)

"The virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well." (105)

"If ten pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is perhaps to much for the person who is to take it, or too little — too little for Milo, too much for the beginner in athletic exercises. The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus a master of any art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate not in the object but relatively to us." (106)

"Both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue." (106)

"Virtue is a kind of mean." (106)

"it is possible to fail in many ways." (106)

"Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it." (106)

"There are three kinds of disposition, then, two of them vices, involving excess and deficiency respectively, and one a virtue, viz. the mean, and all are in a sense opposed to all." (108)

"It is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g., to find the middle of a circle is not for every one but for him who knows; so, too, any one can get angry — that is easy — or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble." (109)

"So much, then, is plain, that the intermediate state is in all things to be praised, but that we must incline sometimes towards the excess, sometimes towards the deficiency; for so shall we most easily hit the mean and what is right." (110)

Quotes for my students studying virtue ethics. 

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

Excerpts from Aristotle’s The Nichomachean Ethics

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared." (88)

"Precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts…for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs." (89-90)

"Each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general." (90)

"There is a difference between arguments from and those to the first principles." (90)

"While we must begin with knowledge in two senses-some to us, some without qualification. Presumably, then, we much begin with things known to us." (90)

"Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts." (91)

"Goods must be spoken of in two ways, and some must be good in themselves, the others by reason of these. Let us separate, then, things good in themselves from things useful, and consider whether the former are called good by reference to a single idea." (92)

"Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy." (93)

"Human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete." (94)

"But we must add ‘in a complete life.’ For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy." (94)

"A carpenter and a geometer investigate the right angle in different ways; the former does so in so far as the right angle is useful for his work, while the latter inquires what it is or what sort of thing it is; for he is a spectator of the truth.’ (95)

"As in the Olympic Games it is not the most beautiful and the strongest that are crowned but those who compete (for it is some of these that are victorious), so those who act win, and rightly win, the noble and the good things in life." (95-96)

"Pleasure is a state of the soul." (96)

"It is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment. In many actions we use friends and riches and political power as instruments; and there are some things the lack of which takes the lustre from happiness, as good birth, goodly children, beauty; for the man who is very ugly in appearance or ill-born or solitary and childless is not very likely to be happy, and perhaps a man would be still less likely if he had thoroughly bad children or friends or had lost good children or friends by death." (96)

"The man who is truly good and wise, we think, bears all the chances of life becoming and always makes the best of circumstances, as a good general makes the best military use of the army at his command and a good shoemaker makes the best shoes out of the hides that are given him; and so with all other craftsman." (98)

"He is happy who is active in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period, but throughout a complete life?" (98)

"Virtue too is distinguished into kinds in accordance with this difference; for we way that some of the virtues are intellectual and others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral." (101)

Melden, "three forms of desire, each with its characteristic object: wisdom; honor; gain as a means to the satisfaction of bodily appetites…reason alone is immortal and separable from the body." (53)

Socrates, "It is clear that the same thing cannot act in two opposite ways or be in two opposite states at the same time, with respect to the same part of itself, and in relation to the same object." (55)

Socrates, "We may call the part of the soul whereby it reflects, rational; and the other, with which it feels hunger and thirst and is distracted by sexual passion and all the other desires, we will call irrational appetite, associated with pleasure in the replenishment of certain wants…What of that passionate element which makes us feel angry and indignant? Is that a third, or identical in nature with one of those two?" (57)

Socrates, "it will be the business of reason to rule with wisdom and forethought on behalf of the entire soul; while the spirited element ought to act as its subordinate and ally. The two will be brought into accord, as we said earlier, by that combination of mental and bodily training which will tune up one string of the instrument and relax the other, nourishing the reasoning part of the study of noble literature and allaying the other’s wildness by harmony and rhythm. When both have been thus nurtured and trained to know their own true functions, they must be set in command over the appetites, which form the greater part of each man’s soul and are by nature insatiably covetous." (59)

Socrates, "we call an individual brave in virtue of this spirited part of his nature, when, in spite of pain or pleasure, it holds fast to the injunctions of reason about what he ought or ought not to be afraid of." (59)

Socrates, "And wise in virtue of that small part which rules and issues these injunctions, possessing as it does the knowledge of what is good for each of the three elements and for all of them in common." (60)

Socrates, "temperate by reason of the unanimity and concord of all three, when there is no internal conflict between the ruling element and its two subjects, but all are agreed that reason should be ruler." (60)

Socrates, "a man will be just by observing the principle we have so often stated." (60)

Socrates, "our Guardians in the fullest sense must be philosophers." (63)

Socrates, "And do you think it fair of anyone to speak as if he knew what he does not know?" (65)

Socrates, "Why, have you never noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a shabby sort of thing? At the best it is blind. One who holds a true belief without intelligence is just like a blind man who happens to take the right road, isn’t he?" (65)

Melden, "then, as now, Acton’s saying was true: ‘all power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.’" (67-68)

Socrates, "How does despotism arise? That it comes out of democracy is fairly clear." (68)

Socrates, "A democratic state may fall under the influence of unprincipled leaders, ready to minister to its thirst for liberty with too deep draughts of this heady wine; and then, it its rulers are not complaisant enough to give it give it unstinted freedom, they will be arraigned as accursed oligarchs and punished. Law-abiding citizens will be insulted as nonentities who hug their chains; and all praise and honour will be bestowed, both publicly and in private, on rulers who behave like subjects and subjects who behave like rulers." (68)

Socrates, "The parent falls into the habit of behaving like the child, and the child like the parent." (69)

Socrates, "Citizens, resident aliens, and strangers from abroad are all on an equal footing. To descend to smaller matters, the schoolmaster timidly flatters his pupils, and the pupils make light of their masters as well as of their attendants." (69)

Socrates, "Putting all these items together, you can see the result: the citizens become so sensitive that they resent the slightest application of control as intolerable tyranny, and in their resolve to have no master they end by disregarding even the law, written or unwritten." (69)

Melden, "No man is rich whose desires can never be satisfied." (76)

Melden, "When two lives are compared in respect of pleasantness, the best judge is the philosopher, who alone has experienced the peculiar pleasures of all three parts of the soul, and whose experience is supported by insight and reasoning." (76)

Socrates, "Hence we recognize three main classes of men, the philosophic, the ambitious, and the lover of gain." (80)

Socrates, "We speak of pain as the contrary of pleasure. Is there not also a neutral state between the two, in which the mind feels neither pleasure nor pain, but it as it were at rest from both?" (81)

Socrates, "Well, you must have heard people say, when they are ill, that nothing is pleasanter than to be well, though they never knew it until they were ill; and people in great pain will tell you that relief from pain is the greatest pleasure in the world. There are many such cases in which you find the sufferer saying that the height of pleasure is not positive enjoyment, but the peace which comes with the absence of pain." (81)

Socrates, "As hunger and thirst are states of bodily inanition, which can be replenished by food, so ignorance and unwisdom in the soul are an emptiness to be filled by gaining understanding." (82)

Socrates, "To conclude, then: those who have no experience of wisdom and virtue and spend their whole time in feasting and self-indulgence are all their lives, as it were, fluctuating downwards from the central point and back to it again, but never rise beyond it into the true upper region, to which they have not lifted their eyes. Never really satisfied with real nourishment, the pleasure they taste is uncertain and impure. Bent over their tables, they feed like cattle with stooping heads and eyes fixed upon the ground; so they grow fat and breed, and in their greedy struggle kick and butt one another to death with horns and hoofs of steel, because they can never satisfy with unreal nourishment that part of themselves which is itself unreal and incapable of lasting satisfaction." (83)

Socrates, "the stuff of imagination is easier to mould than wax" (85)

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

More quotes from Plato’s Republic for my philosophy students.  Themes include: 

• The Just Man
• Virtue
• Social Contract Theory
• Conceptual Analysis
• Human Nature
• The sin of inaction 

Melden, A. I. (1967). Ethical theories; a book of readings (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

Melden, "Socrates holds that in moral conduct also there is a measure which is absolutely right, whether we recognize it or not. The just man, who does recognize it, shows a wisdom and virtue corresponding to the skill of the good musician. The unjust, who acknowledges no measure or limit, because there is no limit to getting more and more for yourself at others’ expense and that is his object, is, by all analogy, exhibiting rather a lack of intelligence and character. As a man, and therefore a moral agent, he is no more ‘wise and good’ than an instrumentalist who should refuse to recognize such a thing as the right pitch." (40)

Melden, "Man’s virtue is ‘the state of character which makes him a good man and makes him do his work well’…It is the quality which enables hit to ‘live well,’ for living is the soul’s function; and to live well is to be happy." (42)

Socrates, "a thing’s function is the work that it alone can do, or can do better than anything else." (43)

Socrates, "living — is not that above all the function of the soul?" (43)

Melden, "Glaucon opens with one of the earliest statements of the Social Contract theory. The essence of this is that all the customary rules of religion and moral conduct imposed on the individual by social sanctions have their origin in human intelligence and will and always rest on tacit consent. They are neither laws of nature nor divine enactments, but conventions which man who made them can alter, as laws are changed or repealed by legislative bodies. It is assumed that, if all these artificial restraints were removed, the natural man would be left only with purely egotistical instincts and desires, which he would indulge in all that Thrasymachus commended as injustice." (44)

Glaucon, "I want to know how you classify the things we call good. Are there not some which we should wish to have, not for their consequences, but just for their own sakes, such as harmless pleasures and enjoyments that how no further result beyond the satisfaction of the moment?…And also some that we value both for their own sake and for their consequences — things like knowledge and health and the use of our eyes?…And a third class which include physical training, medical treatment, earning one’s bread as a doctor or otherwise — useful, but burdensome things, which we want only for the sake of the profit or other benefit they bring. (45)

Glaucon, "the nature and origin of justice. What people say is that to do wrong is, in itself, a desirable thing; on the other hand, it is not at all desirable to suffer wrong, and the harm to the sufferer outweighs the advantage to the doer. Consequently, when men have had a taste of both, those who do not have the power to seize the advantage and escape the harm decide that they would be better off if they have a compact neither to do wrong nor to suffer it. Hence they began to make laws and covenants with one another; and whatever the law prescribes they call lawful and right. That is what right or justice is and how it came into existence; it stands half-way between the best thing of all – to do wrong with impunity — and the worst, which is to suffer wrong without the power to retaliate." (46)

Glaucon, "men do right only under compulsion; no individual thinks of it as good for him personally, since he does wrong whenever he finds he has the power. Every man believes that wrongdoing pays him personally much better, and, according to this theory, that is the truth." (47)

Glaucon, re what poets say, "that heaven itself often allots misfortunes and a hard life to the good man, and gives prosperity to the wicked." (49)

Glaucon, quoting Homer, "Even the gods themselves listen to entreaty. Their hearts are turned by the entreaties of men with sacrifice and humble prayers and libation and burnt offering, whensoever anyone transgresses and does amiss." (49)

Melen, "As against the social contract theory, Plato denies that society is ‘unnatural,’ either as being the artificial outcome of an arbitrary compact or as thwarting the individual’s natural instincts, which Thrasymachus assumed to be purely egoistic impulses to unlimited self-assertion. Men are not born self-sufficient or all alike; hence an organized society in which they are interdependent and specialize according to innate aptitudes is, according to Plato, both natural and advantageous to all the individuals." (52)

Socrates, "I am afraid to commit a sin by holding aloof while I have breath and strength to say a word in its defense. So there is nothing for it but to do the best I can." (53)

Kant’s CI as a "Golden Rule" is sometimes a pet peeve of people who study Kant.

From one of the buried discussions…A somewhat common interpretation of Kant is that his Categorical Imperative is an expression of the Golden Rule — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is not bad for a first intuition, but I’d caution you against using it as Kantians may explode.

Consider the following case. At OSU there are a group of students taking a series of advanced self-defense classes. As part of these class students are required to visit locations where, at certain times unknown to them, they may experience a simulated attack. Times and locations are carefully monitored by classroom instructors, EMTs, and local law enforcement offices. Several of the students decide they want to take this exercise to the next level. So they agree that for them, they can attack and defend each other at any time. They want the experience of being surprised. They want the chance to prove how "tough" they are. Imagine what this would look like if they followed the golden rule. People who have no part in their classes, and who probably have no desire to get randomly attacked, would find themselves assaulted and injured.

They are following the Golden Rule…but is this really a good thing?