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Why Do The Right Thing?

[Adapted from "Why Virtue?" Thomas White, Discovering Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991)]

Outline   WHY DO THE RIGHT THING? Plato: the case of Gyges' ring
An extreme case   PLATO AND SOCRATES: VIRTUE, VICE AND THE SOUL   PLATO: VIRTUE AS THE HEALTH OF THE SOUL Healthy bodies, healthy souls Plato's idea of the healthy soul: balance and control The soul's health and virtue: the ethical connection   SOCRATES' VIEW OF VICE An overview of Socrates' ethical beliefs How vice changes us: an ordinary example How vice harms us: an example from the Gorgias Non-cognitive harm: insatiable desires and loss of control Cognitive harm: weakened intellect and damaged moral vision Callicles as the embodiment of vice A common-sense assessment How virtue leads to happiness   SUMMARY   SELECTED READINGS  

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You now know a little about the nature of philosophical ethics and what it means to examine questions of right and wrong from a rational, secular--that is, a nonreligious--point of view. You've been introduced to the two main approaches to ethical questions, one which examines the results of an action, the other which examines the action itself. With this "conceptual machinery," you can analyze the main features of any ethical dilemma you face.

But simply knowing what's "right" isn't enough. Lots of times we say to ourselves, "I know I shouldn't do this, but I'm going to do it anyway."

Take a case like this. You're dating someone and have an explicit understanding that you won't see anyone else. However, one day you meet someone whom you find very attractive. You would like to start seeing this person, but you don't want to jeopardize your original relationship in case this new one doesn't work out. Since you feel that the person you've been seeing trusts you, you figure that you could get away with a few lies. But would this be justifiable?

There really shouldn't be any question that lying in this situation is wrong. The action itself is clearly unethical (you are breaking your promise and deceiving) and the consequences are dubious (since you'll be spending less time with the person you have an understanding with, he or she will probably experience some unhappiness; if you're guilty, you'll be less fun to be with when you are together, even if your deception is successful; both of the people you're dating will be deeply hurt if they find out what's going on). Nonetheless, many people would lie and deceive in a case like this, simply because they want the pleasure of dating someone else. Maybe deceiving someone is wrong, but if it'll make you happier, why not go ahead and lie?

In situations like this, there's more to it than a simple question of right or wrong. All of us have an interest in adding to our happiness, whether that is some pleasure of the moment, success in a job, or whatever it takes. If what is right and what is in our own interest coincide, we have no problem doing the right thing. Or maybe we're willing to do the right thing (and avoid some guilt) only if it's a little inconvenient. But when what is right and what makes us happy are 180 degrees from each other, that's when we've got real problems.

At times like this, when strong desires pull us in opposite directions, it's hard to do the ethical thing. When we do resist the pull of temptation, we usually want to feel that somehow we're going to get something for it. That may not be very high-minded, but most of us, when confronted with moral dilemmas, really want to ask: What's in it for me if I do what's right? It doesn't have to be fame and fortune--it may just be a good feeling about who we are. But most of us want a good reason to be good.

Why should we do the right thing? The question is simple; answering it probably the most difficult task in ethics. Legal systems and religious traditions have an easy time giving us answers, of course. We should do what's right in order to avoid punishment for doing wrong--either in this life or the next. But philosophy does not approach it this way. It has to give a rational, secular account of why living the moral life is valuable in its own right, here and now. This is very hard to do.

Think about it for a minute. What reasons would you give someone for why they should try to do what's right? Most of you will be parents; some of you already are. How will you explain to your children, particularly as they get older and can argue with you, why they should act according to the values you hold? Perhaps you'll say that unethical actions hurt people and that since your children wouldn't want others to hurt them they shouldn't hurt others. Or perhaps you'll claim that other people won't like them if they do this or do that. But what if your children say they don't care about any of these things? What would you say then?

WHY DO THE RIGHT THING? [back to top]

Plato: the case of Gyges' ring [back to top]

Few philosophers take up the problem of why we should be virtuous. Of two who do, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates and his pupil Plato, address it head on. We will begin with Plato because he sets the question up in the toughest form imaginable. He does this in a fictional dialogue called the Republic, a work in which he covers a wide range of philosophical topics--justice, the ideal society, knowledge, the nature of reality, and ethics.

The portion of the dialogue that is relevant here concentrates on the question of how we ought to live. A character named Glaucon claims that people aren't good willingly and that the only reason any of us does what's right is that we get something from it. If we develop a reputation for being honest, telling the truth, and keeping our commitments, then people will do business with us, elect us to office, and be our friends. But Glaucon thinks the task is too hard. Living ethically is difficult, unpleasant, and, when it comes right down to it, worse than living unethically, he says. Thus, according to Glaucon, most of us do what's right only because we don't have the power to do what we really want and get away with it.

To illustrate his point, Glaucon tells the story of a man named Gyges.

The story is that Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the ruler of Lydia. There was a violent rainstorm and an earthquake that broke open the ground and created a chasm at the place where he was tending sheep. Seeing this and marveling, he went down into it. He saw, besides many other wonders of which we are told, a hollow bronze horse. There were window-like openings in it; he climbed through them and caught sight of a corpse which seemed of more than human stature, wearing nothing but a ring of gold on its finger. This ring the shepherd put on and came out. He arrived at the usual monthly meeting which reported to the king on the state of the flocks, wearing the ring. As he was sitting among the others he happened to twist the hoop of the ring towards himself, to the inside of his hand, and as he did this he became invisible to those sitting near him and they went on talking as if he had gone. He marveled at this and, fingering the ring, he turned the hoop outward again and became visible. Perceiving this he tested whether the ring had this power and so it happened: if he turned the hoop inwards he became invisible, but was visible when he turned it outwards. When he realized this, he at once arranged to become one of the messengers to the king. He went, committed adultery with the king's wife, attacked the king with her help, killed him, and took over the kingdom. The moral of the story is, says Glaucon, that given the opportunity, everyone would act just the way Gyges acts. Now if there were two such rings, . . . no one . . . would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice or bring himself to keep away from other people's property and not touch it, when he could with impunity take whatever he wanted from the market, go into houses and have sexual relations with anyone he wanted, kill anyone, free all those he wished from prison, and do the other things which would make him like a god among men. Plato raises a very interesting question here. If you knew you could get away with absolutely anything you wanted to do, however unethical, how ethical would your behavior be? Plato's character Glaucon thinks that it wouldn't be ethical at all. What would you do if you had a ring like Gyges'?

Plato uses Glaucon to say what he thinks most people believe, and he's probably right. Life in the twentieth-century AD United States isn't all that different from life in fifth-century BC Athens. We don't have to look very far to see that dishonest, unscrupulous, selfish people get most of what they want while the rest of us settle for a lot less. Many of these people don't get caught, or, if they do, they're not punished very severely. If we knew that we could get away with anything we wanted, most of us would be sorely tempted to cut a few moral corners--or worse.

An extreme case [back to top]

Plato sees the foolishness of arguing that we should all do what's right in hopes of tangible rewards. Instead, he comes at the question of whether the moral life has any value by making the starkest possible comparison between the lives of a perfectly just person and a perfectly unjust one. He writes,

Let us grant to the unjust the fullest degree of injustice and to the just the fullest justice, each being perfect in his own pursuit. First, the unjust man will act as clever craftsmen do--a top navigator for example or physician distinguishes what his craft can do and what it cannot; the former he will undertake, the latter he will pass by, and when he slips he can put things right. So the unjust man's correct attempts at wrongdoing must remain secret; the one who is caught must be considered a poor performer, for the extreme of injustice if to have a reputation for justice; if he makes a slip he must be able to put it right; he must be a sufficiently persuasive speaker if some wrongdoing of his is made public; he must be able to use force, where force is needed, with the help of his courage, strength, and the friends and wealth with which he has provided himself.

Having described such a man, let us now in our argument put beside him the just man, simple as he is and noble, who, as Aeschylus put it, does not wish to appear just but to be so. We must take away his reputation, for a reputation for justice would bring him honour and rewards, and it would then not be clear whether he is what he is for justice's sake or for the sake of rewards and honour. We must strip him of everything except justice and make him the complete opposite of the other. Though he does no wrong, he must have the greatest reputation for wrongdoing so that he may be tested for justice by not weakening under ill repute and its consequences. Let him go his incorruptible way until death with a reputation for injustice throughout his life, just though he is, so that our two men may reach the extremes, one of justice, the other of injustice, and let them be judged as to which of the two is the happier.

Here Plato sets the toughest ground rules imaginable. He forces us to compare the life of an unethical person with the reputation for goodness with the life of a good person with the reputation for vice. Now any reason for being virtuous must depend on the value of moral virtue itself, not anything that reputation brings.

This, of course, is the question. Is the moral life intrinsically valuable? Is it worthwhile in and of itself for us to live a moral life instead of getting what we want by lying, cheating, stealing, and manipulating others? Is there any reason to be ethical, especially if we are as clever at vice as Plato's unjust person is--not only getting away with all sorts of wrongdoing but having a reputation for being good to boot?

Think about this for a minute. Which would you rather be, the unethical person with a good reputation or the ethical person with a reputation for injustice? Be really honest with yourself. Is there a solid, rational argument for going with the latter?

PLATO AND SOCRATES: VIRTUE, VICE AND THE SOUL [back to top]

It should come as no surprise, of course, that the two philosophers whom we will study in this chapter, Plato and Socrates, think that moral virtue is valuable. Essentially, they believe the saying that "virtue is its own reward," and the key to their ideas on the subject lies in the interesting notion that "virtue is the health of the soul."

People use the term "soul" in many different ways. We need not go into a long comparison of what the Greeks meant by "soul" and what we mean by it today. For our purposes, it's enough to know that "soul" means the most important part of who we are--our moral and intellectual essence, our "real" self, our "character," the core of our personalities.

Whether or not the soul lives on after death in one form or another is also irrelevant. We're interested in the intrinsic value of moral virtue, that is, the good it does in this life. (Any good that virtue might do for the soul after death would be an extrinsic benefit.) To keep the issues clear in your mind, then, assume that the soul does not survive death (whether it does or not) and that Plato and Socrates are talking about the importance of virtue in the here and now.

In trying to understand what these philosophers mean by the idea that virtue is the health of the soul, there are two critical ideas that we have to explore. First, whatever part of us Socrates and Plato mean when they refer to the soul, they believe that, like the body, it can be healthy and unhealthy. And health is something that most of us would agree is intrinsically worthwhile. We all know what healthy and unhealthy bodies are like, but what is the difference between healthy and diseased souls?

The other important idea in all of this is Socrates' belief that the soul's health is determined by what we do--that is, it is affected by the moral character of our actions. Socrates even describes the soul as "that part of ourselves that is improved by just actions and harmed by unjust actions." In particular, Socrates believes that unethical actions harm the one who does them more than who they're aimed at. If someone steals something from you, Socrates thinks that the thief is actually hurt more than you are by the deed.

Admittedly, Socrates' and Plato's ideas about the value of moral virtue may seem very strange to you. Being good is like being healthy? If you lie about denting someone's new car so that you don't have to pay the repair bill, you hurt yourself more than someone else? These aren't the easiest notions to swallow when you first hear them. Yet, Plato and Socrates have developed them into a substantial answer to the question "Why bother about ethics?" Understanding and exploring that answer is our task in this chapter.
 

PLATO: VIRTUE AS THE HEALTH OF THE SOUL [back to top]

Plato thinks that virtue is to the soul what health is to the body? What might a "healthy soul" be like? And what is the difference between healthy and unhealthy souls?

Healthy bodies, healthy souls [back to top]

All of us understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy bodies, so let's start there before we extend the comparison to souls.

A healthy body is free of disease and in relatively good shape. When you're healthy, you may not feel excited or euphoric, but you probably feel calm and contented. When you're sick, on the other hand, all you can think about is how rotten you feel. Your discomfort keeps pushing itself into your awareness--you can't get away from it. When you're healthy, you probably don't even notice it. Your body has its full range of capabilities and you can do what you want to. Your mind is clear, free of worry and distraction. You can see things objectively, and this lets you make better decisions.

In other words, as long as we stay healthy, we can choose what we want to do. The effects of illness and neglect, clouded minds and weak, damaged bodies, limit our activities. With health comes freedom and control over our lives. Health is intrinsically enjoyable and it enables us to get more of what we want. Thus, we are likelier to live happier lives.

So the healthy body is superior to the unhealthy one in having a clear head, freedom and control. Having these things makes it more likely that we'll live happier lives. Not only are we more likely to be able to get what we want, but health is just intrinsically enjoyable.

What can we say, now, about the healthy "soul," "character," or "personality"? Much the same thing that we said for the healthy body. The absence of disease in your "soul" or personality means that your mind is clear and you can see things as they really are. Your view of the world is not distorted by fears, insecurities, irrational anxieties, or overpowering desires. Your judgment is not blinded by greed or self-interest. Thus, your assessment of whether something is right or wrong can be objective. We might say that a healthy soul has a fairly clear moral vision. A healthy soul also has a freedom and control like that of a healthy body. Once you decide about something, you have the capacity to carry it out. We might call this strength of will.

Let's say that a friend asks you to help him cheat in his history course. He wants to take a paper you wrote last term and change it just enough so that it won't be recognized as yours. You feel uneasy, but your friend says, "Come on, everybody does it. There's nothing wrong. Besides, I'd do it for you." It's clear that he expects you to do this because he's your friend, and you're afraid he will get angry and dump you if you refuse. To see this situation for what it is and to go ahead and do what you know you should takes clarity of mind and courage. We might say that it requires the strengths characteristic of a "healthy soul." But if you are controlled by your fear of being disliked by your friend, you will waffle in your own mind about the morality of the deed, and you won't have the nerve to stand up against your friend for what you believe. With a weak and "unhealthy soul," something other than your mind and will controls you in that situation--your fears.

With a healthy soul, you have the freedom and control to live your life according to your moral insights. Once you decide what the right thing to do is, you're able to do it. You aren't overwhelmed by selfishness or meanness. You have the will or power to live according to your sense of right and wrong.

Let's go back to the example that opened this chapter for a minute and see if this way of looking at things adds anything. O.k., what would someone with a really healthy and strong personality do when confronted with the dilemma of whether or not to cheat on someone they have a relationship with? First, he or she could probably assess the ethics of the situation without being blinded by their own selfish desires. They'd also be able to act according to their decision. That is, the strong soul wouldn't immediately reach for a cheap rationalization ("Everybody does something like this now and then--besides, no one will get hurt"). If you wanted to pursue the new relationship, you would probably have the nerve and sensitivity to talk about it with the person you were already dating and agree how to handle things.

Plato's idea of the healthy soul: balance and control [back to top]

In the Republic, Plato develops this simple parallel between healthy bodies and healthy souls. In the course of that book he contrasts healthy with unhealthy souls.

Each of us, Plato says, is made up of three parts: the physical, the spirited, and the intellectual. (The "spirited" part is our emotions.) In the healthy soul, these three are properly balanced. As we make decisions about how to live, our minds give due regard to our emotional and physical needs, and each of the three parts performs its proper role. The mind is in control, and our emotions help us follow the mind's judgment, particularly when it goes against the inclination of our physical desires. In an unhealthy soul, our actions flow not from our good judgment, but from either our emotions or our physical appetites.

For example, think of people who are obsessed with their bodies or their physical appearance. You may know some people who expend huge amounts of energy playing sports, working out, worrying about their diet, or spending time shopping for the right clothes or getting their hair or make-up just so. Virtually everything in their life revolves around the physical side of their being--what they do, what they avoid doing, with whom they hang out. It may even look like they are addicted to, say, their daily five mile run. Such individuals are driven so much by their bodies that they might cut classes, miss work, or neglect a relationship because of their obsession. For people like this, their bodies dominate their lives.

Others are driven by their emotions. Perhaps it's needing to be in love, popular, admired by others, or famous. For instance, think of someone who will do anything to be liked by someone of the opposite sex. They may even do things that hurt other people--or themselves--to hold onto their latest love. And when that relationship ends, they can't relax until they find someone new. These people may also seem to be addicted to whatever they are driven by. Clearly, their lives are dominated by their emotions.

Plato thinks that the unhealthy soul is unbalanced and controlled by the wrong aspect of our being. Our mind yields to our bodies or emotions. The healthy soul, however, is balanced. In deciding how to live, it gives due weight to our bodily and emotional needs, but our head is still in control and keeps us from going overboard. In Plato's opinion, the individual with a healthy soul has a clear mind, freedom, and self-control. In his judgment, this is simply the way things are supposed to be for us.

The soul's health and virtue: the ethical connection [back to top]

Plato believes that physical and emotional desires, particularly when they are out of balance, are the primary factors that cloud our judgment about right and wrong. Plato figures that unethical people generally act wrongly to serve some physical desire (sex, alcohol, the physical pleasures that money can buy) or some emotion (jealousy, ambition, anger, fear, greed). Plato thinks that in the unbalanced, unhealthy soul, people are so driven by physical or emotional wants that they literally do not think straight about right and wrong. Their mental power is put to use in servicing their wants, not in examining the morality of their actions. Their minds follow their bodies or feelings, not, as Plato believes should be the case, the other way around. So if we allow either our bodies or emotions to control us, he thinks that there is a strong chance that we will behave unethically in order to get what we want. Having a soul that is out of balance, "unhealthy" according to Plato, goes hand in hand with wrongdoing.

On the other hand, Plato believes that the freedom, control, and balanced perspective that come with the soul's health results in ethical behavior. If you are not dominated by your physical or emotional wants, you can make good decisions. Thus, virtue is an expression of the strong, healthy soul, the soul that is characterized by a clear mind that is the dominant force in someone's life.

At this point you, like Glaucon, may still be skeptical. It's one thing to talk about virtue and health, you say. But if a little larceny will help us get what we want, why is that so bad?

And what about the claim that acting unethically hurts us? At this point, we must turn from Plato's thought to that of his teacher, Socrates, who had more to say about the unhealthy soul. In particular, it was Socrates who formulated the idea that vice harms the doer more than those who are its victims.
 

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