 So today we're starting one of the great works of Western literature which some of you I think may have read at one point in some of your classes and you may read again in some of your other classes. Plato's Republic. It's one of his longest works. We're not reading all of it. We're only reading four books, although books is kind of a strange thing to call chapters. Does anyone know why they call them books instead of chapters for these ancient texts? Anybody ever heard of this sort of thing? What did books look like before we had books at full will? Those are actually a relatively modern invention. Think back to like your Western civ classes or Western history classes or world history classes. What people write on first? You remember? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean first they wrote on these clay tablets but those are very inconvenient. You can only look at one page at a time. Then they started using scrolls and when you see a text and it says you know republic and it's got 10 books what that literally means is they were 10 scrolls and your book was like a pouch that had these scrolls in it and when you wanted to read chapter three you'd get out the third scroll and scroll down not in the computer sense but in the ancient sense and you'd actually read it like this. You'd be turning one while you're turning the other and you'd look at it. Actually all ancient books are that way until the invention of what we call the rebellion which is what we're used to the books and pages of them. That was an innovation. We can always talk more about why they did that later on. Maybe I will tell you about that when we get to Epictetus and Stoics. So book one is the first scroll and why did they you know stop at book one? Well that's how much you could fit on a scroll. So it was a convenient unit of measure. You notice that book one isn't all about one single thing though right? There's a couple different discussions and we're actually not going to look at all those discussions. We're going to look at two of the big ones mainly. We're going to skip all the background material of I was going down to Pyraeus and then you know these guys caught up with me and they started talking about horse races and you know torches and all that we're going to skip all about because that's that's nice background information but it's not really essential to what we're doing here. If we're doing a play-doh class you know just play-doh the whole semester we might talk in greater detail about that. So you know with any dialogue just like a play you've got to cast the characters and so far what we've been doing is you know one one character Socrates gets up does a monologue talks a little bit with Miletus right the apology then we did the credo and how many people were there and that's kind of a trick question. How many voices? Three right so credo Socrates and the laws very good and Socrates you know it's kind of a trick question because Socrates is being like a ventriloquist doesn't he? He's saying laws would say this and then the youth of Fro we're back to just two people talking now we got a whole bunch of people talking so I thought you might be good to to start with this just to introduce you to these characters so you have some idea of who's saying what because one of the skills that I want you to have reading these things is figuring out who's actually saying what who's taking what position it is easy to mix these these different people up to get you know confused is Socrates talking here or is this Thrasymachus this position what is Socrates actual position so Socrates I don't need to talk about him you already know him right you've gotten to know a little bit. Cephalus is an old man and all of this dialogue actually takes place at the house of Cephalus he is the one who's hosting the party he talks a little bit at the very start with Socrates he says Socrates you never come to visit me anymore and Socrates and him get into a discussion about you know old age and his old age good or bad and then as soon as Socrates raises the key question for the whole book the whole of the Republic Cephalus does the prudent thing he says well I think I gotta go and check on the dinner he actually says I'm gonna go and leave the leave the stuff to you and he says poll Marcus you inherit the argument who poll Marcus that's his son and quite a thought is his other son quite a thought doesn't talk much poll Marcus does not so much in this this book though and then we have Glaucon who Socrates is hanging out with and Adam Antis Adam Antis and Glaucon are brothers too so Socrates is kind of a middle-aged man these are all young men these are those young men that Socrates is corrupting who are learning how to argue from him who are picking up on his example some of these are mentioned obliquely in the apology you know the Socrates is saying hey if you think I'm screwing these kids up so badly why don't you actually bring some of them up and take a look at and see if they're any good and if you read through the Republic you will see that these are good young men they have their head on straight this guy's a different story Thracymachus Thracymachus is not from Athens he is Thracymachus of Chalcedon or Cahedon which I think it'd be how to be pronounced he is sort of a gun for hire except he doesn't doesn't fight with you know swords or anything like that he fights with words he is what you call a selfist one of these people who Socrates got confused with who makes the worst argument appear the stronger who teaches people how to argue well so as to win and is not particularly concerned about what's true or who's actually right or anything like that you might think it's like a debate coach for any of you on debate teams in high school it was really interesting I worked with the debate team a bit at an FSU and I found out that debate has nothing to do these days with right or wrong or even who's got the better argument they just learn how to do talking points and shoot them out quick right and then he listened to me you're like well that doesn't even make any sense but the judges sometimes get convinced Thracymachus would have been one of those people training that and Thracymachus has some very definite ideas about things and he lets you know he also has a you might say a character or a way of presenting himself that replicates the position on justice that he's putting forward so all of you who read the Republic what's this guy like this Thracymachus guy pick some magic tips or we're now you can call him this or call him that yeah he's rude yeah I mean he says you know Socrates you know aren't you finished you know weaning from your wet nurse she needs to wipe your your you know dripping nose that's not very nice isn't it would you say something like that to somebody that you're having a discussion with and dinner across the table some people I've been at dinner parties like that what else what else can you say about this guy based on what you remember from what you read yeah what makes you say that he's selfish that's very good he's selfish in one way which is that he wants to do a monologue rather than dialogue he wants to like Socrates says Thracymachus you know pour this over us like somebody pouring water a flood and then he was ready to say well okay I said I'm gonna go and you all know people like that they want to tell you their opinion and then when when you want to talk about your own views conversation is done right that that's selfish is he selfish in any other ways yeah close-minded that's interesting how how is he close-minded it's full of himself yeah I mean he thinks that he knows and everyone else's is sort of stupid or foolish or weak yeah yeah he is he's an ass we you know we have all sorts of words for people like this you know one of the fancy words he's a boar you know he's boarish right we don't use that word anymore we use more ripe language to describe people like that but it's the same idea and people like that exist in every society in every time it is an interesting case I'll tell you another way he's selfish too you guys might have picked up on he wants them to pay him to talk he wants Socrates to pay him so they're having a conversation and now I have actually pulled something like this out of desperation at that time because when people find out that I teach philosophy the first thing they want to do is tell me all about their philosophy and they want to you know pick my brain and stuff like that they usually sometimes they just want to argue and I don't like to argue with people so I started saying you know I don't give away product for free I I get paid to do this and you know here's my hour hourly rate and I always quote something really high and then they say well I don't talk with you and then they leave me alone I got a plane or you know the train usually I don't have to do that but there's so many cases actually serious he wants Socrates to pay him and Socrates ends up you know then this goes to your idea of selfishness Socrates ends up saying well I don't have any money but I'll give you some praise I'll make you feel good and Thrasymachus kind of grudgingly a sense to that doesn't he that's kind of a jerky thing to do too isn't it to be at somebody else's house and say I'm not going to talk to you guys until you pay me but it fits in with his philosophy as we're gonna see what's really interesting about this guy is despite what a jerk he is after Socrates beats him he sticks around through the rest of the Republic he doesn't say anything he seems to have changed his mind about his own views and behavior and he's there to learn and we can explore that later some other time but just keep it in the back of my he's not all bad but you know he is there's something wrong with him something wrong with his ideas so let's look at some of that but before we do that there's somebody else to talk about I'm not going to talk about calculus you guys read his arguments about old age this is not something that you think about very much right because you're all young I don't imagine that any of you have started you know setting aside your retirement portfolio yet I have but that's because I've been working for a while and I'm middle-aged I'm starting to look at that Arnold Schwarzenegger this is kind of a tangent but it kind of puts things in perspective one of the reasons he wanted to come to America years and years and years ago was back in his country in Austria people your age you know moving into their 20s we're already starting to talk about their retirement and he found that so incredibly boring you know he thought what the hell kind of place is this where young people are you know like just looking way way off into the horizon at this stuff that's not going to happen for years and years and they're not actually living their life now so it's not surprising to find out that you're not you know thinking about do I need wealth in old age do I need virtue in old age but you can think about these things now you know in order for you to enjoy yourself now most of you don't have to worry about health like you well when you're old but you do need money don't you there's money enough you can have a really good time with money buy all sorts of things fun to have money you can shop you can go to the bars you know it's kind of nice to go to a fancy restaurant not have to worry about the cost you know or if you want to cap dick cap what else my friends with my friend for a while till the money runs out there's money enough you guys already have you know wealth of experience no no pun intended with with that you will you see people with money and how they behave does money make people particularly happy it's good to have though it's harder to be happy without some sort of money right why isn't it enough what Catholic is getting at well what else does he think you need to have of course he's at the end of his life he's worried about the afterlife you can be rich and you got maybe five more years to live and there is a heaven and a hell what do you start worrying about making more money we start worrying about some people might even worry about that yeah I mean by the time that you're 60 you've done something wrong probably a whole bunch of things you know and you start to think about yeah the people you've heard what's gonna be waiting for you in the great beyond and a lot of people are able to you know put those things off for a while you know play it away or chatted away but when you get closer and closer to the end these things have a way of coming back up to watch you even on this side of the great mortal divide and people start worrying they might even just worry what's my legacy gonna be or something like that that's this world but a lot of them start worrying about what's gonna happen later on what's that based on you know think about our sort of you know traditional schema here where we you know we're mostly monotheistic religion in this country we tend to say there's a good place and a bad place what gets you in the door lottery all right I'm not going to hell I got the lucky number is that how it works all that money can't buy what gets you in the good place or sends you down to bad place exactly what you do and what the quality of what you do is and if you do enough good deeds you're a good person you do enough bad deeds you become a bad person howls for bad people heavens for good people there's a problem in a little what if you're kind of in between you know there's a lot of questions about that but let's assume it's pretty simple well you know that's something Catholic is concerned we're not that concerned with that though right now right even I'm only 41 so worry more about it when I'm 61 I do actually worry about it but so Catholic leaves and Paul Marcus takes over and Paul Marcus is going to try to answer this big question that socrates is asking him this is what the whole book of the public is about what is how do we know what is right and wrong do we have a definition for justice it can't be something just like whatever makes me feel good whatever makes me feel warm and fuzzy right that wouldn't be justice that's what makes me feel good that's something different so what is justice there's a lot of answers to this we're gonna see a couple different answers just in this book of the Republic and next class session we're gonna see another answer yet when we look at book 4 socrates is actually gonna tell us what his position is here he's just you know mostly attacking other people's positions you've all heard it I've heard I a tooth for a tooth right does that I mean is there something satisfying about that somebody hurts you they deserve to be heard right justice is about deserving I'm giving people deserve and we're gonna look at some of the arguments that are that are actually made here how do you know what people deserve well you know they start out talking about cases that are really easy to think about I give you something and I say I want you to hold on to this for me and when I want it back from you please give it back to me money or a weapon I don't we think of all sorts of things maybe some food maybe a family member you know maybe my car right and if you give it back to me that's paying what you all that's giving me back what you you have for me and you owe me right if I lend you some money I expect that money to come back to me someday and why do we charge interest on if you lend so many money do you feel like you know you got to make it worth your while hope you do any of you have bank accounts do you do tell the bank I don't need the interest they don't say that to you they pay a lot less interest than they will it'll charge you why is it okay for them to charge interest just because they can we're using their service yeah you're making use of somebody else's things that makes sense you know if I let you use my field to farm your crops maybe you should give me some of your crops maybe that's what's fair this is tied in with sort of a notion of fairness too isn't it you can think of it in other ways I bring in coffee one day you know like I go to Starbucks and I get one of those big boxes of coffee and put it up here and I say okay anybody who wants coffee come on up let's say all of you like coffee right and I say okay tall people get two cups of coffee short people get get only one cup of coffee arbitrary little arbitrary so you get a another cup of coffee thank you qualify as tall right so you get another cup of coffee what else is tall the rest of you don't you'd only get one cup of coffee is that fair and I get and I get two cups because I'm tall and then I give myself an extra cup and then maybe not I get another cup because I'm over 40 and you're all under 40 for too long I've got like 10 cups of coffee and now that we've lost a sense of fairness along the way haven't we giving people what they deserve there has to be some sort of measure doesn't there and so Paul Marcus is is he's putting something out there that seems pretty kind of sensical it's something that we see in lots of different societies this makes some some sense it jibes with our experience there are some problems with it though and here's where we get to the arguments Socrates raises one big problem right off the bat and you could think about this with anything like this if I give you my gun and I say to you I want you to hold on to this gun for me I don't own any guns right right right now I have before but I don't currently not now I come to you in the middle of the night and I look mad and I say you know that has to be I'm gonna kill him I need my gun now is it right for you to give me the gun or is it wrong for you to give me the gun I mean what it what is what is just to say you owe me that gun don't you see some of you nodding your heads somebody were shaking your heads why are you shaking your head why wouldn't it be just for you to give me the gun yeah so maybe maybe there could be cases where you shouldn't give the person back let's say you know that somebody's got a drug habit and you're their their banker and you shouldn't give them their money back like a clean you know let's say somebody has a prize record collection and they're in a terrible depressed state and they've lent it to you and you know they're going to break it because they get it you know they get something out of destroying things when they're feeling bad hold on to it but you notice this is one of those it starts to get tough doesn't it it seems like well on the one hand it's just and on the other hand it's not just this is where we get to something that we call a contradiction when you have a contradiction you're saying that something is the case and at the same time something and if you can take the same thing and say that it is this way and it's also not this way somewhere along the line you must have made a mistake think about mathematics mathematics is really simple this way if somewhere along the line you arrive at the result that two plus two equals three you made a mistake somewhere right because two plus two isn't three it's what yeah thank goodness you all know that nobody said five nobody said 18 right in that case there's a lot of it always bless either before or it doesn't need before it can't be both this this code can't be both blueish black maybe and orange at the same time unless of course it had maybe stripes right then it's a striped and you can still say about each part each part each stripe is either orange or it's blue it can't be both you might get you know what if it's one of those kind of fabrics where it changes you know the way it looks in the light in those holographic fabrics well is it still you know it depends on whether you're looking at it this way or this way it's still not two different colors at the same time right in the same place so if you can get to the point which soccer teams is trying to get to where an action is both just and unjust there must be some mistake that's why I'm bringing up contradiction here because that's what's going to happen in these arguments whole market says well yeah okay so yeah I get what you're saying don't give the crazy person is going to do wrong but let's think about more common you know examples what do you owe to people and here it is really interesting so giving people what they all are what they deserve let's forget about like things that people have lent you or anything like that what do you think people deserve respect okay does everybody deserve respect they respect you but if they don't respect you it's harder it's a lot harder to respect someone that's a factual statement about our emotions it is harder to respect somebody who doesn't respect us should you do you have a duty to respect them even if they don't respect you what about Hitler should you respect Hitler if he shows up again take the ultimate bad guy you know you could suck in a whole bunch of other people you know Stalin was was just as thoroughly evil as Hitler was so his mouth's a dung so his whole pot you know you can rack up these these people or even we just take you know sort of small-grade serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer he shows up he's dead but let's say he showed up again should you respect him I mean he didn't respect himself certainly didn't respect his victims he drilled holes into their heads trying to turn them into zombies that's how he killed them trying to make them into slaves for all sorts of terrible things horrible stuff he's from my home my home city walking I know so much about him well you know that's that's a good question why is it harder to respect somebody who doesn't respect us because on some level we feel that they they don't deserve it right maybe they deserve something different Paul Marcus talks about in terms of friends and enemies this is you know we don't often think of people as being our except you know maybe other countries or things like that but all of you friends and all of you have enemies what makes a person friend there's probably different reasons why your friends with this person as opposed to this person in general what can you say about your friends yeah there's certain behavioral requirements they should be in certain ways to you they may not always be nice I mean I've been friends of people where we you know call each other names and stuff like that but it was all done in fun it's like when they're not serious about like being like they're never like actually yeah and I mean you can actually have relationships where that sort of fake meanness can seem really mean to people on the outside but it can actually be something that brings people together so certain behavioral things what should they feel towards you if they're really your friend okay that's that's a good point they should be loyal faithful you should probably have some evidence of that you you get to be friends sometimes with people by going through situations where they get tested what else yeah okay that's very good to their open maybe they also keep your secrets there's nothing else I'm trying to get at how did how should they feel towards you what should they desire for you yeah success yeah and success is in the in the class of what if you had to broaden it a bit that's a good way to put it they hope the best for you they hope good things for you they want you to prosper they want you to feel you know safe they want you to feel okay they want good things for you that's what makes them friends what makes somebody an enemy is not just doing bad things to you and somebody who talks behind your back they're an enemy to you why well because they desire to harm you why do people talk about other people behind their back they want to hurt them you know the person who pushes you down you know on the playground they're an enemy to there's an open enemy somebody who talks to you all the time is if you're worth nothing they're an enemy they don't like you they may even hate you that's an enemy you you actually do have enemies we even have this this word that got coined like 10 years ago frenemy it's a combination person who you think is a friend and so you keep them close to you but you also know you can't trust them and they're they're really your your your enemy they're really trying to undermine you okay so what what do you owe to friends they desire good things for you you're not a very good friend if you don't desire that back right I was gonna say return the favor they may provide yeah you should be giving good things to friends that's to be just if you if people treat you well but you treat them poorly in return Paul Marcus and say you're a bad person you're a user we know people like that they don't stay friends with people for very long what should you give to your enemies should give them good things should you give this is Paul Marcus not not what you feel in your heart parts should you give them respect nice try to kill them if you can that's what they deserve you should burn their houses and you know drive them out of town and undermine their businesses and do whatever you can to them because they're enemies you should give them bad things now there's there's two real problems with this that Socrates brings up this is a very attractive viewpoint this this makes sense I mean we may not want to cop to it we may we may want to think of ourselves as being nice but this is this actually does make sense to a lot of people in every society there's one big problem though are we always correct in our assessments about who our friends and who our enemies actually are think about your own experience how many of you have been screwed over by by somebody at one point in time you've had the experience of thinking that somebody was your friend and they turned out to be your enemy right have you ever had the other experience where you didn't get along with somebody you thought they're never just you know scum and then after a while you come to realize hey I kind of like this person that's there does not something wrong with me because I like this person I've actually just come to realize their good qualities movies about this don't we you know the two warriors from you know different civilizations stranded on the desert island they find they have to work together and they actually turn out to be very similar you know this one's got a family back home this one's got a family back home well they that tells them they can actually be friends they can trust each other now let's go a little bit further with this think back to that example where you got screwed over you were probably giving that person good things right that was the right thing for you to do in one sense except for the fact that they were actually your enemies so what should you have been doing giving them bad things so you should have been giving them good things and bad things at the same time we've got a contradiction there problem is we don't actually know all the time who is actually good and who's actually bad sometimes we are friends with people who are really bad you know some you know one of the things that you have to go through in your life probably many times it's cutting people off and saying I'm done with this person you know they're they're no good for me they're toxic they're actually so that's one problem with this the other problem that's actually raised maybe this goes to this notion of giving everybody respect if we if you actually do harm your enemies are you making them better are you making them worse than harming put aside any ideas that they might learn their lesson because you know there could be a good point to punishment when you inflict something bad thing on somebody but it's to try to make them better but if you're just you know attacking your enemy are you making them a better person probably making it worse right making it more angry or hateful giving them more reason to you know fume off by themselves so could it really be justice for you to damage another person is that what the just person is really going to do socrates as I think that your position is very similar to Socrates position that you should show everybody respect Socrates would actually say that pretty tough to do though isn't it with some people emotionally so this is this is these are some problems at this position let's go on to Thrasymachus so what is Thrasymachus say justice he's much more radical he says all that nonsense about friends and that sort of stuff forget that what is justice you remember the formula he keeps saying over and over it's the interest or the interest or what's good for the stronger exactly so justice and Socrates then spruces them a little bit says you mean you mean the biggest guy in the room the one who can say eat the most meat the one who can carry the most it's their interest and Thrasymachus you know this is where he starts to get kind of cocky isn't it he says you know that is not what I'm talking about at all and you know what I mean is that the people who are in charge the rulers impose their will subjects and those are the weaker so you know the cop cop has the gun the cop has the Billy Club and the cop can haul you into jail cop gets to decide what counts is right and wrong not you when you have your own you know Billy Club and gone and and you know your own legal system behind you then you get to do it right then you get to be stronger in a relationship we could think about this not necessarily in terms of governments or things like that Thrasymachus does you some of you probably sure had some parents that were very caring and rational and probably some of you had parents who said it's my way or the highway and you know when you have your own house you can make your own rules but I'm in charge and so you're gonna live by my rules that's the interest of the stronger and you probably said that sucks that's you know BS this this isn't fair and so I don't care what's fair I'll tell you what's fair that's they get to decide what justice is they get to decide what counts as that and you notice it always does line up in these sort of cases with the interest of the stronger it's what works out well for them you don't get to play your music real loud when they have to you know go to work or want to watch TV that sucks you get to listen to it it really matters to me and you get in trouble and and you could say well you know I should get my time to listen to stuff to you listen to your TV and it's real loud or you know why why do we have to go to bed when you want to go to bed because they're the stronger they're in charge they call the shots how come you get to drink and I don't get to drink well could you know they'd say well first of all you're not 21 but then they'd say because it's my house and I bought the stuff I get to drink it not you you know the interest of the stronger what about in in relationships when you're you know with with somebody who you think you're equal with the people ever dominate each other friends or dating relationships you've seen it right bullying is a good example of this abusive relationships are a good example of this so you know you can see this happen a lot of cases and they get to decide what counts as right as just as good stronger get to dominate and they get to push their values and their views on to the weaker and oftentimes people will say stuff like well that's the way of the world or you know that's just the way it goes or life isn't fair they're endorsing a few sort of like this where they say might makes right those who have power get to use it on those who don't and if you don't like it what should you do you don't like being dominated being pushed around by other people yeah what is that gonna mean effectively though just push them away and you're never gonna bother you again you gotta push them down you gotta become powerful yourself you don't want other people to impose their values on you become so powerful that you can impose your values on other people because that's the real test for power I mean how many of you like this nobody wants to cop to that there's always you know people who like this how many of you really don't like this a lot of feelings that way either you you're okay with people dominating you and pushing their values on you and not giving you a chance to grow and develop your own I doubt it but you don't feel too good when people do that to you but that's feelings can we think of any reasons why this can't actually be the right way that's what Socrates is gonna give us he's gonna give us reasons so let's actually look at some of these these arguments these are actually on the handout that I have put into I learn for you so you can if you don't get them quite right now they're there for you so if this is justice then the right thing to do for those who don't have power not rise up powerful make the rules your little people what should you do makes a good person in that case got rules in place they may not actually be you know the best rules but their rules makes a good person what makes you a bad person yeah so what makes you the bad person as you break through rules then what makes a good person follow the rules and the rules may not make sense because you know some powerful person just made them maybe they're maybe the powerful person is screwed up we don't know definitely they made the rules to favor them so if the powerful person says we don't like philosophers everybody should get together you know once a day and hate philosophers you guys remember I think you read 1984 in high school or middle school that book 1984 by George Orwell there it's this totalitarian society it's what you call a discopia it's a bad place and the people who are in charge are really powerful they manipulate all sorts of things behind the scene and they have a thing each day and I don't remember what it's called it's like a hate discussion hate party and they get together and they flash images of these people on the screen you're supposed to hate them and shout at them and this solidifies their their power imagine we did this with with race or we did this with nationality let's say the rulers really liked that they wanted us to we're kind of tough society with that because we've got all these different races and nationalities it'd be hard to you know not transgress against somebody well China's our big strategic the rest of your lifetime you're going to be hearing a lot about China because they're rising and we're sort of sitting still and they're going to be the next superpower maybe we should hate the Chinese maybe we will have leaders who say everybody here better start hating Chinese if you're Chinese then that poses some problems for you right maybe then you just dissociate and say I'm one of the good Chinese I'm one of the bad Chinese well if that's the case then doing what the rulers say even though this seems kind of screwy to us that becomes the good thing to do it serves the ruler's interest doesn't know society here's a problem what if the rulers don't actually know what's good for them what happens then let's say one of us sets up society and sets up the rules of right and wrong and well you know if you put me in charge you should because I'd make some dumb mistakes I'm smart enough to know that I would make those mistakes because I actually have been in charge of some things you know I made dumb mistakes when I was in charge of those occasionally you know I would be tempted to if you gave me absolute power I would be tempted to use that power just to further my own interests and screw over other people that I would probably be fatter than I currently am you know because I wouldn't have any incentive to try to get back in shape or diet or anything like that and you know I'd be eating the sort of stuff that they make over at the culinary all the time really rich desserts and stuff like that now if I made the rules so that all of you are supposed to you know just give me as much pleasure as possible in my life and I'm in charge that would in one way be the right thing for you to do right because I'm commanding it but would it really be in my interest this is what has happened a lot of times throughout history so you'd have a contradiction there you'd be doing one action and it would be both right and wrong at the same time now through simicus gets around this he says you know I'm not talking about that sort of case I'm talking about where the rulers actually know what they're doing where they're good rulers in the sense of their following what ruling is about they don't make stupid mistakes like in a pursuing pleasure or you know killing all their enemies or things like that this is where Socrates comes up with an interesting idea and I'll put it over here instead so this is Socrates think about medicine or piloting a boat or anything you like anything that has sort of skill what does that skill aim at it's different things right medicine aims at what's the goal for medicine carrying diseases and when when the diseases have been cured we have a state of that we call health very good as opposed to sickness when you're piloting a boat don't crash on the rocks right you're a good pilot if you don't crash you're a bad pilot if you do just like if you're a bad doctor the patient patients tend to die if you're a good doctor they tend to get better right you can think of all sorts of cases like this all of you are going to major in something right all of you presumably are going to have some sort of skill by the time that you get out of here and hopefully you're actually good at that because if you're not then your clients are going to be kind of irritated with you when they you know want you to do this and then you screw it up right you want your clients to be happy with you what are what are these skills aim after they all aim after a certain kind of good certain kind of what he calls perfection so you know the medicine the doctor they try to heal you they try to make you healthy now the skill tells the what we'll call the practitioner what to do so are any of you considering medicine you're like pre-med one two okay anybody going into business like finance marketing management what else is big here criminal justice anybody going into criminal justice okay psychology sociology things like that all of these have things that they're about all these have goals all these have skills criminal justice keep the prisoners actually in the prison till they're ready to come out that's a pretty basic goal if it doesn't happen we're all in a lot of trouble keep the patients alive you know manage the money supply build good businesses these are all important thing and the skill tells the practitioner what to do doesn't any do you trust anybody who says I'm going to do doctoring based on my own ideas I've got this system you hear anybody start whenever somebody starts out a conversation I've got this system that I came up with run because it's probably gonna be bad for you for every like you know one person who actually has a good working system that they came up with on their own that actually turns out to be true and work all that there's a million cooks and if you put your money with them or you put your health in their hands or you put your relationship in their hands I think about anyone who's going into psychiatry or psychology you're you're also about healing people but their psyche is telling them how to manage their lives you want to have an actual skill telling the practitioners what to do what the practitioners do they work on the ordinary person and the skill is actually in some way the stronger compared to the practitioner who's weaker isn't it they're telling the practitioner what to do the skill never fails the practitioner may fail and the practitioner is stronger than the person that they're dealing with is aren't they everyone's in a while I go to the doctor's office and they they tell me I have high blood pressure it's usually because I drank like two two pots of coffee and you know didn't eat anything that day and then I explained that to them and they say yeah we've heard all those excuses before whole bunch of people come in here and tell us those those sort of stories we're going to check your blood pressure daily this has happened to me a couple times you know I'd go in for like you know sign us infection they're going to check your blood pressure because they always do now you're on the radar and they're in charge aren't they if you don't do what your doctor tells you you're in trouble you're your stock think of or we could think about prisons right I mean there are prisons that are actually run well where they're trying to make the prisoners into people who you can let out and not have to worry about who's in charge there it's not the prisoners the guards the administration now here's the question that you should ask in terms of Thrasymachus Thrasymachus is saying that this is set up just so that these people can exploit these people is that how it really works let's let's think about some professions are there any doctors who exploit their patients you read stories about them every once in a while don't you do you think of any ways doctors exploit their patients sometimes probably turn them into an experiment oh that's a big one yeah without their consent I mean they were terrible things that were done to people years ago they're probably still being done in other countries you know injecting them with diseases just to see what would happen you know that's somebody exploiting somebody else what else can you think of any other cases yeah yeah that's another good point I had a friend who was a doctor and I was looking for another job I was thinking about changing my profession I always see these drug reps going in and out of his office and so I asked him what would it take for me to be a drug rep when I need like a degree in chemistry or pharmacy or something like that you just gotta be a salesman they'll send you to seminars and you know you learn about that drug that you're representing and that's why I don't buy anything from these people because they don't know anything you know they'll take you to they'll take the doctors out and wine them and dine them and take them to all these nice vacation spots and then what's the doctor supposed to do in return prescribed that drug and the reps unfortunately this is why my friend who is a doctor didn't like them used to be that that if you had like a chemistry person or a pharmacy person or a biology person they would they would have that drug and they could tell you what it would interact with these people who are doing drug drug repping now they have they have no idea so you ask them well can I prescribe this of this yeah I suppose why not you know what that leads to maybe your doctor is prescribing you whatever drug they are not because it's really good because they're getting a kickback there are cases sure yeah there are cases where people do exploit each other based on their you know standing that they have politicians do this right we all think of corruption politicians that you know give favors to the people that do favors for them treat the ordinary person pretty poorly we've all seen that sort of thing happen but here's the question you got to ask through some of kids is saying hey that's the way it is that's the way it ought to be Socrates is saying hey if you're actually being guided by this profession think about doctors again if you're really following the rules of your profession would you prescribe a drug that you are just getting paid money to prescribe that a drug company is taking out to dinner and giving you hotel rooms to prescribe is that what your what your skill would tell you to do yes or no you would be following what the skill demands and you wouldn't be exploiting the people who are weaker you're if you're actually following your skill you're working for those people you are trying to help them out you're working for their interest not the interest of the stronger the interest of the weaker now here's the question you have to ask yourself with medicine okay it's really easy right medicine's all about healing what's the purpose of ruling of governing who's had an election over in Ulster County I don't know if you guys have them over here in duchess County why don't we go to the polls and elect people it's fun you like the way they look yeah okay reflecting your personal views you just have like you know crazy views you know they're not tied to what's good or what's bad what are what are your personal views about they're about your interests what's good for you or also you I mean you might not should be so selfish don't be careful what's good for you you might care about what's good for mom and dad brother and sister you know widen it a bit your friends your community you might care about the interests of other people and so the art of ruling the skill of ruling would be about doing what's good for the community now if a ruler really is ruling that way then are they just dominating people and exploiting them and setting things up for their own interests we all know people that do that sometimes they do set things up just to benefit them