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Conclusion “In a Healthy Way” Plato ends the Republic with the myth of Er (10.614b-621d). As the nightlong conversation in the home of Polemarchus and Cephalus winds down, Socrates recounts the tale of Er, a man who has recently died but returns to life to share with the living his observations of life after death. The myth is introduced, at least ostensibly, to bolster Socrates’ assertion that in the long run the just will fare well and the unjust poorly: not only will the just and unjust experience, respectively, good and bad things in their lifetimes at the hands of men (613b-e), but the gods will bestow on them far greater premiums and penalties after they die.1 1. Socrates uses this occasion to rehabilitate the gods and to correct Adeimantus’s earlier unflattering portrayal of them as (1) being as easily fooled by appearances as men are (363a, 366b), (2) allotting good things to bad men and bad to good (364b), and (3) being responsive to bribery (364e-365a, 365e; see, too, Glaucon’s account at 362c). Socrates presents them instead, in Book 10, as astute, just, and fair. Nevertheless, some of the features of the way in which future lives are determined cannot but give us pause, though we are cautioned that whatever goes awry is the fault of the chooser and not of the god (617e). Conclusion 209 Surprisingly, however, the myth provides few details about the afterlife ’s rewards and punishments.2 All we are told is that the souls of the just go up to the heavens and pass smoothly through them (614c-615c), and that when they complete their journey, they relay to the others “the inconceivable beauty of the experiences and the sights” they enjoyed while there; and that the unjust, “lamenting and crying, remember how much and what sort of things they had suffered and seen in the journey under the earth” (614e-615a). We do indeed hear of the terrible fate in store for “those whose badness is incurable”—of these, most are tyrants3 ; only a few are private men who have committed unspeakable evils—as well as for those “who had not paid a sufficient penalty” but nevertheless sought to “go up” (615e-616a). Er reports that the ascent of these men from under the earth is blocked, and that their very attempt to break through the barrier occasions a fearsome roar. Some are then simply led away; others, however, are bound and stripped of their skin, dragged along the wayside, “carded like wool on thorns,” and thrown into Tartarus (616a). Yet we learn nothing about the nature of the punishments to which the less spectacularly wicked are subjected before they venture to ascend, for, Er says, “to go through the many things would take a long time” (615a). Nor are we made privy to the wondrous delights with which the righteous are feted. Concerning the latter all the text says is “The bounties were the antistrophes of these” (616a-b). Not only is the myth disconcertingly reticent about the rewards and punishments visited on the righteous and wicked upon their death, but the bulk of it is devoted to another matter entirely: the way in which the souls of the dead go about choosing their next life (617d-621b).4 How disappointed Glaucon must be, having anticipated a story that would be simply “pleasant ” to hear (614b).5 Among the more disturbing features of the process by which souls select their new life are the following: (1) that their choices are 2. See Ferrari 2008, 127. 3. See Gorg. 525e-526b, where Socrates tells Callicles that for the most part it is powerful men who become exceedingly base. 4. See Ferrari 2008, 126. 5. See Lampert (2010, 275), who observes that Glaucon and Adeimantus cannot really mean it when they “high-mindedly” ask Socrates not to consider rewards: “The goodness of justice must consist in a good that is good for them”; “They want to be just but they need it to pay” (277). This is why, as Bloom points out (1968, 435), Socrates must prove the immortality of the soul, as he attempts to do at 608d-611a: how else can he persuade Glaucon that justice will be fully rewarded? 210 Philosophers in the Republic said to be free (617e), yet it seems that the way they have lived their most recent life or the experiences they underwent in it go a long way toward...

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