Plato and the Virtue of Courage

Chapter Six: Courage and Philosophy

an education for courage A careful examination of Socrates’ attempt to cultivate courage in the guardians invites us to investigate the argument underlying Socrates’ indication that the “finer” kind of courage is exercised above all with a view to the good of an individual’s own soul. Why, in other words, is the noble courage displayed by the guardians in their devotion to the city not as good as courage gets? As we have seen, a crucial problem with the guardians’ courage stems from a disjunction between the character of the courage at which their education aims and the character of the courage that they are likely to embrace. Socrates has said that the reason the guardians should be dedicated to the city and willing to risk everything for it is that, in exercising their courage, they secure their own as well as the city’s advantage (412d). But we have seen evidence, above all in the noble lie, that Socrates doubts that the guardians will in fact be happy and fulfilled in their dedication to the city. There is additional evidence that despite Socrates’ contrivances , this is not how the guardians themselves will understand their service to the city, which further clarifies for us why their courage may be legitimately called inferior. One sign of the way the guardians will understand their service to the city lies in Socrates’ comparison of their lives to those of Olympic victors. Insofar as the guardians were akin to Olympic victors, they could understand themselves to be ful- filling themselves when acting on behalf of the city. But Socrates cites the Olympic victors to emphasize the guardians’ superiority to them, not their similarity. Courage and Philosophy chapter six Because the guardians win victory for the whole city rather than for themselves, Socrates implies that they will think of their victory as “nobler” than that of the Olympians and that the public support will be “more complete.” As a result, the guardians are “crowned with support and everything else necessary to life—both they themselves and their children as well; and they get prizes from their city while they live, and when they die they receive a worthy burial” (465d–e). What appears to make the guardians’ victory nobler is the great sacrifice they make for the city, which is why the public support for them is “more complete” and the honors accorded them so extensive. The public support and honors the guardians receive serve as gratitude and even as compensation for their sacrifices.1 Glaucon, too, seems to understand the guardians’ courageous devotion as noble in the sense indicated above, namely, in the sense of being willing to sacri fice themselves for the good of the city.2 Indeed, Glaucon seems attracted to the city precisely because it calls for such heroic devotion.3 Although Glaucon seems to be interested in the construction of the city only once he believes that it provides a path to individual fulfillment (398c–d; cf. Bloom 1991, 360), if of an austere kind, he interprets this fulfillment, paradoxically, as available to those who ultimately subordinate themselves completely to the city. To be sure, by agreeing to the noble lie, Glaucon seems to accept Socrates’ attempt to make the guardians believe that their own interests and the city’s coincide. But he also agrees to Socrates’ patriotism tests to determine who among them will “always do what is best for the city” (413d–14a), and he agrees to deny them private property and private families (416d–17b). Most significantly, despite all the deprivations that the guardians must su=er, Glaucon does not express wonder, as Polemarchus and Adeimantus do, about whether the guardians themselves will be happy (see 419a–20a and 449b–d). That he remains attracted to the city even after hearing the full scope of the demands that it makes on the guardians suggests that he is attracted to it precisely because of the self-transcendence it requires, precisely because it asks the guardians not to serve their own advantage. Indeed, his enthusiasm for the city is consistent with what his speech about justice in Book II revealed is his attraction to the demands of virtue, especially of a kind of heroic self-overcoming.4 Glaucon’s enchantment with the prospect of complete devotion to the city is compatible with his demand that justice be such a great good that it is worth su=ering any evil for its...