I argue that Plato holds a medical model of virtue as health which does not have themorally unacceptable implications which have led some to describe it as authoritarian.This model, which draws on the educational virtues of the elenchos, lacks anyimplication that all criminals are mad or all mad people criminals – this implication beingat the source of many criticisms of Plato’s analogy of virtue and health. After setting upthe analogy and the model, I defend my argument against two objections. The (...) firstclaims that Plato's picture of virtue as health is unacceptable because it entails that vice isa defect and therefore that criminals are all mad. The second resists Kenny'sinterpretation but does so by attacking its first premise, i.e. that Plato believes virtue issome kind of health. I reply that both objections are misguided. (shrink)

In this paper I examine some of the positive epistemic and moral dimensions of anger in Plato’s dialogues. My aim is to show that while Plato is clearly aware that retaliatory anger has negative effects on people’s behavior, the strategy we find in his dialogues is not to eliminate anger altogether; instead, Plato aims to transform or rechannel destructive retaliatory anger into a different, more productive, reformative anger. I argue that this new form of anger plays a crucial positive role (...) in our intellectual and moral development. In relation to our intellectual development, anger is often part of people’s reactions to the Socratic interrogations and it often helps or hinders attempts to acknowledge one’s ignorance and become motivated to learn. For anger to play a positive role in the context of philosophical conversations, Plato suggests its transformation from being an outward-looking and reactive emotion oriented towards retaliation (refutation), into a mostly inward-looking emotion aimed at ones’ own moral and intellectual reform or self-betterment. In relation to our moral progress, anger is strategically linked both to the control of our appetites and to the virtue of courage, so anger is crucial to the psychology of the good citizen. Concretely, anger is needed both for the development of the right opposition to injustice and greed, and for the formation of an adequate sensitivity to justice. (shrink)

A fairly long (~15,000 word) overview of ancient theories of freedom and determinism. It covers the supposed threat of causal determinism to "free will," i.e., the sort of control we need to have in order to be rightly held responsible for our actions. But it also discusses fatalistic arguments that proceed from the Principle of Bivalence, what responsibility we have for our own characters, and god and fate. Philosophers discussed include Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, Carneades, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Plotinus. (...) Plato is mentioned in passing a few times in connection with other philosophers. (shrink)

In this paper, I identify two distinct positions on the nature of the body in Plato’s dialogues. One view, which I call the pessimistic view, holds that the body is evil and as such represents an obstacle to one’s epistemic and moral development. Another view, which I call the optimistic view, holds that the body is not itself either evil or good, but rather is capable of becoming either. The two views are, I argue, incompatible. Worse still, each view is (...) individually incompatible with other claims that Plato is eager to advance in some dialogues. The pessimistic view, I argue, is incompatible with the thesis that one who has knowledge will not err. The optimistic view is incompatible with the thesis that no one errs willingly. Here I consider a number of passages in Plato’s dialogues where the nature of the body is featured, but focus particularly on passages from the Timaeus and Laws, which explicitly endorse the pessimistic and optimistic views, respectively. Plato’s views of the body, I suggest, have far reaching implications for his views on the sources of moral error and the power of knowledge in guiding right action. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of the concluding myth of the Phaedo in the context of the dialogue as a whole, arguing that the myth's exploration of the relationship between action, condition of soul and form of life provides valuable information about Plato's conception of the kind of political environment necessary for human flourishing. It identifies three features of the myth essential to this exploration: its self-critical construction of the perspective of the makers of this myth, its focus on the (...) conditions under which violent deeds are committed and its envisaging of the form of human community necessary for the expiation of such deeds. El artículo examina el papel del mito final del Fedón dentro del contexto de la totalidad del diálogo y argumenta que la exploración que hace el mito de la relación entre acción, condición del alma y forma de vida brinda importante información acerca de la concepción platónica del tipo de entorno político que favorece el florecimiento del ser humano. Identifica tres rasgos del mito que son esenciales para dicha exploración: su construcción autocrítica de la perspectiva de los creadores del mito, su enfoque en las condiciones en las que se cometen actos violentos y su visión de una forma de comunidad humana necesaria para la expiación de tales actos. (shrink)

Commentators have contested the role of resulting harm in criminal law since the time of Plato. Unfortunately, they have neglected what may be not only the best discussion of the issue, but also the first - namely, Plato's one-paragraph discussion in the "Laws." Plato's discussion succeeds in reconciling two, seemingly irreconcilable viewpoints that till now have been in stalemate. Thus, Plato reconciles the view, that an offender's desert is solely a function of his subjective willingness to act in disregard of (...) the legitimate interests of others, with the view that criminal sentences can appropriately be made to depend upon how indignant, angry, and upset society is at an offender based upon the results of his culpable conduct. In doing so, Plato casts light on retributive theories of punishment by suggesting that an adjudicator can be committed to retribution and yet rightly believe that it is inappropriate to give an offender the full punishment he deserves. He also lays a basis for the view that causation, rather being predicates for the just punishment of offenders toward whom the public is intuitively angry for harm, is the consequence of the public's being intuitively angry at offenders for harm. (shrink)

This paper provides a new interpretation of Plato’s account of justice as psychic health in Republic IV. It argues that what has traditionally been considered to be one single analogy is actually a more complex line of reasoning that contains various medical analogies. These medical analogies are not only different in number but also in kind. I discuss each of them separately, while providing a response to various objections.