How does self-improvement work? I don't think Plato thinks that people can become good just by teaching or listening. The true lovers are not supposed to have sex with each other because that is going to defile almost the relationship and their co-pursuit of philosophy. Plato has uh something quite interesting to say about internal conflict. But I know I shouldn't, but instead I'm giving into temptation. But what is that giving into temptation? Why do we do things even when we know we shouldn't? This could be dating a specific type of person you know is bad for you. This could be drinking, smoking, eating more than you know you should when it comes to self-improvement. This is one of the most important barriers to overcome. And yet Plato thinks that most of us have the complete wrong idea of why we give into temptation and even self-sabotage. My guest today is Cornell's Rashna Camtakar, a legendary Plato scholar who will unpack for us what Plato's understanding of human nature and psychology has to offer us in overcoming temptation in our own lives. One of the more puzzling statements to come out of Socrates mouth and there's a lot so that's a high bar is that we never act uh against our knowledge of the good and uh primmaaccia uh an issue that pops up is what is called aratic action right action where we directly act against our judgments of what is good so I know I shouldn't eat another scoop of ice cream I I eat it anyway I know I shouldn't cheat on my spouse uh but then I slip up so how do we make sense of Socrates claim in light of ocratic action. I'll start with an analogy that Socrates gives us in the protagoras which is um with vision. So when you see two men in the distance but one is closer to you than the other. You might think that the closer one is taller. But if it really matters which to get it right which one is taller, you will measure. You might use a ruler. You might use the science of optics. And that will correct your appearances, your visual appearances of which appears larger. So his idea is that choice is just the same. In choice, we are making judgments about which pleasure is larger, which pleasure is smaller. And if our life depends on it, if our salvation and life depends on it, then they won't act contrary to their knowledge of what is best. So he's not denying that I might judge that um the ice cream is um more pleasant than the healthy body that I'll have in the long run. And he's not forced to say that I make the wrong judgment. What he's saying is that instead of my scientific knowledge, say what is governing my judgment is the appearance of the yummy right uh melting strawberry scoop in front of me. Um, and that is just like the case where I might be tempted to say that the closer object is larger. But when it matters, I override my appearance-based judgment. And I think he's saying if you have knowledge, you can override your appearance-based judgment about the desiraability of the ice cream. Now, one thing that I think is in Plato's favor is that sometimes temptations give us little reasons for why it's just a scoop of ice cream. It's not going to make a habit. It's not really going to give me indigestion or make me fat or whatever it is, right? Um I mean, I think we have those little conversations in our heads all the time. Even when we say, "Oh, but I know I shouldn't, but instead I'm giving into temptation." But what is that giving into temptation? It's a way of describing, and another quite phenomenologically accurate way of describing it is that the ice cream appears better than it is or more pleasant than it is. Right. I see. Um, when you are overpowered by the ice cream, you are actually just judging it to be good. you you are fooled by that appearance. Um what I want to do now is I want to explore a few other competing theories of what might be be going on. But before we do that, tell us about the stakes. Like why is this an important view? Like why is it so important for Socrates in this case to to claim that we never act against our our own uh knowledge of the good? So in the context of the protagoras where he argues this, Socrates is trying to make sense of how the sophist can teach virtue. The sophist claims he can teach virtue. Um but if virtue is something teachable, then it seems like it should be a kind of knowledge. If it's a kind of knowledge, then it shouldn't be vulnerable to a crowdic action. The knowledge should secure the right action so that you are successful in life. So there is internal to the dialogue a stake that his interlocutor has. I see. And maybe I can generalize for our audience what the stakes are outside of of this specific dialogue which is how does self-improvement work. Right? If Socrates is right that we don't ever act uh against our our knowledge of the good, then maybe uh going to Cornell and learning from you is the best way to be virtuous. On the other hand, if uh if we we can act against our own knowledge, then clearly just learning right just taking on propositions and examining positions as Socrates does to all his Athenian citizens is not enough, right? So, so that that is what is fundamentally at stake is what is the true motor of progress? Is that right? I think that's exactly right. So, um, another thing you might think is, all right, so here's a view that Socrates is defending, but if we want to know what virtue really is, um, is it just knowledge? Does it require acknowledging some nonrational parts of our souls or nonrational motivations that we have? Then we might think, right, we can't just learn virtue by studying. we might have to practice instead. Right. Right. And so now that we know what's at stake, which is nothing less than the salvation of our souls, I want to start interrogating this view and and give at least four different theoretical objections. Um the first one is to suggest that there's a whole set of theories that posit there is a drive for evil or for the bad. Right? Whether this is Freud's will to death, you might have to squint on some of these. Whether this is uh Nze who describes in the genealogy how we all have a drive for cruelty or whether this is Augustine right who says you know why did I steal the pair right this is his famous inst uh story in the confessions it was just because it was wrong. So how would uh uh a Socratic make sense of of these kinds of actions where it seems to be done not just against the good but because it is bad. The first thing Plato would have us think about is whether our assertion that it's because it's bad is correct. Um, do I know what my motivations are simply by introspection? Um, or is my description of what my motivations are um due to all kinds of ideological formations? Augustine's view that he uh stole the pairs because it was wrong is influenced by some idea about original sin. Right? And um Nietze is writing um a a history of philosophy that is in part uh trying to turn it upside down. So I I would question the description. You do it because it's bad or you choose it because it's bad. Now you can turn around and say the same thing to me. After all, um Socrates saying because you judge it's good or because you really want the good is also not on the face of it obvious or introspectively available. But I think Socrates has a sort of neat argument um which begins in the Mino which is that look we can agree formally that we pursue things that appear good to us. Evil be thou my good says Milton Satan. Um, and that desire for what appears good to us reveals that we actually have a desire for what is good because we seek correction. Very often, we are moved by arguments and evidence that the thing that we seek isn't good for us. In a way, in a way, we aren't pulled to the appearance of the bad. Like the argument would have run, right? We appear to be pulled to the good. We try to correct to it but in a way we probably don't like oh how can I do this worse right how can I steal two pairs next time and you know when you were speaking something came to my mind uh that that I think helps with Socrates theory which is this idea of a bad boy right like this like cool archetype that a lot of people want to be where they want to be this gangster or outlaw and they would say we do this because it's bad but but it's really because you think the aesthetics of being bad is good right that's something that Socrates would say to this view. Is that right? Yeah, I think that that's uh right. So there are respects in which the badness is good even if on the whole it is bad. Right. I see. The second theoretical objection against the Socratic view is to say, do humans really make judgments of good as pervasively as this view seems to require? in the sense that it seems like most people don't reason or deliberate about what is good or not and even people even philosophers who do don't do it to to the extent of their entire lives are like this. So the stoics, for example, famously believe behind most human action is an ascent, right? We're asenting to a proposition, right? It's a hyperrationalistic and intellectualist view of human nature. I is that also at play here in Plato? So I think not. I don't think that um Plato requires that every action is motivated by an ascent to a proposition or a rational judgment. Right. Yes. But I think of our pursuit of pleasure, our pursuit of honor, our pursuit of the good overall. So we have these distinct motivations that are good aiming even if they're not rational. So it's not that he thinks it's a matter of psychological fact that we that we do deliberate rationally before we make every judgment and that we do rationally ascent to every judgment but rather that we should to the extent that we can. Right? Um because reasoning and deliberation are better suited to getting at the truth about what's good for us rather than automatically pursuing what's pleasant honorable. So when I'm hungry and I go for food, that's just my h my hunger driving me. It's not my calculation that I need so many calories. It's not a or it's not a judgment that food is good. That's correct. Right. But my appetites are so organized as to get me a limited good, which is the caloric intake that I need as an animal to survive. So what I was claiming was that even my appetites, even my desires for social recognition, right, are gooddirected, right? And so it's on that basis that Plato can say everything that we do is in pursuit of the good. Even though not everything that we do is reasoned. But hold on, professor. Even if Plato is able to defend this view, then he wouldn't be able to rescue the stakes we talked about, right? Because in this view, suddenly there are good oriented drives like correct hunger, how much we should be eating that can't be corrected by reason because they're not uh there's no propositions behind them. Is that right? So there are two different claims here. So one is that they can't be corrected by reason and the other is they can't be corrected by reasoning with them. I see. So um there's a very powerful image in Plato's Republic of the human soul as like an a a human composed of a human being, a lion and a manyheaded beast. And what he says is that the way we should live is to domesticate those of the heads, the many heads that can be domesticated and to chop off the rest. So I think his idea is that we can rationally determine that we should discipline our appetites in some ways and we can discipline some of them. We can't discipline all of them but we don't discipline them by reasoning with them. Right? We train our bodies, right? Education, musical education, right? Right. musical education or just uh you say to yourself, I'm not going to have lunch until I finish this paragraph. And if you do that every day, your body becomes accustomed to it and then the pangs of hunger are not so intense. So that's a way an indirect way in which reason can shape appetite without reasoning with it. I see. But but again, you you lose the claim that virtue can be taught in this kind of socratic examining way, right? That's right. So I think that um the claim that virtue can be taught is a claim that sophists make and that Socrates explores. I see. And he seems to think that if virtue can be taught then it ought to be knowledge. But I think that a lot of Plato's dialogue suggests that um virtue can be acquired by practice as well as teaching together. Right. I see. So it seems that um Plato has uh uh uh conceded some ground already, right? through through this theoretical push in the sense that virtue can't be taught in the strict kind of let's examine your propositions kind of way. So if he's conceding that ground, why why why keep on arguing for this view that that because I thought that was the whole point of the stakes, right? So so why keep arguing for uh this this more realistic, right, but a lot less uh interesting version of we never go against our knowledge of the good. Socrates explores what you're calling this interesting and extreme view, right? Um that very attractive to this office which is that reason can come in and just teach from ground up propositions. Yeah. And um like if I thought that then I would be telling my students come study Plato with me and then you'll turn into good people. But I don't think that's true. And I don't think Plato thinks that people can become good just by teaching or listening. I mean indeed he doesn't seem to think that um even intellectual progress is primarily made by teaching. Um in the Mino he argues that knowledge is recollection. In the theotas he seems to think that you have to do it for yourself in order to actually understand. Um so there is a sort of overblown claim that the sophists make to teach that I think Plato is retracting a bit from right is is critical of uh that's why he's a philosopher a lover of wisdom not one who possesses it and can impart it for a fee right and and um the sophist we should we should probably explain this as well the reason they pro they probably want to argue for this is they want to get paid for their lectures right they want to argue for this so that now you have to come my lectures it'll be the saving grace and then you'll be fully virtuous and then pay me a big fee. Um, okay. After Plato takes these steps back and he critiques this extreme view, right, which I I agree is quite extreme, he seems to have kept the intuition, however, that we're still oriented towards the good, right? That's right. And and so what is the stakes there versus the opposing view? Um, it's an understanding of human nature. It shows Plato to be thinking of not only reason as godor oriented but the other parts of our soul our bodies right so people often think that Plato is antibody but he thinks our bodies are designed for our way of life right our eyes are designed so that the light the the light comes through and we and um observe the movements of the stars which then inducts us into mathematics and rationality. I see. Um he thinks that our head is separated from our abdomen so as to give distance to the motions that disturb rational thinking that come about in the abdomen. So I think he's um viewing the human being as organized to achieve the good for the human being and reasoning is just the best faculty that we have and that's why we should use it to um to achieve our good. I see. Uh if that is true then clearly whoever made me should have put my abdomen a lot further away from my brain for me to be a good philosopher. But that grudge aside, what I take your answer to be is Plato's rejecting this aesthetic view, right? That that everything other than the mind that our our bodies are evil. You know, certain Christian strands can get to this position. Our bodies are evil. They're kind of dragging this noble soul down. No. Plato's trying to say, "No, no, no, no. Um the ideal form of the man or the woman is one who's able to guide all these different even non-rational parts towards the good because guess what they're already oriented naturally oriented towards the good. Right. So that is what is at stake like whether we can affirm our our being in some sense. That's right. Right. So let's continue um uh talking about the potential theoretical objections to even this view. And the next one the third one I want to explore is sloth. Okay. which is I'm thinking about my best friend here. He knows what the good is, okay? He knows what he should do. He's very very lazy and he just won't do it. Um and so I believe in intellectual history people separate out the intellect and the will. Right? So your intellect can know something but your will is just impotent and just doesn't want to do that. Why is uh uh the Socratic view to be preferred to this to this view? So that's a good question. I think the view that Plato has is that there isn't one faculty of the will. Um but if you like there are three right faculties of the will right there three sources of motivation. The idea that there is one will sort of one clearing house for all of our actions does go back to I think the stoic idea which is that because we're human every appearance that we have has to be propos propositionalized and only ascent to a proposition is going to result in our acting. So if you think human beings are just rational, so they're a kind of animal that is just a rational animal and wholly distinct from other animals, then you might want to have this clearing house view that the that there is a single faculty of ascent. Um but then look at what you've done. You've drawn this huge division between animals and non-human animals and adult human beings. you've drawn a huge distinction between a child and a rational adult. So one way, let me know if this is the right way to interpret it. Um the the Socratic way to interpret my friend's behavior is uh there's three parts of the soul, right? Famously reason aimed towards the good, philosophy, spirit to aim towards morality or so sociality depending on interpretation uh and appetite, right? Animalistic instincts. So my friend may um spiritually from the spirited part and what rationally know what is what he should do but his appetite prefers being cozy and comforting and so that gives the appearance of laziness. So it's not intellect and will it's these different competing priorities within him within him and it's his comfy seeking priorities that that sort of uh win out. Right. So that's kind of the view I see. Let me explore the last theoretical objection um which is overpowering and and we we kind of discussed this already. I know this to be the good but pleasure or or some other thing just overpowers it. Um Plato seems to reject this view at least in the protagoras. Right. So so tell us why this this objection is wrong or Plato thinks it's wrong. So in the protagonist, he's arguing very precisely against people who think that it's possible to be overpowered by pleasure, but they also think that the good is pleasure and only good is pleasure. Right. That's right. Right. So he's arguing in that case the view is incoherent. How can the good or the better which is more pleasure be overpowered by the lesser pleasure? Um the model of the soul that this view um proposes is just one on which there's quantities on either side. But then the view seems to suppose that if you make a mistake you're um in the situation where a smaller quantity has overpowered a larger quantity. But that makes no sense. Um there are contexts in which um you know Plato seems to talk about the size of our motivations in terms of strength but then that is a very different picture in which uh allows for a plurality of values. Right? So in the case of your friend for example there's you know the value of getting things done, the value of being cozy and comfy, the value of what his friends might think about him. um those are competing values which allow for us to think about one thing overpowering another. Right? But in the case of the protagoras there's only a monism of value. There's just pleasure which is the good for the sake of which people um do everything that they do but then when they are criticized it's because of pleasure because of being overcome by pleasure. And that's the view that Socrates is saying is incoherent. So what uh the problem that Socrates has with this overpowering view isn't the fact of overpowering because that happens that's going to happen in his view as well. It's the fact that there's only one good in the case of protagonist, right? This is almost like the Epicurans. There's pleasure is the only good and then overpowering doesn't really make any sense because if you're overpowered then you actually got the better thing, right? Like that's right. I see. I see. Um before we talk further about Plato's own view. Um why does uh Plato divide his soul into these three parts which again for our audience is reason, spirit, right? the moral, social, the moral and the social side, appetite, right? Animalistic desires. Why? Why these three components? So he tells us that the appetitive part of the soul is the one that is um that has its impulses from conditions of the body. And he tells us that the reasoning part has its impulses from calculation and deliberation. And so really the mystery is about the middle part of the soul, the spirited part of the soul, which seems to have emotions like anger and the love of honor and self disgust associated with it and shame. And on the one side, it seems to be that it's responsive to social cues. So it um it reflects the fact that human beings are sensitive to each other's judgments. But Plato gives it this further feature which is that it's the ally of reason. So it is that which always supports our reasoned view about good and bad. reasoning is um on the one hand capable of being correct but on the other hand motivationally quite weak that um our being designed well requires us to have something that can be reasons ally and that is our um social vulnerability or v vulnerability to others and to feelings of shame and self evaluation right uh uh in my own case the only reason I'm not 300 lb is that I will be ashamed that my my my mother has told me since I was a child that I should not eat more. Right? So that's kind of the intuition like no rationally I know it's it's better if I'm not 300 lb. I'm healthier, but my appetite is so strong that reason by itself can't overpower it. And so it it requires this other helper in this case shame and honor. Right? That's kind of the view. And so perhaps the answer the direct answer to my question of why there's these three parts is is a functionalist one. Right? It's not saying that there's no more conflict within each of these parts of the soul, right? Appetite has is described as a multi-head monster, right? There's a lot of conflict. Sometimes I want to sleep, I also want to eat, right? Um it's saying that these are kind of functional ways we can think about the human psyche. Is that right? That's right. Um so the different parts of the soul, the different motivations that we have have a function. um and we're welld designigned um because of the functions served by the three parts. But I also think that Plato has uh something quite interesting to say about internal conflict. Um it's not that there can never be an appetitive conflict. But I think he doesn't think that the desire to eat and the desire to sleep at the same time generate the kind of conflict that would make us divide the soul into parts. And that's because his idea seems to be that um you get a partition when you have this kind of opposition that the very thing that is desired is also the object of aversion. I see. Now when you want to eat and sleep, the sleep desiring thing and the eating desiring thing, right? They're not actually opposed to one another's objects. It's not that your desire to sleep makes you averse to eating or that your desire to eat makes you averse to sleeping. You just want two incompatible things. Yes. But what he's thinking happens in the case of the desire to drink when you know the drink would be bad for you is that the very thing your thirst is making attractive to you, your reasoning is saying unattractive, bad for you, unhealthy. Right. I see. And that's fascinating. So, what he's trying to explain are conflicts in the human soul where we're both at once pulled towards and against the same thing. And that's what creates these these different splits, right? So, it's not like, well, do you prefer eating or or drinking or sleeping, right? You prefer all those things. And it's almost like back to the protagonist, it's about choosing the larger quantity or the stronger desire. Um, but then my question is I I see how in appetite it might not generate this push and pull at the same time, but let's say spirit, let's say I'm a closeted homosexual in a deeply Christian society. However, I have my secret society of homosexuals. And so there uh isn't that enough to to to set up this this uh equivalence almost within spirit itself that I both feel honored towards homosexuality but also uh ashamed of it by different social realms. Is that is that not enough to create this kind of right? So if you take seriously the idea that the spirited part of the soul is um reasons alloy and is just wholly responsive to the rational conception of the good then you'd want to say well actually internal to your reasoning also to your reasoning part also is a conflict. Um that being a homosexual is a good thing and not a good thing. Right. Right. Um, and Plato's saying that's not possible or that Well, so if it seems like now we're we're at a a crux because if it's possible, then we should be able to divide the reasoning part. Yes. But you might think, wow, I can't actually hold both those thoughts in my mind at the same time. So maybe what happens is that I vacasillate between one opinion and another opinion. that's a sign of my own uh moral and intellectual unsettledness about whether this really is a good way to live or it really is a bad way to live. Right? So if you can avail yourself of this thought or you find it attractive to avail yourself of this thought that my views are shifting, my views are unstable, then you don't have to say the reasoning part itself is divided. I see. So, so that's where the debate really really goes down to which is that uh Plato's in your reading Plato's soul is still very intellectualist in the sense that the rational part can't have any contradictions at least at the same time and so the only way to explain that is just vacasillating between these between these extremes. Um why do you think that u just outside of Plato why do you think spirit is reason's helper because one can think of many instances where spirit seems to rebel against reason where my concern for social prestige social recognition social status for honor against shame leads me away from doing what I know I should be doing so so maybe here's a good example um a lot of my friends after college they went into investment banking they went into consulting uh tech tech big tech and they know that this is what they this this isn't what they should be doing. They know that they have a calling as an artist or as a philosopher doing something else. But it's the pull of social prestige that that rebels against reason and leads them astray. How would um how would how would Socrates explain that? So I am struck by the following thing that um although our emotions are strictly speaking not rational they're not formed by reasoning they are nonetheless often responsive to reasoning. Mhm. So I think it's a marvelous thing that um you know if uh you knock me over but then you say I'm sorry I lost my balance my anger just evaporates. I think that's a remarkable thing that it's responsive that it could be responsive. Yeah. That it can be responsive to to reasoning. But you're saying, but isn't always responsive to reasoning. And sometimes it seems to be contrary to reasoning. And I'm not sure that Plato would agree with you. This might reveal something about your reasoned desires. So I see your your friends who are in investment banking do not really believe that they should be doing art or philosophy. Um nor is it that they're just pursuing the wealth because of social recognition of an independent desire for social recognition but rather they really want the wealth. Interestingly, when um Plato is describing the honor lovers in Republic books eight and nine, he says about the the honorloving person, the Democrat, that he is pulled one way towards reasoning and another way towards wealth and then he sort of settles in the middle. But then what does he do secretly when no one is looking? He hoards wealth. Right? So it looks like he is describing the so-called honor lover as actually a lover of wealth in that case. I see. So what you're saying as as a response to my to to this example I gave of, you know, someone who at least claims they should be an artist or may even think they should be an artist but is pulled by social prestige to go into investment banking. You're saying no, the rational parts of their souls might actually just hold the proposition uh that um desire for prestige, let's put it, is more important than my me doing my art. However, I think the claim you made was not simply that these two parts of the soul are coherent. It's that the rational part leads. That's right. Right. Leads the spirited part. But in this case, the the rational part seems to be the spokesperson of the spirited part. You see the tension I'm trying to draw here? It seems like the spirited part is leading such a person and not the rational part. So how how do you make sense of that? So if we if we say um the honor lover just seeks social recognition period. If you think through that um what's the content of the social recognition that they seek? Is it possible for them just to seek social recognition? No matter whether you get recognition for wealth or recognition for wisdom or recognition for virtue? It doesn't seem like you can. Uh but if you seek social recognition, then you're going to have to internalize or take on board the values that are socially recognized. There are some people who are just for the attention, right? We know these people like they don't care what the next best thing is whether it's uh uh you know making a YouTube channel or or doing XYZ like what they want is the attention right there are people like that I would think there very few people like that who can say I just want the attention and nothing else I don't want the thing for which I'm getting attention right I think maybe there are people like that uh this is maybe what people think about narcissists but There are very few actual narcissists. I see. Okay. Okay. But but but explain how this argument leads to to the eventual claim that that reason sort of leads uh spirit and not the other way around. So a person who is start with um a lover of wealth isn't just ruled by the appetitive part of his soul. He's also convinced his rational part that wealth is the primary good. I see. And the person who um thinks that honor is the good will have convinced his rational part that honor is the good. But then the special thing about honor is honor is always honor for something. So the response here is that reason holds the final stamp. Yeah. Yeah, even if it's very weak, even if spirit holds a gun to reason and say, "You need to sign this executive order." Reason needs to sign the executive order in order for things to go through. That's the point. That's the in the sense that limited but important sense in which uh reason leads spirit, which also describes why, as you described uh honor can be uh uh spirit can be responsive to reason, right? Because it requires that rubber stamp from reason. That's right. But but that's what it is I think for someone to be a person of a particular type an honor lover or a wealth lover. That's not it's not that reason stamp is required for every action. So that's to connect to what we were talking about earlier with a crowdic action. Reason stamp is not required for a chatic action. That's precisely action contrary to reason. But it reason stamp is required for you to count as an oligarchic person or a democratic person. I I see. So all of spirits, not appetites, actions need to have the stamp of reason. Um, but then I'm going to sort of turn this argument around and ask you, if we take on that spirit is truly uh uh I won't say lap dog is the follower of reason, then how can there be a conflict between spirit and reason in the way that you so described that that it's uh a and not a at the same time? So interestingly um while Plato describes conflicts between reason and appetite he says you have never seen spirit side with appetite against what reason has determined it should do. So according to him on his own conception spirit cannot oppose reason. Reason can oppose spirit right? So you can get angry and then your reasoning part can say shut up now hold your temper. So that opposition uh shows that the that reason and spirit are separate. But he never gives a case of spirit opposing reason. His example of um that's supposed to show the independence of the spirited and the rational part is Odysius who wants to kill all the maid servants that have been coorting with the suitors of Pen Penelope and then reason says stop hold your anger right so in that case spirit wants to engage in this violent action reason is averse to engaging in this violent action that shows they are too well he ever has is a case where reason says do this and spirit says uh-uh not going to do that. I see. But in in the case where if spirit as we described needs the rubber stamp of reason, why isn't it that as soon as spirit like reason takes away its rubber stamp and say don't do this, spirit just stops opposing reason. Yeah. Why isn't that the case? And and then suddenly there won't be he thinks it is the case. That's what he says happens. He says it's like when a shepherd calls a sheep dog to heal, it comes back. I see. So there's no not a and a at the same time between reason and spirit in the way that reason and appetite can be like do this and appetite is like not do this or vice versa. But the the reason that reason and spirit are pulled apart is because reason can tell spirit to stop doing something, right? So but but once it does as soon as it does like there's ever there's there's no actual moment in time where these two faculties are actually against each other. Yeah. I see. Yeah. And so this is why um you don't see this in Plato but you do in Aristotle. There's Aristotle does draws a distinction between spirited and appetitive anger. In our experience sometimes our anger is responsive to reasoning and sometimes it's not. Right. And Aristotle divides them into the spirit and the appetitive kind. I see. So let's take a step back and and summarize Plato's sort of alternative picture of what's going on in the mind is that there is these three different functional capacities that are all capable of opposing each other, right? Uh a reason is is aimed at the good for very obvious reasons, right? Aimed towards the truth. Um spirit is uh listening to to to reason and is aimed at the good because of that I assume. And then the appetite is through natural nonrational means aimed towards its own good. Making sure that we're fed and that can easily go astray. Right. Yeah. In this view, explain to us how a cratic action happens. Acratic action happens when contrary to reasoning appetite drives us to some lesser good. I see. Um we can supplement this with the thought that when appetite drives us also that lesser good appears greater. Um that picture from the protagoras is actually compatible with the tripartite view and the optical analogy we describe. Yeah. And um Soc and indeed in in Republic book 10, Socrates brings it back. So he opposes appearances and calculations just like in the protagoras. I see. um in uh quite quite along with the um division of the soul. I see. So in this view, a chratic action is kind of like the overpowering view, the fourth objection that I gave. But the difference is now that there's multiple motivational centers instead of just pleasure. That's right. And so a chratic uh uh uh issues have nothing to do with the spirit. It's never spirit that's that's misaligned because it follows reason. Uh it's when reason uh and appetite goes wrong. And I guess you don't want to say um reason can also make a mistake because it can but if it makes a mistake you're still acting not against your own judgment of what the good is. Right? That's the intuition. Here's the last question I I want to ask about uh the platonic soul here and it's a quote from your book. The psychic harmony that is justice would have to be the result of reasons superior ability to persuade the other parts. Not that the good is something other than what they characteristically desire, but rather about which things in the world do or don't give them the maximum bodily pleasure or honor that they seek. What you're trying to explain here is how there's a different currency among all the different parts of the soul. Right? The spirit parts wants honor, the appetite wants pleasures. And what you're saying is that when reason comes in and tries to fix appetite, it it needs to explain why it's going to get more pleasures. However, there are certain calculations where the right things to do is appetite losing out, right? Right. And and I I believe we see this in the faded where the the true lovers are not supposed to have sex with each other because that is going to um defile almost the relationship and their co-pursuit of philosophy. So appetite is not getting a bigger boost of pleasure later on. It's just you know it's just being cut out. Right. So so I I just want to get clarity here um about how reason is able to tame specifically appetite. This is a great question. When reason rules um according to the republic, each part gets its truest pleasures. That is the best of the pleasures that it can enjoy. Really, appetite gets the best of its pleasure. The best of its pleasures. This may mean it doesn't get any sex, right? But it has sort of um calm stable bodily condition for a long time. Oh. And he would judge that to be better than sex just on appetite's own grounds. Yes. Yes. Wow. Okay. So, it's a bodily condition. It's a pleasant bodily condition. Um, if appetite were not to change its conception of the good, but were able to take a long view of what condition it would like to be in, then it might well go for the long stable um, bodily glow rather than the extreme pain and pleasure of sex. But it can't. It's it's limited in two ways. One, it can only care about pleasure. And the other, it doesn't seem to be able to take a long view, right? It's affected by uh nearness and distance. I see. So, the claim here is that each part of the soul gets their best possible thing. That's right. How do you reconcile that with certain passages in Plato where it seems like and we discussed this already spirit needs to forcefully come in and kind of almost beat down appetite. And so I'll give you one uh uh image which is in the republic and you know he's he's uh contrasting the city to the soul here. The auxiliaries are supposed to take away, this is the formation of the of Calipulus, of the best city, are supposed to take away the parents and exile them, perhaps kill them, and only leave the the children who are still malleable. And I read that as saying spirit needs to come in, take all of the unwieldly desires and exile them, and only deal with this much more malleable desires. So it seems like appetite is being truncated in that image, right? So how do you reconcile that? So is that so hard to reconcile? It seems like uh enjoying the best pleasures that I am capable of might involve eradicating many of my desires. They would still be the best pleasures for me. I see. Um and Epicurion might say the same thing, right? There are many, many pleasures that um they're very spiky. They're fine. They're spiky. They lead to less overall pleasure and so I should eliminate my desire for them. I see. I can. But that leaves it open for me to enjoy pleasures. I see. Um I want to move on to the second part of this interview which is a correlary claim that that Socrates often makes which is that when someone does wrong they do so unwillingly. So so what makes an action unwilled for Socrates. Okay. So um the term I have in mind is unwilling aon um and the very simple reason that that an action is unwilling is that it's contrary to this natural desire for the good that Plato attributes to us. So because he thinks that wrongdoing is bad for us. It impairs our soul. Doing wrong undermines, interferes with our pursuit of our own good. That's why it's unwilling. It's contrary to a will that we have. It's not contrary to uh will as some special faculty. I think it's contrary to the desire for good which is a feature of our whole soul and embodiment. Right. I see. Um, and this this is why I find it so odd because usually when we try to debate what is willed or unwilled, it's a question about causality, right? It's a question of is am I really responsible for it or not? But in this case, correct me if I'm wrong, if there was a paternalistic government that forced me into doing what was good for me, right? I'm uh forced not to eat anymore beyond a certain amount. versus if I choose to overeat play Plato would say that the first action is willed and the second one is unwilled. Right? And and that's quite counter to our how we use will today. So I don't think that's that he would say that. Um I think that willing and unwilling qualify an action where the agent is already settled. I see. When an agent is a cause, you can you can ask was he a willing cause or an unwilling cause? I see. So in the case of the paternalistic governments, right, that that is an external force and he wouldn't say that that that is will, right? Because there the agent is the government, not you. I see. Um many uh intellectual historians uh who study this time period don't think that a will comes into play. That's right. Um until much later on, right? So so can you maybe draw out that that that distinction there? Yeah. So I don't think that there is a single faculty of will for Plato. There are these three distinct motivations um appetite, spirit, reasoning. And again, it's when when we do wrong, it's not that it's unwilling because it comes from appetite or spirit rather than reasoning. Uh it's rather that it's because it contravenes the desire for good that we have. Right. I see. So don't take will in unwilling to refer to some faculty of the will. Right? I see. Um you could if you like you could um use a different term like involuntary or unintentional. I just found unwilling to be the best um English translation of Akon of his term because um unwilling at least suggests that there's some impulse which is being contraband. Got it. I see. Because often unwilling has a sense of reluctance or something, right? um does Plato ever uh discuss is he ever interested in this concept of the free will of whether things are causally up to us not just whether they align to the good or not. So in the end of the tus there is a quite interesting discussion where he says that we should not blame people who actratically um or act viciously. what we should do is to treat them or if we ourselves have acted in this way we should exercise body and soul so that we will improve in the future. So in that case it seems like he thinks it is up to us to exercise in such a way as to change ourselves in the future. And that's consistent with saying that um we ought not to be blamed for the wrong that we have done. Usually, at least in contemporary philosophy, when we make this distinction of willed versus unwilled, although it's not on the platonic distinction, it's on the causal distinction, claiming something is unwilled greatly relieves or absolves the agent completely of moral responsibility. Is a perhaps undesirable consequence of this view that you are only responsible for things that align with the good. So I I find that the word responsible is very confusing. Yes. On Plato's view, you ought not to be blamed by yourself or others. So no shame or I don't think he thinks that blame is appropriate or productive. Uh you may be praised for good things. You should not be blamed for bad things, but you should be corrected when you do bad things in a forward-looking way. So he has a corrective view of punishment, right? And what's relevant about um the causal role of an agent to punishment is if the action is expressive of the agent's soul then the soul needs correction. Right? So in voluntary actions when the agent is the voluntary cause of his action when he has uh decided to do a certain action that is expressive of his virtue or vice and that's a reason to punish him or um uh correct him. Sorry not not punish right at least not in the retri theory of punishment is reformative right I see. So, I get the intuition of why we wouldn't want to blame someone because it's a lot easier to see perhaps in interpersonal relationships. When I wrong you in Plato's view, it's not like I'm trying to hurt you, right? It's not like I'm trying to do evil. Going back to that first objection, it's that I'm trying to do good. I just fundamentally misunderstand. I made a mistake about what the good is. So, so I can see why there's almost why why one would feel less angry about that. But I'm still making a mistake at least in calculation, right? And so so why why isn't that a cause for blame? There's two kinds of responses that he gives. I think one is that blame is pointless. So you may punish correctively. Blame is obviously not corrective. It's expressive, right? Um but um I think the other thing is that he thinks the appropriate attitude towards a wrongdoer is pity because he has made a mistake. He has uh he has done something to harm his own soul by doing wrong. Um that's the the appropriate response to that is pity and correction. I I see. When we say we don't want to blame someone, it's not that they're not responsible. They they are responsible. The part of blame that you didn't want to use is the like the retributive like right. That's right. Um but this is why I was saying that responsibility is a very confusing term because and people will sometimes distinguish between causal responsibility and moral responsibility but not always. And by moral responsibility they mean praise or blame. And by causal responsibility they mean something entirely different that in virtue of which someone is worthy of praise or blame. So I don't think that we have this kind of confusion in Plato's Greek between responsibility which is a causal notion and praise of blame. Um and he thinks people may be praised for their good actions. I think celebrated for their good actions. They ought not to be blamed but pied for their bad actions. Of course, they are causally responsible for both good and bad actions and there is correction to be done when the actions are bad, right? Um, however, if I if I remember your book correctly, shame should not be felt internally for the wrongdoer. And the reason I bring this up is that it seems like shame passes both of the responses in that number one, it can have a corrective force, right? It can be an impulse. And number two, what is shame if not a pitying of oneself, right? like like I like I I miscalculated so bad that the way I think doing good was harming professor Cam Camtakar right right so so is shame is internal shame possible so I think what you're saying is very interesting because you could say look blame is other directed anger and he seems to be telling us to avoid it but shame is really self-directed anger and he seems to be fine with it he is fine with it, right? Yeah. And you might then think, well, gosh, this is a double standard. Why why is it that we ought not to blame other people, but we can effectively blame ourselves? Um, and I don't know that um Plato himself in any text addresses this tension, but I think one could suppose that shame turns out to be effective, right? It's just an instrumental observation, right? Yeah. Some people, some many contemporary philosophers, followers of Pier Strawson think that blame is also instrumentally useful, but I I don't see the evidence for that. It seems that blame has a lot of backlash effects and um it's yeah it's just not clear to me that it has the effect of improving the conduct of the recipient of the blame rather than making them defensive. I see. And so uh that was the exact next question I was going to ask which is if shame can be productive then surely other directed shaming or like anger could also be effective. But but you're saying no, maybe there is a real difference in in the the the likely consequences of these two kinds of actions. Yeah, I'm sure there are cases in which other directed blame is effective in securing um apology or the improvement of behavior, but I am also equally sure that there are cases in which it results in defensiveness or reciprocal violence or reciprocal blaming. Right. I see. Um yeah. So uh just to be crystal clear here, this uh distinction between willed and unwilled is not a basis for causal responsibility, right? So so for uh when when Plato's building a legal system, he's not saying, "Oh, you did wrong. Well, you know, you're unwilled. You get off scotch-free, but all of his uh uh legal punishments are are corrective rather than retributive or even preemptive, right? Does he allow preemptive kind of Yeah. So there's three ends that his system of punishment uh promotes. There's the correction of the wrongdoer. There's uh deterrence of onlookers, preemptive, right? Yeah. And there's um reconciliation between the harmed and the hmer, right? I see. Um I remember in Gorgius there's I think it ends with the debate of after you've done wrong is it better to be to go punished or unpunished right obviously the intuition is I want to get away scotch-free I want to be unpunished but Plato obviously answers for being punished and his argument is something like well I want the the harmony of I want the harmony of my soul to be sort of reinstated right that's what's most important and so my question is let's say you were in an unfair judicial system, right? Let's say your punishment is exile to hard labor where you clearly your soul will be even more disharmonized than before. In that instance, you would want to get away scotch-free and then do philosophy on the side to harmonize your soul, right? Like I guess what I'm trying to say is his argument in the Gorgius only works in a proper sort of uh corrective judicial system. I think that's interesting because I'm not sure that the correctness of the judicial system or the intention of the judge is necessary for punishment to have the corrective effect. It's possible that um you know a wrongheaded judge puts you in jail for a long time and you um benefit from not having the means to do further wicked acts, right? So obviously this is it could happen. It's not it's not a institutional design that he would be recommending. Um the other thing though is that you know you said you mentioned it would be better to get off scot-free and do philosophy in the laws. He seems to think that the punishment to be um meed out to a wrongdoer depends entirely on what would rehabilitate him. So he says you can punish with pains, with pleasures, with arguments, with anything, with with fines or gifts, right? With anything um because what matters is the end result. And then what are the means? What are the means depends on the soul of the wrongdoer. And indeed the worst kind of atheist is uh visited every day by people who give them arguments for the existence of God. Right? That's their punishment is to be isolated from other people and then to be given arguments. But but again let me just just just give you this this choice in front of you. Let's say there was a minor un wrongdoing you did, right? It's a small disharmony of the soul. I don't know, you stole 10 bucks or like you mistook 10 bucks. Mhm. Let's say you know the judicial system was going to sentence you for 30 years of hard labor where you couldn't think where you know your soul will be even more disharmonized when you come out if you have the opportunity to get away scotch-free and you also know how you would rehab rehabilitate yourself out of the judicial system like I guess the point in the gorgus argument is that you should seek correction right but in in the event where getting away from the law and doing that is a better than being in the judicial system. It's clearly better, right, to to to get away scotchfree. No, you don't want to say that. Um, it's so tricky, right? So, do you know that by escaping your sentence, you will not change yourself such that you won't then lapse into a worse life than before. What seems to me to have been an unjust punishment meed out to Socrates, right? An extreme punishment, of course. Yes. um of death which he um he took on took. Yeah. Right. So why would he have done that? He might have thought look I'll I'll just um I'll just escape with my friend's help and go to another city and I'll Yeah. He was offered that. He was offered that. Yes. Yeah. Right. So he's offered that and he seems to think that's the wrong thing to do. And I guess I I think we ought to take seriously the idea that we can't know ahead of time what that kind of compromise, what that kind of little act of immorality would do to us. It may very well um make us much worse than we think it would. The act of escaping the law or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. because that was exactly the example that I was going to bring up, which is Socrates trial. And so the reason that I thought he didn't go away was that he was he thought it would be a useful pedagogical thing. Like like I he said something like there's no other more useful way I can die. But you're saying no, it's actually out of this concern for his own harmonization of his own soul. Even though on his own account, he doesn't require any corrective harmonization because nothing No, you're right. He doesn't require any correction. But uh what I am saying is that if he were to do this wrong act, right, which he thinks is a wrong act, right, he's violating an agreement to obey the laws of Athens, um that he would thereby impair his soul. He would thereby make himself a worse person. Wow. Now I So one last thing about your thought experiment which I think is really interesting. Um, so you say that the hard labor, the exile, right, would disharmonize your soul much more than um escaping and doing philos or or I'm saying if you knew that it would but but continue. Yeah. Suppose that suppose that it did. Plato might resist that supposition on the grounds that what you do has an impact on your character whereas what happens to you right does not. Right. This is stoic intuition. Yes. Right. Um because even if you are put in really terrible conditions uh terrible imprisonment and work conditions it is in your power to respond to them. So, so the intuition is even if it's a completely even if like Socrates you did nothing wrong right you require no correction the fact that you did this minor act of escape breaking the law that will harm your soul more than even death itself I think what's behind the gorgius argument that it's better to be punished than to go unpunished is this conviction that when you do wrong it does damage to your soul uh Socrates believes that by breaking his agreement to abide by the judgments of the Athenian court, he would be doing wrong. Right. I see. So there may be um circumstances in which an individual finds himself imprisoned by an unjust government and it would not be wrong to escape. Right. Right. Right. So I I there is no blanket I'm not making a blanket claim that you should await any punishment at all. right? Unjust punishment might be um something you should escape. Uh but the special condition that Socrates um defends is that he had made an agreement to abide by the verdicts of the atheist. I see. Well, thank you so much, professor, for a fascinating conversation. Thank you. Thanks for watching my interview. If you want to go even deeper into these ideas, then join my email list at jonathanb.com. You not only get full length episodes, but also transcripts, booknotes, and invitations to future lectures. Now, if you like this interview, I actually filmed another with Professor Camtakar on Plato that you should also check out. You can find the link to that interview and everything else we discussed today in the description as well as on my website, jonathanb.com. Thank you.