Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors and Editors
- Introduction
- 1 What is the Form of the Good the Form of? A Question about the Plot of the Republic
- 2 Glaucon's Challenge, Rational Egoism and Ordinary Morality
- 3 Thrasymachean Rulers, Altruistic Rulers and Socratic Rulers
- 4 Neutralism in Book I of the Republic
- 5 The Good, Advantage, Happiness and the Form of the Good: How Continuous with Socratic Ethics is Platonic Ethics?
- 6 The Form of the Good and the Good in Plato's Republic
- 7 Flourishing: The Central Concept of Practical Thought
- 8 Is Plato's Conception of the Form of the Good Contradictory?
- 9 The Good, Essences and Relations
- 10 The Idea of the Good and the Other Forms in Plato's Republic
- 11 The Aporia in the Charmides about Reflexive Knowledge and the Contribution to its Solution in the Sun Analogy of the Republic
- 12 The Good and Mathematics
- 13 The Good and Order: Does the Republic Display an Analogy Between a Science of Ethics and Mathematics?
- 14 Inquiry and Justification in the Search for the Highest Good in Plato and Aristotle
- 15 The Carpenter and the Good
- 16 Conversion or Conversation? A Note on Plato's Philosophical Methods
- Index
5 - The Good, Advantage, Happiness and the Form of the Good: How Continuous with Socratic Ethics is Platonic Ethics?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors and Editors
- Introduction
- 1 What is the Form of the Good the Form of? A Question about the Plot of the Republic
- 2 Glaucon's Challenge, Rational Egoism and Ordinary Morality
- 3 Thrasymachean Rulers, Altruistic Rulers and Socratic Rulers
- 4 Neutralism in Book I of the Republic
- 5 The Good, Advantage, Happiness and the Form of the Good: How Continuous with Socratic Ethics is Platonic Ethics?
- 6 The Form of the Good and the Good in Plato's Republic
- 7 Flourishing: The Central Concept of Practical Thought
- 8 Is Plato's Conception of the Form of the Good Contradictory?
- 9 The Good, Essences and Relations
- 10 The Idea of the Good and the Other Forms in Plato's Republic
- 11 The Aporia in the Charmides about Reflexive Knowledge and the Contribution to its Solution in the Sun Analogy of the Republic
- 12 The Good and Mathematics
- 13 The Good and Order: Does the Republic Display an Analogy Between a Science of Ethics and Mathematics?
- 14 Inquiry and Justification in the Search for the Highest Good in Plato and Aristotle
- 15 The Carpenter and the Good
- 16 Conversion or Conversation? A Note on Plato's Philosophical Methods
- Index
Summary
In my earlier investigations of the ‘longer road’ in Books IV and VI–VII of the Republic (pp. 19–44 above), I come to the conclusion that the good which the Form of the Good is the Form of is benefit or advantage pure and simple. It is not some moral good, or some ‘intrinsic good’ (whether utilitarian or quite impersonal), or some mystical good. This, in spite of the fact that moral, ‘intrinsic’, utilitarian, impersonal or mystical goods are nowadays almost universally supposed to exhaust the possibilities as to what the Form of the Good is all about. The Form of the Good is, quite simply, the Form of Advantage.
This identity, I also noted, suggests two important possibilities. First, suppose we could show that the greater advantage of the just human being is that human being's greater happiness. Then we might be able to show that the announced main question of the Republic – ‘Is the just individual happier than the successfully unjust individual?’ – actually is the main question of the Republic. To show this would be to reject two other entirely natural candidates for being the main question or questions – one concerning utopian political philosophy, and one concerning the metaphysics of the Forms. A second possibility is this: we might be able to bring the ethical theory of the Republic into rather closer relation to the ethics of the Socratic dialogues than would usually be allowed.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pursuing the GoodEthics and Metaphysics in Plato's Republic, pp. 93 - 123Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2007