Questioning Socrates’ Noble Lie

The Noble Lie — Socrates’ profound claim that it is necessary for a just society to be built on a lie in order to ensure that its citizenry is one devoted to the common good — comes in two parts. Each of which proves necessary for a different characteristic of the citizens. The first part of the lie forms community. Each citizen will believe that “as though the land they are in were a mother and nurse, they must plan for and defend it, if anyone attacks, and they must think of the other citizens as brothers and born of the earth.”[1] As Socrates had previously established, the city must conquer its neighbors’ lands. Consequently, its citizenry must be willing to die in the defense of its interests. Socrates also forms justice into a worthwhile sacrifice in one’s daily life. Even if, as Glaucon worries, “a better life is provided for the unjust man than for the just man,” this lie replaces the self-interest of the individual with the greater interest of the community, thus blessing any individual sacrifice with higher purpose.[2]

The second part of the Noble Lie establishes a hierarchy in the city. The citizens are divided into three classes: the rulers, the auxiliaries, and the trades. In the just society, each person will belong to their class because it suits their nature. “On this basis each thing becomes more plentiful, finer, and easier, when one man, exempt from other tasks, does one thing according to nature and at the crucial moment.”[3] The Noble Lie offers a definition of the basis of this system, identifying a natural element in the body of each member of these classes, which signifies their nature. The rulers had “gold mixed in at their birth,” and “in auxiliaries, sliver, and iron and bronze in the farmers and other craftsmen.”[4]

However, the principle goal of this part of the Noble Lie is not to construct the class system, but rather to ensure that only those who are best fit to rule ever do. “If a child of (the rulers) should be born with an admixture of bronze or iron, by no manner of means are they to take pity on it, but shall assign the proper value to its nature and thrust it out among the craftsmen and farmers.”[5] Socrates protects the just society from tyranny by preventing the undeserving from claiming the throne. This also ensures that each person will fulfill their nature in community with others such that the common good is always advantaged, as the only natural threat to this system stems from corruption at the top. It makes sense that members of the lower classes would be accepting of their children fulfilling their nature and entering higher classes; the opportunity for resistance comes when the children of the upper classes must be forced down.

The necessary nature of the Noble Lie forces us to question the danger posed by the truth concealed. The first part of the lie hides the true origins of the city. Socrates declares that they, as the city’s founders must “cut off a piece of our neighbors’ land, if we are going to have sufficient for pasture and tillage.”[6] Rather than being divinely bestowed unto men from on high, the land was arbitrarily stolen from their neighbors. In truth, there is no bond between the people and the land, and therefore no shared basis for community — other than the happenstance of living on the same accidental acreage. The truth robs the city of its community, and therefore robs it of a citizenry devoted to the common good. It threatens with a fragmented society, defined by individuals who pursue their own advantage.

Socrates’ just society stands in stark contrast to contemporary Athens, whose moral system allowed rich men to “persuade the gods to serve them.”[7] The actual Athenian practice of religion allowed those who could afford the best offerings to avoid divine retribution. Cephalus agrees, saying his money will prevent him from having to “depart for that other place frightened, because one owes some sacrifices to a god or money to a human being.”[8] Adeimantus demands of Socrates to demonstrate “by what device will a man who has some power…be made to honor justice and not laugh when he hears it praised.”[9] In seeming response, Socrates fashions for the citizens of his city a particular moral education, one that safeguards against the idea that “justice is someone else’s good and one’s own loss.”[10]

This education is designed to ensure that the leaders shall not pursue their own interests, but instead be men who believe “that the same things are advantageous to (the city) and to himself.”[11] The second part of the lie though, seems to call into question the effectiveness of this education. Socrates directs this part at the powerful, ensuring they will not privilege their children over others. Socrates says that along with their moral education, each member of the city must believe that “the city will be destroyed when there is an iron or bronze man as its guardian.”[12] The presence of the Noble Lie then forces us to question whether even a moral education designed by Socrates is enough to push aside the natural human instinct to protect one’s own. The Noble Lie may hide the truth human nature and justice are incompatible.

The Noble Lie, more than anything else, seeks to destroy the inclination to primarily protect one’s family. Socrates fears that if this instinct is present amongst the rulers, it will dismantle the mandate that each citizen must fulfill their own nature. There seems some contradiction then, as the just society, in protecting each citizen’s mandate to fulfill their individual nature, must repress another human nature. The human passion for protecting one’s own has shown up before; Polemarchus first speaks up to defend his father, and holds that justice is “doing good to friends and harm to enemies.”[13] Most people will, naturally, prioritize their family over their society.[14] But it’s easier to not live in the just society, and therefore to reject the choice between the pursuit of justice and the protection of loved ones.

It seems that even Socrates wouldn’t want to live in his just society, as such a society conflicts with, if not his nature, then certainly his passions. Socrates is a philosopher, and, as he defines it, “the philosopher is a desirer of wisdom, not of one part and not another, but of all of it.”[15] Socrates was perhaps most famous for the method of his pursuit of wisdom, what Thrasymachus would call “the habitual irony of Socrates:” his endless questions.[16] Socrates didn’t simply pursue wisdom by reading, but by calling into question even the most fundamental beliefs of his peers: like that which says the just society is the best society. A society, no matter how just, founded on a lie, which censors against speech that even points towards injustice, could never be considered a desirable society for Socrates, a man whose foremost passion was the pursuit of truth.

[1] 414e.

[2] 362c. In this way, the individual sacrifice required by justice is in the community’s interest, and the community’s interest is in the individual’s interest. Sacrifice cannot, by definition, be self-interested, which calls into question the very justice of the just society.

[3] 370c.

[4] 415a.

[5] 415b.

[6] 373d.

[7] 364c.

[8] 331c.

[9] 366c.

[10] 392b.

[11] 412d.

[12] 415c.

[13] 332d.

[14] It could be argued that the Noble Lie is actually dependent on this instinct, as the rhetoric of the first part of the lie relies on shifting the passionate defense of one’s family to one’s community.

[15] 475b.

[16] 337a.

Bibliography

Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York. NY: Basic Books, 1968.