[BLANK_AUDIO] Polemarchus, he's the son. What's he like? I'd say he seems like a stand-up guy, as they say. He's loyal to Dad. He's friendly but forceful from that first moment when we meet him. If Socrates doesn't agree to come home with him, he's going to force him. But it's only because Dad would love to see him. Well, you be the judge. I'll try to give you the highlights and my thoughts. You know, I don't think I've said this before but it's true, and you really should try to size up these characters for yourself. It's a little late for me to be saying that, I know. I've been telling you what to think about Euthyphro and Meno for weeks now. But do keep this in mind, if it, if I seem wrong to you about what these people are like. Well, maybe I am, or more likely, maybe there's more than one perspective. After all, if you and I met some guy on the street and I said he seemed like a nice guy, but you thought he came off as a jerk. Presumably you wouldn't just take my word for it. Okay, on we go. Polemarchus says dad was right to say that justice is speaking truth and paying your debts. He defends this position by refining it a bit and quoting a famous sage poet, Simonides. Socrates says, tell me then oh noble heir to the argument, what is it that Simonides had to say about justice that you feel is correct? Unquote. Polemarchus says that to give back what is owed to each person is just. I think in saying that he spoke well. But Polemarchus makes clear he doesn't think that Simonides meant that you should give your crazy friend his weapons back if he's going to hurt himself or someone else. You owe a friend something good, never something evil, and as to enemies, Polemarchus says. An enemy, I take it, owes and enemy what is due and proper to him, namely something bad. Now I may be guilty of seeing too many jokes in Plato. It's true it's been suggested, but this is funny. Remember how everything was coming up commerce at the end up Euthyphro, religion shaping up to kind of be a divine service industry, and maybe that's a bit sordid. And Caphelus as we have seen is trying to mint money into justice, thereby hedging financially against any downside risk associated with the afterlife. Now the son, Polemarchus is turning fighting into justice by turning it into money. Or turning money into fighting and thereby picking family or turning family into money and thereby its just getting confusing isn't it? Take a deep breath. Step back. What am I talking about? Going back once again to Euthyphro we've got circles again in some form. I showed you this slide and I'm sure Polemarchus would agree. You've known me all my life. That's just what my life is like, a circle, friends and enemies, the ones who are close to you, the ones that are far away. Polemarchus says specifically, friend versus enemy. I think us versus them gets at the same thing. Isn't this second picture just the same as the other picture. It's just in-group, out-group stuff? Well, not quite. At least there's a distinction to be drawn. Look again at the concentric circles. The point of this slide, you recall, was to explain how the world looks morally to Euthyphro 's family that it to a normal Athenian, not that nut Euthyphro who thinks all people are created equal or something like that. When I talked about this slide I said something like and when Mars attacks we'll all stand shoulder to shoulder against the Martians. That's true and important, but strictly, there's nothing in the diagram that says Mars is going to attack. Look at those martians hanging out in that outer orbit. They're friendly, for now. They aren't waving ray guns. I can maybe hang out with those martians, do a trade, until they attack my family or the whole human race. I'm not against them just because they're relatively far away from me on the circle scheme. In short, this diagram doesn't say fight. It says whose side to take if there's a fight and a lot of the stuff it implies, take extra care of your parents and children doesn't have anything to do with fighting per se. Polemarchus, by contrast, has a much more conflict based circle view, us versus them. They are against each other, friend and enemy. This isn't clear yet and I don't think Polemachus ever says so or strictly implies it in so many words, but for him enemyship is maybe even more fundamental than friendship, at bottom life is fighting. That's why you need friends, and be it noted, there's a kind of balance, even a harmony, in this picture. Remember what I said. If you aren't sure what justice is, you may just sort of eyeball it, substitute something that at least looks balanced, even, because that's what justice is. I was going to take a few more minutes to wax eloquent about these two graphics. But you know what? The most important thing about them is you don't need me to explain them. Families ties, that doesn't need explaining. You hit me, I hit you back. I'm not going to insult your emotional intelligence by trying to get you to feel what it would be like to feel that way. Unless you are a completely bizarre person, you get it already. The problem is not feeling it, intuitively, the problem is theorizing it, justifying it. Intuitively, family is harmonious and friend/enemy is a kind of balance, justice is balance. Let's reach for a term that might be a common denominator here. Might be blood, blood ties, family, and paying blood debts, an eye for an eye. If justice is eyeballing it so everything comes out equal, things could get bloody. Is that what gets balanced on the scales one way or the other, blood? Let's try something more abstract. Reciprocity, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. In a fight, you've got my back. I've got yours. Regarding that first image you could say that what the circles represent is degrees of strength of ties of reciprocity. You will do stuff for family but not for strangers or Martians. What have the Martians done for you lately? You don't owe them anything. In a way this is a totally normal way to think about it. Families are units of taking care of human members of that unit. Families raise kids, care for the elderly, support each other in time of need. Yeah, and they love each other too. But if you think about the social function of family, basically every family is a highly efficient, rather informal trade agreement, a positive sum exchange of goods and services over time. The family provides security for its members. You give birth to me now and take care of me for about two decades, and I'll take care of you in 50 years. It's impressive that our species is so good at banking that we can adequately securitize such long term loans. But this is absurd, is family just a business arrangement, well, yeah, it's economics. The etymology of that term means household management. You thought e-con meant money in some ancient language? And nomos or Greek or law? So you get the law of money. No, no, no. Econ comes from oikos. That's Greek for house. Economics in our sense is just the logic of how the family home operates, writ larged to the state. Or something like that. But what about love? My family isn't some little free market. Family harmony, that isn't just a long term calculation of mutual benefit over time. That's right. Hold that thought my good child. The picture gets even funnier when we flip over to how the other circles work. What makes my friends my friends is at bottom a logic of reciprocity. What makes my enemies, my enemies, is a logic of retaliation. Payback, baby. Hence, economics? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That is the so-called Lex Talionis, the law of the Talion. Our word retaliate at the same root. So what's odd about it? Well, maybe it sounds a bit primitive, but it's totally intuitive. Well,consider, if you gouge out my eye and I pay you back by gouging out your eye. An eye for an eye. This is in a sense a transaction modeled on a economic transaction? But wait, that's crazy. It's double crazy. First, it's crazy to say that fighting is just a kind of economics. Second, if it were, which it isn't, the payments are all running in the wrong directions. Specifically, how can my lost eye be my debt that's discharged when I take your eye in revenge? If anyone owed anyone anything, surely you owed me a new eye. But actually we seem to think it makes sense to talk about it the other way. Payback, an enemy owes an enemy something due to him, namely something bad. A good son of Cephalus always pays his debts. Polemarchus is defending Dad's attempt to turn justice into money by turning fighting into money while simultaneously arguing that justice is fighting? Anyway, he's beating Dad's mild mannered shield, speak truth and pay your debts into a sword, help friends against enemies and harm enemies. Let's beat this sword into fair shares. Let's turn it into a definition of justice. Justice is, envelope please, helping friends and harming enemies according to Polemachus. Oh. That was pretty simple in the end. Next video, let's try to make it a bit more complicated.
