Philosophy

Events

Socratic Aversion to Suffering Injusticen by Nicholas Smith and James Mire (Lewis & Clark College)

Date: September 2 2011, 3:30pm Location: J.R. Howard Hall - JRHH 102

Socrates claims that he would rather that he neither suffer injustice, nor perform it. The notion that someone would have an aversion to suffering injustice seems so commonsense as to require no justification. Yet if Socrates accepts the thesis that virtue is sufficient for happiness (“no evil comes to a good man”), then it is hard to see why Socrates, being a good man, would have anything to fear from victimization. This paper aims to make these views consistent through a reinterpretation of several important Socratic positions, notably the relation between virtue and happiness, and Socrates’ moral psychology.