Abstract

I want to consider the question: whether it is acceptable for those who govern to to those they govern. I suspect that many would reply that while it is an ideal of liberal and enlightenment values that such acts not occur, psychological, epistemic and political realities make them necessary for good government, and therefore acceptable under certain conditions. Rather than address directly the intuitions behind such a response, I shall consider the question in the light of the apparent recommendation in the Republic that the rulers of the city of the Republic (the philosopher-kings) sometimes to its citizens. This focusing of the question has the primary virtue of paring the issues down to an ideal case (given a certain reading of the Republic, it sets out the ideal conditions under which such rulers' lies - what we might call 'governing', or 'administrative' lies - might be acceptable), and so clearly focusing the question of in-principle acceptability. It has the secondary virtue of allowing me to highlight an aspect of the Republic that, while possibly central to the work and to our understanding of it, receives surprisingly little attention. Inasmuch as the recommendation is noted, the actual lies mentioned in the Republic tend to be regarded and judged as a bundle - as the noble lie - and much of the subtlety and interest of this feature of the work is lost. I will begin by noting two discussions that do treat the recommendation in detail and in the context of the overall structure of the Republic: the discussions by T. C. Brickhouse and N. D. Smith (1983), and by C. D. C. Reeve (1988). These also offer inprinciple defences of rulers' lies, in that they argue that in the context of the Republic, and in the light of its metaphysics, the recommendation that rulers should sometimes is coherent.

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