At the heart of Plato's Republic lies a question that is never really answered. This question, originally put forth by Greek Philosophers thousands of years ago (and likely even earlier by others) has still not been satisfactorily answered even to this day. The question comes in many forms, but at its root, it is simply this:
Why be moral?
Socrates puts forth the question in a little bit different of a way:
What is the benefit of being Just? Why choose a virtuous lifestyle over a non-virtuous one?
To which Thrasymachus (no doubt a politician) replies:
There is no benefit of being Just. The only benefits that appear to come from being Just really come from appearing to be Just.
According to Thrasymachus, Justice means compromising ones own personal gain for that of the State, choosing someone else's gain over your own gain. He does admit that there are cases where it seems like there is a benefit to being virtuous. For example, Others may not be interested in doing business with someone with a bad reputation. Virtuous appearances can make it easier to get other people to trust you, which is of utmost personal advantage. However, Thrasymachus argues, the benefit doesn't come from actually being virtuous but only from appearing to be so. Thrasymachus and Socrates agree that being virtuous and appearing to be virtuous are two separate things. In order to separate the benefits and drawbacks of each one, they propose this thought experiment:
Imagine two men. One of these men is purely non-virtuous and yet appears to be purely virtuous. He is held in high esteem by all people. He is daily praised by the general public for his virtue. He gets the seat of honor at all the fancy banquets. Everyone wants to be his friend and do business with him. But in reality, his actions are purely self-interested. He deceives everyone. He stabs his friends and business partners in the back to the full extent that he can get away with. He is very good (almost supernaturally) at covering his tracks and putting on appearances. Anything he wants, he steals from others, and yet he is loved by all.
The second man, on the other hand, is purely virtuous and yet appears to everyone to be purely non-virtuous. He spends his days looking out for the general welfare of all people. He doesn't have much in the way of worldly possessions, because he gives much away to others in need. And yet he is despised by all people. He lacks what the first man has: the ability to appear to be virtuous. As such, all his good deeds go unnoticed. Even worse, he is suspected of dishonesty, treachery, and the worst of things. No one trusts him. No one will do business with him. Even his family has abandoned him. He is thrown in jail, beaten, and forced to live out the rest of his days in a dank dungeon, where even in the depths of his despair, he continues to do good for anyone he can with whatever little means he has left.
How many of us would honestly rather be the second man?
In this light, Thrasymachus argues that since the non-virtuous man is obviously much better off than the virtuous man, all personal gain clearly comes through appearing to be virtuous and not from actually being virtuous. He admits that sometimes it is not possible to appear to be virtuous without doing virtuous things, so in this case, sometimes virtuous deeds are a necessary evil that one must perform, thus giving up some personal advantage in return for a good reputation that will continue to pay dividends.
This is the disturbing problem which Socrates sets out to solve at the beginning of Republic. He wants to show that there is reason to pursue virtue (not just the appearance of virtue). Although disturbed by the possibility that Thrasymachus might be right, he clings to the hope that the virtuous man still has something priceless that the non-virtuous man still lacks, something still more valuable and worth pursuing than all the riches of the non-virtuous man. He never quite reaches a satisfactory answer.
There have been a ton of answers to the question of morality over the years. Maybe doing good makes you feel good and that makes virtue worth it. Maybe God knows the good things you've done and rewards you for them. Maybe you will be rewarded in the next life for the good things you've done in this one. Maybe you'll be tortured for all eternity for the things that you've done. Maybe we were designed to do good things and this is how we reach our true potential. Or maybe Thrasymachus is right and we should all be more concerned with how we appear than with what we do.
The problem with the question of morality is that it wants a non-moral answer. It asks for a rationally self-interested reason to participate in morality. No wonder it lends itself well to the type of answer that Thrasymachus gives. In a lot of ways, Thrasymachus is right. You don't get anything for being virtuous. But at the same time, the benefits of being rationally self-interested are vastly overstated by the above thought experiment. Ultimately, any way you look at it, living entirely to please yourself is a limited and fruitless existence. For me, anyone begging the question of morality is starting off on the wrong foot. It is just not the right question to ask if you want to end up somewhere compelling. The real question is "how do I live a life worth living?" or "How do I live a life that is part of something bigger than myself?". This is the kind of language to which discussion of morality is actually accessible, to which compelling answers can actually be given. Regardless of whether discussing morality in a religious or secular perspective, if you don't start out with the right questions, you'll easily be distracted by the perspective of rational self interest that often dominates modern thought.
