Noble Lie

4 Pages 1064 Words

Phil. #1 – Noble lie
In order to understand these different arguments of telling a noble lie one must first understand what it is exactly that a noble lie is and how it should be considered when assessing a question like this. The way I understand a noble lie is that it is a lie that is told in order to keep some sort of control over society, along with it a sense of organization over a group of people. Once a noble lie is told in this form we can assume that people would realize their destinies and understand that they have certain duties to perform because they were given certain metals in their bodies. The question of this assessment is why were these lies told? Is it ever ok to tell a noble lie? Over the next couple of pages I will try to explain the different arguments for and against these questions.
Plato feels that the people should not even be able to control themselves. He thinks that the people should be controlled by a higher power. Thus, might be the reasoning for telling the people a noble lie, in order to lay a foundation for people to assume their roles in life. Plato argues, that the masses of people should be split up into different groups in order to achieve certain levels of balance. Plato says that guardians will be guardians, while those who are to be guardians soon can be in training, these people called auxiliaries, and there should be farmers, merchants, craftsmen, and poor people as well. When this occurs people will then know their place in society, and there should be little conflict among them. However, this does not mean that all people will be satisfied with their roles and duties, so Plato and Socrates reveal this Myth of the Metals in order to claim some sense of unity. Otherwise there would be a lot of fighting and agitation between these classes.
One question that needs to be considered for this is what makes a lie noble in the first place? Is a lie noble because it is for the be...