GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

2O ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
The case of Glaucon and Adcimantus falls into two parts.
Pint, men are by nature lawless and non-moral; they are
bundles of imperious desires, and their actions are prompted
by no other motive than the gratification of their desires;
this, at least, is true of man as he was in a state of nature.
In course of time, however, it was borne in upon him that
the measures necessary for the gratification of his desires
were impeded by similar measures on the part of others
seeking to gratify their desires. The acquisition of the
necessities of life food, for example, or shelter, or a wife
was exposed to serious dangers from the greater physical
strength of neighbours in search of the same necessities
as oneself, and the insecurity of life presently became in-
tolerable. It was all very well, as Glaucon points out, to
be able "to do injustice" oneself; but that others should
be able to do injustice in return, was not so well. For they,
after all, were many, while die individual was singlehanded.
Thus in a state of nature in which every man's
hand was against' his fellows, the individual was liable to
fare badly; so badly, indeed, that there came a time when
he decided to forgo his right to gratify his desires as and
when he pleased, provided that his neighbours made a
similar concession, and to indulge only those of his desires
which were not incompatible with the indulgence of the
desires of others which were not, that is to say, socially
injurious. He decided, in other words, to live in society.
Society is thus the result of a compact to end a state of
nature which man's purely selfish conduct had rendered
intolerable.
Man in Society* Man in society proceeds to make
laws, the object of which is to restrain himself and his
fellow-citizens from anti-social conduct designed to satisfy
the self irrespective o the convenience of others. As a
member of society, the citizen conforms to its conventions
and obeys its laws ; but he does these things not from choice,
but .from fear; not, that is to say, because he naturally
prefers to do what is right, but, lest a worse thing befall