Search

IN HIS piece, "Good Reasons," in Philosophical Studies, January 1953, Mr. Baier purports to show that certain facts are good reasons for, and certain others good reasons against, doing certain things, quite irrespective of the purposes, wishes, plans, desires, and passions of the person concerned. I think that Mr. Baier claims to show something much more important than what he does show; and that certain amendments and corrections should be made in his piece. Since the latter may serve to clarify both what he does show, and how he has come to make the exaggerated claim he does, I will begin with them. I will then indicate the respects in which his claim seems unwarranted. On Pain. Mr. Baier quotes Professor Ryle's remark, "It should be mentioned that 'pain,' in the sense in which I have pains in my stomach, is not 65

If stem cells fulfill their therapeutic promise, moving them from the laboratory into the clinic will raise several concerns about justice. One concern is that, for biological reasons alone, stem cell-based therapies might not be available for every patient who needs one. Worse, depending on how we address the problem of biological access, they might benefit primarily white Americans. We can avoid this outcome—although at a cost—by carefully selecting the stem cells we make available.

R ECENT writers on the Republic tend to refrain from detailed discussion of the argument about justice and happiness, the main argument of the work.1 In the last decades there have been few assessments of Plato's conclusions about the relationship of justice and happiness, namely that just men are happier than any men who are unjust, and that the more unjust a man is, the more wretched he will be. Equally rare have been attempts to examine critically the argument by which Plato reached those conclusions.2 In this paper I make such an attempt. My aim is to show that Plato's conclusions are irrelevant to what he sets out-and purports-to establish. The fallacy of irrelevance that, in my judgment, wrecks the Republic's main argument is due to the lack of connection between two conceptions of justice that Plato employs. I begin with an account of the two conceptions. While discussing them, I try to correct some errors and possible confusions about Plato's argument and his understanding of it. In particular, I try to show that Plato consistently viewed his defense of justice as one made solely in terms of justice's effects. I then examine the fallacy in detail. At the end, I briefly speculate about why Plato proceeded as he did.