Irrationality in Republic VIII–IX

According to the moral psychology of the Republic, one factor that might make people resistant to argument is the power of the non-rational parts: if sufficiently strong, they might prevent one from following arguments that advocate moral restraint. But how common does Socrates take such intransigence to be? Are most people too dominated by their non-rational parts to be able to follow even the shorter route? The best way of answering this question is to examine the account of the four degenerate characters in books VIII–IX, the section of the work that details what happens when the non-rational parts dominate the soul. In this chapter I examine the first two of these characters, the timocrat and the oligarch, concluding that the former might well be open to argument, but not the latter.

Trojan Restoration and the Aeneid in Horace, Odes 3.3

This article argues that Juno’s speech in Horace’s Odes 3.3 includes a short series of programmatic allusions to Virgil’s Aeneid that assist Horace in promoting the distinct identity of his own lyric poetry. Juno’s speech asserts that Rome’s passage to greatness depends on not ‘rebuilding Troy’. Horace’s allusions identify the motif of Trojan restoration as a central theme in the Aeneid’s narrative, and, in a metapoetic sense, associate it pejoratively with the cultural performance of the epic itself in its canonical retelling of the Trojan story. In this way Horace uses Juno’s speech strategically to characterise the Aeneid as decadent and regressive; by contrast Juno promotes moral restraint as a virtue that characterises Horatian lyric.

Culture as Moral Beliefs

This chapter explains why cultural beliefs—specifically moral beliefs—are more important than cultural practices for building a high-trust society because when trust-producing moral beliefs are well ensconced, trust-producing practices naturally follow. Since it is large-group trust that is the key, our innate moral beliefs, which naturally support small-group trust, are inadequate. What is needed are invented moral beliefs that can support large-group trust and the high-trust society. Two problems must be overcome in large-group contexts: the empathy problem and the greater-good rationalization problem. This chapter explains why overcoming these problems requires that beliefs instantiate moral tastes that function prerationally. It also explains why such beliefs must stress moral restraint over moral advocacy.

Barnardo’s Bazaars: Desire and Restraint, Consumption and Self-Denial

Chapter Five considers spectacle in Barnardo’s artfully constructed encounters with objects in his charity bazaars, analysing the notion of the Victorian consumer as a desiring agent in the context of evangelical charity bazaars, optimizing profit by inflecting the sale of ‘fancy goods’ with moral usefulness. The result is a strange nexus of excess and frugality, both affirming and denigrating consumerist desire. The discussion culminates with a look at Barnardo’s concomitant ‘Self-Denial Weeks’ instituted in 1894. The discussion examines the pull between moral restraint and unlicensed desire as Barnardo’s calendar of promotional and fundraising events enflamed in his supporters the desire to spend and consume, countermanded with the moral obligation to self-regulate desire. These events exemplify his ‘snowball’ mechanism for raising funds, a mode that had the capacity to reverberate almost virally around the globe.

Book Reviews

Janice Boucher Breuer of University of South Carolina reviews “The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior” by David C. Rose. The EconLit abstract of the reviewed work begins: Explores the connection between morality and economic behavior through the medium of trust. Discusses opportunism; group size; moral values; harm-based moral restraint; the empathy problem; duty-based moral restraint; the moral foundation; trust; and culture. Rose is Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Index.