Is the Noble Lie Noble? In The Republic, Socrates suggests a way to make his fictional utopia Kallipolis more just: systematically deceive the populace into thinking they are born in the Earth and have one of gold, silver, or bronze mixed into their composition. His idea is that this physical difference will lead the three sects of the populace to become (and stay) convinced that they must lead separate lives from each other, and not interfere with each other’s work, thus leading to a more just city. He calls this a “noble lie.” To avoid confusion, I will call his lie concerning metallic composition the “Noble Lie” and will refer to the idea of a good or useful lie as a “noble lie.” In this paper, I will argue that a noble lie does lead to …show more content…
Consider the fact that the question of this paper is whether a noble lie leads to a more just city (not the Noble Lie in particular). To answer this question, we need to know what a “noble lie” is in this context. Socrates divides lies into “real lies” and “lies in words”, saying “Aren’t there times when [lying] is useful, and so does not merit hatred?” (63). He goes on to conclude that Gods, being perfect, have no use for such contrivances, but he does not rule out usage by humans (64). Such a lie seems to be what Socrates considers a “noble lie”: a useful lie, presumably useful for some noble purpose. And a useful lie, as any other useful contraption, is useful to the extent that it achieves the purpose it set out to do, and the purpose of Socrates’ Noble Lie to Kallipolis was getting people to do their work and no one else’s work, indefinitely. Note that we also stated that the city is just to the extent that people do their work and not anyone else’s work, but there are potentially many things that contribute to this behavioral pattern in a city. That a noble lie is useful does not imply that it alone makes the city just, merely that it helps. However, we set out to ultimately prove that a noble lie makes the city more just, not infinitely just, so this is sufficient. Thus (2) is trivially true, and the argument as a whole is