ABSTRACT
The previous two chapters have shown that Plato is willing to tolerate citizens holding false ethical explanations for the sake of cultivating true ethical commitments. This may seem to suggest that Plato’s ethics is primarily concerned with individual acts and their material consequences. One of the aims of this chapter is to demonstrate that the authors’ pragmatic interpretation does not have this implication. They argue that Plato’s chief concern is ethical commitments (i.e. dispositions, motivations, and affective states) and that acts and outcomes are of secondary importance. They explain how a commitment to veracity is consistent with philosopher-rulers occasionally lying. They develop their notion of ethical commitment by exploring an influential critique of the ring of Gyges argument from Republic 2.
