Essay About Lying And Plato’s Idea Of A Noble Lie

In this essay I am going to discuss the notion of noble lie in Plato’s Republic. The significance of a noble lie is the distinction that is made between a true lie and a lie in just words itself to maintain harmony throughout society. This lie brings about the idea of imitation as it leads to misunderstanding information that is not necessarily true. Ultimately lying is unethical, but if it benefits the society it is a noble lie. Plato wants to divide this city of individuals into three different sections. These sections would include guardians, auxiliaries, and producers. 

To start off, the guardians are the elite of the city and rule over all of the other individuals. The auxiliaries on the other hand would be known as the middle class as they try their best to protect and preserve the individuals that they live with. Lastly, the producers are the individuals that make up the lower class. Plato then goes on to talk about how Socrates will choose who becomes the storyteller of these “noble lies”. This is when Socrates said to Glaucon ‘well then, as I was just saying, we must discover which of them are best at safeguarding within themselves the conviction that they must always do what they believe to be best for the city. We must watch them right from childhood, and set them tasks in which a person would be most likely to forget such a conviction or be deceived out of it. And we must select the ones who remember and are difficult to deceive, and reject the others (Republic 413d).’ Right before this statement Socrates talks about how all of this deception of the truth comes from the idea of sorcery and that is why they need to look closely as to who they choose to be this teller of noble lies. 

Socrates goes on further to talk about how this individual must show compassion for the city while not falling for sorcery as this would lead to major downfall in the city itself. Socrates further explains this by talking about how they will choose among the guardians “the sort of men who seem on the basis of our observation to be most inclined, throughout their entire lives, to do what they believe to be advantageous for the city, and most unwilling to do the opposite (Republic 412e).” This statement clearly shows what Plato means by finding someone to express the “noble lie” to set the standards of the city in which he lives in. Although this may sound like a good idea in Plato’s time, I personally do not feel that this would be acceptable in today’s society. So many individuals now have strong beliefs that they stand for and are not willing to change or adjust to help society prosper. 

On top of this, it almost seems as if individuals are now getting upset about the smallest things and forming assumptions that are not necessarily true. That is why this idea of a noble lie may not work best in today’s society knowing how the individuals now are dealing with societal problems.