PHILOS 3XX3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Nepotism, Utopia, Glaucon
26 Oct 2017
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The second wave : children and family: socrates (457c-): There will be no nuclear families in the city, at least not among the guardians: instead, wives and husbands will be held in common, while all children will be raised in common by dedicated nurses. No parents will know their own biological children or children their biological parents. Reproduction will be controlled largely by arranging marriages using rigged lotteries, which are designed to ensure that the best people have the most children, deceiving the population. Wednesday, october 18, 2017: falsehood is a drug, the guardians are doctors who know how to apply it. Infanticide will be employed where necessary (that is, where the rules are breached, or where children are born who will not be useful to their society) Note: killing new-born infants by exposure was apparently relatively common in ancient greece. Socrates emphasizes that these arrangements, if possible, would be for the best (461e and following):
