Abstract
This essay considers the famous choice of lives in the Myth of Er. It investigates the tensions between the thought that leading a just life has postmortem rewards and the apparent role of various elements in the Myth, such as luck, that would seem to distance individuals from moral responsibility for their character and their lives after death. The author develops the idea that the nature of the choice of lives in the Myth of Er is impacted by luck, providence, and constraints imposed by individuals’ previous life experiences and deliberative capacities in a way that seems to undermine their consequentialist reasons for being just. Nonetheless, Plato’s intention seems to be to leave readers with the impression that they are able to make morally significant choices in life and that those who act justly do enjoy better results than those who act unjustly. The essay concludes that Plato leaves the problems raised by the Myth of Er unresolved, but that the Myth serves well to clarify the nature of the problems it exposes.
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McPherran, M.L. (2013). Virtue, Luck, and Choice at the End of the Republic . In: Anagnostopoulos, G., Miller Jr., F. (eds) Reason and Analysis in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 120. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6004-2_11
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