I’m once again teaching a philosophy course to inmates of California State prisons. It is literally a correspondence course. We write to each other. The students get textbooks, a course packet, assignments, and the college arranges regular delivery cycles between students and instructors.
The course beings like many introductory philosophy courses. We talk about Plato’s allegory of the cave in which people are chained so they can only see shadows on a wall their entire life. Plato asks the question, what would people in such a situation think is real? Wouldn’t they mistake the shadows for reality? What would happen if they were suddenly exposed to the truth? Wouldn’t their former fellow captives think the newly “enlightened” are the crazy ones?
This story is particularly powerful for many of the inmates who have already served lots of time. Many have struggled with the concept of what “normal” reality is, and if it makes a difference anymore to their own lives. The students as a whole are brighter and better read than typical college freshmen, no doubt partly because they are carefully selected for the program so it’s a little like teaching in a traditional college with high enrollment standards.
The textbook uses the example of the movie “The Matrix.” The students relate to that example as well as to Plato’s allegory of the cave. Will we suddenly find out that reality is totally different than we thought? That sometimes becomes a concern of inmates who have been inside for a while.
The students don’t talk about their crimes or prison life very often. The topics sneak in around the edges of essays and questions sometimes, but they know that’s not what will keep them in the program. They have to study and do well on tests. The most common comment about why they are in prison is that they were too impulsive. They couldn’t control their passions, even when in calmer circumstances they knew they were making mistakes.
Plato argued that there are no evil people, only people who are ignorant of how to act according to the “good.” His solution is critical reflection, a passion for truth, and the demand that we learn to act only according to well-supported conclusions. For many of the inmates if they had been able to learn this perspective and take its advice, their life would be very different, and much less restrained.
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