Read the excerpt from The Republic by Plato. But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honourable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls. What is the speaker’s claim?
Answer
A
Judges need to be taught to be as kind and fair as possible.
B
People learn about the world by how they are exposed to it.
C
Making legal judgments is similar to treating bodily diseases.
D
Young people need to worry that they might become evil.
Explanation
The speaker explains that a judge does not need to experience evil personally to recognize it, and that young people who have not encountered examples of evil may be easily deceived. This supports the claim that people’s understanding of the world is shaped by what they are exposed to. The comparison to bodily diseases illustrates the point, but it is not the speaker’s main claim.
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