Republic

That was why, friend Thrasymachus, I was just now saying that no one of his own will chooses to hold rule and office and take other people’s troubles[*](κακά = troubles, miseres, 517 D. For the thought cf. 343 E, 345 E, Xen. Mem. 2.1.8, Hdt. 1.97.) in hand to straighten them out, but everybody expects pay for that, because he who is to exercise the art rightly never does what is best for himself or enjoins it when he gives commands according to the art, but what is best for the subject. That is the reason, it seems, why pay[*](Cf. 345 E, Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1134b 6.) must be provided for those who are to consent to rule, either in form of money or honor or a penalty if they refuse.What do you mean by that, Socrates? said Glaucon. The two wages I recognize, but the penalty you speak of and described as a form of wage I don’t understand.[*](Plato habitually explains metaphors, abstractions, and complicated defintions in this dramatic fashion. Cf. 352 E, 377 A, 413 A, 429 C, 438 B, 510 B.) Then, said I, you don’t understand the wages of the best men for the sake of which the finest spirits hold office and rule when they consent to do so. Don’t you know that to be covetous of honor and covetous of money is said to be and is a reproach? I do, he said. Well, then, said I, that is why the good are not willing to rule either for the sake of money or of honor. They do not wish to collect pay openly for their service of rule and be styled hirelings nor to take it by stealth from their office and be called thieves, nor yet for the sake of honor, for they are not covetous of honor. So there must be imposed some compulsion and penalty to constrain them to rule if they are to consent to hold office. That is perhaps why to seek office oneself and not await compulsion is thought disgraceful. But the chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse[*](Cf. Aristotle Politics 1318 b 36. In a good democracy the better classes will be content, for they will not be ruled by worse men. Cf. Cicero, Ad Att. ii. 9 male vehi malo alio gubernante quam tam ingratis vectoribus bene gubernare; Democr. fr. 49 D.: It is hard to be ruled by a worse man; Spencer, Data of Ethics, 77.) if a man will not himself hold office and rule. It is from fear of this, as it appears to me, that the better sort hold office when they do, and then they go to it not in the expectation of enjoyment nor as to a good thing,[*](The good and the necessary is a favorite Platonic antithesis, but the necessary is often the condicio sine qua non of the good. Cf. 358 C, 493 C, 540 B, Laws 628 C-D, 858 A. Aristotle took over the idea, Met. 1072 b 12.) but as to a necessary evil and because they are unable to turn it over to better men than themselves or to their like. For we may venture to say that, if there should be a city of good men[*](This suggests an ideal state, but not more strongly than Meno 100 A, 89 B.) only, immunity from office-holding would be as eagerly contended for as office is now,[*](The paradox suggests Spencer’s altruistic competition and Archibald Marshall’s Upsidonia. Cf. 521 A, 586 C, Isocrates vii. 24, xii. 145; Mill, On Representative Government, p. 56: The good despot . . . can hardly be imagined as conseting to undertake it unless as a refuge from intolerable evils; ibid. p. 200: Until mankind in general are of opinion with Plato that the proper person to be entrusted with power is the person most unwilling to accept it.) and there it would be made plain that in very truth the true ruler does not naturally seek his own advantage but that of the ruled; so that every man of understanding would rather choose to be benefited by another than to be bothered with benefiting him. This point then I by no means concede to Thrasymachus, that justice is the advantage of the superior. But that we will reserve for another occasion.[*](εἰσαῦθις lays the matter on the table. Cf. 430 C. The suggestiveness of Thrasymachus’ defintion is exhausted, and Socrates turns to the larger question and main theme of the Republic raised by the contention that the unjust life is happier and more profitable than the just.) A far weightier matter seems to me Thrasymachus’s present statement, his assertion that the life of the unjust man is better than that of the just. Which now do you choose, Glaucon? said I, and which seems to you to be the truer statement? That the life of the just man is more profitable, I say, he replied.

Did you hear, said I, all the goods that Thrasymachus just now enumerated for the life of the unjust man? I heard, he said, but I am not convinced. Do you wish us then to try to persuade him, supposing we can find a way, that what he says is not true? Of course I wish it, he said. If then we oppose[*](This is done in 358 D ff. It is the favorite Greek method of balancing pros and cons in set speeches and antithetic enumerations. Cf. Herodotus viii. 83, the διαλέξεις (Diels, Vorsokratiker ii. pp. 334-345), the choice of Heracles (Xenophon Memorabilia ii. 1), and the set speeches in Euripides. With this method the short question and answer of the Socratic dialectic is often contrasted. Cf. Protagoras 329 A, 334-335, Gorgias 461-462, also Gorgias 471 E, Cratylus 437 D, Theaetetus 171 A.) him in a set speech enumerating in turn the advantages of being just and he replies and we rejoin, we shall have to count up and measure the goods listed in the respective speeches and we shall forthwith be in need of judges to decide between us. But if, as in the preceding discussion, we come to terms with one another as to what we admit in the inquiry, we shall be ourselves both judges and pleaders. Quite so, he said. Which method do you like best? said I. This one, he said. Come then, Thrasymachus, I said, go back to the beginning and answer us. You affirm that perfect and complete injustice is more profitable than justice that is complete. I affirm it, he said, and have told you my reasons. Tell me then how you would express yourself on this point about them. You call one of them, I presume, a virtue and the other a vice? Of course. Justice the virtue and injustice the vice? It is likely,[*](Thrasymachus’s Umwertung aller Werte reverses the normal application of the words, as Callicles does in Gorgias 491 E.) you innocent, when I say that injustice pays and justice doesn’t pay. But what then, pray? The opposite, he replied. What! justice vice? No, but a most noble simplicity[*](Thrasymachus recoils from the extreme position. Socrates’ inference from the etymology of εὐήθεια (cf. 343 C) is repudiated. Injustice is not turpitude (bad character) but—discretion. εὐβουλία in a higher sense is what Protagoras teaches (Protagoras 318 E) and in the highest sense is the wisdom of Plato’s guardians (428 B).) or goodness of heart. Then do you call injustice badness of heart? No, but goodness of judgement. Do you also, Thrasymachus, regard the unjust as intelligent and good? Yes, if they are capable of complete injustice, he said, and are able to subject to themselves cities and tribes of men. But you probably suppose that I mean those who take purses. There is profit to be sure even in that sort of thing, he said, if it goes undetected. But such things are not worth taking into the account, but only what I just described. I am not unaware of your meaning in that, I said; but this is what surprised me,[*](Socrates understands the theory, and the distinction between wholesale injustice and the petty profits that are not worth mentioning, but is startled by the paradox that injustice will then fall in the category of virtue and wisdom. Thrasymachus affirms the paradox and is brought to self-contradiction by a subtle argument (349-350 C) which may pass as a dramatic illustration of the game of question and answer. Cf. Introduction p. x.) that you should range injustice under the head of virtue and wisdom, and justice in the opposite class. Well, I do so class them, he said. That, said I, is a stiffer proposition,[*](ἤδη marks the advance from the affirmation that injustice is profitable to the point of asserting that it is a virtue. This is a stiffer proposition, i.e. harder to refute, or possibly more stubborn.) my friend, and if you are going as far as that it is hard to know what to answer.