Republic

When I had said this I supposed that I was done with the subject, but it all turned out to be only a prelude. For Glaucon, who is always an intrepid enterprising spirit in everything, would not on this occasion acquiesce in Thrasymachus’s abandonment[*](So in Philebus 11 C, Philebus cries off or throws up the sponge in the argument.) of his case, but said, Socrates, is it your desire to seem to have persuaded us or really to persuade us that it is without exception better to be just than unjust? Really, I said, if the choice rested with me. Well, then, you are not doing what you wish. For tell me: do you agree that there is a kind of good[*](Aristotle borrows this classification from Plato (Topics 118 b 20-22), but liking to differ from his teacher, says in one place that the good which is desired solely for itself is the highest. The Stoics apply the classification to preferables (Diogenes Laertius vii. 107). Cf. Hooker, Eccles. Pol. i. 11. Elsewhere Plato distinguishes goods of the soul, of the body, and of possessions (Laws 697 B, 727-729) or as the first Alcibiades puts it (131) the self, the things of the self, and other things.) which we would choose to possess, not from desire for its after effects, but welcoming it for its own sake? As, for example, joy and such pleasures are harmless[*](Plato here speaks of harmless pleasures, from the point of view of common sense and prudential morality. Cf. Tim. 59 D ἀμεταμέλητον ἡδονήν, Milton’s Mirth that after no repenting draws. But the Republic (583 D) like the Gorgias (493 E-494 C) knows the more technical distinction of the Philebus (42 C ff., 53 C ff.) between pure pleasures and impure, which are conditioned by desire and pain.) and nothing results from them afterwards save to have and to hold the enjoyment. I recognise that kind, said I. And again a kind that we love both for its own sake and for its consequences,[*](Isocrates i. 47 has this distinction, as well as Aristotle.) such as understanding,[*](Some philosophers, as Aristippus (Diogenes Laertius x. 1. 138), said that intelligence is a good only for its consequences, but the opening sentences of Aritotle’s Metaphysics treat all forms of knowledge as goods in themselves.) sight, and health?[*](Plutarch (1040 C) says that Chrysippus censured Plato for recognizing health as a good, but elsewhere Plato explicitly says that even health is to be disregarded when the true interests of the soul require it.) For these presume we welcome for both reasons. Yes, I said. And can you discern a third form of good under which falls exercise and being healed when sick and the art of healing and the making of money generally? For of them we would say that they are laborious and painful yet beneficial, and for their own sake we would not accept them, but only for the rewards and other benefits that accrue from them. Why yes, I said, I must admit this third class also. But what of it? In which of these classes do you place justice? he said.

In my opinion, I said, it belongs in the fairest class, that which a man who is to be happy must love both for its own sake and for the results. Yet the multitude, he said, do not think so, but that it belongs to the toilsome class of things that must be practised for the sake of rewards and repute due to opinion but that in itself is to be shunned as an affliction. I am aware, said I, that that is the general opinion and Thrasymachus has for some time been disparaging it as such and praising injustice. But I, it seems, am somewhat slow to learn. Come now, he said, hear what I too have to say and see if you agree with me. For Thrasymachus seems to me to have given up to you too soon, as if he were a serpent[*](For Plato’s fondness for the idea of κηλεῖν cf. The Unity of Plato’s Thought, note 500.) that you had charmed, but I am not yet satisfied with the proof that has been offered about justice and injustice. For what I desire is to hear what each of them is and what potency and effect it has in and of itself dwelling in the soul,[*](Cf. 366 E.) but to dismiss their rewards and consequences. This, then, is what I propose to do, with your concurrence. I will renew the argument of Thrasymachus and will first state what men say is the nature and origin of justice; secondly, that all who practise it do so reluctantly, regarding it as something necessary[*](Cf. 347 C-D.) and not as a good; and thirdly, that they have plausible grounds for thus acting, since forsooth the life of the unjust man is far better than that of the just man—as they say; though I, Socrates, don’t believe it. Yet I am disconcerted when my ears are dinned by the arguments of Thrasymachus and innumerable others.[*](Cf. Philebus 66 E. Plato affirms that the immoralism of Thrasymachus and Callicles was widespread in Greece. Cf. Introduction x-xi, and Gorgias 511 B, Protagoras 333 C, Euthydemus 279 B, and my paper on the interpretation of the Timaeus, A.J.P. vol. ix. pp. 403-404.) But the case for justice, to prove that it is better than injustice, I have never yet heard stated by any as I desire to hear it. What I desire is to hear an encomium on justice in and by itself. And I think I am most likely to get that from you. For which reason I will lay myself out in praise of the life of injustice, and in so speaking will give you an example of the manner in which I desire to hear from you in turn the dispraise of injustice and the praise of justice. Consider whether my proposal pleases you. Nothing could please me more, said I; for on what subject would a man of sense rather delight to hold and hear discourse again and again? That is excellent, he said; and now listen to what I said would be the first topic—the nature and origin of justice.