Complete Works
Page 153
Yes.
And the gods too are just?
Let it be so.
[b] So an unjust person is also an enemy of the gods, Thrasymachus, while a just person is their friend?
Enjoy your banquet of words! Have no fear, I won’t oppose you. That would make these people hate me.
Come, then, complete the banquet for me by continuing to answer as you’ve been doing. We have shown that just people are cleverer and more capable of doing things, while unjust ones aren’t even able to act together, [c] for when we speak of a powerful achievement by unjust men acting together, what we say isn’t altogether true. They would never have been able to keep their hands off each other if they were completely unjust. But clearly there must have been some sort of justice in them that at least prevented them from doing injustice among themselves at the same time as they were doing it to others. And it was this that enabled them to achieve what they did. When they started doing unjust things, they were only halfway corrupted by their injustice (for those who are all bad and completely unjust are completely incapable of accomplishing anything). These are the things I understand to hold, not the ones you first maintained. [d] We must now examine, as we proposed before,13 whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones. I think it’s clear already that this is so, but we must look into it further, since the argument concerns no ordinary topic but the way we ought to live.
Go ahead and look.
I will. Tell me, do you think there is such a thing as the function of a horse?
[e] I do.
And would you define the function of a horse or of anything else as that which one can do only with it or best with it?
I don’t understand.
Let me put it this way: Is it possible to see with anything other than eyes?
Certainly not.
Or to hear with anything other than ears?
No.
Then, we are right to say that seeing and hearing are the functions of eyes and ears?
Of course.
What about this? Could you use a dagger or a carving knife or lots of [353] other things in pruning a vine?
Of course.
But wouldn’t you do a finer job with a pruning knife designed for the purpose than with anything else?
You would.
Then shall we take pruning to be its function?
Yes.
Now, I think you’ll understand what I was asking earlier when I asked whether the function of each thing is what it alone can do or what it does better than anything else.
I understand, and I think that this is the function of each. [b] All right. Does each thing to which a particular function is assigned also have a virtue? Let’s go over the same ground again. We say that eyes have some function?
They do.
So there is also a virtue of eyes?
There is.
And ears have a function?
Yes.
So there is also a virtue of ears?
There is.
And all other things are the same, aren’t they?
They are.
And could eyes perform their function well if they lacked their peculiar [c] virtue and had the vice instead?
How could they, for don’t you mean if they had blindness instead of sight?
Whatever their virtue is, for I’m not now asking about that but about whether anything that has a function performs it well by means of its own peculiar virtue and badly by means of its vice?
That’s true, it does.
So ears, too, deprived of their own virtue, perform their function badly?
That’s right.
And the same could be said about everything else? [d]
So it seems.
Come, then, and let’s consider this: Is there some function of a soul that you couldn’t perform with anything else, for example, taking care of things, ruling, deliberating, and the like? Is there anything other than a soul to which you could rightly assign these, and say that they are its peculiar function?
No, none of them.
What of living? Isn’t that a function of a soul?
It certainly is.
And don’t we also say that there is a virtue of a soul?
We do.
Then, will a soul ever perform its function well, Thrasymachus, if it is [e] deprived of its own peculiar virtue, or is that impossible?
It’s impossible.
Doesn’t it follow, then, that a bad soul rules and takes care of things badly and that a good soul does all these things well?
It does.
Now, we agreed that justice is a soul’s virtue, and injustice its vice?
We did.
Then, it follows that a just soul and a just man will live well, and an unjust one badly.
Apparently so, according to your argument.
And surely anyone who lives well is blessed and happy, and anyone [354] who doesn’t is the opposite.
Of course.
Therefore, a just person is happy, and an unjust one wretched.
So be it.
It profits no one to be wretched but to be happy.
Of course.
And so, Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice.
Let that be your banquet, Socrates, at the feast of Bendis.
Given by you, Thrasymachus, after you became gentle and ceased to give me rough treatment. Yet I haven’t had a fine banquet. But that’s my [b] fault not yours. I seem to have behaved like a glutton, snatching at every dish that passes and tasting it before properly savoring its predecessor. Before finding the answer to our first inquiry about what justice is, I let that go and turned to investigate whether it is a kind of vice and ignorance or a kind of wisdom and virtue. Then an argument came up about injustice being more profitable than justice, and I couldn’t refrain from abandoning the previous one and following up on that. Hence the result of the discussion, [c] as far as I’m concerned, is that I know nothing, for when I don’t know what justice is, I’ll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy.
1. The Thracian goddess Bendis, whose cult had recently been introduced in the Piraeus, the harbor town of Athens.
2. Iliad xxii.60, xxiv.487; Odyssey xv.246, 348, xxiii.212.
3. “God ever draws together like to like” (Odyssey xvii.218).
4. Frg. 214 (Snell).
5. Simonides (c. 548–468 B.C.), a lyric and elegiac poet, was born in the Aegean island of Ceos.
6. Here and in what follows “craft” translates technē. As Socrates conceives it a technē is a disciplined body of knowledge founded on a grasp of the truth about what is good and bad, right and wrong, in the matters of concern to it.
7. Odyssey xix.392–98.
8. I.e., aretē. Aretē is broader than our notion of virtue, which tends to be applied only to human beings, and restricted to good sexual behavior or helpfulness on their part to others. Aretē could equally be translated “excellence” or “goodness.” Thus if something is a knife (say) its aretē or “virtue” as a knife is that state or property of it that makes it a good knife—having a sharp blade, and so on. So with the virtue of a man: this might include being intelligent, well-born, or courageous, as well as being just and sexually well-behaved.
9. The first three named are notorious tyrants or kings, the fourth a man famous for his extraordinary wealth.
10. The pancration was a mixture of boxing and wrestling.
11. The temples acted as public treasuries, so that a temple robber is much like a present-day bank robber.
12. See 341e–342e.
13. See 347e.
Book II
[357] When I said this, I thought I had done with the discussion, but it turned out to have been only a prelude. Glaucon showed his characteristic courage on this occasion too and refused to accept Thrasymachus’ abandonment of the argument. Socrates, he said, do you want to seem to have persuaded us that it is better
in every way to be just than unjust, or do you want [b] truly to convince us of this?
I want truly to convince you, I said, if I can.
Well, then, you certainly aren’t doing what you want. Tell me, do you think there is a kind of good we welcome, not because we desire what comes from it, but because we welcome it for its own sake—joy, for example, and all the harmless pleasures that have no results beyond the joy of having them?
Certainly, I think there are such things.
And is there a kind of good we like for its own sake and also for the sake of what comes from it—knowing, for example, and seeing and being [c] healthy? We welcome such things, I suppose, on both counts.
Yes.
And do you also see a third kind of good, such as physical training, medical treatment when sick, medicine itself, and the other ways of making money? We’d say that these are onerous but beneficial to us, and we wouldn’t choose them for their own sakes, but for the sake of the rewards and other things that come from them. [d]
There is also this third kind. But what of it?
Where do you put justice?
I myself put it among the finest goods, as something to be valued by [358] anyone who is going to be blessed with happiness, both because of itself and because of what comes from it.
That isn’t most people’s opinion. They’d say that justice belongs to the onerous kind, and is to be practiced for the sake of the rewards and popularity that come from a reputation for justice, but is to be avoided because of itself as something burdensome.
I know that’s the general opinion. Thrasymachus faulted justice on these grounds a moment ago and praised injustice, but it seems that I’m a slow learner.
Come, then, and listen to me as well, and see whether you still have [b] that problem, for I think that Thrasymachus gave up before he had to, charmed by you as if he were a snake. But I’m not yet satisfied by the argument on either side. I want to know what justice and injustice are and what power each itself has when it’s by itself in the soul. I want to leave out of account their rewards and what comes from each of them. So, if you agree, I’ll renew the argument of Thrasymachus. First, I’ll state what kind of thing people consider justice to be and what its origins are. Second, [c] I’ll argue that all who practice it do so unwillingly, as something necessary, not as something good. Third, I’ll argue that they have good reason to act as they do, for the life of an unjust person is, they say, much better than that of a just one.
It isn’t, Socrates, that I believe any of that myself. I’m perplexed, indeed, and my ears are deafened listening to Thrasymachus and countless others. But I’ve yet to hear anyone defend justice in the way I want, proving that it is better than injustice. I want to hear it praised by itself, and I think that [d] I’m most likely to hear this from you. Therefore, I’m going to speak at length in praise of the unjust life, and in doing so I’ll show you the way I want to hear you praising justice and denouncing injustice. But see whether you want me to do that or not.
I want that most of all. Indeed, what subject could someone with any understanding enjoy discussing more often?
Excellent. Then let’s discuss the first subject I mentioned—what justice [e] is and what its origins are.
They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice bad, but that the badness of suffering it so far exceeds the goodness of doing it that those who have done and suffered injustice and tasted both, but who lack the power to do it and avoid suffering it, decide that it is [359] profitable to come to an agreement with each other neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. As a result, they begin to make laws and covenants, and what the law commands they call lawful and just. This, they say, is the origin and essence of justice. It is intermediate between the best and the worst. The best is to do injustice without paying the penalty; the worst is to suffer it without being able to take revenge. Justice is a mean between these two extremes. People value it not as a good but because they are [b] too weak to do injustice with impunity. Someone who has the power to do this, however, and is a true man wouldn’t make an agreement with anyone not to do injustice in order not to suffer it. For him that would be madness. This is the nature of justice, according to the argument, Socrates, and these are its natural origins. We can see most clearly that those who practice justice do it unwillingly [c] and because they lack the power to do injustice, if in our thoughts we grant to a just and an unjust person the freedom to do whatever they like. We can then follow both of them and see where their desires would lead. And we’ll catch the just person red-handed travelling the same road as the unjust. The reason for this is the desire to outdo others and get more and more. This is what anyone’s nature naturally pursues as good, but nature is forced by law into the perversion of treating fairness with respect.
The freedom I mentioned would be most easily realized if both people had the power they say the ancestor of Gyges of Lydia possessed. The [d] story goes that he was a shepherd in the service of the ruler of Lydia. There was a violent thunderstorm, and an earthquake broke open the ground and created a chasm at the place where he was tending his sheep. Seeing this, he was filled with amazement and went down into it. And there, in addition to many other wonders of which we’re told, he saw a hollow bronze horse. There were window-like openings in it, and, peeping in, he saw a corpse, which seemed to be of more than human size, wearing [e] nothing but a gold ring on its finger. He took the ring and came out of the chasm. He wore the ring at the usual monthly meeting that reported to the king on the state of the flocks. And as he was sitting among the others, he happened to turn the setting of the ring towards himself to the inside of his hand. When he did this, he became invisible to those sitting [360] near him, and they went on talking as if he had gone. He wondered at this, and, fingering the ring, he turned the setting outwards again and became visible. So he experimented with the ring to test whether it indeed had this power—and it did. If he turned the setting inward, he became invisible; if he turned it outward, he became visible again. When he realized this, he at once arranged to become one of the messengers sent to report to the king. And when he arrived there, he seduced the king’s wife, attacked [b] the king with her help, killed him, and took over the kingdom.
Let’s suppose, then, that there were two such rings, one worn by a just and the other by an unjust person. Now, no one, it seems, would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice or stay away from other people’s property, when he could take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do [c] all the other things that would make him like a god among humans. Rather his actions would be in no way different from those of an unjust person, and both would follow the same path. This, some would say, is a great proof that one is never just willingly but only when compelled to be. No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept private, since, wherever either person thinks he can do injustice with impunity, he does it. Indeed, every man believes that injustice is far more profitable to himself than justice. And any exponent of this argument will say he’s right, for someone [d] who didn’t want to do injustice, given this sort of opportunity, and who didn’t touch other people’s property would be thought wretched and stupid by everyone aware of the situation, though, of course, they’d praise him in public, deceiving each other for fear of suffering injustice. So much for my second topic.
As for the choice between the lives we’re discussing, we’ll be able to make a correct judgment about that only if we separate the most just and [e] make a correct judgment about that only if we separate the most just and the most unjust. Otherwise we won’t be able to do it. Here’s the separation I have in mind. We’ll subtract nothing from the injustice of an unjust person and nothing from the justice of a just one, but we’ll take each to be complete in his own way of life. First, therefore, we must suppose that an unjust person will act as clever craftsmen do: A fi
rst-rate captain or doctor, for example, knows the difference between what his craft can and [361] can’t do. He attempts the first but lets the second go by, and if he happens to slip, he can put things right. In the same way, an unjust person’s successful attempts at injustice must remain undetected, if he is to be fully unjust. Anyone who is caught should be thought inept, for the extreme of injustice is to be believed to be just without being just. And our completely unjust person must be given complete injustice; nothing may be subtracted from it. We must allow that, while doing the greatest injustice, he has nonetheless provided himself with the greatest reputation for justice. If he happens to make a slip, he must be able to put it right. If any of his [b] unjust activities should be discovered, he must be able to speak persuasively or to use force. And if force is needed, he must have the help of courage and strength and of the substantial wealth and friends with which he has provided himself.
Having hypothesized such a person, let’s now in our argument put beside him a just man, who is simple and noble and who, as Aeschylus says, doesn’t want to be believed to be good but to be so.1 We must take [c] away his reputation, for a reputation for justice would bring him honor and rewards, so that it wouldn’t be clear whether he is just for the sake of justice itself or for the sake of those honors and rewards. We must strip him of everything except justice and make his situation the opposite of an unjust person’s. Though he does no injustice, he must have the greatest reputation for it, so that he can be tested as regards justice unsoftened by his bad reputation and its effects. Let him stay like that unchanged until [d] he dies—just, but all his life believed to be unjust. In this way, both will reach the extremes, the one of justice and the other of injustice, and we’ll be able to judge which of them is happier.
Whew! Glaucon, I said, how vigorously you’ve scoured each of the men for our competition, just as you would a pair of statues for an art competition.
I do the best I can, he replied. Since the two are as I’ve described, in any case, it shouldn’t be difficult to complete the account of the kind of life that awaits each of them, but it must be done. And if what I say sounds [e] crude, Socrates, remember that it isn’t I who speak but those who praise injustice at the expense of justice. They’ll say that a just person in such circumstances will be whipped, stretched on a rack, chained, blinded with fire, and, at the end, when he has suffered every kind of evil, he’ll be impaled, and will realize then that one shouldn’t want to be just but to [362] be believed to be just. Indeed, Aeschylus’ words are far more correctly applied to unjust people than to just ones, for the supporters of injustice will say that a really unjust person, having a way of life based on the truth about things and not living in accordance with opinion, doesn’t want simply to be believed to be unjust but actually to be so—