PLATO’S REPUBLIC: “ON JUSTICE” jus·tice noun 1. The quality of being just; fairness. 2. a. The principle of moral rightness; equity. b. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness….
1. EDITH HAMILTON’s comments:
The Republic is the best known and generally considered the greatest of the dialogues. It is in chief part a construction of the ideal state undertaken by Socrates at the insistence of two young men who have been listening to a discussion in which Socrates has stated that the just man, not the unjust, is the happy man. At this point the two, Glaucon and Adimantus, break in, declaring that they have never heard the superiority of the just asserted convincingly by anyone, and they challenge Socrates to do so. What follows is a summary of the way they see the argument. Let Socrates describe what happens to a perfectly just and a perfectly unjust man and prove if he can that the advantage rests with the former. He must allow to the unjust the ability to conceal his injustice— anyone who is found out is a mere nobody. He will also be able to paint black white by his determination and command of money and supporters. Then put beside him the just man, noble, single-minded, wanting not to seem, but to be good. He will be unpopular and misunderstood because he is so superior. He will always act with perfect justice and constantly be misjudged. Certainly he will suffer many hardships, be thrown into prison very likely, scourged, racked, even put to death, when at last he will see that he ought to have seemed, but never to have been, just. Whereas a man who is, but never seems, unjust will be honored everywhere. He can act in business and in politics always to his own advantage because he has no misgiving about injustice. Are you going to say, But what about the world to come? Suppose there isn't any. Even if there is, we can repent for our sins and pray and be forgiven and so on, and in the end, after death, perhaps not be punished at all. What we are saying is realistic. Don't answer it by telling us that justice is noble and injustice base. Tell us what effect they have on a man which makes the one a pure good and the other a pure evil. Socrates declares that he is delighted at the opportunity, but in taking up so serious a subject he will suggest that they begin with something easier than two individual men, something bigger where the just and the unjust can be seen more clearly. "Perhaps there would be more justice in the larger object," he says. "Let us first look for its quality in states, and then only examine it in the individual." They agree and the first and by far the greatest of all utopias ever imagined is the result. It is, of course, not ruled by laws under which injustice inevitably occurs, but by men and women who have been carefully selected in youth and become wise and good by a long training. The world will never be justly ruled until rulers are philosophers, that is, until they are themselves ruled by the idea of the good, which is divine perfection and brings about justice, which is human perfection. But the Republic is more than the construction of the best possible state as a standard for all states and for all officials who toil at politics for the public good, not as though it was something fine, but only something necessary to be done. The Republic also lays down a standard for human life. To order a state rightly men's souls must be raised to behold the universal light. There is truth beyond this shifting, changing world and men can seek and find it. The just state may never come into being, but a man can always be just, and only the just can know what justice is. Of this Socrates himself was the proof. He showed the truth by living it and dying for it. At the end of Book IX of the Republic when the perfect state has finally been constructed, Adimantus says, "I think that it can be found nowhere on earth." "Perhaps," answers Socrates, "there is a pattern of it laid up in heaven for him who wishes to contemplate it. But it makes no difference whether it exists now or ever will come into being." A man can order his life by its laws.
1 2. HOW THE DIALOGUE BEGINS
From Book I:
I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, to pay my devotions to the goddess, and also because I wished to see how they would conduct the festival, since this was its inauguration. I thought the procession of the citizens very fine, but it was no better than the show made by the marching of the Thracian contingent. After we had said our prayers and seen the spectacle we were starting for town when Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, caught sight of us from a distance as we were hastening homeward and ordered his boy run and bid us to wait for him, and the boy caught hold of my himation from behind and said, Polemarchus wants you to wait. And I turned around and asked where his master was. There he is, he said, behind you, coming this way. Wait for him. So we will, said Glaucon. And shortly after Polemarchus came up and Adimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and a few others apparently from the procession. Whereupon Polemarchus said, Socrates, you appear to have turned your faces townward and to be going to leave us. Not a bad guess, said I. But you see how many we are? he said. Surely. You must either then prove yourselves the better men or stay here. Why, is there not left, said I, the alternative of our persuading you that you ought to let us go? But could you persuade us, said he, if we refused to listen? Nohow, said Glaucon. Well, we won't listen, and you might as well make up your minds to it. Do you mean to say, interposed Adimantus, that you haven't heard that there is to be a torchlight race this evening on horseback in honor of the goddess? On horseback? said I. That is a new idea. Will they carry torches and pass them along to one another as they race with the horses, or how do you mean? That's the way of it, said Polemarchus, and, besides, there is to be a night festival which will be worth seeing. For after dinner we will get up and go out and see the sights and meet a lot of the lads there and have good talk. So stay and do as we ask. It looks as if we should have to stay, said Glaucon. Well, said I, if it so be, so be it.
3. POLEMARCHUS’ FATHER, CEPHALUS, ARRIVES:
So we went with them to Polemarchus' house, and there we found Lysias and Euthydemus, the brothers of Polemarchus, yes, and Thrasymachus, too, of Chalcedon, and Charmantides of the deme of Paeania, and Clitophon, the son of Aristonymus. And the father of Polemarchus, Cephalus, was also at home. And I thought him much aged, for it was a long time since I had seen him. He was sitting on a sort of chair with cushions and he had a chaplet on his head, for he had just finished sacrificing in the court. So we went and sat down beside him, for there were seats there disposed in a circle. As soon as he saw me Cephalus greeted me and said, You are not a very frequent visitor, Socrates. You don't often come down to the Piraeus to see us. That is not right. For if I were still able to make the journey up to town easily there would be no need of your resorting hither, but we would go to visit you. But as it is you should not space too widely your visits here. For I would have you know that, for my part, as the
2 satisfactions of the body decay, in the same measure my desire for the pleasures of good talk and my delight in them increase. Don't refuse then, but be yourself a companion to these lads and make our house your resort and regard us as your very good friends and intimates. Why, yes, Cephalus, said I, and I enjoy talking with the very aged. For to my thinking we have to learn of them as it were from wayfarers who have preceded us on a road on which we too, it may be, must sometime fare--what it is like. Is it rough and hard-going or easy and pleasant to travel? And so now I would fain learn of you what you think of this thing, now that your time has come to it, the thing that the poets call 'the threshold of old age.' Is it a hard part of life to bear or what report have you to make of it? Yes, indeed, Socrates, he said, I will tell you my own feeling about it. For it often happens that some of us elders of about the same age come together and verify the old saw of like to like. At these reunions most of us make lament, longing for the lost joys of youth and recalling to mind the pleasures of wine, women, and feasts, and other things thereto appertaining, and they repine in the belief that the greatest things have been taken from them and that then they lived well and now it is no life at all. And some of them complain of the indignities that friends and kinsmen put upon old age and thereto recite a doleful litany of all the miseries for which they blame old age. But in my opinion, Socrates, they do not put the blame on the real cause. For if it were the cause I too should have had the same experience so far as old age is concerned, and so would all others who have come to this time of life. But in fact I have ere now met with others who do not feel in this way, and in particular I remember hearing Sophocles the poet greeted by a fellow who asked, How about your service of Aphrodite, Sophocles--is your natural force still unabated? And he replied, Hush, man, most gladly have I escaped this thing you talk of, as if I had run away from a raging and savage beast of a master. I thought it a good answer then and now I think so still more. For in very truth there comes to old age a great tranquillity in such matters and a blessed release. When the fierce tensions of the passions and desires relax, then is the word of Sophocles approved, and we are rid of many and mad masters. But indeed, in respect of these complaints and in the matter of our relations with kinsmen and friends there is just one cause, Socrates- -not old age, but the character of the man. For if men are temperate and cheerful even old age is only moderately burdensome. But if the reverse, old age, Socrates, and youth are hard for such dispositions. And I was filled with admiration for the man by these words, and desirous of hearing more I tried to draw him out and said, I fancy, Cephalus, that most people, when they hear you talk in this way, are not convinced but think that you bear old age lightly not because of your character but because of your wealth, for the rich, they say, have many consolations. You are right, he said. They don't accept my view and there is something in their objection, though not so much as they suppose. But the retort of Themistocles comes in pat here, who, when a man from the little island of Seriphus grew abusive and told him that he owed his fame not to himself but to the city from which he came, replied that neither would he himself ever have made a name if he had been born in Seriphus nor the other if he had been an Athenian. And the same principle applies excellently to those who not being rich take old age hard, for neither would the reasonable man find it altogether easy to endure old age conjoined with poverty, nor would the unreasonable man by the attainment of riches ever attain to self-contentment and a cheerful temper. May I ask, Cephalus, said I, whether you inherited most of your possessions or acquired them yourself? Acquired, quotha? he said. As a money-maker, I hold a place somewhere halfway between my grandfather and my father. For my grandfather and namesake inherited about as much property as I now possess and multiplied it many times, my father Lysanias reduced it below the present amount, and I am content if I shall leave the estate to these boys not less but by some slight measure more than my inheritance. The reason I asked, I said, is that you appear to me not to be overfond of money. And that is generally the case with those who have not earned it themselves. But those who have themselves acquired it have a double reason in comparison with other men for loving it. For just as poets feel complacency about their own poems and fathers about their own sons, so men who have made money take this money seriously as their own creation and they also value it for its uses as other people do. So they are hard to talk to since they are unwilling to commend anything except wealth. You are right, he replied. 3 I assuredly am, said I. But tell me further this. What do you regard as the greatest benefit you have enjoyed from the possession of property? Something, he said, which I might not easily bring many to believe if I told them. For let me tell you, Socrates, he said, that when a man begins to realize that he is going to die, he is filled with apprehensions and concern about matters that before did not occur to him. The tales that are told of the world below and how the men who have done wrong here must pay the penalty there, though he may have laughed them down hitherto, then begin to torture his soul with the doubt that there may be some truth in them. And apart from that the man himself either from the weakness of old age or possibly as being now nearer to the things beyond has a somewhat clearer view of them. Be that as it may, he is filled with doubt, surmises, and alarms and begins to reckon up and consider whether he has ever wronged anyone. Now he to whom the ledger of his life shows an account of many evil deeds starts up even from his dreams like a child again and again in affright and his days are haunted by anticipations of worse to come. But on him who is conscious of no wrong that he has done a sweet hope ever attends and a goodly, to be nurse of his old age, as Pindar too says. For a beautiful saying it is, Socrates, of the poet that when a man lives out his days in justice and piety, 'sweet companion with him, to cheer his heart and nurse his old age, accompanieth hope, who chiefly ruleth the changeful mind of mortals.'Ü1 That is a fine saying and an admirable. It is for this, then, that I affirm that the possession of wealth is of most value, not it may be to every man but to the good man. Not to cheat any man even unintentionally or play him false, not remaining in debt to a god for some sacrifice or to a man for money, so to depart in fear to that other world--to this result the possession of property contributes not a little. It has also many other uses. But, setting one thing against another, I would lay it down, Socrates, that for a man of sense this is the chief service of wealth. An admirable sentiment, Cephalus, said I. But speaking of this very thing, justice, are we to affirm thus without qualification that it is truthtelling and paying back what one has received from anyone, or may these very actions sometimes be just and sometimes unjust? I mean, for example, as everyone I presume would admit, if one took over weapons from a friend who was in his right mind and then the lender should go mad and demand them back, that we ought not to return them in that case and that he who did so return them would not be acting justly--nor yet would he who chose to speak nothing but the truth to one who was in that state.
4. THRACYMACHUS’ FAMOUS DEFINITION OF JUSTICE
Now Thrasymachus, even while we were conversing, had been trying several times to break in and lay hold of the discussion but he was restrained by those who sat by him who wished to hear the argument out. But when we came to a pause after I had said this, he couldn't any longer hold his peace. But gathering himself up like a wild beast he hurled himself upon us as if he would tear us to pieces. And Polemarchus and I were frightened and fluttered apart. He bawled out into our midst, What balderdash is this that you have been talking, and why do you Simple Simons truckle and give way to one another? But if you really wish, Socrates, to know what the just is, don't merely ask questions or plume yourself upon controverting any answer that anyone gives--since your acumen has perceived that it is easier to ask questions than to answer them--but do you yourself answer and tell what you say the just is. And don't you be telling me that it is that which ought to be, or the beneficial or the profitable or the gainful or the advantageous, but express clearly and precisely whatever you say. For I won't take from you any such drivel as that! And I, when I heard him, was dismayed, and looking upon him was filled with fear, and I believe that if I had not looked at him before he did at me I should have lost my voice. But as it is, at the very moment when he began to be exasperated by the course of the argument I glanced at him first, so that I became capable of answering him; And said with a slight tremor, Thrasymachus, don't be harsh with us. If I, and my friend, have made mistakes in the consideration of the question, rest assured that it is unwillingly that we err. For you surely
4 must not suppose that while, if our quest were for gold, we would never willingly truckle to one another and make concessions in the search and so spoil our chances of finding it, yet that when we are searching for justice, a thing more precious than much fine gold, we should then be so foolish as to give way to one another and not rather do our serious best to have it discovered. You surely must not suppose that, my friend. But you see it is our lack of ability that is at fault. It is pity then that we should far more reasonably receive from clever fellows like you than severity. And he, on hearing this, gave a great guffaw and laughed sardonically and said, Ye gods! Here we have the well-known irony of Socrates, and I knew it and predicted that when it came to replying you would refuse and dissemble and do anything rather than answer any question that anyone asked you. That's because you are wise, Thrasymachus, and so you knew very well that if you asked a man how many are twelve, and in putting the question warned him, Don't you be telling me, fellow, that twelve is twice six or three times four or six times two or four times three, for I won't accept any such drivel as that from you as an answer--it was obvious, I fancy, to you that no one could give an answer to a question framed in that fashion. Suppose he had said to you, Thrasymachus, what do you mean? Am I not to give any of the prohibited answers, not even, do you mean to say, if the thing really is one of these, but must I say something different from the truth, or what do you mean?--What would have been your answer to him? Humph! said he. How very like the two cases are! There is nothing to prevent it, said I. Yet even granted that they are not alike, yet if it appears to the person asked the question that they are alike, do you suppose that he will any the less answer what appears to him, whether we forbid him or whether we don't? Is that, then, said he, what you are going to do? Are you going to give one of the forbidden answers? I shouldn't be surprised, I said, if on reflection that would be my view. What then, he said, if I show you another answer about justice differing from all these, a better one-- what penalty do you think you deserve? Why, what else, said I, than that which it befits anyone who is ignorant to suffer? It befits him, I presume, to learn from the one who does know. That then is what I propose that I should suffer. I like your simplicity, said he. But in addition to 'learning' you must pay a fine of money. Well, I will when I have got it, I said. It is there, said Glaucon. If money is all that stands in the way, Thrasymachus, go on with your speech. We will all contribute for Socrates. Oh yes, of course, said he, so that Socrates may contrive, as he always does, to evade answering himself but may cross-examine the other man and refute his replies. Why, how, I said, my dear fellow, could anybody answer if in the first place he did not know and did not even profess to know, and secondly, even if he had some notion of the matter, he had been told by a man of weight that he mustn't give any of his suppositions as an answer? Nay, it is more reasonable that you should be the speaker. For you do affirm that you know and are able to tell. Don't be obstinate, but do me the favor to reply and don't be chary of your wisdom, and instruct Glaucon here and the rest of us. When I had spoken thus Glaucon and the others urged him not to be obstinate. It was quite plain that Thrasymachus was eager to speak in order that he might do himself credit, since he believed that he had a most excellent answer to our question. But he demurred and pretended to make a point of my being the respondent. Finally he gave way and then said, Here you have the wisdom of Socrates, to refuse himself to teach, but go about and learn from others and not even pay thanks therefor. That I learn from others, I said, you said truly, Thrasymachus. But in saying that I do not pay thanks you are mistaken. I pay as much as I am able. And I am able only to bestow praise. For money I lack. But that I praise right willingly those who appear to speak well you will well know forthwith as soon as you have given your answer. For I think that you will speak well. Hearken and hear then, said he. I affirm that the just is nothing else than the advantage of the stronger. Well, why don't you applaud? Nay, you'll do anything but that.
5 Provided only I first understand your meaning, said I, for I don't yet apprehend it. [END OF SELECTION]
5. The central question: what is justice?
As we have seen, early in the dialogue, Cephalus, the father of Polemarchus, is praised by Socrates as a just man. Cephalus seems to view being just as a matter of telling the truth and paying back one’s debts, but Socrates is not satisfied with that analysis. He says:
But speaking of this very thing, justice, are we to affirm thus without qualification that it is truthtelling and paying back what one has received from anyone, or may these very actions sometimes be just and sometimes unjust? I mean, for example, as everyone I presume would admit, if one took over weapons from a friend who was in his right mind and then the lender should go mad and demand them back, that we ought not to return them in that case and that he who did so return them would not be acting justly—nor yet would he who chose to speak nothing but the truth to one who was in that state.
Here, Socrates provides counter-examples to Cephalus’ informal account of justice. Justice, it seems, is not simply a matter of being honest and paying debts, for, sometimes, one ought not to tell the truth; sometimes, one ought not to return a thing to its rightful owner. Socrates is looking for a definition of justice, just as he sought a definition of piety in the Euthyphro. Just what is justice? What is it that all just actions (or just persons) have in common? What is the essence of justice? Observe that we are reading a translation of the Republic, for it was written in ancient Greek. The word translated as justice has no good counterpart in the English language—justice is the closest approximation. For the ancient Greeks, the word translated as justice refers to righteousness but also flourishing, well-being. Our concept of justice, as speakers of English, lacks the latter connotations. Cephalus is uninterested in discussing the definition of justice with Socrates; and so Cephalus’ son, Polemarchus, joins the discussion. He provides a definition that is highly conventional and, from Socrates’ perspective, superficial. Socrates has little trouble tearing it apart, using counter-examples, etc.
6. Thracymachus’ definition
Thracymachus asserts that “the just is nothing else than the advantage of the stronger.” —But what does he mean by this? At times, he seems to mean only that the rules of justice (morality) are a kind of fraud perpetrated against the weaker—i.e., those not in positions of power and authority. This is a kind of skeptical view; that is, it seems to portray morality as lacking reality or meaning; it is a kind of illusion. Accordingly, there is no right or best way to be or to live. At other times, Thracymachus seems to be saying something very different, namely, that the excellent and admirable individual is exactly he who manages to perpetrate this fraud on the rest of us. More specifically, he seems to say that the truly admirable person is one who has a great reputation for being just but who, in reality, is unjust whenever that is advantageous to him. Observe that this latter view assumes that there is no reason to be just in itself; that is, if there is a reason to be just, it is only that, in being just, one gains an advantageous good reputation, and one avoids penalties, etc. In the latter half of Book I, Socrates, using some questionable arguments, makes the stubborn and pig- headed Thracymachus look foolish.
7. Book II: Is being just desirable in itself?
6 In the estimation of Glaucon and Adeimantus, two of the discussion’s participants, Socrates has cleverly made Thracymachus look foolish, but he hasn’t really convinced them that, afterall, Thracymachus isn’t basically correct:
. . . [Glaucon] said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust?
I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could.
They take Thracymachus to be saying, essentially, that there is no reason to be just (moral) aside from the obvious good consequences of being just, namely, having a useful good reputation and avoiding penalties. In other words, if we were to take away these advantages, then any person in his right mind would simply be unjust, for that would be to his advantage. Essentially, Glaucon and Adeimantus challenge Socrates to demonstrate that this view is wrong--that being just is somehow a good and desirable thing in itself--apart from its (usually) good consequences.
8. Three kinds of good
Glaucon begins his challenge by distinguishing between three types of good (good thing):
...Let me ask you now: How would you arrange goods? Are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them? I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, and health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results? Certainly, I said. And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of moneymaking? These do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them. There is, I said, this third class also.
Glaucon and Socrates agree that there are three kinds of good:
1. Things that are good/desirable, not in themselves, but for their consequences. (E.g., exercize.)
2. Things that are good/desirable, not for their consequences, but for themselves. (E.g., pleasure.)
3. Things that are good/desirable, not only for their consequences, but also for themselves. (E.g., sight, knowledge, health.)
For some reason, Glaucon and Socrates agree that the highest category of good is #3—the kind of good thing that is good both in itself and for its consequences. They have always believed, they say, that being just is in this highest category of good thing. But if Thracymachus is right, then being just is in the (lowly) first category above—something desired, not at all in itself (e.g., exercise) but for its consequences. [Note: Socrates seems interested only in categories 1 and 2; category 3 seems to drop out of the discussion.]
9. The challenge to Socrates: 7
It seems clear that many good parents attempt to raise their children to believe that being just (being moral or virtuous) is something one must become, not for some beneficial consequence (such as a reward in heaven or the avoidance of punishment), but for its own sake. Such parents assume that, if their child is good only for the sake of rewards (or out of fear of punishment), then he will fail really to be good. One might say that, according to traditional moral instruction, virtue (being moral) is in category 2 (or 3) above. And yet Thracymachus has placed it in category 1. For Thracymachus, being just, taken in itself, is a burdensome (negative) thing. One would never desire it for itself, but only for some good consequence (for oneself). Glaucon (and Adeimanatus) claim to be confused, for, they say, though they believe, as does Socrates, that being just is desirable in itself, people all around them seem to be saying what Thracymachus is saying:
…the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him.
And so Glaucon defines his challenge to Socrates:
Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they [justice and injustice] are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you, please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practice justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good.... I myself am not of their opinion, but still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears. And, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by anyone in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied. And you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal? Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse.
10. The received view: the social contract
Here’s what people (the many) say about justice, according to Glaucon:
They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice: It is a mean or compromise between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation. And justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. 8
We’ll focus on this passage in class. It is very famous. It suggests that the rules of justice (of right or law) are the result of a mutually advantageous agreement between people in the state of nature (i.e., anarchy). These people would rather harm others if they could, but they can’t, and they end up being harmed without being able to harm. And so they settle for something between the worst outcome and the best: the agree to be just. If this social contract view of morality/law is correct, then being just is desirable, not for itself, but for its consequences (namely, avoiding punishment, etc.).
11. The challenge continues: the Ring of Gyges
The story of Gyges is useful here. [It is mentioned in the movie The English Patient.] Essentially, Gyges is able to be unjust and to get away with it, owing to a magic ring. The question is, why would anyone do otherwise than abandon justice, under the circumstances?
Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other. No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
12. The large and small letters
They will begin to answer the challenge by determining the true nature of justice in the soul of a person. Socrates suggests a strategy:
I told [Glaucon and Adeimantus] what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus: Suppose that a [near-sighted] person had been asked by someone to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to someone else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger. If they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry? I will tell you, I replied. Justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a state. True, he replied. And is not a state larger than an individual? It is. Then, in the larger the quantity, justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the state, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. That, he said, is an excellent proposal.... 9
So Socrates and the others set about to construct an ideal state (nation); such a state, being perfect, will have all virtues; thus it will have the chief virtue, justice.
13. Justice in the state
Eventually, the group decides that the justice of a state is a condition in which each of the three classes (the rulers, the workers, and the soldiers) is sticking to its own (appropriate) work....
14. Justice in the soul
Socrates assumes that, if two things are X, then they are alike insofar as they are X. For instance, if two things are red, then they are similar inso far as they are red. Socrates and the others have arrived at a definition of justice for states. This definition should help them to identify justice for persons (i.e., justice in the soul of a person). They begin by considering whether the soul has classes or parts, just as the state has classes or parts. Eventually, they decide that the soul does indeed have at least three parts: the reason, the emotions, and the desires. That these distinct parts exist in the soul is proved by the existence of tension in the soul:
Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus,' under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies Iying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them. For a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, you wretches, take your fill of the fair sight. I have heard the story myself, he said. The moral of the tale is that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things. Yes; that is the meaning, he said. . .
In the end, the group decides that justice is the condition of the soul in which each of the three parts is sticking to its appropriate role: the reason rules, etc.
15. The answer to the original challenge
Thus, the original challenge is answered, for it turns out that being just is the fundamental health of the soul; being unjust is the fundamental disease of the soul. Obviously, it is to one’s advantage to be healthy rather than unhealthy. Hence, it is always better to be just than to be unjust.
16. Is Socrates’/Plato’s answer adequate?
Many philosophers have complained that Plato’s answer to the challenge seems to make justice desirable on the grounds that it is personally advantageous. But many have complained that this answer reduces being moral to a part of being prudent....
ADDENDUM: From An Introduction to Plato’s Republic by Julia Annas (pp. 7-13)
10
[The natural vs. the conventional in Ancient Greece] Plato's dialogues are nearly all set in the late fifth century (much earlier than the time of their composition), at a time when Athens was feeling strongly the tension between a way of life built on the acceptance of traditional values and styles of life, and the intellectual questioning of these values resulting from a situation where Athens had taken on a more cosmopolitan role. Exposure to other ways of life led many Athenians to become detached if not alienated from the values of their own culture, and made popular a kind of cultural and moral relativism. Great attention was devoted to the question of the roles in human life of nomos and phusis usually translated 'convention' and 'nature'. Many traditional values and patterns of behaviour, hitherto treated as 'natural', part of the inevitable order of things, were now suddenly thought of as conventional, part of fallible human endeavour which might well have been ordered otherwise (and was, in other parts of the world). We can see from the works that survive that there was not much agreement over what 'convention' and 'nature' exactly meant, and that the contrast between them had different implications in different contexts. None the less, we can see how strong an impact was produced by the idea that important features of life like governments and other social institutions were, however hallowed by long custom, all the same products of ëconvention', and might have been different. Many people, in particular those we might be inclined to think of as intellectuals, began to question the way their social and political lives were ordered, and to refuse to trust the values of their predecessors. There was a very noticeable weakening of social and moral continuity and consensus.
[The Sophists] These tendencies could lead rapidly to cynicism and scepticism about there being right and wrong answers in matters of value; and they were confirmed by a group of intellectually prominent people usually called 'the sophists'. These were not a school of thought, but a collection of professional teachers who lectured and gave instruction in various cities, and who claimed expertise in the lessons needed for people to get on in life. What they taught varied, but they nearly all taught the skills of speech-making and debating necessary for someone aiming at a public career. They offered the nearest thing to further education available in the ancient world until Plato's own school. Plato presents some of them in his dialogues, usually in a hostile or ludicrous light. They angered him because they had pretensions to knowledge about how to live one's life, which on examination usually turned out to be useless or vacuous; but much more because they regarded matters of moral importance as being a matter of amoral expertise, teachable by them for a fee. They tended to dismiss worries about right and wrong as being without substance, merely the product of one's upbringing; the most famous of them, Protagoras, held a kind of relativism about values and much else. In Plato's view the sophists' influence tended to produce relativism and scepticism about questions of value, and to replace the question of how to live a good life with the question of how best to get on in the world. One very widespread way of interpreting the Republic is to see Plato as concerned mainly or exclusively with the task of refuting the moral sceptic. On this view, what dominated Plato was the fragmentation of accepted moral consensus, and the erosion of confidence in familiar moral values, that he could see around him. The job he saw as primary was that of showing, against the sceptic, that there are objective moral truths, and that it is worthwhile accepting constraints on one's self-aggrandizement because the moral order can in fact be relied upon. Traditional confidence in traditional values is to be re-established. Now there is something to this interpretation. The bulk of the book is put forward as an attempt to answer [the Sophist] Thrasymachus, who claims that the life of injustice is more worthwhile than the life of justice; and he is one of the sophists whom Plato regards as producing scepticism about the value of justice. Thrasymachus derides conventional moral standards; nobody with any intelligence, he maintains, would pay any attention to them if he could get away with violating them. Justice, the behaviour commonly regarded as right, is a mug's game, because it can only benefit others; it is not rational to act against your own interests, and so no-one with any sense would take morality seriously. This is the point of view reformulated by Glaucon and Adeimantus as the challenge Socrates has to meet, and most of the rest of the book is taken up by Plato's attempt to show that it is wrong. And he takes care to claim that anyone just by his account would 11 also be just according to the common moral understanding of the term. So there is indeed some temptation to see Plato, as he is on this interpretation, as a conservative, who thought that what was wrong in existing society was the corrosive scepticism produced by Thrasymachus and his like, and who offered the remedy of a social ordering that would reweld the shattered moral structure of society and make people unable and unwilling to question the truth of objective and accepted moral judgements. Now undoubtedly Thrasymachus is an important opponent. And yet he, and the sophists in general, do have the virtue of questioning what people have been brought up to accept. To that extent, they are intellectually liberating. If the result is scepticism, maybe the moral is not that we should refuse to think, but that we should think a little deeper. After all, Plato does put forward his views in the mouth of Socrates, whose main contribution was that of upsetting people and getting them to question accepted moral views. Some people have found it highly ironic that Socrates, who was famous for his fearless and free questioning, should be made to put forward the authoritarian proposals of the Republic. But the fact that Plato does this shows that he does not think of his project as being opposed in principle to the free search for truth, or as an antiintellectual flight to security. And his proposals are not in fact conservative; he is the sort of ally that conservatives least want. If he reinstates ordinary moral views, it is on a new basis which is remote from anything that the ordinary person would dream of. When we look at the proposals for society that made the Republic notorious, it is hard not to think of him as revolutionary.
[Plato as untraditional] In fact what makes the Republic most interesting is the revolution it effects in moral theory, a shift of perspective on the whole question of the right way to live, one which was to be extremely influential. It turns out that the sceptic has a point in rejecting ordinary morality the way this is understood by most people; what Plato gives us is an entirely new kind of theory. And it is important that Thrasymachus is not the only opponent. The dialogue opens in the house of a wealthy and respectable family, and it is their moral views which provoke the whole discussion in the first place and which produce Socrates' first, and devastating, criticisms. Cephalus and Polemarchus are untouched by scepticism about the value of justice; yet their views on it are demolished before the sophists are so much as mentioned. Traditional views, held in their traditional form, are unsatisfactory: they lead to a kind of complacency which is as important a target as scepticism. And the nature of Plato's systematic proposals makes it entirely clear that he would be a strange kind of conservative. He does appeal to society's moral intuitions for support; but he also proposes arrangements that would outrage most of his contemporaries: common possession of property, sharing of sexual partners, rule by experts. These radical ideas are not eccentric whims, excrescences on a basically conservative scheme. Plato is radically challenging the way we conceive the good life. So the Republic is not what it is often presented as being: a boringly obsessive attempt to put the clock back. Its target is not simple and its response is not simple either. It may well, of course, turn out to be hopelessly over-ambitious, for Plato is combining two projects which are easily regarded as antithetical. Attacks on moral scepticism tend to rely on moral consensus and intuition and to give weight to established attitudes; what the sceptic attacks is the truth of accepted moral views, and attacks on him tend to be inherently conservative in so far as it is to be shown that this attack is needless, or wrong. Attacks on moral complacency, on the other hand, tend to emphasize the limitations of moral views which are accepted because of the way they fit in with people's established attitudes; they tend to be inherently revolutionary in so far as they insist on the need to revise and reform our ways of thinking about right and wrong. Plato is making the brave attempt both to establish that there are objective moral truths and to undertake a considerable overhaul of what those objective moral truths are.
[What is the Republic about?] One matter must be discussed before we turn to Book I, because it affects our interpretation of the whole dialogue. What is the Republic about? The answer might seem to be easy: it is about justice. Justice is the usual, because the only reasonable, translation of the Greek word dikaiosune, which is the word Plato uses
12 for his subject-matter. But does the concept of justice really correspond to that of dikaiosune? Does the Republic give us a 'theory of justice' in the way that, for example, Rawls's A Theory of Justice does? Dikaiosune, it is sometimes claimed, can cover a wider area than justice, and be used for right conduct in general. Plato appears to support this idea when he makes Socrates at 352d describe the search for justice as a search 'for the right way to live'. Hence it is often suggested that dikaiosune should be translated as 'righteousness' or the like, and that it corresponds more closely to 'morality' than to 'justice'. Two points of terminology are important here. Firstly, we would naturally distinguish justice from other virtues by reference to rights: rights are often the basic or key concept in a modern theory of justice. Plato has no word for 'rights'. He and his contemporaries distinguish justice as a particular virtue rather by means of the notions of equality and of keeping to what is one's own. The vice it is opposed to is called pleonexia -- having and wanting more than one is entitled to. The ordinary view, in the person of Polemarchus, is that justice is giving everyone what is owing, that is, what is due or appropriate. We shall see whether what Plato says about justice can be reformulated in terms of rights; the fact that he lacks the word does not mean that he is not talking about what we do when we talk of rights. Secondly, I have opposed justice to the wider notion of 'morality'; but nothing crucial is meant to hang on this word. There is no Greek word which answers comfortably to 'moral' (one reason why translators suggest archaisms like 'righteousness' and the like), and this is no accident; our use of the word and many of the distinctive assumptions often brought with it derive from a tradition foreign to the Greek one. I shall try not to use it in a loaded sense; 'moral' is not meant to suggest a strong and exclusive contrast with, for example, 'prudential'. I shall use 'morality' for the area of practical reasoning carried on by an agent which is concerned with the best way for a person to live. It is commonly suggested that dikaiosune should not be rendered by 'justice'; but it is worth noticing that people who make this suggestion seldom stick by it. It is very common for a translation or commentary on the Republic to say on the first page that 'justice' is, for example, a 'thoroughly unsuitable word' to translate dikaiosune; and then to go on to talk of 'justice' throughout. But to do this is to risk getting Plato's subject- matter wrong, for if dikaiosune means something like 'morality' then the Republic is not in fact a book about justice. This problem arises independently of translation. Aristotle, Plato's greatest pupil, points to dikaiosune as a star example of a word which is ambiguous..., and discusses the point at length at the start of Book 5 of his Nicomachean Ethics. The word, he says, has two different but related senses: it can be used for law- abidingness and virtuous behaviour to others in general, or for the more specialized virtue which we would call justice, and which is opposed to pleonexia. He probably has Plato in mind here, and is voicing a criticism which has been repeated; that the Republic is a muddle, because Plato slides between a broad and a narrow sense of dikaiosune and it is never clear whether he is talking about justice or about morality in general.
[A theory of justice, really] So a lot hangs on the question, whether the Republic really is about justice. In fact, I think that it is, and that Plato is not guilty of shifting between a broad and a narrow sense of dikaiosune. He is talking about justice throughout. He makes justice more important than we might expect, and his theory of justice has a much wider scope than some; but that is another matter. Even if dikaiosune has two senses, as Aristotle supposes, this does not affect Plato's argument; and the instincts of translators who use 'justice' as a translation for it are sounder than their qualms in their prefaces. It would be surprising if Plato were to confuse justice and morality; for one thing, in earlier dialogues justice is always treated as one virtue among many, and as 'part' of virtue as a whole. In the Republic itself, the challenge that Socrates is set at the beginning of Book 2 concerns the narrow notion: Thrasymachus had claimed that it is better to be unjust, meaning by this, having more than one's rightful share, and Glaucon renews the point in the context of equality and fairness, justice and injustice being characterized as abstaining, or not abstaining, from what is another's (360b,d). And Plato's own analysis of justice does not let
13 it usurp the role of virtue as a whole; it is carefully distinguished from another social virtue, moderation, which appears to cover the same ground. But of course by the time we get to the end of the Republic we have had more than a theory of justice in the narrow sense. We have been told a good deal about the good life in general. This is because Plato has what can be called an expansive theory of justice. He does not think that matters of what is just and unjust can be settled in a way which will leave untouched other central moral questions that arise in a society. One might hold that injustice occurs in a society only if people's specific rights are violated, or antecedently recognized laws are being broken. But an expansive theory, like Plato's, holds that a society is unjustly run if it fails wider moral requirements, for example if wealth is honoured more than desert. Hence it will hold that the needs of justice require wholesale moral reform. Plato believes that once we get clear about the nature of justice, we will see that for a society to be just it must be drastically reorganized in every department, not only in its enforcement of the laws. Injustice cannot be corrected by merely righting a few past wrongs; the whole distribution of wealth, honours, and goods within society must be made to conform to fundamental moral requirements. And hence the just life turns out to be the moral life after all--but not through any confusion of terms; rather through an insistence on the centrality of justice and the wide extent of its requirements. Justice is a virtue which regulates our relations with others. An expansive theory of justice will therefore make our relations with others central to the moral life, and tend to stress the individual's relations in society as partly constitutive of moral attitudes. Conversely, a theory which pays great attention to the uniqueness of each individual and the autonomy of his moral decisions will tend to give justice a restricted scope, and deny that the removal of injustice requires a moral reordering of the whole of society. Because Plato's is an expansive theory, we can suspect from the start that he is going to pay less attention to individuality than western liberals have come to expect.
Book II of REPUBLIC:
. . . [Glaucon] said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust? I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could. Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now: How would you arrange goods? Are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them? I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, and health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results? Certainly, I said. And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of moneymaking? These do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them. There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask? Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice. In the highest class, I replied, among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him. 14 I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you, please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all men who practice justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good.... I myself am not of their opinion, but still I acknowledge that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of others dinning in my ears. And, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by anyone in a satisfactory way. I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied. And you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my proposal? Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense would oftener wish to converse. I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice. They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice: It is a mean or compromise between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation. And justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. Now that those who practice justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind: Having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see [where] desire will lead them; then we shall discover, in the very act, the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia. There was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow [brass] horse, having doors at which he, stooping and looking in, saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead [body] and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king. Into their assembly he came, having the ring on his finger. And as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared. He made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result: When he turned the collet inwards he became invisible; when outwards, he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where, as soon as he arrived, he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other. No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men. 15 Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes like sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other. That is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate; but from you, who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.... I told [Glaucon and Adeimantus] what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus: Suppose that a [near-sighted] person had been asked by someone to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to someone else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger. If they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry? I will tell you, I replied. Justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a state. True, he replied. And is not a state larger than an individual? It is. Then, in the larger the quantity, justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the state, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. That, he said, is an excellent proposal....
Book IV
. . . I proceeded to ask: When two things, a greater and less, are called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same? Like, he replied. The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just state? He will. And a state was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the state severally did their own business; and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes? True, he said. And so of the individual: We may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the state; and he may be rightly described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner? 16 Certainly, he said. Once more then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy question whether the soul has these three principles or not. An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the good. Very true, I said; and I do not think that the method which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question; the true method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solunon not below the level of the previous enquiry. May we not be satisfied with that? he said. Under the circumstances, I am quite content. I too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied. Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said. Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the state; and that from the individual they pass into the state? How else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit: It would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in states, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, for example, the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations. And the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world; or of the love of money, which may, with equal truth, be atuributed to the Phoenicians and Egypuans. Exactly so, he said. There is no difficulty in understanding this. None whatever. But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one whether, that is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action. To determine that is the difficulty. Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty. Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different. How can we? he asked. I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same ume, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different. Good. For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part? Impossible. Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition) ? Yes, he said, they are opposites. Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again willing and wishing all these you would refer to the classes already mentioned. You would say, would you not' that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the object of his desires; or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess? Or again, when a person wants anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realisation of his desires, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question? Very true. And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire? Should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection? Certainly. Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most obvious of them. Let us take that class, he said. The object of one is food, and of the other drink? 17 Yes. . . . Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, desires only drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it? That is plain. And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast to drink; for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same. Impossible. No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls. Exactly so, he replied. And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink? Yes, he said, it constantly happens. And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him? I should say so. And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease? Clearly. Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another. The one with which man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul; the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions. Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different. Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the preceding? I should be inclined to say, akin to desire. Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus,' under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies Iying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them. For a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, you wretches, take your fill of the fair sight. I have heard the story myself, he said. The moral of the tale is that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things. Yes; that is the meaning, he said. . . But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason? In [the] latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, the rational and the concupiscent. Or rather, as the state was composed of three classes, . . . so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion, or spirit and, when not corrupted by bad education, is the natural auxiliary of reason? Yes, he said, there must be a third. Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turns out also to be different from reason. But that is easily proved: We may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough.
18 Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us…..
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