Ethics Paper

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PLATO SELECTION John Wilhelmsson

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THE REPUBLIC

by Plato

II

For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus’ retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he 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 that there is such a class, I replied.

Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, 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 money-making—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 which flows from them?

There is, I said, a third class also. Why do you ask?

Because I want to know in which of these three classes you would place justice?

In the highest class, I replied,—among those goods which the one who wishes to be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results…

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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 the origin of justice according to the common view of them. Second, I will show that those who practice justice do so unwillingly, as a necessity, but not as a good. And third, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all far better than the life of the just…

I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injustice maintained by any one 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 sensible man would more wish to converse.

I am delighted, he said, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking of the nature and origin of justice.

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;—that 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 honored 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 be best illustrated if we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust the power to do what they will, let us watch and see where desire will lead them; then we shall discover that the very act of both the just and the unjust man will be proceeding

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down the same road, following their own interest, which all deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by compulsion.

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 bronze horse, having a doorway, at which he stooping and looking in saw a large dead body, 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. 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 head of the ring inside of 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 head outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same results that when he turned the head inwards he became invisible, and when he turned it outwards he reappeared. Then he plotted to be chosen one of the messengers who was to be sent to the king; 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 man put on one of them and the unjust man 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 any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he wished, 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 only by compulsion, for wherever anyone thinks that he can 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 any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by onlookers to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another for a fear that they too might suffer injustice.

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Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust man, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust man be like any other masters of his craft; like the skillful pilot or physician, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust man make his unjust attempts perfectly, and remain hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: for the highest reach of injustice is: to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be nothing taken away, so we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he takes a false step he must be able to recover; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required by his courage and strength, and be rich in money and friends.

And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seems to be just he will be honored and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice itself or for the sake of honors and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, yet let him be thought the worst; then he will be put to the test; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue this way to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the most happy.

Socrates

Heavens! My dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues.

Glaucon

I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like and there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits each of them. This I will proceed to describe; but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.— Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound—will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, will be crucified: Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not be, just…

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The unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to appearances—he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only… In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule over the city; he can marry whom he wills, and give in marriage to whom he wills; he can trade where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice and at every contest, whether in public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honor the gods or any man whom he wants to honor in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the unjust man better than the life of the just man.

Socrates

I was going to say something to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his brother, asked: Socrates, you do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged?

Why, what else is there? I answered.

The strongest point of all has not even been mentioned, he replied. Well, then, according to the proverb, 'Let brother help brother'—if he fails in any part do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice.

Adeimantus

Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is another side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but why? Not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of reputation; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has numbered among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that the gods make oaks of the just…

The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing eulogists of justice —beginning with the ancient heroes of whom memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time—no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to

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the glories, honors, and benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately described, either in verse or prose, the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil…

But I speak in this vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the possessor of each of them which makes the one to be good and the other evil. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, exclude the appeal to reputations; for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. 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 honors 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 us how each of them effects the inner man, how it makes one man good and another man evil on the inside, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.

IV

Socrates

The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be the master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to bad education or associations, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the larger…

Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which man reasons, which we may call the rational principle of the soul, and the other, with which

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he hungers and thirsts and feels the fluttering of all other desires, may be termed the irrational or the appetitive, the ally of various 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. But 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 I remember to have heard which might best illustrate this. 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 lying 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, and 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.

And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of the factions within a state, his spirit is on the side of his reason;—but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the appetitive with reason not choosing to opposed, is a sort of thing which I believe you never have observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else?

Certainly not.

Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able he is to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him—these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them.

True, he said.

But when he thinks he is being made to suffer wrongly, he becomes angry, for he believes himself to be on the side of justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is all the more

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determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his anger subside like a shepherd bids his dog bark no more.

Yes, he said. The illustration is perfect.

I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider.

What point?

You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle.

Most assuredly.

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 only two, the rational and the appetitive; or rather, as the state was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is the spirited, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural ally of reason?

Yes, he said, there must be a third.

Yes, I replied, if the spirited, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turns out also to be different from reason.

But that is easily proved, he said, 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.

Excellent, I said, and you may see the spirited 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; ‘He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.’ For in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power of reason about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it.

Very true, he said…

We must then recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his nature are balanced will be just, and will do his own work?

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Yes, he said, we must remember that too.

And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul rule, and the passionate or spirited principle be its subject and ally?

Certainly.

And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastic will bring them into accord, nurturing and sustaining reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating and soothing and civilizing the wildness of the spirited by harmony and rhythm?

Quite true, he said.

And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to know their own functions, will rule over the appetitive, which in each of us is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable for gain; over this they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fullness of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the appetitive soul, no longer confined to its own sphere, will attempt to enslave and rule over those who are not its subjects, and overturn the whole life of man?

Very true, he said.

Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without; the one counselling, and the other fighting under its leadership, and courageously executing its commands and counsels?

True.

And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear?

Right, he replied.

And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is in the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole?

Assuredly.

And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of the spirited and the appetitive are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel?

Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance…

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But in reality justice is such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concern of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of the others,—he sets in order his own inner life, and he is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, that may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals —when he has bound all these together, and is no longer a man of many natures, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly balanced nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in the matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge that presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion that presides over it ignorance.

You have said the exact truth, Socrates…

Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul?

True.

And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice?

Assuredly.

Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not yet been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practice virtue, whether seen or unseen by gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, even if unpunished and unreformed?

In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very balance of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth living to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described?

Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous.

Still, as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way…

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IX

Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us here: Was not someone saying that injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust man who was reputed to be just?

Yes, that was said.

Now then, having determined the power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him.

What shall we say to him?

Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes.

Of what sort?

An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the Chimera or Scylla or Cerberus, and there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one.

There are said to have been such unions.

Then now model the form of a large, many-headed beast, having a ring of heads of all manner, some tame and some wild, which he is able to generate and make appear at will.

You suppose marvelous powers in the artist; but, as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such an image as you propose.

Suppose now that you make a second image as of a lion, and a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second.

That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as you say.

Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer image, may believe it to be a single human creature. I have done so, he said.

And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for a human being to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he is right, it is profitable for this creature to feed the many-headed beast and strengthen the lion and the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man of reason, who is then liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of the other two; and

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he is not to attempt to balance or harmonize them with one another—he ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another.

Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice says.

To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever speak and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete mastery over the entire human being.

He should watch over the many-headed beast like a good caretaker, fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing; he should make the lion his ally, and in common care of them all should be balancing the several parts with one another and with himself.

Yes, he said, that is quite what he who maintain justice would say.

And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honor, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, while the disapprover of justice is wrong and ignorant.

Yes Socrates, from every point of view.

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This translation of Plato’s Republic originally by Benjamin Jowett in 1894 with revisions by the editor.

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