Freedom in American Society

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The Republic By Plato

Written 360 B.C.E

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Book II

Socrates - GLAUCON

With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion; but the end, in truth, proved

to be only a beginning. 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 in thinking 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

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.

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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.

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 practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue

that there is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just --if

what they say is true, Socrates, since 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 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 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.

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.

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Now that those who practise 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 whither 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 brazen 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 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 any one 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 any one 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 any one 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.

Enough of this.

Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, 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 be like other distinguished

masters of craft; like the skilful 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 make his

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unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice (he who is found

out is nobody): 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 no deduction,

but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for

justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself; 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 his

courage and strength, and command of 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 seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall not know

whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honours 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, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have

been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its

consequences. And let him continue thus 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 happier of the two.

Socrates - GLAUCON

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.

I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the

sort of life which awaits either 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, he will be impaled: Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and

not to be, just; the words of Aeschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of the just. For 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:--

His mind has a soil deep and fertile,

Out of which spring his prudent counsels. In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in

the city; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can trade and deal

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 honour the

gods or any man whom he wants to honour 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 better than the life of the just.