PLATO
THE REPUBLIC
327A–328C Meeting of Socrates and Polemarchus
328C–331D Conversation of Socrates and Cephalus
331D–336A Conversation of Socrates and Polemarchus
336B–347A Conversation of Socrates and Thrasymachus
347A–348B Interlude between Socrates and Glaucon
348–354C Resumed Conversation of Socrates and Thrasymachus
Note
The only speaker in the dialogue is Socrates. He begins recounting a conversation he had on the occasion of a foreign religious festival that took place just outside Athens. Between the day and night portions of the festivities, a group of young men latches on to Socrates, who could be expected to provide entertaining talk. Polemarchus takes the group to his house, where they meet his father Cephalus, a very old man preoccupied with making amends before his death for any injustices in his life. Socrates asks him what he understands justice to be, and begins to examine the implications of his answer, when Cephalus excuses himself to tend to the practical side of those concerns, leaving his son to discuss them. Before long, Thrasymachus explodes into the conversation. He is a traveling professional teacher, and his antipathy to Socrates might involve some feeling of rivalry, but he has a palpable disgust with any intelligent adult who can entertain the possibility that justice might be in his own interest. It is obvious to Thrasymachus that human life is a competition in which those who are more unjust succeed more, and those who are most unjust can achieve the ultimate in happiness by becoming tyrants. Socrates finds a starting point for an exchange between them in Thrasymachus’s pride in his intelligence, and raises the question whether the just or the unjust have a greater resemblance to people skilled in practical arts. By the end of Book I, Thrasymachus has been compelled to back down from some of his certainties, but nothing seems to have been resolved. But the conversation has stirred up questions in two of the younger men, Glaucon and Adeimantus, who happen to be brothers of Plato, and those questions will lead to an inquiry lasting for nine more books.
Socrates: [327A] I went down yesterday to Piraeus1 with Glaucon, Ariston’s son, to pray to the goddess, wanting at the same time also to see the way they were going to hold the festival, since they were now conducting it for the first time. The parade of the local residents seemed to me to be beautiful, while the one that the Thracians put on looked [327B] no less appropriate. And having prayed and having seen, we went off toward the city. Spotting us from a distance then as we headed home, Polemarchus, Cephalus’s son, ordered his slave to run and order us to wait for him. And grabbing me from behind by my cloak, the slave said “Polemarchus orders you to wait.” And I turned around and asked him where the man himself was. “He’s coming along from behind,” he said. “Just wait.” “Certainly we’ll wait” said Glaucon.
[327C] And a little later Polemarchus came, and also Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, and Niceratus, Nicias’s son, and some others, apparently from the parade.
Then Polemarchus said “Socrates, you folks seem to me to be heading toward the city as though you’re going away.”
“That’s not bad seeming,” I said.
“Do you see us,” he said, “how many of us there are?”
“How could I not?”
“Then either get stronger than they are,” he said, “or stay right here.”
“But isn’t something still left,” I said, “that we persuade you that you ought to let us go?”
“And do you have the power,” he said, “to persuade people who don’t listen?”
“Not at all,” said Glaucon.
“Then consider us people who aren’t going to listen.”
[328A] And Adeimantus said “Don’t you know that there will be a torch race at nightfall on horses for the goddess?”
“On horses?” I said. “That’s something new. While they hold torches will they pass them to one another in a relay race on horses? Or how do you mean it?”
“That way,” said Polemarchus. “And they’re also going to have an all-night party that will be worth seeing. We’re going to rouse ourselves up after dinner and see the all-night party, and we’ll be with many of the young people at it and talk with them. Just stay and [328B] don’t do anything else.”
And Glaucon said “It seems to be something one has got to stay for.”
“Well, if it seems good,2“ I said, “that’s what one ought to do.”
So we went to Polemarchus’s house, and caught up there with Lysias and Euthydemus, Polemarchus’s brothers, as well as Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon, Aristonymus’s son. And Polemarchus’s father Cephalus was also inside. [328C] He seemed to me to be very old, for I was seeing him after some interval of time. He was sitting, crowned with wreaths, on a sort of headrest seat, for he had just been sacrificing in the inner courtyard. So we sat down by him, since some seats were set up there in a circle.
Seeing me then, Cephalus greeted me right away and said “Socrates, you don’t often come down to the Piraeus to visit us, but you ought to. For if I still had the power to travel [328D] easily to the city, there would be no need for you to come here, since we would come to you. But now you ought to come here more often. You can be sure that just as much as the other pleasures, the ones that depend on the body, are withering away in me, that’s how much the desires and pleasures having to do with talk are growing. Don’t fail then to do this; spend time with these youngsters but also come visit us here regularly as you would your friends and your very own kin.”
“Really, Cephalus,” I said, “I enjoy talking with those [328E] who are very old very much, for it seems to me one ought to learn from them, as from those who have gone before us down a certain road which we too no doubt will need to travel, about what sort of road it is, rough and hard or easy and readily traversable. And from you especially I would be glad to learn how this looks to you, since you are just now at that point in life which the poets say is ‘on the doorstep out of old age,’ whether it is a hard part of life or how you report it.”
[329A] “By Zeus, Socrates,” he said, “I’ll tell you what it looks like, at least to me. For often some of us get together who are of just about the same age, keeping the old proverb going. Now most of us complain when we’re together, yearning for the pleasures in youth and reminiscing about sexual indulgences and about drinking binges and feasts, and certain other matters that are involved in those sorts of things, and they get irritable as though they’d been deprived of some great things and as though they’d lived well then but now weren’t even living. [328B] And some also bewail the way the old are treated like dirt by their families, and they sing a lament on this theme about all the troubles old age has been responsible for to them. But, Socrates, they don’t seem to me to be blaming what is responsible. For if this were the responsible thing, I too would have suffered these same things on account of old age, as would everyone else who had come to this point in life. But as it is, I have met up before with others too who were not in this condition, especially when I was nearby the poet Sophocles when he was asked by someone, ‘Hey Sophocles, [328C] how are you doing with sex? Can you still be with a woman?’ And he said ‘Hush, fellow. I escaped it most happily indeed, as if I had run away from some raging savage master.’ He seemed to me then to be speaking well, and no less so now. For in every way a great peace and freedom from such things comes to pass in old age. When the desires stop straining and slacken, [328D] Sophocles’ words come to pass in every way, and it is a release from very many insane masters. But in regard to these things and also those that have to do with families, there is one particular cause: not old age, Socrates, but the dispositions of the people. For if they are orderly and peaceable, even old age is a burden within bounds. But if they aren’t, Socrates, both old age and youth turn out hard for such a person.”
And I felt admiration for him for saying these things, and wanting him [328E] to say more, I said, to nudge him on, “Cephalus, I imagine when you say these things most people don’t accept them from you but regard you as bearing old age easily not on account of your disposition but because you possess great wealth, for they say that rich people have many consolations.”
“You’re telling the truth,” he said. “They don’t accept them. And they have a point, though not as much of one as they imagine. Instead, the saying of Themistocles holds well. To a Seriphian who was insulting him and saying that he was [330A] well regarded not on his own account but on account of his city, he replied that neither he himself, if he were a Seriphian, nor that man, if he were an Athenian, would have become notable. And for those who are not rich, and bear old age with difficulty, the same statement holds well, that a decent person would not bear old age very easily at all with poverty, but neither would someone who is not decent, even though he were rich, ever come to be at peace with himself.”
“But Cephalus,” I said, “did you inherit the greater part of what you possess or acquire it?”
[330B] “What sort of acquisition did I make, Socrates?” he said. “One that makes me a sort of mean as a moneymaker between my grandfather and my father. For my grandfather and namesake, having inherited pretty nearly as much wealth as I now possess, made it many times as much, but my father Lysanias made it even less than it is now. But I’m satisfied if I leave these boys not less but some little amount more than I inherited.”
“The reason I asked, really,” I said, “is that you seemed to me not to have a very strong [330C] love of money, and this is the way people are, for the most part, who didn’t acquire it themselves, while those who did acquire it cling to it twice as lovingly as the others. As poets love their own poems and fathers love their children, in just this way moneymakers too take their money seriously as their own work, as well as for its use the same way other people do. So they are hard even to be around, since they are not willing to praise anything other than their riches.”
“You’re telling the truth,” he said.
[330D] “Very much so,” I said. “But tell me this much more: what do you suppose is the greatest good you’ve enjoyed from possessing your great wealth?”
“Something,” he said, “that I probably won’t persuade many people of when I say it. You can be sure, Socrates,” he went on, “that when someone is close to imagining that he is coming to the end, fear and care come into him about things that didn’t enter his thoughts before. For the stories that are told about the things in Hades’ realm, about how the one who committed injustice here must pay the penalty there, [330E] stories he scoffed at up to that time, now twist his soul with a fear that they are true. And he—either from the weakness of old age or since he discerns something more of the things there, being already closer to them—becomes filled with suspicion and terror, and he totals up his account to that time and examines whether he has done any injustice to anyone. Now one who finds many injustices of his own in his life even wakes up often from sleep in terror, the way children do, and he lives [331A] in expectation of evil. But to one who is conscious of no injustice in himself, a pleasant and good hope is always present to nourish his old age, as Pindar puts it. For truly gracefully, Socrates, does he say this, that for one who lives out his life in a just and holy way,
Sweet it gathers in him at heart,
Nurturing and nourishing his old age,
Hope that most surely steers
The much-twisting purposes of mortals.
So well he says it—wonderfully so—how very much so! And it’s for this very thing that I for my part hold the possession of money to be of its greatest worth, not [331B] for every man but for a decent and orderly one. For not having cheated or lied to anyone even unwillingly, and for not departing for there in fear, owing any sacrifices to a god or money to a human being, in great part the possession of money makes a contribution. And it does have many other uses, but setting one thing against another, I for my part would put down to this, for a man with any sense, Socrates, the greatest use for riches.”
[331C] “Wholly beautiful are the things you’re saying, Cephalus,” I said. “But about this very thing, justice, shall we simply claim in this way that it is truth and giving back anything one takes from anyone? Or is it possible to do these very things sometimes justly and sometimes unjustly? I mean, for instance, this sort of thing: surely everyone would say, if someone were to receive weapons from a friend, a man of sound mind, and he kept demanding them back when out of his mind, that one ought not to give back things of that sort, and that anyone who gave them back would not be just, and neither would anyone who was willing to tell all the truth to a person in that condition.”
[331D] “You’re right,” he said.
“Then this is not the definition of justice, to tell the truth and give back what one takes.”
“It most certainly is, Socrates,” said Polemarchus, breaking in, “at least if one ought to believe Simonides at all.”
“Indeed,” said Cephalus, “and I hand over the discussion to you folks, since I need to take care of the sacrifices now.”
“So I’m heir to a share in what’s yours?” said Polemarchus.
“Quite so,” he said with a laugh, and as he did he went off to the sacrifices.
[331E] “So tell me,” I said, “heir to a share in the discussion, what do you say that Simonides says that speaks rightly about justice?”
“ That it’s just,” he said, “to give what’s owed to each person, and in saying this he seems to me to put it beautifully.”
“And surely,” I said, “it’s not an easy thing to disbelieve a Simonides, since he is a wise and godlike man; however, whatever it is that he means by this, you no doubt know, Polemarchus, but I’m ignorant of it. For it’s obvious that he doesn’t mean this, the thing that we were talking about just now, giving anything that’s been entrusted to him back to anyone whatsoever when, not being of sound mind, [332A] he demands it. And yet this that he entrusted to someone is certainly owed him, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“But it is not by any means to be given back at a time when someone not of sound mind demands it?”
“True,” he said.
“So it’s likely that Simonides means something other than this sort of thing in saying that the giving of what’s owed is just.”
“He sure does, by Zeus,” he said, “for he assumes that friends owe it to friends to do something good and nothing bad.”
“I understand,” I said, “that whoever gives back to someone gold that’s been entrusted to him [332B] does not give what’s owed if the giving and the getting would be harmful and the people getting it back and giving it back are friends—isn’t this what you say Simonides means?”
“Very much so.”
“Then what? Is one to give back to enemies whatever happens to be owed them?”
“Absolutely,” he said, “just what’s owed them, and I suppose that what’s owed from an enemy to an enemy is the very thing that’s fitting, something bad.”
“Then it’s likely,” I said, “that Simonides was being cryptic, [332C] in a poetic way, about what would be just. For as it appears, he thought that it would be just to give each person what’s fitting, but he used the word ‘owed.’”
“What else could you think?” he said.
“For Zeus’ sake,” I said, “if someone then asked him, ‘Simonides, by giving what that’s owed and fitting to what does an art get called medical?’ what do you suppose he’d say in reply?”
“It’s clear,” he said: “drugs and also foods and drinks to bodies.”
“And by giving what that’s owed and fitting to what does an art get called culinary?”
[332D] “Seasonings to delicacies.”
“Okay; now by giving what to what would an art be called justice?”
“If it needs to follow along with the things said before, Socrates,” he said, “by giving benefits and damage to friends and enemies.”
“Then does he mean that doing good to one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies is justice?”
“It seems so to me.”
“So who has the most power to do good to sick friends and harm to sick enemies in regard to disease and health?”
“A doctor.”
[332E] “And who to those aboard ships in regard to danger at sea?”
“A helmsman.”
“And what about someone who’s just? In what action and with regard to what work does he have the most power to benefit friends and damage enemies?”
“In going to war and taking a side in battle, it seems to me.”
“Okay. Now to those who aren’t sick, my friend Polemarchus, a doctor is useless.”
“True.”
“And so is a helmsman to those who aren’t aboard ships.”
“Yes.”
“Then is it also the case that someone who’s just is useless to those who are not fighting a war?”
“That doesn’t seem so to me at all.”
[333A] “Then justice is useful also in peacetime?”
“It’s useful.”
“And farming too, or not?”
“Yes.”
“For obtaining crops?”
“Yes.”
“And surely leatherworking too?”
“Yes.”
“For obtaining shoes, I suppose you’d say?”
“Certainly.”
“So then what? For using or obtaining what in peacetime would you say justice is useful?”
“For contracts, Socrates.”
“And by contracts do you mean partnerships, or something else?”
“Partnerships, of course.”
[333B] “So then is a just person a good and useful partner in the placement of checkers, or a skilled checker player?”
“A skilled checker player.”
“And for the placement of bricks and stones, is a just person a more useful and better partner than a housebuilder?”
“By no means.”
“But then for what sort of partnership is a just person a better partner than a housebuilder and a harpist, in the way a harpist is better than a just person for strumming?”
“For what has to do with money, it seems to me.”
“Except perhaps, Polemarchus, for using money, [333C] when the money is needed for a share in buying or selling a horse; and then, as I imagine, it’s the horse expert, isn’t it?”
“So it appears.”
“And surely when it’s for a ship, it’s the shipbuilder or helmsman?”
“It seems like it.”
“Then when there is a need to use silver or gold in common, for what purpose is a just person more useful than anyone else?”
“When they need to be entrusted to someone and kept safe, Socrates.”
“So do you mean when there is no need to use them but they are lying around?”
“Certainly.”
“Therefore it’s when money is useless that justice is useful [333D] for it?”
“That’s liable to be so.”
“And when a pruning knife needs to be guarded, justice is useful in common as well as in private, but when it needs to be used what’s useful is skill at tending vines?”
“So it appears.”
“And will you claim about a shield and a lyre that when they need to be guarded and not used, justice is useful, but when they need to be used, what are useful are the arts of soldiering and music?”
“Necessarily so.”
“And about all other things, that justice is useless in the use of each of them but useful in the uselessness?”
“That’s liable to be so.”
[333E] “Well then, my friend, justice would not be a very serious thing if it’s useful just exactly for useless things. And let’s consider this point: the person who’s cleverest at hitting someone in a fight, whether in boxing or any other kind—isn’t he also cleverest at guarding against it?”
“Very much so.”
“Then too, whoever is clever at guarding against disease—isn’t he also cleverest at going undetected when causing it?”
“It seems so to me.”
[334A] “And surely the same person is a good guardian of an army who is also good at getting to know the enemies’ deliberations and other actions by stealth?”
“Very much so.”
“Then whatever someone is a clever guardian of, of this he’s also a clever thief.”
“It seems that way.”
“So if someone who’s just is clever at guarding silver, he’s also clever at stealing it.”
“That’s the way the argument is pointing, at any rate,” he said.
“Then it looks like the just person has shown up as a certain kind of thief, and you’re liable to have learned this from Homer, since he’s [334B] fond of Autolycus, Odysseus’s grandfather on his mother’s side, and says he ‘excelled all men at stealing and swearing false oaths.’ It’s likely then, according to you and to Homer and to Simonides, that justice is a certain skill at thievery, though for the benefit of one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies. Isn’t that the way you meant it?”
“No, by Zeus,” he said, “but I no longer know what I meant. This, though, still seems right to me, that justice is benefiting one’s friends and harming one’s enemies.”
[334C] “And by friends do you mean those who seem trustworthy to each person, or those who are trustworthy, even if they don’t seem to be, and likewise with enemies?”
“It’s likely,” he said, “that one loves those one regards as trustworthy and hates those one regards as worthless.”
“And don’t people make mistakes about this, so that many people seem trustworthy to them without being so, and many the other way around?”
“They make mistakes.”
“And to them, good people are enemies and bad people are friends?”
“Certainly.”
“But is it still a just thing for these people to benefit the worthless and harm the good?”
“It appears so.”
[334D] “But surely the good are just and not the sort to do injustice?”
“True.”
“So according to your statement it’s just to do harm to those who do nothing unjust.”
“There’s no way that’s true, Socrates,” he said. “It’s likely to be the statement that’s worthless.”
“Then it’s unjust people,” I said, “that it’s just to harm, and just people that it’s just to benefit?”
“This statement appears to be more beautiful than that other.”
“Then for many, Polemarchus, all those people who make mistakes, [334E] it will turn out to be just to harm their friends, since they have worthless ones, and benefit their enemies, if they’re good. And so we’ll be saying the very opposite of what we claimed Simonides meant.”
“That’s much the way it turns out,” he said. “But let’s change it around. For we’re liable to have put friend and enemy in a way that’s not right.”
“By putting them how, Polemarchus?”
“That the one who seems trustworthy is a friend.”
“And now,” I said, “how shall we change it around?”
“That the one who both seems and is trustworthy,” he said, “is a friend, [335A] but the one who seems so but isn’t trustworthy seems to be but isn’t a friend. And putting it the same way about the enemy.”
“So it looks like one who’s good, by this statement, will be a friend, and one who’s worthless will be an enemy.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re ordering us to put an addendum on what’s just, compared to the way we were first speaking of it, when we said that it’s just to do good to a friend and harm to an enemy, and now in addition to this to say it this way: that it’s just to do good to a friend who is good and to harm an enemy who’s bad?”
[335B] “Entirely so,” he said, “and that way seems to me to say it beautifully.”
“Does it therefore belong to a just man,” I said, “to do harm even to any human being at all?”
“Very much so,” he said; “by all means he needs to do harm to those who are both worthless people and enemies.”
“And when horses are harmed, do they become better or worse?”
“Worse.”
“In regard to the virtue of dogs or to that of horses?”
“In regard to that of horses.”
“So also, when dogs are harmed, they become worse in regard to the virtue of dogs but not to that of horses?”
“Necessarily.”
[335C] “But as for human beings, shall we not say the same thing, my companion, that when they’re harmed they become worse in regard to human virtue?”
“Very much so.”
“But isn’t justice human virtue?”
“This too is necessary.”
“And therefore, my friend, those human beings who are harmed necessarily become more unjust.”
“It looks likely.”
“Well now, do musicians have the power to make people unmusical by means of music?”
“They’re powerless to.”
“But are skilled horsemen able to make people inept at riding by means of horsemanship?”
“It can’t be.”
“But then are those who are just able to make people unjust by means of justice? And, [335D] putting it all together, are the good able to make people bad by means of virtue?”
“They’re powerless to.”
“For it’s not the work of heat, I presume, to cool anything, but of its opposite.”
“Yes.”
“Nor of dryness to moisten anything, but of its opposite.”
“Certainly.”
“Nor, then, of what’s good to harm anything, but of its opposite.”
“So it appears.”
“And one who’s just is good?”
“Certainly.”
“Then it’s not the work of the just person to do harm, Polemarchus, either to a friend or to anyone else, but of his opposite, the unjust person.”
[335E] “You seem to me to be speaking the truth absolutely, Socrates,” he said.
“Then if someone claims it’s just to give what’s owed to each person, and this carries the meaning for him that harm is owed from the just man to his enemies, but benefit to his friends, the one saying these things was not wise, since he wasn’t telling the truth. For it has become obvious to us that it is never just to harm anyone.”
“I go along with that,” he said.
“Then we’ll go into battle,” I said, “you and I in partnership, if anyone claims that Simonides or Bias or Pittacus or any of the other wise and blessed men has said that.”
“I for my part am ready,” he said, “to be your partner in the battle.”3
[336A] “But do you know,” I said, “whose way of speaking it seems to me to be, to claim that it’s a just thing to benefit friends and harm enemies?”
“Whose?” he said.
“I suppose it to be the statement of Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich man who imagines he has great power.”
“What you say is most true,” he said.
“Well then,” I said, “since it has come to light that this is neither justice nor a just thing, what else should one claim they are?”
[336B] And when Thrasymachus many times, even while we were in the middle of our conversation, was making motions to take over the argument, he was prevented by those sitting by him, who wanted to hear the argument out. But when we paused as I said this, he could no longer keep still, but having gathered himself to spring like a wild animal, he launched himself at us as if to tear us to pieces. Both I and Polemarchus were quaking in fear, and he, snarling into our midst, said: [336C] “What drivel are you people full of now, Socrates? And why do you act like idiots kowtowing to each other? But if you truly want to know what’s just, don’t merely ask and then, as befits someone with a passion for honor, cross-examine whenever anybody answers, knowing that it’s easier to ask than to answer, but also answer yourself and tell what you claim the just thing is. And [336D] don’t give me any of that about how it’s the needful or the beneficial or the profitable or the gainful or the advantageous, but tell me clearly and precisely what you mean, since I won’t stand for it if you talk in such empty words.”
And I was flabbergasted when I heard this, and was afraid as I looked at him, and it seemed to me that if I had not seen him before he saw me I would have been struck dumb.4 But as it was, just as he was beginning to be driven wild by the argument I looked at him first, and so [336E] I was able to answer him, and said, trembling a little, “Don’t be rough on us, Thrasymachus. If we’re mistaken in any point in the examination of the argument, I and this fellow here, you can be assured that we’re going astray unwillingly. For don’t even imagine, when, if we were looking for gold, we wouldn’t be willing to kowtow to each other in the search and ruin our chances of finding it, that when we’re looking for justice, a thing more valuable than much gold, we’d be so senseless as to defer to each other and not be as serious as possible about bringing it to light. Don’t so much as imagine that, friend. But I imagine we don’t [337A] have the power to find it. So it’s much more fitting anyway for us to be pitied by you clever people instead of being roughed up.”
And hearing this, he burst out laughing with great scorn and said “Oh Heracles, this is that routine irony5 of Socrates. I knew about this, and I kept telling these people before that you wouldn’t be willing to answer, but you’d be ironic and do everything else but answer if anyone asked you anything.”
“That’s because you’re wise, Thrasymachus,” I said, “so you know very well that [337B] if you asked anyone how much twelve is, and in asking demanded of him in advance, ‘don’t give me any of that, fellow, about how twelve is two times six or three times four or six times two or four times three, since I won’t stand for such drivel from you,’ it was clear to you, I imagine, that no one could answer someone who interrogated him that way. But if he said to you, ‘Thrasymachus, how do you mean it? That I must give none of the answers you prohibited in advance? Not even, you strange fellow, if it happens to be one of these, but instead I have to say something other than the truth? Or [337C] how do you mean it?’ What would you say to him about that?”
“Oh sure,” he said, “as if this was like that.”
“Nothing prevents it,” I said. “But then even if it isn’t like it, but appears to be to someone who is asked such a question, do you imagine he’ll any the less answer the question the way it appears to him, whether we forbid it or not?”
“So what else,” he said; “are you going to do the same thing? Are you going to give any of those answers I banned?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said, “if it seemed that way to me when I had examined it.”
[337D] “Then what if I show you a different answer about justice,” he said, “beyond all these, better than they are? What penalty would you think you deserve to suffer?”
“What other penalty,” I said, “than the one it’s fitting for someone who doesn’t have knowledge to suffer? And it’s fitting, no doubt, for him to learn from someone who has knowledge. So I think I too deserve to suffer this penalty.”
“You’re amusing,” he said, “but in addition to learning, pay a penalty in money too.”
“Okay, whenever I get any,” I said.
“He’s got it,” said Glaucon. “So as far as money’s concerned, Thrasymachus, speak up, since all of us will chip in for Socrates.”
[337E] “I imagine you will,” he said, “so Socrates can go on with his usual routine: he won’t answer but when somebody else answers he’ll grab hold of his statement and cross-examine him.”
“Most skillful one,” I said, “how could anyone give an answer who in the first place doesn’t know and doesn’t claim to know, and then too, even if he supposes something about these things, would be banned from saying what he believes by no inconsiderable man? So it’s more like it [338A] for you to speak, since you do claim to know and to have something to say. So don’t do anything else but gratify me by answering, and don’t be grudging about teaching Glaucon here as well as the others.”
And when I’d said these things, Glaucon and the others kept begging him not to do otherwise. And Thrasymachus was obviously longing to speak in order to be well thought of, believing that he had an answer of overwhelming beauty. But he made a pretense of battling eagerly for me to be the one that [338B] answered. But making an end of this, he gave way, and then said, “This is the wisdom of Socrates; he himself is not willing to teach, but he goes around learning from others and doesn’t even pay them any gratitude.”
“In saying that I learn from others,” I said, “you tell the truth, Thrasymachus, but when you claim that I don’t pay for it in full with gratitude, you lie, for I pay all that is in my power. I have the power only to show appreciation, since I don’t have money. And how eagerly I do this, if anyone seems to me to speak well, you’ll know very well right away when [338C] you answer, for I imagine you’ll speak well.”
“Then listen,” he said. “I assert that what’s just is nothing other than what’s advantageous to the stronger. So why don’t you show appreciation? But you won’t be willing to.”
“First I need to understand what you mean,” I said, “since now I don’t yet know. You claim that what’s advantageous to the stronger is just. Now whatever do you mean by this, Thrasymachus? For I’m sure you’re not saying this sort of thing: that if Polydamas the no-holds-barred wrestler is stronger than we are, and bull’s meat is advantageous to him for his body, this food [338D] would also be advantageous, and at the same time just, for us who are weaker than he is.”
“You’re nauseating, Socrates,” he said, “and you grab hold of the statement in the way that you can do it the most damage.”
“Not at all, most excellent man,” I said, “just say more clearly what you mean.”
“So you don’t know,” he said, “that some cities are run tyrannically, some democratically, and some aristocratically?”
“How could I not?”
“And so this prevails in strength in each city, the ruling part?”
“Certainly.”
[338E] “And each ruling power sets up laws for the advantage of itself, a democracy setting up democratic ones, a tyranny tyrannical ones, and the others likewise. And having set them up, they declare that this, what’s advantageous for them, is just for those who are ruled, and they chastise someone who transgresses it as a lawbreaker and a person doing injustice. So this, you most skillful one, is what I’m saying, that the same thing [339A] is just in all cities, what’s advantageous to the established ruling power. And this surely prevails in strength, so the conclusion, for someone who reasons correctly, is that the same thing is just everywhere, what’s advantageous to the stronger.”
“Now,” I said, “I understand what you mean. But whether it’s true or not, I’ll try to learn. So you too answer that the advantageous is just, Thrasymachus, even though you made a prohibition for me [339B] that I could not give this answer, though there is added to it ‘for the stronger.’”
“A small addendum, no doubt,” he said.
“It’s not clear yet whether it’s a big one. But it is clear that whether you’re speaking the truth needs to be examined. For since you’re saying and I’m agreeing that what’s just is something advantageous, but you’re making an addition and claiming it to be that of the stronger, while I don’t know that, it needs to be examined.”
“So examine it,” he said.
“That will be done,” I said. “Now tell me, do you not claim, though, that it’s also just to obey the rulers?”
“I do.”
[339C] “And are the rulers in each city infallible, or the sort of people who also make mistakes?”
“By all means,” he said, “they’re surely the sort of people who also make mistakes.”
“So when they try to set up laws, they set up some correctly and certain others incorrectly?”
“I certainly imagine so.”
“Then to set them up correctly is to set up laws that are advantageous to themselves, and incorrectly, disadvantageous ones? Or how do you mean it?”
“That’s the way.”
“But whatever they set up needs to be done by those who are ruled, and this is what is just?”
“How could it be otherwise?”
[339D] “Then according to your statement, not only is it just to do what’s advantageous to the stronger, but also to do the opposite, what’s disadvantageous.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“What you mean, it seems to me; but let’s examine it better. Wasn’t it agreed that when the rulers command those who are ruled to do certain things they’re sometimes completely mistaken about what’s best for themselves, but what the rulers command is just for those who are ruled to do? Wasn’t this agreed?”
“I certainly imagine so,” he said.
[339E] “Well then,” I said, “imagine also that it was agreed by you that doing what’s disadvantageous for those who rule and are stronger is just, whenever the rulers unwillingly command things that are bad for themselves, while you claim that for the others to do those things which they commanded is just. So then, most wise Thrasymachus, doesn’t it turn out necessarily in exactly this way, that it’s just to do the opposite of what you say? For what’s disadvantageous to the stronger is without doubt commanded to the weaker to do.”
[340A] “By Zeus, yes, Socrates,” said Polemarchus, “most clearly so.”
“If you’re going to be a witness for him,” Cleitophon interjected.
“And what need is there for a witness? Thrasymachus himself agrees that the rulers sometimes command things that are bad for themselves, and that for the others to do these things is just.”
“That’s because Thrasymachus set it down, Polemarchus, that doing what’s ordered by the rulers is just.”
“Because he also set it down, Cleitophon, that what’s advantageous [340B] to the stronger is just. And having set down both these things, he agreed next that sometimes the stronger order things that are disadvantageous to themselves for those who are weaker and ruled to do. And from these agreements what’s advantageous to the stronger would be no more just than what’s disadvantageous.”
“But,” said Cleitophon, “he meant that the advantage of the stronger is what the stronger believes is advantageous to himself; this is what needs to be done by the weaker, and he set this down as what’s just.”
“But he didn’t say it that way,” said Polemarchus.
[340C] “It makes no difference, Polemarchus,” I said, “but if Thrasymachus says it this way now, let’s accept it this way from him. And tell me, Thrasymachus, was this what you wanted to say the just is, what seems to the stronger to be the advantage of the stronger, whether it might be advantageous or not? Shall we say you mean it that way?”
“That least of all,” he said. “Do you imagine that I call someone who makes a mistake stronger when he’s making a mistake?”
“I did imagine that you were saying that,” I said, “when you agreed that [340D] the rulers are not infallible but are even completely mistaken about some things.”
“That’s because you’re a liar who misrepresents things in arguments, Socrates. To start with, do you call someone who’s completely mistaken about sick people a doctor on account of that very thing he’s mistaken about? Or call someone skilled at arithmetic who makes a mistake in doing arithmetic, at the time when he’s making it, on account of this mistake? I imagine instead that we talk that way in a manner of speaking, saying that the doctor made a mistake, or the one skilled at arithmetic made a mistake, or the grammarian. But I assume that each of these, to the extent that this is [340E] what we address him as, never makes a mistake, so that in precise speech, since you too are precise in speech, no skilled worker makes a mistake. For it’s by being deficient in knowledge that the one who makes a mistake makes it, in respect to which he is not a skilled worker. So no one who’s a skilled worker or wise or a ruler makes a mistake at the time when he is a ruler, though everyone would say that the doctor made a mistake or the ruler made a mistake. Take it then that I too was answering you just now in that sort of way. But the most precise way of speaking is exactly this, that [341A] the one who rules, to the extent that he is a ruler, does not make mistakes, and in not making a mistake he sets up what is best for himself, and this needs to be done by the one who is ruled. And so I say the very thing I’ve been saying from the beginning is just, to do what’s advantageous to the stronger.”
“Okay, Thrasymachus,” I said. “I seem to you to misrepresent things by lying?”
“Very much so,” he said.
“Because you imagine that I asked the question the way I did out of a plot to do you harm in the argument?”
“I know that very well,” he said. “And it’s not going to do you any good, [341B] because you couldn’t do me any harm without it being noticed, and without being unnoticed you wouldn’t have the power to do violence with the argument.”
“I wouldn’t even try, blessed one,” I said. “But in order that this sort of thing doesn’t happen to us again, distinguish the way you mean someone who rules and is stronger, whether it’s the one who is so called or the one in precise speech whom you just now mentioned, for whose advantage, since he’s stronger, it will be just for the weaker to act.”
“The one who’s a ruler in the most precise speech,” he said. “Do harm to that and misrepresent it by lies if you have any power to—I ask for no [341C] mercy from you—but you won’t be able to.”
“Do you imagine,” I said, “that I’m crazy enough to try to shave a lion or misrepresent Thrasymachus by lies?”
“You certainly tried just now,” he said, “but you were a zero even at that.”
“That’s enough of this sort or thing,” I said. “But tell me, the doctor in precise speech that you were just now talking about, is he a moneymaker or a healer of the sick? And speak about the one who is a doctor.”
“A healer of the sick,” he said.
“And what about a helmsman? Is the one who’s a helmsman in the correct way a ruler of sailors or a sailor?”
[341D] “A ruler of sailors.”
“I assume there’s no need to take into account that he does sail in the ship, and no need for him to be called a sailor, since it’s not on account of sailing that he’s called a helmsman, but on account of his art and his ruling position among the sailors.”
“That’s true,” he said.
“Then for each of the latter there’s something advantageous?”
“Certainly.”
“And isn’t art by its nature for this,” I said, “for seeking and providing what’s advantageous in each case?”
“For that,” he said.
“Then is there any advantage for each of the arts other than to be as complete as possible?”
[341E] “In what sense are you asking this?”
“In the same sense,” I said, “as, if you were to ask me whether it’s sufficient for a body to be a body or whether it needs something extra, I’d say ‘Absolutely it needs something extra, and it’s for that reason that the medical art has now been discovered, because a body is inadequate and isn’t sufficient to itself to be the sort of thing it is. So it’s for this reason, in order that it might provide the things that are advantageous for the body, that the art was devised.’ Would I seem to you to be speaking correctly in saying this,” I said, “or not?”
[342A] “It’s correct,” he said.
“What then? Is the medical art itself—or any other art—inadequate, and is it the case that it has need of some extra virtue? Just as eyes need sight and ears need hearing and for these reasons there is need of some art applied to them that will consider and provide what’s advantageous for these things, is there then in the art itself some inadequacy in it too, and a need for each art to have another art that will consider what’s advantageous for it, and for the one that will consider that to have another art in turn of that kind, and this is unending? Or will it consider [342B] what’s advantageous for itself? Or is there no additional need either for it or for any other art to consider what’s advantageous for its inadequacy, because there is no inadequacy or mistake present in any art, nor is it appropriate for an art to look out for the advantage of anything other than that with which the art is concerned, but it itself is without defect and without impurity since it is correct as long as each is the whole precise art that it is. Consider it in that precise speech now: is that the way it is, or is it some other way?”
“That way,” he said, “as it appears.”
[342C] “So then,” I said, “the medical art considers what’s advantageous not for the medical art but for a body.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And horsemanship considers what’s advantageous not for horsemanship but for horses, and neither does any other art consider what’s advantageous for itself, since there’s no extra need for that, but for that with which the art is concerned.”
“So it appears,” he said.
“But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts rule over and have power over that with which they’re concerned.”
He went along with that too, very grudgingly.
“Then no sort of knowledge considers or commands [342D] what’s advantageous for the stronger, but what’s advantageous for what’s weaker and ruled by it.”
He finally agreed with this too, though he tried to make a fight about it, and when he agreed I said, “So does anything else follow except that no doctor, to the extent he is a doctor, considers or commands what’s advantageous for a doctor, but instead for someone who’s sick? For it was agreed that the doctor is precisely a ruler of bodies but not a moneymaker. Or was that not agreed?”
He said so.
“Then the helmsman too was agreed to be precisely a ruler of sailors [342E] but not a sailor?”
“It was agreed.”
“Then this sort of helmsman and ruler at any rate will not consider and command what’s advantageous for a helmsman, but what’s advantageous for the sailor who’s ruled.”
He said so, grudgingly.
“Therefore, Thrasymachus,” I said, “neither will anyone else in any ruling position, to the extent he is a ruler, consider or command what’s advantageous for himself, but what’s advantageous for whatever is ruled, for which he himself is a skilled workman, and looking toward that, and to what’s advantageous and appropriate for that, he both says and does everything that he says and does.”
[343A] Now when we were at this point in the argument, and it was obvious to everyone that the statement about what’s just had turned around into its opposite, Thrasymachus, instead of replying, said “Tell me, Socrates, do you have someone nursing you?”
“What?” I said. “Shouldn’t you give an answer rather than asking things like that?”
“Well,” he said, “she must not be noticing your snotty nose because she’s not wiping it when you need her to, if it’s her fault you can’t tell a sheep from a shepherd.”
“Because of what in particular?” I said.
[343B] “Because you imagine that shepherds or cattlemen consider the good of the sheep or cattle and fatten them up and take care of them looking to anything other than the good of their bosses and of themselves, and so you also believe that the rulers in cities, the ones who truly are rulers, think about those who are ruled in any other way than someone would treat sheep, and that they consider anything, day and night, other [343C] than this: how they themselves are going to benefit. And you’re so far off about what’s just and justice and what’s unjust and injustice that you don’t know that justice and what’s just are in fact someone else’s good, what’s advantageous for the person who’s stronger and a ruler, and one’s own harm for the person who obeys and is subservient; injustice is the opposite, and rules over those who are truly simpletons and just people, while the ones who are ruled do what’s advantageous for the person who’s stronger and make him happy by serving [343D] him, but themselves not in any way whatsoever.
“It needs to be looked at this way, most simple-minded Socrates: a just man has less than an unjust one in every situation. First, in contracts with each other, where the one sort is partnered with the other, nowhere would you find that the one who’s just had more in the breaking up of the partnership than the unjust one—only less. Next, in things related to the city, whenever there are any taxes, the one who’s just pays more tax on an equal amount of property, the other less, and whenever [343E] there are allotments, the former gains nothing, the latter a lot. Also, whenever each of the two holds some ruling office it goes without saying for the one who’s just, that even if he has no other loss, his household circumstances get into a sorry state from lack of attention, while, on account of being just, he gets no benefit from the public treasury, and on top of that he gets the antagonism of his family and acquaintances when he isn’t willing to do them any services contrary to what’s just. And for the one who’s unjust, it goes without saying that everything is the opposite of this [344A] —I mean the person I was just now talking about, the one who has the power to get a lot more than his due. So consider this person if you want to judge by how much more what’s unjust is to his private advantage than what’s just.
“You’ll understand this most easily of all if you go up to the most complete injustice, which makes the one who does the injustice the most happy and the ones the injustice is done to the most miserable if they aren’t willing to be unjust too. And this is tyranny, which, by both furtiveness and force, takes away what belongs to others, both the sacred and the profane, both the private and the public, not little by little [344B] but all at one swoop. When anyone who does injustice in a single portion of that doesn’t go undetected, he is punished and has the greatest disgrace—impious men, hijackers, home invaders, cheats, and thieves are names given to those who do the injustice involved in parts of that sort of evildoing—but when someone, in addition to stealing the citizens’ money, steals the men themselves and makes slaves of them, instead of these disgraceful names he’s called happy [344C] and blessed, not only by the citizens but by everyone else who hears that his injustice has been total injustice. Those who condemn injustice condemn it not because they’re afraid of doing unjust things but because they’re afraid of suffering them.
“This is the way, Socrates, that injustice, when it comes on the scene with sufficient strength, is stronger, more free, and more overpowering than justice, and the way that what’s just is exactly what I was saying from the beginning, what’s advantageous to the stronger, while what’s unjust is profitable and advantageous to oneself.”
[344D] When he’d said these things, Thrasymachus had it in mind to go away, just like a bath attendant who had sloshed a lot of speech into our ears all at once. But those who were present didn’t let him go but forced him to stay and submit to a discussion of the things he’d said. And I too myself begged him very strongly and said “Thrasymachus, you supernatural being, what sort of speech have you flung at us, that you have it in mind to go away before teaching us adequately or learning whether it’s that way or some other? Or [344E] do you imagine it’s a small matter to try to determine the course of a lifetime, by which each of us who leads it would live the most profitable life?”
“Do I imagine it’s any different?” said Thrasymachus.
“You seemed to,” I said, “or else not to be bothered at all about us, or have any concern whether we’ll live worse or better lives for being ignorant of what you claim to know. But, good fellow, be willing to display it to us too [345A] —it certainly won’t be a bad deposit to your account that you did a good deed for us, so many as we are—because I’m telling you that for my part I’m not persuaded, nor do I suppose that injustice is more of a gain than justice, not even if one gives it its own way and doesn’t hinder it from doing what it wants. But, good fellow, let someone be unjust, and let him have the power to do injustice either by going undetected or by fighting his way through; he still doesn’t persuade me that that’s [345B] more of a gain than justice. Now perhaps some other one of us, and not I alone, has gotten this impression, so persuade us, blessed one, in an adequate way, that we aren’t being counseled correctly when we hold justice at a greater value than injustice.”
“And how,” he said, “am I going to persuade you? If you’re not persuaded by the things I was saying just now, what more am I going to do for you? Or shall I bring the argument and spoon-feed it into your soul?”
“By Zeus,” I said, “not that—not you. But first, stick by whatever you say, or if you change them make the change openly and [345C] don’t mislead us. But you see what you’re doing now, Thrasymachus—because we still need to examine the things you said before—that after first defining the true doctor, you later supposed there was no longer a need to be on guard in a precise way about the true shepherd, but imagined that, to the extent that he is a shepherd, he fattens up his sheep, not looking toward what’s best for the sheep, but, like someone at a banquet about to be feasted, toward a good meal, or else toward turning a profit, [345D] like a moneymaker instead of a shepherd. But surely nothing is of concern to the art of shepherding other than how it’s going to provide what’s best for that over which it’s appointed—since it’s no doubt sufficiently provided for that the things pertaining to the art itself will be best so long as it lacks nothing of being the art of shepherding. That’s why I supposed just now that it was necessary for us to agree that every ruling office, to the extent that it is a ruling office, considers what’s best for no other thing than the one that’s ruled over and [345E] cared for, in both political and private rule. And do you imagine that the rulers in cities, the ones who truly are rulers, rule willingly?”
“I don’t imagine it, by Zeus,” he said, “I know it well.”
“Then what about the other kinds of rule, Thrasymachus?” I said. “Don’t you realize that no one willingly desires to rule, but people demand wages on the grounds that there won’t be any benefit to them from their ruling but only to the ones [346A] that are ruled? Because tell me this much: don’t we claim, no doubt, that each of the arts is different in each case in this respect, in having a different power? And so that we may get to a conclusion, blessed one, don’t answer contrary to your opinion,”
“They are indeed different in that respect,” he said.
“Then does each of these also furnish us with some benefit that’s particular to it and not shared by them all, such as health with the medical art, safety in sailing with helmsmanship, and so on with the others?”
“Certainly.”
[346B] “So then wages too with the wage-earning art? Because that’s its power—or do you call the medical art and helmsmanship the same? Or if in fact you want to distinguish them with precision, as you set down for our principle, even if someone becomes healthy as a helmsman, because it’s advantageous to him to sail on the sea, do you any the more on that account call his skill the medical art?”
“Of course not,” he said.
“Nor, I imagine, do you call the wage-earning art medical, even if someone earning wages gets healthy?”
“Of course not.”
“And what about the medical art—even if someone who heals someone earns wages do you call his skill the wage-earning art?”
[346C] “No,” he said.
“Didn’t we agree that the benefit of each art is particular to it?”
“So be it,” he said.
“Therefore it’s clear that whatever sort of benefit all skilled workmen benefit by in common, they get that benefit from using in addition something that’s the same, shared by them in common.”
“It seems like it,” he said.
“Then we’re saying that the wages the skilled workmen gain for their benefit come to them from their additional use of the wage-earning art.”
He said so grudgingly.
[346D] “Therefore it’s not from his own art that this benefit, that of getting wages, belongs to each of them, but if one is required to consider it with precision, the medical art produces health and the mercenary art wages, and the housebuilding art produces a house and the mercenary art following along with it produces wages, and it’s this way with all the other arts—each works at its own work and benefits that over which its work is appointed. And if there were no wages attached to it, is there any benefit that the workman would get from his art?”
“It doesn’t appear so,” he said.
[346E] “And does he produce a benefit even on an occasion when he does his work for free?”
“I imagine so.”
“Then, Thrasymachus, this is already obvious, that no art nor any ruling function provides for its own benefit, but, the very thing we’ve been saying for so long, it both provides for and commands the benefit of the one ruled, considering the benefit of that weaker one and not that of the stronger. So it’s for these reasons, Thrasymachus my friend, that I was also saying just now that no one willingly desires to rule and deal with straightening out other people’s troubles, but [347A] people demand wages because the one who’s going to do a beautiful job by art never does what’s best for himself or commands it when he’s commanding in accord with his art, but only for the one ruled, on account of which, as is only fitting, there need to be wages for those who are going to be willing to rule, either money, or honor, or a penalty if one does not rule.”
“How do you mean that, Socrates,” said Glaucon. “I recognize the two sorts of wages, but I don’t understand what you mean by the penalty and how you’ve declared it to be in the class of wages.”
[347B] “Then you don’t understand the wages of the best people,” I said, “on account of which the most decent ones rule, when they’re willing to rule. Or don’t you know that people are said to be passionate for honor and money as a reproach, and it is one?”
“I do,” he said.
“So,” I said, “that’s why good people aren’t willing to rule for the sake of either money or honor. They don’t want to be called mercenary if they openly get wages for the ruling office, or thieves if they secretly take money from the office themselves. And they don’t rule for the sake of honor either, since they aren’t passionate for honor. So there needs [347C] to be a necessity attached to it for them, and a penalty, if they’re going to be willing to rule; that’s liable to be where it comes from that it’s considered shameful to go willingly to rule rather than to await necessity. And the greatest sort of penalty is to be ruled by someone less worthy, if one is not oneself willing to rule. It’s on account of fearing this that decent people appear to me to rule, when they do rule, and then they go to rule not as though they were heading for something good or as though they were going to have any enjoyment in it, but as though to [347D] something necessary, since they have no one better than or similar to themselves to entrust it to. Because, if a city of good men were to come into being, they’d be liable to have a fight over not ruling just as people do now over ruling, and it would become obvious there that the person who is a true ruler in his being is not of such a nature as to consider what’s advantageous for himself rather than for the one ruled. So everyone with any discernment6 would choose to be benefited by someone else rather than to have the trouble of benefiting someone else. On this point, then, I by no means go along with [347E] Thrasymachus that what’s just is what’s advantageous for the stronger. But we’ll examine this some other time, for what Thrasymachus is saying now seems to me to be much more important, when he claims that the life of someone who’s unjust is more powerful than that of someone who’s just. Now you, Glaucon,” I said, “which way do you choose? And which claim seems to you to be more truly spoken?”
“To me, the one that says the life of the one who’s just is more profitable.”
[348A] “Even though you heard all the good things Thrasymachus went through just now,” I said, “about that of the one who’s unjust?”
“Because I heard them,” he said, “but I’m not persuaded.”
“Then do you want us to persuade him, if it’s in our power to discover a way, that he’s not speaking the truth?”
“How could I not want it?” he said.
“Well now,” I said, “if we’re to address him by spreading out one statement in exchange for another along the length of his speech, about all the good things being just includes, and he’d reply in turn, and we with another speech, it will be necessary to count up [348B] the good points each of us makes in each speech and measure how good they are, and by that time we’ll need some sort of jury of people to judge it. But if, as we were doing just now, we examine the question based on things we agree with each other about, we ourselves will be jurors and advocates at the same time.”7
“Very much so,” he said.
“Whichever way you please, then,” I said.
“The latter,” he said.
“Come now, Thrasymachus,” I said, “answer us from the beginning. Do you claim that complete injustice is more profitable than justice when it’s complete?”
[348C] “I claim it very much so,” he said, “and I’ve said why.”
“Well then, how do you speak about them in this respect? I presume you call one of the pair virtue and the other vice?”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“So you call justice virtue and injustice vice?”
“Yeah, right, you most amusing fellow,” he said, “since I also say that injustice is profitable and justice isn’t.”
“What then?”
“The opposite,” he said.
“Justice is vice?”
“No, just very well bred simplemindedness.”
[348D] “Then do you call injustice bad character?”
“No,” he said, “just good judgment.”
“And do unjust people seem to you, Thrasymachus, to be intelligent and good?”
“If they’re able to be completely unjust,” he said, “and have the power to bring cities and throngs of people under their control. But you probably imagine I’m talking about pickpockets. Now things like that are profitable too,” he said, “so long as one goes undetected—they’re just not worthy of mention compared to what I was talking about just now.”
[348E] “On that point,” I said, “I’m not unaware of what you want to say, but I did wonder about this one, whether you place injustice in the class of virtue and wisdom, and justice among their opposites.”
“That’s exactly the way I place them.”
“This is already something harder, my companion,” I said, “and it’s no longer easy to have anything one could say about it. For if you placed injustice as being profitable, but still agreed, the way some others do,8 that it’s vice and shameful, we’d have something to say by speaking in accordance with the things customarily believed, but now you’re obviously going to claim that it’s both beautiful and [349A] strong, and you’ll add to it all the other things that we attribute to what’s just, since you even had the nerve to place it among virtue and wisdom.”
“Your premonition is very true,” he said.
“But still,” I said, “one mustn’t shrink from going through the argument to examine it, so long as I get the impression that you’re saying exactly what you think. For you seem to me now, Thrasymachus, without pretense and not joking, but stating what seems to you about the truth.”
“What difference does it make to you,” he said, “whether it seems that way to me or not? Aren’t you just cross-examining the argument?”
[349B] “No difference,” I said. “But try to answer this further question for me in addition to those: does it seem to you that a just person wants to have more of anything than another just person?”
“By no means,” he said, “since then he wouldn’t be the refined simpleton I just said he is.”
“What then? Would he want to go beyond a just action?”
“Not that either,” he said.
“And would he consider it appropriate to get more than the unjust person and regard that as just, or would he not?”
“He’d regard it as just and consider it appropriate,” he said, “but he wouldn’t have the power to.”
[349C] “But I’m not asking you that,” I said, “but whether someone who’s just would not consider it appropriate or even want to have more than a just person, while he would consider it so and want that in relation to an unjust person.”
“That’s the way it is,” he said.
“And what then about someone who’s unjust? Would he consider it appropriate to go beyond a just person and a just action?”
“How could he not,” he said, “since he considers it appropriate to have more than everybody?”
“Then will someone who’s unjust also go beyond an unjust human being and an unjust action, and will he compete to get the most of everything himself?”
“That’s it.”
“So should we say this,” I said, “that someone who’s just does not go beyond [349D] one who’s like him but one who’s unlike him, while someone who’s unjust goes beyond both one who’s like him and one who’s unlike him?”
“You’ve said it best,” he said.
“And is someone who’s unjust intelligent and good,” I said, “while someone who’s just is neither one?”
“This too is well said,” he said.
“So then,” I said, “someone who’s unjust is like one who’s intelligent and one who’s good, while someone who’s just is not like them?”
“How’s he not going to be like people of that sort,” he said, “when he’s that sort of person, while the other is not like them?”
“Beautiful. Then each of them is the sort of person that each is like?”
“What else are they going to be?” he said.
[349E] “Fine, Thrasymachus. Now do you call one person musical and another unmusical?”
“I do.”
“Which is intelligent and which ignorant?”
“The one who’s musical is surely intelligent, and the unmusical one ignorant.”
“Then in those respects in which one is intelligent, one is good, and in those respects in which one is ignorant one is bad?”
“Yes.”
“And what about someone who’s medical? Isn’t it the same way?”
“The same.”
“So does it seem to you, most excellent one, that any musical man who’s tuning a lyre desires to go beyond a musical man in stretching and loosening the strings and considers it appropriate to have more?”
“Not to me.”
“Then what? Beyond one who’s unmusical?”
“Necessarily so,” he said.
[350A] “And what about someone who’s medical? About food and drink would he want in any way to go beyond either a medical man or a medical action?”
“Surely not.”
“But beyond an unmedical one?”
“Yes.”
“Then see whether it seems to you that for any kind of knowledge and ignorance, anyone whatever who has knowledge desires to take or do or say more than another person with knowledge would, and not do or say the same things as someone like himself in the same action.”
“Well, maybe it’s necessary for it to be that way,” he said.
“And then what about someone who lacks knowledge? Wouldn’t he go beyond both [350B] someone with knowledge and someone without it alike?”
“Maybe.”
“And someone who has knowledge is wise?”
“I’d say so.”
“And someone who’s wise is good?”
“I’d say so.”
“Therefore someone who’s good and wise won’t desire to go beyond someone like himself, but beyond someone who’s unlike and the opposite of himself.”
“It looks like it.”
“But someone who’s bad and stupid desires to go beyond both the one who’s like him and the one who’s opposite.”
“So it appears.”
“Now then, Thrasymachus,” I said, “according to us, someone who’s unjust goes beyond both the one who’s unlike him and the one who’s like him? Weren’t you saying that?”
“I was,” he said.
[350C] “And someone who’s just won’t go beyond the one who’s like him, but beyond the one who’s unlike him?”
“Yes.”
“Therefore,” I said, “someone who’s just is like one who’s wise and good, and someone who’s unjust is like one who’s bad and stupid.”
“They’re liable to be.”
“But surely we also agreed that each of the two is the sort of person that each would be like.”
“We did agree on that.”
“Therefore the just person has been brought to light by us as being good and wise, and the unjust person as being stupid and bad.”
Now Thrasymachus did agree to all these things, though not as [350D] easily as I’m telling it now, but being dragged along and grudging it, after sweating a prodigious amount, seeing as how it was also summer. And then I saw something I had never seen before: Thrasymachus blushing. So when we had come to agreement that justice is virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and stupidity, I said “Okay, let this be the way it now stands according to us, but we were also claiming that injustice is something strong. Or don’t you remember, Thrasymachus?”
“I remember,” he said, “but what you’re saying now isn’t good enough for me, and I have something to say about it. But if I were to say it, I know well that you’d claim I was [350E] speaking rhetorically. So either let me speak as much as I want or, if you want to ask questions, ask them, and I’ll treat you the way people do old women when they’re telling stories, and tell you ‘okay,’ and nod my head or shake it.”
“Don’t by any means do that contrary to your own opinion,” I said.
“Just to please you,” he said, “seeing as how you won’t let me speak. What else do you want?”
“Nothing, by Zeus,” I said; “but if you’re going to do that, do it, and I’ll ask questions.”
“Ask away.”
“Well, I’m asking this, the very thing I asked just now, so that we might go through an orderly examination [351A] of the argument about exactly what sort of thing justice is in relation to injustice. For it was said, surely, that injustice would be a more powerful and stronger thing than justice, but now,” I said, “if justice is in fact wisdom and virtue, it will easily be brought to light, I imagine, as a stronger thing than injustice, seeing as how injustice is stupidity. No one could any longer be ignorant of that. But, Thrasymachus, I don’t wish for it to be considered so simply, but in something like the following way: [351B] would you claim that a city is unjust that tries to enslave other cities unjustly, and has made slaves of them, and holds them in slavery to itself?”
“How could it be otherwise?” he said. “And the best city will do this the most, since it is also the most completely unjust.”
“I understand,” I said, “that this was your argument, but I’m considering this about it: will the city that becomes master of a city hold this power without justice, or is it necessary for it to hold it with justice?”
[351C] “If, as you were saying just now, justice is wisdom,” he said, “with justice. But if it’s the way I was saying, with injustice.”
“I very much admire, Thrasymachus,” I said, “the fact that you aren’t just nodding or shaking your head but also answering very beautifully.”
“Well, I’m doing it to humor you,” he said.
“And you’re doing it well. Now just humor me this much more and tell me, do you believe that either a city or an army or pirates or thieves or any other group that embarks on anything in common unjustly will have the power to accomplish it if they behave unjustly toward one another?”
“Not at all,” he said.
[351D] “And what if they don’t behave unjustly? Won’t they accomplish more?”
“Very much so.”
“For surely, Thrasymachus, injustice causes factions and hatreds and fights among one another, while justice causes like-mindedness and friendship. Isn’t that so?”
“So be it,” he said, “so I won’t be at odds with you.9”
“And you’re behaving very well, most excellent fellow. But tell me this: if that’s the work of injustice, to bring in hatred wherever it’s present, won’t it also, when it comes in among the free as well as the enslaved, make them hate each [351E] other and form factions and be powerless to act in common with one another?”
“Certainly.”
“Then what if it comes to be present in two people? Won’t they be at odds and hate and be enemies of one another as well as of those who are just?”
“They will be,” he said.
“Then, you surprising fellow, if injustice comes to be present in one person, will it lose its power completely, or still have it to no less extent?”
“Let it have it to no less extent,” he said.
“Then does it come to light as having some such power as this, in that in which it comes to be present, whether a particular city, a race of people, an army, or [352A] anything else whatsoever, that first of all injustice makes it powerless to act with itself on account of being in factions and at odds, then also makes it be an enemy to itself and everything opposed to it and to what is just? Isn’t that the way it is?”
“Certainly.”
“So even when it’s present in one person, I assume, it will do these very same things that are its workings by its nature: first it will make him powerless to act, being at faction and not of one mind himself with himself, and then an enemy both to himself and to those who are just. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And, my friend, the gods too are just?”
[352B] “So be it.”
“Therefore, Thrasymachus, someone who’s unjust will also be an enemy to the gods, but someone who’s just will be a friend.”
“Gorge yourself on the argument fearlessly,” he said. “I won’t oppose you anyway, so that I won’t be hateful to these people here.”
“Come on then,” I said, “and fill up what’s left of the feasting for me by answering just as you are now. Because those who are just have come to light as wiser and better and more empowered to act, while those who are unjust are not able to act in any way [352C] with each other, but in fact we aren’t speaking the whole truth when we claim that people who are unjust ever yet acted vigorously in common with one another in anything, since they couldn’t have kept their hands off each other if they were completely unjust, but it’s clear that there was a certain justice in them which made them not do injustice to each other, at least at the same time they were also doing it to those they were doing it to. It was by means of this justice that they acted in whatever respects they did act, and they embarked on their unjust deeds as semi-vicious people, since those who are all-vicious and completely unjust [352D] are also completely powerless to act. Now I understand that these things are so, and not the way you set them down at first. But whether those who are just also live better and are happier than those who are unjust, the very thing we proposed to consider later, needs to be considered. And now, as it seems to me at least, they do appear to from the things we’ve said. Nevertheless, it needs to be examined still better, since the discussion is not about some random thing, but about the way one ought to live.”
“So examine it,” he said.
“I’m examining it,” I said, “and tell me, does it seem to you that there is a certain work that belongs to [352E] a horse?”
“To me, yes.”
“And would you set this down as the work of a horse or of anything else whatever—what one could do only, or best, with it?”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Try it this way: is there anything else you could see with except eyes?”
“Surely not.”
“What then; could you hear with anything except ears?”
“Not at all.”
“Then do we justly claim that these things are their work?”
“Certainly.”
[353A] “What about this? Could you cut off a branch from a vine with a dagger or a carving knife or with many other things?”
“How could I not?”
“But with none of these, I imagine, so beautifully as with a pruning knife that’s worked up for this use?”
“True.”
“Then shall we not set this down as the work of this thing?”
“We certainly shall.”
“So now I assume you’d understand better what I was asking just now, when I inquired whether the work of each thing wouldn’t be that which only it accomplishes, or which it, compared to other things, accomplishes most beautifully.”
“I do understand,” he said, “and it does seem to me that this [353B] is the work of each thing.”
“Okay,” I said, “and then does it seem to you that there’s a virtue for each thing that has some work attached to it? Let’s go back to the same examples: we claim there’s some work that belongs to eyes?”
“There is.”
“So is there also a virtue that belongs to eyes?”
“A virtue too.”
“What next? Was there a work belonging to ears?”
“Yes.”
“Then a virtue too?”
“A virtue too.”
“What then about everything else? Isn’t it that way?”
“It’s that way.”
“Keep on. Could eyes ever accomplish their own work [353C] beautifully if they didn’t have their own particular virtue but vice instead of the virtue?”
“How could they?” he said. “You no doubt mean blindness instead of sight.”
“Whatever virtue belongs to them,” I said, “since I’m not yet asking about that, but whether with the particular virtue that pertains to their work they’re going to do the work they do well, but do it badly with the vice.”
“On this point,” he said, “you’re telling the truth.”
“So then ears too, when deprived of their virtue, will accomplish their work badly?”
“Certainly.”
[353D] “And will we put everything else too into the same statement?”
“It seems that way to me.”
“Come then, after these things, consider this one. Is there any work belonging to a soul that you couldn’t perform with any single other thing there is? Like this, for instance—managing and ruling and deliberating and everything like that—is there anything other than a soul to which we could justly attribute them and claim that they belong to that in particular?”
“Nothing else.”
“And next, what about living? Won’t we claim that it’s work belonging to a soul?”
“Especially that,” he said.
“Then do we also claim there’s some virtue belonging to a soul?”
“We claim that.”
[353E] “So, Thrasymachus, will a soul ever accomplish its work well if it’s deprived of its own particular virtue, or is that out of its power?”
“Out of its power.”
“Therefore it’s necessary for a bad soul to rule and manage things badly and for a good one to do all these things well.”
“Necessary.”
“And haven’t we granted that justice is virtue of soul and injustice vice?”
“We’ve granted it.”
“Therefore the just soul and the just man will live well and the unjust badly.”
“So it appears,” he said, “according to your argument.”
[354A] “But surely someone who lives well is blessed and happy and someone who doesn’t is the opposite.”
“How not?”
“Therefore someone who’s just is happy and someone who’s unjust is miserable.”
“So be it,” he said.
“But surely it’s not being miserable that’s profitable, but being happy.”
“How not?”
“Therefore, blessed Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice.”
“So, Socrates,” he said, “let these things be your feast in the festivities for Bendis.”
“It’s thanks to you, Thrasymachus,” I said, “since you have become gentle and stopped being savage toward me. I haven’t feasted myself beautifully, though, [354B] but that’s on account of myself and not you. Just as greedy eaters are always taking a bite of what’s carried past them, grabbing at it before they’ve enjoyed the previous dish in full measure, I too seem to myself to be like that. Before finding the thing we were considering first—what in the world the just thing is—I let go of that to start looking around it to see whether it’s vice and stupidity or wisdom and virtue. And when in turn an argument fell my way later that injustice is more profitable than justice, I couldn’t hold back from going after this one and away from that one. And so it has come to pass that now I know nothing from the [354C] conversation, because when I don’t know what the just thing is, I’m hardly going to know whether it happens to be a virtue or not, or whether someone who has it is unhappy or happy.”