Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Socrates and the supremacy of virtue
- Chapter 2 Determining virtue in the here and now: Socrates in the Apology and Crito
- Chapter 3 The supremacy of virtue in the Gorgias
- Chapter 4 Trying (and failing) to determine what virtue is
- Chapter 5 Socrates and Thrasymachus: Republic 1
- Chapter 6 The benefits of injustice
- Chapter 7 Early education and non-philosophers in the Republic
- Chapter 8 Aiming at virtue and determining what it is
- Chapter 9 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Chapter 7 - Early education and non-philosophers in the Republic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Socrates and the supremacy of virtue
- Chapter 2 Determining virtue in the here and now: Socrates in the Apology and Crito
- Chapter 3 The supremacy of virtue in the Gorgias
- Chapter 4 Trying (and failing) to determine what virtue is
- Chapter 5 Socrates and Thrasymachus: Republic 1
- Chapter 6 The benefits of injustice
- Chapter 7 Early education and non-philosophers in the Republic
- Chapter 8 Aiming at virtue and determining what it is
- Chapter 9 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Summary
OVERVIEW
When Glaucon and Adeimantus demand that Socrates demonstrate that the just person is happier than the unjust, they are demanding that he show that justice is a good for the soul. Relying on ordinary, common, beliefs, they argue that the consequences of acting unjustly without a reputation for injustice are clearly advantageous. The just person without a just reputation ends up entirely bereft of material possessions, tortured, and finally killed – that is, deprived of absolutely all “external goods.” By contrast, the unjust person who maintains a reputation for justice receives all of the good consequences of that reputation, namely, safety and security for himself and his material possessions, as well as the abundance of material possessions acquired through his unjust behavior, which can then be used to guarantee that one does not suffer any bad consequences in the afterlife by bribing the gods. On “the many's” account justice's and injustice's only value for the soul consists in desire satisfaction or frustration. On this score justice in itself is “painful” (ἐπίπονον) and “harsh” (χαλεπόν), since it thwarts a person's allegedly natural desire for pleonexia. Such a sacrifice of immediate desire may be worth it in circumstances where a person is too weak to ensure that he will not suffer injustice in turn. But since the good consequences of justice can be obtained equally well by successfully seeming to be just, such desire frustration, given propitious circumstances, might not be necessary.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Aiming at Virtue in Plato , pp. 212 - 246Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008