Life in Plato’s Republic, Part 1: Is Justice Worth it?

“Whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, we are all more or less Platonists. Even if we reject Plato’s conclusions, our views are shaped by the way in which he stated his problems.”¹ 

In today’s article, I begin a new series on Plato’s Republic. I’ve been wanting to start this project for some time now for two reasons. 

First, I want to make Plato more accessible for everyone. The philosopher is a seminal figure in the history of ideas. Without his writings, it is difficult to know where western civilization would be today. In particular, Plato’s conception of reality as rational (and knowable) paved the way for rigorous intellectual inquiry to take root. Additionally, his notion of the Good as objective and distinct from the individual established the foundation for much of moral philosophy. In short, without Plato, we lose much of the philosophical foundation of western civilization.

Second, I believe the ideas found in the Republic have massive implications for classical educators today. If Plato is right that justice is not only a virtue to be exhibited by society, but the ideal state of one’s soul, then teachers would do well to understand more what he has in mind. When they do, they will see that their work in the classroom is no isolated mental exercise. Rather, teaching is a holistic endeavor dedicated to helping students order their souls for the virtuous, well-lived life.

Join me now as we enter the gates of Plato’s Republic and gain fresh insights into what it means to be human, the nature of justice, and the value of education today.

Down to the Piraeus

The opening scene of Book I in the Republic is memorable. Socrates and his companion Glaucon are visiting the Pireaus, the port of Athens, for a religious festival (327a).² Plato immediately embeds deeper meaning into the story by noting that the travelers are journeying downward. This movement indicates that Socrates, the wise philosopher, is descending from the world of knowledge into the cave of ignorance. His journey is missional in nature as he seeks to bring fellow humans out of intellectual darkness and into the light of objective truth.

For Plato, humans cannot be forced out of this cave; they must choose for themselves. Given this reality, education, as we will explore later in this blog series, is the process of pointing students toward the way up and out of the cave. But students must take the steps themselves. Practically speaking, filling the minds of students with facts or preparing them for college entrance exams might temporarily generate the facade of learning, but only time will tell if understanding has taken root. The ultimate test? Students will go on to not only learn what is good, true, and beautiful; they will desire it for themselves.

What drives Socrates’ missional descent? Why would anyone “go down” to the cave if they have already experienced the sunlight above? The answer is simple: community. Humans are creatures of relationship. According to Plato, humans are social and political in nature. They are not content enjoying the good and true alone. They are wired to bring others with them, up and out of the cave. In this way, the challenges of being a good man are inseparable from being a good citizen.²

An Unexpected Meeting

After Socrates and Glaucon attend the festival at the sea port, they begin their return journey to Athens. Soon they are stopped by a young nobleman Polemarchus and his father Cephalus. Before long, Socrates and Glaucon are humorously forced to stop for a visit at the home of the elderly Cephalus for an extended discussion with the father and son, and a few others. The topic of discussion: What is Justice?

The discussion in Book I occurs in two broad movements. In the first movement, Socrates has to deal with the traditional Greek view that justice is real but rather trivial. This viewpoint is embodied in the characters Cephalus and Polemarchus. In the second movement, Socrates has to address a far more nefarious view: justice is not real at all. There are no moral qualities inherent to the fabric of reality. All that matters is who has the power and what is most expedient. This view is represented by the moral skeptic Thrasymachus. 

Interestingly, in the conclusion of Book One, it is clear that socratic dialogue will not convince the morally complacent or the moral skeptic. The matter is too philosophically complex and the draw to live for what is most expedient is too alluring. The result for the interlocutors is a state of aporia, a state of confusion about what actually is true. Thus, the remaining nine books of the Republic pivot from Plato’s usual style of socratic dialogue to a form of lecture, with some Q&A, in which Socrates constructs his view of justice. Before we get there, however, let us take our time and first examine Socrates’ interlocutors in Book I and their respective views.

Cephalus, the Wealthy Moralist

Socrates’s first interlocutor is Cephalus, an elderly man who has earned himself a comfortable life through trade and manufacture. He is the epitome of a person in which morality and wealthy are intertwined. For Cephalus, one of the key benefits of being wealthy is that it enables a person to act more justly. He insists,

“Wealth can do a lot to save us from having to cheat or deceive someone against our will and from having to depart for that other place in fear because we owe sacrifice to a god or money to a person” (331b).

Thus, a just person in old age is able to look back on his life with peace knowing that he has lived a good life. According to Cephalus, wealth grants people the freedom from care, necessity, and fear of death.

From these opening remarks, Socrates distills Cephalus’ view of justice: being truthful and returning what one owes (331c). Cephalus appreciates and accepts this articulation of his view of justice. It can be boiled down to a few basic rules such as “Don’t lie” “Don’t cheat” and “Don’t steal.” Justice consists in the performance of certain actions, not in regards to whether the person is actually just.

As one can imagine, it doesn’t take much for Socrates to spot holes in this simplistic view of justice. For example, one would never return to an insane person a weapon that might lead to a tragic result. Yet, under Cephalus’ view, this is the just thing to do: returning what is owed. Humorously, rather than responding to this objection, Cephalus takes it as his cue to exit the discussion to go make another sacrifice, reinforcing his view that justice is grounded in doing, not being. He leaves his son Polemarchus to continue the conversation.

Can Justice Lead to Harm?

For Cephalus’ son Polemarchus, justice is more than following a few specific rules, but not much more. Following the poet Simonides (c. 548-468 B.C.), he generalizes justice to mean “giving to each what is owed to him” (331e). More specifically, he posits, justice is grounded in friendship. Friends owe it to their friends to do good for them, never harm. Conversely, enemies owe it to one another to inflict harm upon one another (334b).

Again, it does not take long for Socrates to disband Polemarchus’ view as he did his father’s. Using the method which dons his very name, Socrates leads Polemarchus to admit that justice, as he defined it, is both useless (333d) and at times harms good people (334e). Eventually, this leads Polemarchus to nuance his definition: treating well friends who are actually good and harming enemies who are actually bad (335a).

But this cannot be right, Socrates points out. After all, does not harming things actually make them worse with regards to what they are intended to be? Does not harming a racehorse make it a worse horse? In the same way, would not harming someone, even a wicked enemy, make the enemy an even worse human? How could a just person do that?

Moreover, if justice is a virtue, and virtue is the excellence⁴ of a thing, then how could good people make people bad through justice? They certainly cannot. It is the function of an unjust person to harm others, while just people are called to be good.

In conclusion, viewing justice as simply giving what is owed is insufficient. On the surface, it has a reasonable draw, but when you dig deeper, it is flawed. “It is never just to harm anyone,” is Polemarchus’ conclusion. Insofar as virtues are manifestations of the good, justice as a virtue cannot do the opposite and engage in harm.

No Justice, Only Power

Up to this point, there is one individual at the gathering who has not yet spoken: Thrasymachus, the Sophist. In Plato’s day, the Sophists were not a school of thought, but a group of professional teachers who lectured across cities and who claimed expertise in lessons needed for people to lead successful lives.⁵ Insofar as they viewed knowledge as a resource to be utilized for pragmatic ends, their motivation for learning was in stark contrast to Plato’s. They went around charging fees for their lessons, marketing themselves as consultants for the good life, while simultaneously throwing into question whether moral claims have any objective basis at all.⁶

Plato introduces Thrasymachus coming on the scene with style:

“While we were speaking, Thrasymachus had tried many times to take over the discussion but was restrained by those sitting near him, who wanted to hear our argument to the end. When we paused after what I’d just said, however, he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He coiled himself up like a wild beast about to spring, and he hurled himself at us as if to tear us to pieces” (336b).

The description of Thrasymachus as a beast is intentional. He represents here the perpetual threat of the bodily appetites, eagerly waiting to conquer reason and morality. We will learn in later books that the well-ordered soul keeps the appetite in check. Here we will see an example of what happens when it fails.

Thrasymachus provocatively defines justice as “the advantage of the stronger” (338c). Rulers, he insists, make laws to perpetuate their own rule. Thus, justice is whatever the established rule says it is (339e). Socrates immediately begins his interrogation, first challenging what Thrasymachus means by advantage and then demonstrating how it is often in the best interest of rulers to seek the advantage of who they are leading, such as a captain commanding sailors on a ship (342e). Not to be outdone easily, Thrasymachus retorts that not all rulers seek what is advantageous for their subjects. Case and point: Shepherds and cowherds caring for their sheep and cows. They are not fattening the cows for the good of the cow, that’s for sure!

Then Thrasymachus pivots to make a different, potentially stronger argument: justice works for the advantage of the ruling class while injustice works for the advantage of those being ruled (343d). Making his point persuasively with examples, he concludes,

“So, Socrates, injustice if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice. And, as I said from the first, justice is what is advantageous to the stronger, while injustice is to one’s own profit and advantage” (344c).

Socrates responds, of course, with his own arguments. First, he argues that although injustice appears to have its merits, ultimately it is contrary to wisdom and virtue (351b). Second, he demonstrates that injustice is self-defeating and only leads to civil war, both corporately and individually (352a). While neither of these arguments are fully convincing, they do slow down Thrasymachus and force readers to seriously evaluate the strength of the opposing views.

Justice: Excellence of the Soul

Socrates’ final argument to demonstrate that justice is more than the advantage of the stronger and actually a moral good worth pursuing is with regards to function, specifically the function of a human soul. Everything has a function, thinks Socrates, ranging from race horses to cutting knives. For example, the function of a knife is to cut. Similarly, the function of the soul is life and self-rule.

Like other functions, there is a gradation to the extent to which the soul’s function is achieved with arete (excellence), or virtue (354a). To use the knife example again, a knife demonstrates arete insofar as it cuts with excellence.

For the function of the human soul, justice, Socrates insists, is this excellence. The key to the well-ruled soul is justice, the virtue of the soul.

Admittedly, this argument, while logically valid, is, again, not fully persuasive. It is not quite clear whether Socrates has it right about the function of the soul, much less that justice is the virtue of this function. Interestingly, it is at this point that the traditional socratic dialogue ends in the Republic. As I mentioned earlier, Book I ends with the discussion participants in a state of aporia, confusion over what is actually true. The question of whether justice is actually worth it essentially ends in a stalemate. Attentive readers themselves are left puzzled and confused themselves, setting the stage for Socrates to begin constructing his theory of justice.

Application for Educators

Throughout this series on Plato’s Republic, I am going to offer some practical takeaways for classical educators today. Each of these takeaways deserve an article themselves, but for now, these will serve to prime the pump for future writing.

Here are some practical takeaways from Book I:

Trust the dialectic. Real learning occurs through genuine inquiry, passionate discussion, and relentless searching for the truth. While Book I is intended to demonstrate the limitations of socratic dialogue, it also shows its merits. Socrates and his friends obviously cover some ground. They are able to identify some very bad ideas about justice and establish a general framework for a viable view.

Argue for the objectivity of moral truth claims. Thrasymachus put forth some dangerous ideas about morality, namely that it is subjective at best, and worthless at worst. He argues, at times persuasively, that maybe the moral life is a sham constructed by those in power to keep control. Undaunted, Socrates keeps his wits about him and defends the substance of moral truth claims. Likewise, teachers should be prepared to stand up for the truth, even while they allow their students to wrestle with complex ideas.

Cast vision for the Good life. While Socrates’ closing argument is not fully convincing, he does introduce the powerful idea that the Good life exists. In other words, there is a right way to live and it is not hopelessly arbitrary. If the human soul actually has an objective function, or purpose, then it is worth all the gold in the world to find out what this purpose is. Then one must seek to fulfill it with excellence. We must keep this vision for the virtuous life before our students, regularly encouraging them to seek what is good, true, and beautiful.

Endnotes

1. W.T. Jones, A History of Western Philosophy, Volume 1: The Classical Mind, 2nd edition, Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 1980, p. 108.
2. Plato, Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube, Plato’s Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
3. Jones, 138.
4. It is worth noting that this argument assumes a particular definition of virtue as “arete,” translated from the Greek as “excellence” or “goodness.” A knife, for example, has “arete” with respect to its ability to cut properly. What is human “arete”? Keep reading the Republic with me and you will find out!
5. Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 6.
6. Ibid., 6.