5
Books Two – Four
Thrasymachus, who stirs up so much trouble towards the end
of book one, leaves the discussion in book two, and it falls to
Adeimantus and Glaucon to speculate about his ideas,
challenging Socrates in a spirit of devil’s advocacy.
The worry that Thrasymachus has left them with is that justice
is overrated. When we think about it, the image of the just man
is of a somewhat po-faced and humourless sort of fellow.
Saints are all very well, but it might be a bit dull if all your
friends started being really saintly. It isn’t clear that we really
want our lives to be like the life of the just man, or whether all
we actually want is the rewards that come from having a
reputation for justice. It isn’t clear, therefore, that justice itself
is something that we regard as really valuable.
Suppose you had Gyge’s ring – a ring that could make you
invisible, as Glaucon describes at 359c – what would you do
with it? Many students say that they’d go to the cinema for
free, and would cheat in
their exams! Very few
people say that they’d
use it to fight crime or
to
right
wrongs.
Glaucon’s
thought
is
that this shows that
people don’t really value
justice at all – at least
not for its own sake.
All we really care about, he thinks, is getting a reputation for
justice (a reputation that an unjust man could, perhaps, find an
unjust way of getting). Adeimantus and Glaucon want
What do you think the question
about Gyge’s ring reveals?
What would you do if you got
hold of the ring?
What would you do with it in the
long term?
6
Socrates’ account of justice to have the consequence that
there is something wrong in wanting only a reputation for
justice. They want him to address Thrasymachus’ worry by
explaining why justice is praiseworthy for its own sake.
In order to be clear about what he is looking for, Glaucon offers
a three-way division of good things that people regard as
worthwhile. There are those good things that are chosen:
(1) for their own sak