Justice is Not the Interest of the Stronger
Several times, Thrasymachus tried to get the argument into his own hands. He had been put down by the rest of the company. They wanted to hear the end.
But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking, he could no longer hold his peace. He came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him.
If you want really to know what justice is, you should not only ask but answer. You should not seek honour to yourself from the refutation of an opponent.
Many ask but cannot answer. I will not let you say that justice is duty, advantage, profit, gain, or interest. This nonsense will not do for me. I must have clearness and accuracy.
(I was panic-stricken) Thrasymachus, don’t be hard upon us. Polemarchus and I might have had a little mistake in the argument. But that error was not intentional. If we were looking for gold, you would not imagine that we were ‘knocking under to one another’ and so losing our chance of finding it.
Justice is more precious than gold. When we look for justice, we are not doing it weakly but are doing our best. But we still fail to find it. That’s why you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us.
You are a philosopher.
If you ask a person what numbers make up 12 and prohibit him from answering 6 x 2, 3 x 4, 6 x 2, or 4 x 3, saying ’that sort of nonsense will not do for me’, then obviously no one can answer you.
But if he responded by asking: “What do you mean? If one of these numbers were the true answer, then some other number is the right one.” How would you answer him?
(Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request. Thrasymachus thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself.)
That’s abominable of you, Socrates. You take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument. The forms of government differ. There are tyrannies, democracies, and aristocracies.
The government is the ruling power in each state. The different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests. These laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects.
Those who transgress them they punish as a breaker of the law, and as the unjust. That is what I mean in justice being the interest of all governments and the government having that power. Thus, everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.
In defining justice you have yourself used the word ‘interest’ which you forbade me to use. We both agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say ‘of the stronger’. I am not so sure of this.
But the rulers sometimes make mistakes in making laws which then make those laws contrary to their interest. If justice is the citizens obeying the laws, then justice is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger, but the reverse.
If rulers make mistakes, then obeying those mistakes is also justice. Then you must also acknowledge that justice is not for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things which injure themselves.
Do you mean that:
- a person who is mistaken about the sick is a physician?
- or that he who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian?
We say that the physician, arithmetician, or grammarian has made a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking. This is because neither the physician, arithmetician, or grammarian ever makes a mistake. If they made mistakes then they would not be called as such. Likewise, no sage or ruler errs when he is supposed to give wisdom or to rule, even if he commonly errs.
Justice is the Interest of the Subjects
The body is not self-sufficing. It has needs. A body may get sick and need the cure from medicine. Medicine addresses this need as its intention and interest. But medicine or any other art has defects just as the eye may be deficient in sight. It therefore needs another art to address this defect.
Does every art then need another art, with its own interest and intention, without end? Or do they have no defects and do not need correction?
So medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body. The art of horsemanship does not consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse. The arts do not care for themselves, for they have no needs. They care only for that which is the subject of their art.
But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects?
To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance.
He tried to contest this proposition also, but finally acquiesced.
He gave a reluctant ‘Yes.’
Everyone saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset.
Socrates, do you have a nurse? She leaves you to snivel and never wipes your nose. She has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep.
You imagine that the shepherd fattens his sheep with a view to their own good and not for himself. You imagine that the rulers of states:
- never think of their subjects as sheep, and
- do not study their own advantage day and night.
You are totally wrong in your ideas about the just and unjust. You do not even know that justice and the just are in reality another’s good. Justice is the interest of the strong, and the loss of the weak. Injustice is the opposite. The unjust is lord over the truly simple and just. The ruler is the stronger. His subjects do what is for his interest, which is very far from being their own. Most foolish Socrates, the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust.
- In private contracts= wherever the unjust is the partner of the just, the unjust man has always more than the just after the partnership is dissolved.
- In their dealings with the State= when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same income. The just gains nothing and the unjust gains much.
- When they take an office= there is the just man suffering losses but getting nothing out of the public because he is just. Moreover, he is hated by his friends for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man.
The advantage of the unjust is most apparent on a large scale. This injustice has the highest form when the criminal is the happiest of men. Those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable. Tyrants steal not little by little but wholesale.
People who do small wrong acts, such as burglars and swindlers, are punished and incur great disgrace. But when a man steals all the people’s money and has made slaves of them, he is called happy and blessed by the people and by those who hear of his injustice. This is because if people censure injustice, they fear that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it.
Thus, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice. That is why justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man’s own profit and interest.
Thrasymachus spoke like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, then went away. But the company would not let him. They insisted that he remain and defend his position.
