Did you hear,
said I, all the goods that Thrasymachus just now enumerated for the life of the unjust man?
I heard,
he said, but I am not convinced.
Do you wish us then to try to persuade him, supposing we can find a way, that what he says is not true?
Of course I wish it,
he said. If then we oppose Footnote 1This is done in 358 D ff. It is the favorite Greek method of balancing pros and cons in set speeches and antithetic enumerations. Cf. Herodotus viii. 83, the διαλέξεις (Diels, Vorsokratiker ii. pp. 334-345), the choice of Heracles (Xenophon Memorabilia ii. 1), and the set speeches in Euripides. With this method the short question and answer of the Socratic dialectic is often contrasted. Cf. Protagoras 329 A, 334-335, Gorgias 461-462, also Gorgias 471 E, Cratylus 437 D, Theaetetus 171 A. him in a set speech enumerating in turn the advantages of being just and he replies and we rejoin, we shall have to count up and measure the goods listed in the respective speeches and we shall forthwith be in need of judges to decide between us. But if, as in the preceding discussion, we come to terms with one another as to what we admit in the inquiry, we shall be ourselves both judges and pleaders.
Quite so,
he said. Which method do you like best?
said I. This one,
he said.
Come then, Thrasymachus,
I said, go back to the beginning and answer us. You affirm that perfect and complete injustice is more profitable than justice that is complete.
I affirm it,
he said, and have told you my reasons.
Tell me then how you would express yourself on this point about them. You call one of them, I presume, a virtue and the other a vice?
Of course.
Justice the virtue and injustice the vice?
It is likely, Footnote 2Thrasymachus’s
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reverses the normal application of the words, as Callicles does in Gorgias 491 E. you innocent, when I say that injustice pays and justice doesn’t pay.But what then, pray?
The opposite,
he replied. What! justice vice?
No, but a most noble simplicity Footnote 3Thrasymachus recoils from the extreme position. Socrates’ inference from the etymology of εὐήθεια (cf. 343 C) is repudiated. Injustice is not turpitude (bad character) but—discretion. εὐβουλία in a higher sense is what Protagoras teaches (Protagoras 318 E) and in the highest sense is the wisdom of Plato’s guardians (428 B). or goodness of heart.
Then do you call injustice badness of heart?
No, but goodness of judgement.
Do you also, Thrasymachus, regard the unjust as intelligent and good?
Yes, if they are capable of complete injustice,
he said, and are able to subject to themselves cities and tribes of men. But you probably suppose that I mean those who take purses. There is profit to be sure even in that sort of thing,
he said, if it goes undetected. But such things are not worth taking into the account, but only what I just described.
I am not unaware of your meaning in that,
I said; but this is what surprised me, Footnote 4Socrates understands the theory, and the distinction between wholesale injustice and the petty profits that are not worth mentioning, but is startled by the paradox that injustice will then fall in the category of virtue and wisdom. Thrasymachus affirms the paradox and is brought to self-contradiction by a subtle argument (349-350 C) which may pass as a dramatic illustration of the game of question and answer. Cf. Introduction p. x. that you should range injustice under the head of virtue and wisdom, and justice in the opposite class.
Well, I do so class them,
he said. That,
said I, is a stiffer proposition, Footnote 5ἤδη marks the advance from the affirmation that injustice is profitable to the point of asserting that it is a virtue. This is a
stiffer proposition,
i.e. harder to refute, or possibly more stubborn. my friend, and if you are going as far as that it is hard to know what to answer.
Book 1