Ancient Practical 05.05.2026

The Republic

Context

[[Athens]] is in declining. Politicians are made responsible. The great Politicians are supposed to transmit their knowledge to their sons → [[Pericles]]' sons were failiures

Goal

Disprove [[Thrasymachus' Idea of Justice]]. He fails to persuade the audience.

[[Socrates' Nature of Craft Argument]]

[[Socrates' Gang-of-thieves-argument]]

Summary

• Socrates assumes that justice is a virtue and from that he shows that it is good and makes us happy. BUT
  • it is not agreed by Thrasymachus that justice is virtue
• Socrates' arguments work for those who already believe, for example, that justice is a virtue, but not for those ready to examine and perhaps challenge or abandon that kind of view.

Challenge

• Socrates' is challenged to offer an alternative theory of justice – both as relating to an individual but also as relating to society (polis)
• Thrasymachus' view is not an aberrant view – in the Homeric world, this might have been the ideal – bit might have been the very reason why one would want to be a ruler - to enrich oneself.
• Thrasymachus challenges the moralistic conceptoin of justice since it is harmful to the one who practices it. In fact, when justice is beneficial it is only contingently so (as later Glaucon and Adeimantus argue)

Three kinds of good

1. Things desirable only for their own sake (smelling flowers)
2. Things desirable both for their own sake and for their consequences (knowledge)
3. Things desirable only for their consequences. (taking cough syrup)

by Glaucon and Adeimantus:
Justice belongs to (3)
Challenge to Socrates:
Shows that it belongs to (2)
→ [[Socrates Argument for Justice being good for its own sake]]

Thrasymachus' Idea of Justice

by [[Thrasymachus]]

1. Justice is the advantage of the stronger' (338c-d),
2. The stronger are the rulers or the government (338e-339a)
3. Justice is 'good of another' (343c) and thus bad for oneself.
4. So, injustice or immorality is good for oneself (344c)
5. If injustice is beneficial, then 'a moral [just] person is worse off than and immoral [unjust] one' (343d) and so a life of a crime is better than a life of integrity (347e)

Nature and Origin of Justice ([[Gesellschaftsvertrag|Social Contract]])

TO DO INJUSTICE is naturally good
TO SUFFER INJUSTICE is naturally bad
The BADNESS of suffering injustice FAR EXCEEDS the goodness of doing it
Agreement of the people: neither to do nor to suffer injustice
JUST and LAWFUL is what convenants laws, aim at maintaining the agreement prescribe.

Possibly base for [[Rechtfertigung des Staates nach Hobbes]]/[[Naturzustand nach Hobbes]]

Why do people love justice?

• Because they are too weak to do injuste with impunity. It is thus good for them that it is in place - it protects their life and possessions
• Adeimantus: justice is praised only for reputations, honors, and rewards - but these are set up by the intial agreement. In itself, nobody htinks justice is agood thing.
  But they do not in fact act justly for its own sake: the story of the ring of Gyges of Lydia (359c-360c) shows that anyone would act unjustly if he or she could get away with it.

Exterme justice vs. Extreme injustice (360e-362d)

• Extreme justice: one only does justice but has reputation for being completely unjust
• Exterme injustice: one is completely unjust and acts unjustly, but maintains reputation of a just man

The challenge: could Socrates argue that, even in such circumstances, one would and should choose justice and that one would still be better off? → [[Socrates Argument for Justice being good for its own sake]]

Socrates Argument for Justice being good for its own sake

What should he show?

• He has to show that justice is deriable in its own sake – that is, that even if nothing would follow from being just we should still choose to be just rather than unjust.
• He also has to show that justice will secure happiness. It is not only good because it secures basic security of life and possessions, but it will guarantee good life

Argument

• Thrasymachean theory: not only what justice is but also what the rationale for it is (i.e., what its origins are)
• Socrates: has to provide a competing account but also one that proceeds from some common ground
• So he needs to show how formation of society is based on some principles to which Glaucon et alia would agree yet leads to justice of a quite different kind.

The Man-City Analogy

Justice on an individual level and on a city level is different from each other:

The City of Pigs

Cities come to be because people need many things and nobody is self-sufficient.
People become better at what they're doing the most specialized they are. Limit: if everyone is doing really well, everyone is following a set schedule and isn't really living (gear in the machine)

• The principle of specialization: increase in the number of citizens (370b-c)
  • More crafts (production of tools)
  • Imports will be needed (and so also exports, businessmen, and laborers)
• (371e): The city of pigs: but where is justice?
  i.e: nobody wants to live in such a city

The Luxurious (feverish) city → add culture

• Leads to the most important craft, to preserve culture: war
• This necessitates a very special class of citizens called 'guardians' whose task is to solely devote themselves to the defense of the city's interest whenever these are called for.
• How do we choose the guardians?
  • Physical & psychological qualities promoted by physical and musical education.
• But this also means that somebody needs to rule → [[Rulers in Socrates' Ideal City]]

Rulers in Socrates' Ideal City

General description (412d-e):

• 'And he would love something most if he thought that the same things were advantageous both for it (the city) and for himself, and if he thought that when it did well, he would do well, too; and if it didn't, the opposite would happen
• 'We must choose from among our guardians the sort of men who seem on the basis of our observation to be most inclined, throughout their entire lives, to do what they believe to be advantageous for the city, and most unwilling to do the opposite.'
  (they have to be born like that, not everyone has the potential for being good)

How to choose them, if everyone wants to be one? (414d-415e)

(the myth of metals)

• A noble lie to persuade the rulers or (if not them) than the rest of the city that the people we choose in this way should rule
• A religious story to make people accept their and others' position in the city

Religious story: the gods decide to which class you should belong by putting metals in you.
Bronze and smth else: labourors
Silver: Auxiliariies
Gold: Rulers

Guardians in Socrates' Ideal City

Guardian Life (416d-420a)

• Guardians (i.e., [[Rulers in Socrates' Ideal City]] and auxiliaries) are provided housing and various other service by the city
• Thy are forbidden to own any properties.
• They do not get wages, cannot give or receive presents, or make personal trips.

→ also arranged marriages, their entire lifes are public

Socrates' Ideal City

Comes up in [[The Republic]] in [[Socrates Argument for Justice being good for its own sake]]

3 Tiers

• Rulers → [[Rulers in Socrates' Ideal City]]
  • They need to identify the good of the city as their own good and they need to posses the knowledge of what is in fact good for the city.
• Auxiliaries
  • They need to adopt the good of the city as waht their craft aims at and adopt the rulers' view of thta good.
• Craftsmen, businessmen, labourers, artists, entertainers, etc.
  • They can pursue any trade or craft provided that they do not aim at power in the city. As long as they do this, their contribution to the city is appropriate
    → Full Seperation between wealth and power

[[Guardians in Socrates' Ideal City]] = auxiliaries and rulers

Socrates' Nature of Craft Argument

(341c-342e1)

1. Every craft has its distinctive end, which is to serve the good of its subject matter (what the craft is about).
2. Real experts serve the good of the craft's subject matter. Real craft or skill is not self-interest, but other-interested.
3. Ruling is a craft.
4. An unjust ruler tyrant à la Thrasymachus serves his own good
5. So Thasymachus ruler does not practise a real craft; he is not an expert

Problem: The move from craft to expert: medicine beneftis patients, soexperts do not benefit themselves. Hece thraysmachus' counterexample: the shepherd serves the sheep only insofar as this matters to his benefit. Continuation: [[Socrates' Gang-of-thieves-argument]]

Socrates' Gang-of-Thieves-Argument

→ [[The Republic]]
Socrates reminds Thrasymachus that even thieves have to trust one another and to show it by a fair division of their ill-gotten gain. That is, they too have to practice a kind of justice; otherwise, a gang of thieves would break up and their little "state" would degenerate into disunity, chaos, unhappiness. Unjust men, at whatever level of their practicing injustice, degenerate from an assumed strength to weakness.

Thrasymachus

Character in Plato's [[The Republic]], who has [[Thrasymachus' Idea of Justice]]