The Complete Works of Plato

...advantage. But we shall consider this another time; yet it seems to me a much greater matter, which Thrasymachus now speaks of, claiming that the life of the unjust man is better than that of the just. You, therefore, Glaucon, which way would you choose? I said, and which way does it seem to you more truly to be spoken? The life of the just, he said, to be more profitable. Did you hear, said I, all the goods Thrasymachus just enumerated for the unjust life? I heard, he said, but I am not persuaded. Do you wish, then, that we persuade him, if we can find some way to show that he does not speak the truth? How could I not wish it? he said. If, then, we should counter him by speaking argument against argument, counting up all the goods that being just possesses, and he again another, and we another, it would be necessary to enumerate and measure the goods, as many as we each mention in either case, and then we would need some judges to decide; but if, as we just did, we examine the matter by reaching an agreement with one another, we ourselves shall be both judges and orators at once. Most certainly, he said. Which way, then, does it please you? I said. That way, he said.

Come then, said I, Thrasymachus, answer us from the beginning: do you say that perfect injustice is more profitable than perfect justice? I do indeed, he said, and I say why I have said it. Come, then, and how do you speak of these things? Do you call one of them virtue, and the other vice? How could I not? Therefore, do you call justice virtue, and injustice vice? Likely so, my dearest man, he said; since I also say that injustice is profitable, and justice is not. But what else? The opposite, he said. Do you call justice a vice? No, but a very noble simplicity. Then do you call injustice knavery? No, but good counsel, he said. And do the unjust seem to you, Thrasymachus, to be wise and good? Those who are perfectly able to be unjust, he said; those who are able to bring cities and nations under their own power. Perhaps you think I mean those who cut purses. Such things are profitable too, if they escape notice; but they are not worth mentioning, only the things I just spoke of. I am not ignorant, I said, of what you wish to say; but I wondered at this: that you place injustice in the category of virtue and wisdom, and justice among their opposites. But I do indeed place it so. This, I said, is now a more stubborn position, my friend, and it is no longer easy to know what one might say. For if you held that injustice is profitable, yet admitted it to be a vice or shameful, as some others do, we would have something to say, speaking according to common opinion; but now it is clear that you will say it is also noble and strong, and you will add to it all the other things that we used to attribute to justice, since you have dared to place it in virtue and wisdom. You divine most truly, he said.

But, I said, one must not be discouraged from following out the argument, so long as I take you to be saying what you think. For you seem to me, Thrasymachus, truly not to be joking now, but to be saying what you believe about the truth. But what does it matter to you, he said, whether it seems so to me or not, rather than refuting the argument? Nothing, I said; but try to answer me this further. Does it seem to you that a just man would wish to have more than a just man? By no means, he said. For he would not be refined, as he is now, and simple. What of the just action? Not even of the just action, he said. But would he claim to have more than an unjust man, and would he consider it just to do so, or would he not consider it just? He would consider it just, he said, and would claim it. But he would not be able. That is not what I am asking, I said; but whether the just man does not claim to have more than the just, nor wish to, but [does claim to have more] than the unjust? It is so, he said. What then of the unjust man? Does he claim to outdo the just man and the just action? How could he not, he said, since he claims to have more than everyone? Therefore, the unjust man will also outdo the unjust man and the unjust action, and will strive so that he himself may take the most of all. This is so. We say it thus, I said: the just man does not outdo his like, but his unlike; whereas the unjust man outdoes both his like and his unlike. You have spoken most excellently, he said. And the unjust man is also, he said, wise and good, while the just man is neither; and he said this well too. Therefore, I said, the unjust man also resembles the wise and the good, while the just man does not resemble them.