Abstract
This contribution focuses on the lessons concerning justice that Socrates seeks to teach Cephalus and Polemarchus as the three men interact at the beginning of Plato’s Republic. Socrates corrects Cephalus’ view of justice as rule-following, in which no attention is paid to the real person on the other end of the rule. Polemarchus, by contrast, knows nothing of rules and only sees the person on the other end of the agent’s acts: who that person is—friend or foe—determines for him how one is to treat them “justly.” Justice in Rep. I comes in two varieties, (1) lay and (2) expert. This second sort of justice, one that Socrates often calls the political art or the craft of ruling, is the one that takes center stage in Socrates’ conversation with Polemarchus. The business of practitioners of this latter sort of justice, Socrates argues, is to make those they rule “better”—specifically, it is to instill in them lay justice. Socrates’ explicit lesson to Polemarchus is that just men in a position of authority harm no one; his implicit lesson is that they help all.
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Notes
- 1.
One might further subdivide lay justice into justice as a disposition in the soul and justice as action. A just soul would be one that is disposed to treat others justly. Just action would concern how one actually treats others. As we shall see, just treatment of others might flow from the soul’s disposition to justice, but it might be motivated by other considerations. The person who treats others justly but is not disposed to have regard for them is not a just person.
- 2.
The great confusion that has arisen concerning whether justice is a craft or is analogous with crafts can be at least partially dispelled by distinguishing these two senses of justice. In the same way we might speak of a physician as a practitioner of health or as a health-expert or health-craftsman whose job it is to make other people healthy, to produce in them, as it were, lay-health. Physicians can produce not only other physicians but also healthy people.
- 3.
See Aristotle EN 5.1.1129b25–33.
- 4.
See chapter 5 of Weiss 2012. Socrates betrays in many ways his recognition that his characterization of justice as internal makes it not a distinct virtue but a replication of moderation: (1) by expressing his preference to define justice without first defining moderation—even though such a procedure clearly violates his strategy of discovering justice in what remains after the other three virtues are defined; (2) by his reluctance to define justice at all; (3) by his using nearly identical language and nearly identical metaphors for both—musical metaphors such as sumphonia and harmonia and the high, low, and middle placement on the musical scale, as well as the metaphor of friendship; (4) by having both pervade the whole soul; (5) by explicitly characterizing the just man as moderate; (6) by defining justice in the end as he had defined moderation at the start (at 430–431)—that is, as the superior by nature mastering the inferior; and (7) by calling justice “health of the soul.” Socrates has not, then, provided in Book IV a new definition of justice; instead, he has given moderation a second name. Yet justice, properly speaking, is the social and interpersonal virtue that disposes one to refrain from harming others, including refraining from depriving them of their due. It is closely connected to just acts. See 444e–445a: “to do just things, practice fine ones, and be just.”
- 5.
See Blondell 2002, 170, 173.
- 6.
Strauss (1964, 67) thinks Cephalus worries that he may have “involuntarily” done injustice to someone—cheated or lied. But in fact, Cephalus regards as one of the great benefits of being wealthy that one need never be in the position of having to do injustice “involuntarily”—that is, when one does not wish to, presumably because one’s poverty leaves one little choice. See note 8.
- 7.
Cephalus says of himself that he inherited much of his money (330b). But he clearly also made money: he calls himself a “moneymaker” (chrēmastistēs), and situates his moneymaking achievement midway between that of his grandfather, who increased his own inheritance many times over, and his father, who depleted his inheritance. It is known that Cephalus was an exceedingly wealthy arms manufacturer. See Gifford 2001.
- 8.
The term akonta, “unwillingly,” in the phrase “to not cheating or lying akonta,” signifies “when one does not want to.” In other words, now that Cephalus wishes to pay his debts and not to cheat or lie, he is relieved not to have to cheat or lie because he lacks sufficient funds.
- 9.
Later, “to speak (legein) the truth” (331d).
- 10.
Very few commentators translate labēi (331c3, d3) and laboi (331c5) properly as: “have given to one.” Most translate these terms as “take” or “borrow.” Bloom (1968) has “takes” as does Joseph (1935), who softens the expression to “may have taken”; Sachs (2007) alternates “takes” and “receives”; Cross and Woozley (1964, 2), Lee (1955), and Reeve (2004) have “borrowed”—probably so that it doesn’t sound like stealing, which clearly it isn’t; Allen (2006) has “receives”; Griffith (2000) renders “received,” then, “borrowed,” and, finally, correctly, as I think, “have been given.” Translating in terms of either taking or borrowing blurs the difference between the original statement and Socrates’ reworking of it. It is true that Socrates doesn’t make the shift from the one to the other fully transparent, but that is surely because he presents himself as simply paraphrasing what Cephalus had said. Nevertheless, it is quite certain at 331e9 that “have given to one” is Socrates’ intended meaning, for here the word he uses is parakatathemenou—to have something deposited with one (by another who entrusts it to one). Cf. 332a1–2: parakatetheto; 333c8: parakatatesthai; and 442e6: parakatathēkēn.
- 11.
We see later on, in Book 4, that Socrates clearly regards as injustices such things as stealing, committing adultery, neglecting parents, etc. (442e–443a). And, although in Book 4 he recognizes the standards violated by these acts as “commonplace” (or “vulgar”—ta phortika—442e1), he nevertheless sees in the tendency not to violate them a mark of the just man, and in the contrary tendency a mark of the unjust. A similar list of offenses appears at 344b, courtesy of Thrasymachus (though his list includes more egregious offenses such as kidnapping and enslaving); and at 360a–c, where Glaucon imagines the unjust activities of the man in possession of the ring of Gyges (these activities include murder, which is interestingly absent from both Socrates’ and Thrasymachus’ lists). See also the unjust acts said to be committed by gods against other gods that Socrates wants stricken from the literature to which his young guardians will be exposed (378b–d): wars, mistreatment of parents, beating, tying up, exiling, and the particular crime visited by cities on other cities, viz. enslavement (351b); see, too, the injustices enumerated in the Myth of Er at 10.615b–c.
- 12.
That Socrates’ case differs from Cephalus’ is evident in the agent’s reason for considering not complying with the rules of justice. In Cephalus’ cases any violation of the rules would be self-serving; in Socrates’ examples, the violation would benefit not the agent but the other.
- 13.
The normally forbidden practice notoriously permitted in the Republic is, of course, lying, but it is certainly not lying to escape one’s obligations. For there to be even the possibility of a justifiable lie, the lie would have to be for the sake of averting harm to which the person lied to is vulnerable—not for the sake of benefiting the liar. The first instance in which falsehood is condoned appears in Book 2 with the education of children.
- 14.
Perhaps Socrates thinks that Cephalus could relate more easily to a case in which it is a friend who entrusted his weapon to someone.
- 15.
In Socrates’ subsequent reference to this case he emphasizes “any man whatsoever” (ti hotōioun): one must not return to any man whatsoever something he has deposited when he is not of sound mind (331e–332a).
- 16.
By not returning a weapon to a madman, one protects not only the madman but potentially others as well. A just man’s vigilance thus extends beyond the one person with whom he has dealings. One might say, too, that embedded in Socrates’ lesson to Cephalus is an anticipation of the formulation soon to rival Thrasymachus’ pronouncement that justice is the advantage of the stronger. For when one looks out for the interests of the man not in his right mind, one promotes the advantage, not of the stronger but of the weaker.
- 17.
One way, perhaps, to capture the difference between Cephalus’ cases and Socrates’ is to say that the former are cases in which one breaks the rules at another person’s expense or to his detriment; the latter are cases in which one breaks the rules to the other person’s benefit.
- 18.
Rather than as Bloom (1968) translates: “‘Am I not the heir of what belongs to you?’ said Polemarchus,” it should be: “Am I, Polemarchus, not the heir of what belongs to you?’ he said,” That this is the correct reading is confirmed by Socrates’ saying at 331e6–7: su men, ō Polemarche.
- 19.
See, too, the beginning of Book 5 (449b), where Polemarchus tugs on Adeimantus’ cloak.
- 20.
At 340b Polemarchus characterizes Thrasymachus’ view that rulers make laws for their own advantage as: “sometimes the strong order (keleuein) those who are weaker.. ..” (emphasis added). Note, too, how Socrates at 335a gently chides Polemarchus for his bullying ways by saying, “Polemarchus orders,” just when Polemarchus had actually conceded a point to Socrates. Our early passage at 327c is the first of many references in the Republic to the distinction between coercion and persuasion. Though distinct, coercion and persuasion are in the Republic not always at odds; on occasion they work in tandem (see, e.g., 7.519e).
- 21.
According to the Gortyn code of Greek law (c. 450 BCE), VII, sons inherit equally, with shares twice those of daughters. Note 330b, where Cephalus says: “I am satisfied if I leave not less, but rather a bit more than I inherited, to these here”—toutoisin, referring to his three sons, Lysias, Euthydemus, and Polemarchus.
- 22.
His companion Adeimantus does the same.
- 23.
In the Meno , Meno’s conception of how he would exhibit the virtue of a man in his prime is to “engage in public affairs and so to help friends and harm enemies” (71e). Interestingly, he leaves the management of the household to women, and at 73a Socrates preserves Meno’s distinction between the managing of public affairs, which is men’s work, and household management, which is women’s work. Tellingly, however, when Socrates at 91a reviews for Anytus’ benefit the virtue Meno is hoping to acquire, he replaces “helping friends and harming enemies” with “looking after parents” and assigns to men the management of household affairs.
- 24.
Both Thrasymachus in Book 1 and Glaucon in Book 2 associate helping friends and harming enemies with injustice. Thrasymachus thinks the just man is the one who “incurs the ill will of his relatives and his acquaintances when he is unwilling to serve them against what is just” (343e). Thus, the “helping friends” that Polemarchus sees as integral to justice, Thrasymachus sees as incompatible with it. Glaucon, as we shall see, thinks it is the unjust man who, thanks to his wealth, “does good to friends and harm to enemies” (362c). In the Meno (71e), however, Meno (like Polemarchus) considers helping friends and harming enemies a mark of virtue for the adult male. (See previous note.)
- 25.
See Hippias Minor, where the good man is “he who does wrong willingly” (376b). In the Hippias Minor the offensive conclusion derives from the assumption that justice is a craft, that it is “power or knowledge or both” (375d). See following note.
- 26.
The reasoning here seems to be: if justice is a craft, then, like other crafts, its practitioner ought to be equally skilled at satisfying and at sabotaging the craft’s proper end; contrary ends are achieved via the same skill.
- 27.
The thief will appear again in Socrates’ argument against Thrasymachus concerning the value of perfect injustice.
- 28.
Virtuous fathers whose sons are less virtuous than they are not uncommon in Plato. (See Prot. 319e-320b, Meno 93c-94d. In the Meno at 89e-90b, a case in point is Anytus and his father, Anthemion.)
- 29.
See Crito 45c, where Crito is ashamed of Socrates and regards him as unjust because he allows his enemies to get away with doing him harm. Note that Crito does not say on his own either that the verdict was unjust or that Socrates’ accusers or jurors were committing an injustice—only that they were Socrates’ enemies and that what is due enemies, in accordance with justice, is harm.
- 30.
In a move no doubt surprising to Polemarchus and hardly in line with his intentions, Socrates turns friends into good men and enemies into bad ones, and then good men into just men and bad men into unjust.
- 31.
Socrates recognizes other things besides corruption as harms. In the Apology he feels it would be unjust to inflict upon himself either prison, which would deprive him of liberty, or exile, which would entail the unpleasantness of being expelled from city after city, at his advanced age (Ap. 37b–e).
- 32.
See Ap. 20a–b, where Socrates says that young human beings need someone to improve them in human virtue just as the overseer of colts and calves makes them “noble and good in their appropriate virtue.” In the Euthyphro (13a–c), the definition of holiness as therapeia is abandoned because the tendance of horses, dogs, and cattle benefits them by making them better, yet men cannot make the gods better. And, of course, the reason Socrates thinks his accusers cannot really harm him (though they intend to—Ap. 41d–e) is that, although they can kill or banish or deprive him of the benefits of citizenship, they cannot make him—that is, his soul—worse (Ap. 30c).
- 33.
The idea that the skilled person can use his skill to produce good things or bad is found in the Hippias Minor. See, too Crito 44d: “Would that the many could produce the greatest evils, Crito, so that they could also produce the greatest goods!”
- 34.
The case of heat heating and coolness cooling, and of wetness wetting and dryness drying, is different from the horsemanship and music cases in two ways. First, horsemanship is not a horse and music is not musical, but wetness is wet and heat hot. To be a doctor one does not need to be healthy, but heat could not heat unless it were hot. Could a musician teach if he were not musical? It is an interesting and important question whether an expert at justice who makes others just in the lay sense must himself be just in the lay sense. Second, whereas Socrates could argue, if he so wished, that it is the musician who is most able deliberately to make someone unmusical through musicianship, heating and cooling cannot do anything but heat and cool, respectively.
- 35.
The conclusion, “It is not the work of justice to make men unjust,” precedes the examples of cooling and drying that are adduced subsequently to support it. Nevertheless, the final conclusion also derives—and more successfully so—from the examples of cooling and drying: since (1) it is not the work of the good to harm, and (2) the just man is good, it follows that (3) “It is not the work of the just man to harm—anyone.”
- 36.
Socrates reveals his disapproval of Polemarchus’ view of justice by supposing it to be the view of Periander, Perdiccas, Xerxes, Ismenias the Theban, “or some other rich man who has a high opinion of what he can do” (336a). This “other rich man” is surely none other than Polemarchus himself, who not only proposes the view in question (as his interpretation of Simonides) but holds on to it with rather fierce tenacity. Socrates nevertheless permits him to save face.
- 37.
This is true also in the Crito, where at 49b–c, Socrates says: “one must in no way commit injustice… surely there is no difference between doing bad to human beings and doing injustice”; and in the Gorgias as well, where Socrates says at 460c: “The just man will never wish to do injustice.” In the Apology (37b), Socrates says he never did injustice to anyone, so he will not do injustice to himself now by proposing a penalty that is harmful to himself. When Socrates at Ap. 32d establishes his credentials as a just man, he says he has placed above all else not committing unjust or impious deeds. Although Socrates sees himself as Athens’ greatest benefactor (36c–e), he nevertheless tends to associate his justness with not harming others. And, of course, all the just acts at Rep. 4.442 are negative—including not neglecting parents or the gods. It is probably fair to say that justice is a virtue that for the most part enjoins refraining from harm. Would it not be odd, however, for a just man to strain to define non-harm as narrowly as possible so that it positively excludes helping others, or to be on his guard lest he actually help someone?
Although Polemarchus speaks of helping friends as part of his conception of justice, Socrates’ response is not to validate that part of Polemarchus’ definition but to ignore it: what is essential to justice is not harming. (See Brown 2004, 293 n. 3, who thinks Socrates does preserve the first part of Polemarchus’ definition.) Socrates emphasizes that a just person mistreats no one; he teaches that in that sense justice is blind.
- 38.
Socrates could easily have extended his argument as follows: It is the work of wetting to make things wet; so, it is the work of a good (just) man to confer benefit. Some scholars rightly attribute to Socrates the view that justice goes beyond not harming to engaging in a kind of benevolence. See Miller 1986.
- 39.
Dorter (2006, 32) notes correctly that Socrates at no point in his conversation with Cephalus and Polemarchus argues that justice is beneficial to just people themselves but only that it is beneficial to others. But Cephalus embraces justice for his own sake; and Polemarchus never raises the question.
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Weiss, R. (2022). Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Socrates on Justice. In: Bloom, D., Bloom, L., Byrd, M. (eds) Knowing and Being in Ancient Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98904-0_13
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