Cephalus’ argument
• Justice is ἀληθῆ τε λέγειν καὶ ἃ ἂν λάβῃ τις ἀποδιδόναι
• Socrates’ response—to give back weapons to a man who is now mad (not explicit but rests on premiss that
it is not just to intentionally harm others?)
• Point: justice cannot be a set of actions as counter-examples can be readily found. egs of just actions are
very common at the beginning of aporetic dialogues eg Euthyphro, Laches; But Cephalus hasn’t tried to
see what it is about telling the truth and paying your debts is just
This conclusion demonstrates what is wrong with thinking about justice along the lines of a set of ac-
tions.
Polemarchus’ argument
1. Justice is doing good to friends and doing harm to enemies
- Then agrees w S’s suggestion that it is the craft of giving benefits to friends and harm to enemies
- In the contexts of war but also useful in peacetime; for the making of contracts which involve money; but
not spending money, only keeping it safe.
- He has difficulty specifying the context in which this craft would be useful;
- He reduces it to the point that justice is guarding well; this means that it will also be the craft of stealing
well
- Things to note
- The expertise of justice turns out to be a relatively unimportant one ie just keeping things safe; subordi-
nate to other crafts
- Can it be classified as a craft? Socrates assumes this which implies justice isn’t just benefitting friends and
harming enemies but crucially knowing how to do so.
- On the one hand, if you are going to be a successfully just person, you must know how to benefit your
friends and harm your enemies.
- But on the other hand, justice seems motivational, whereas you can be good at a craft without being re-
motely inclined to promote its end. There is more to being a just person than just doing just things by
fluke.
- More motivation: The argument for crafts results in the conclusion that the just person is a thief: the
phrase used is klepths tis which can have a specific use and an alians use. If we start with the premiss that
the just person knows how to guard and therefore knows how to steal, all the argument licenses is the un-
objectionable claim that the just person will be good at thieving (the alians use) rather than the claim that
the just person will steal. The argument only licenses a claim without motivation but again justice seems
motivational so the definition falls short as it doesn’t capture anything about the just person’s motivation
if we define justice as a craft. It turns out that the just person is an expert at stealing, we assume he won’t
want to steal but we can’t get there from the definition
- Moreover, as we see from the storing money example crafts are departmental whereas we tend not to think
of justice in this way but rather as something which can crop up in all sorts of actions rather than being de-
partmental.
- Craft practitioners (at least imperfect ones) are also competitive with one another (pleonektein) but this
doesn’t seem like it applies to just people at all
- A craft has an end
S also refutes this by pointing out that people who seem good can be bad so justice would then involve bene-
fiting people who are bad and harming those who are good (relies on P’s Polemarchus’ acceptance of the
claim that ‘good people are just and able to do no wrong’ 334d—perhaps bk 1 shows us how to preserve a
kernel of truth in an idea)
2. Revised definition: to benefit people who actually are good and harm people who are bad
- S dismisses this on the grounds that no virtue is capable of making anyone worse in respect of that virtue.
- Objections: Is harming someone really making them worse off in view of their virtue (you can make
someone worse off without harming them). Do you really have to harm someone by making them less vir-
tuous? You can make them worse off without really diminishing your virtue.
,Argument
1. Justice harms enemies
2. Harm = making more unjust
3. Justice is a human virtue
4. No virtue can make people worse in respect of that of which it is a virtue
5. Justice cannot make people more unjust
Therefore,
6. Justice cannot harm people
Socrates is sort of saying, okay let’s accept what you think about justice. Well then it turns out to be a
craft (which doesn’t work) with not a very important province. This conclusion demonstrates what is
wrong with thinking about justice along the lines of a craft. So it simultaneously looks forward to a
better way of looking at justice and also means that Soc doesn’t refute him very successfully.
Thrasymachus’ argument and Clitophon’s interjection—what is the argument and is it coherent?
• Problems with positions 1 and 2 is that they are inconsistent
7. Justice is nothing other than τὸ τοῦ κρείττονος συμφέρον
8. Justice is where the laws made by the rulers are obeyed ( ἃ δ᾽ ἂν θῶνται ποιητέον τοῖς ἀρχομένοις)
- Okay well if rulers make laws which are to their disadvantage by their mistake just to obey them by (2)
and not to by (1)
- Hourani thinks his real view is (2) because (1) is synthetic but the participants are interested in definitions.
And all he does with (1) is establish a proposition from empirical premises—it rises from a discussion of
the empirical facts of government and law. (2) is actually a premise in the argument for (1) and so (2) is
more basic
Like this a. just actions are those in accordance with laws of the state; b. action in accordance with laws of
state are to the advantage of ruler; c. ruler is the stronger SO d. all just acts are to the advantage of the
stronger
- Kerferd thinks the opposite + saying really what T thinks is that it is ‘interest of another’ and so ‘interest
of the stronger’ is correct for all cases where a subject is seen in relation to someone stronger than him-
self.
- Reasons to go for kerford:
9. (2) is also synthetic because it emerges from a discussion of rulers in cities making laws to their advan-
tage
10. Synthetic not a good category for P: definitions arise all the time in P from empirical observation and no
distinction between synthetic vs analytical claims.
11. Clitophon interjection—if he favoured C’s modification that one should obey what the ruler believes to
be in his interest we would go for (2) but he rejects it. His interjection is clearly meant to disambiguate
the position and show that he is not a conventionalist but an immoralist.
1. Hourani’s interpretation of why he ignores Cleitophon is quite weak—he says it is just bc of his habitual
manner of presenting sophists: unwilling to admit that an incompetent ruler would determine justice
equally with a competent one
• For an alternative pov, Everson thinks that T is completely incoherent since the tyrant is both just and un-
just. You can point out that he is not really doing definitions; the core is someone else’s advantage
• The final thing to deal with when it comes to Thrasymachus is the modification that justice is another’s
good at 343c; okay they are compatible though as this is only from the pov of the weaker where it is also
the good of the stronger. However the good of the stronger is from all povs.
• Another incoherence is that he says at the beginning that justice = adv of stronger ie rulers but in the big
speech says that rulers are acting unjustly. One solution is to privilege ‘adv of another’ over ‘adv of
stronger’. But maybe when T says the adv of the stronger he means someone stronger than oneself. This
means that in the case of the tyrant there is no one stronger than them so they cannot act justly and have to
act unjustly. The ‘adv of stronger’ is correct for all cases where a subject is seen in relation to someone
stronger than themselves.
,• We have just heard that ‘justice is the good of the stronger’; but then at 343c he says ‘injustice rules the
truly simple and those do what is to the advantage of the other and stronger’. So now it looks like both in-
justice and justice are the advantage of the stronger. What shall we do?
• One solution is to say the division is between justice = another’s good and injustice = one’s own good
• Another solution is to say justice is the advantage of someone stronger (than oneself) and injustice is when
you are not acting for the advantage of anyone stronger than you. So if there is no one stronger than one-
self, as in the case of the tyrant, then it isn’t possible for one’s acts to be advantageous to the stronger, and
so it isn’t possible to act justly.
• You can say that the initial formulation is from the pov of the subject: even if they are inconsistent, the
common thought is that justice is not in my interest, whoever I am. The later definition ‘interest of another’
is extended to the perspective of the ruler
• Another thing to say is just don’t think of T as giving a ‘definition’ of justice. He presupposes a traditional
concept of justice, obeying the law etc and shows the standard effects as being really bad.
• NB also that craft infallibility was a point of contention in ancient debates over medicine (Nawar) so it
isn’t that surprising for T to appeal to this in rejecting Cleitophon’s intervention.
First set of Socratic objections discuss crafts—they set out the features of the crafts which belong to
the just man rather than the unjust Thrasymachean tyrant
This is based on the acceptance of the definition that ‘justice is the advantage of the ruler; and the ruler qua
ruler never errs’ at 341—Soc now attacks him on his own terms—pointing out that no ruler actually benefits
from ruling; any advantage which comes to them comes from concomitant things ie wages and not from the
rule itself
T has said a ruler in a precise sense seeks his own advantage; but Soc says no he doesn’t + proof that he
doesn’t is that he is paid
12. Every craft has a distinct object and is set over this to provide what is advantageous to it. As a Thrasy-
machean ruler serves his own good, he is not practicing a real craft.
• Problems
- is justice really a craft? discussed above
- T’s counter example is good—about shepherding as a craft whose aim is actually the good of the shep-
herd. Annas thinks this is suitable but actually possibly just a consequence of the welfare of the sheep so
maybe Soc has a strong point here. It is kind of the good of the shepherd and the sheep. Socrates could say
that the real craft is benefitting the sheep and benefitting the shepherd is just contingent. Or alternatively
you could argue that benefitting the sheep is just a means to benefitting the shepherd. Anyway basically it
remains kind of unclear
- I think the flaw of the shepherd eg is that it goes into the realm of the real from the ideal; T has just in-
sisted that a ruler qua ruler never errs; running with this, S then gets him to agree that a ruler qua ruler
looks to the advantage of his subject. So T equivocates when he moves to the realm of the actual shepherd
- Flaws of Soc’s inductive method using only a few egs
13. Real crafts only benefit their practitioners if extrinsic wages are given in return. Every distinct craft has a
distinctive end; wages result from the practice of distinct crafts; so they are the end of the craft of wage-
earning.
1. The point of this seems to be to show that crafts do not actually benefit the people who practice them.
But then again, justice is not a craft
2. But maybe the point is to show that justice if it were a craft would benefit its subjects ie justice is the ad-
vantage of the subjects not the advantage of the ruled
• Problems
- wage earning being the result of a craft is not obvious—it has to benefit its wages?
14. In practising a craft, the expert only acts pleonectically to a non-expert whilst the non-expert does to ev-
eryone. Just person does like expert, unjust like non-expert. So just person is practitioner of a craft, he is
good and clever, and unjust person is a non-expert, not a practitioner, bad and ignorant.
1. Point is to show that justice is a virtue and injustice is a vice
• Problems
- pleonektein is ambiguous—does it mean outdoing in competition or possessing more of some good in a
zero-sum competition?
- Why would the just person want to outdo in the same sense as the unjust person
, - Maybe shows us the ideal craft practitioner—doesn’t want to engage in pleonexia
Justice is the craft of the advantage of the stronger / ruler
Every craft is to the advantage of its subjects not the who practices it
So justice is not the craft of the advantage of the stronger / ruler
Crafts benefit their practitioners not their subjects
Each craft has a particular end
Any common benefit must come from the practice of a common craft
The common benefit for craft practitioners is wage earning
This benefit comes from the craft of wage earning
So crafts do not benefit their practitioners
Justice is a vice whilst injustice is a virtue
The just man wants to outdo the unjust man but not the just man
The unjust man wants to outdo the just and the unjust man
The virtuous man wants to outdo the unjust man but not the just man (musical = knowledgeable = wise =
good)
So justice is a virtue whilst injustice is a vice
Last two objections discuss central properties of justice
15. Justice unifies and enables successful action but injustice does the opposite; justice within a single indi-
vidual must have the same effect on soul as in groups; so justice in an individual unifies and empowers
the soul while injustice does the opposite meaning that the unjust person is incapable of achieving any-
thing as he is at war with himself. So justice is stronger than injustice
• Problems
- depends on assumption that a human being is actually composed of various parts and thus can function
analogously to a group of people.
16. Function argument: the virtue of anything enables it to perform its function well; the function of the hu-
man soul is ‘taking care of things, ruling, deliberating etc’; justice is its virtue; so justice enables this to
happen and for people to live well. Whoever lives well is happy, so justice is happy and unjust one is
wretched. So the life of the just man is better than that of the unjust man
• Problems
- justice as the virtue of the human soul is imported as a conclusion from pleonectic argument; but also note
that this comes up in the context of attacking Polemarchus—justice as human virtue used to generate con-
clusion that the just man can’t really harm anyone
- why must a soul have an ergon in the same way as other things? why does this have to be ruling etc
Some general thoughts
Socrates’ failures (1)—relying on unsubstantiated premisses
Socrates’ failures (2)—Justice really can’t be a craft
Successes:
Firstly some illuminating things about crafts even if justice is not really a craft
17. If crafts were actually beneficial to their practitioners, why would they be paid? Thrasymachus’ assump-
tion that crafts are self-interested seems to be based on a sloppy failure to distinguish the craft itself from
its incidental rewards.
18. The stuff about pleonexia perhaps draws attention to contrast between craft-practitioners and those cor-
rupted by pleonexia: since the internal ends of crafts are not possible objects of pleonectic action, to “act
pleonectically” within the actual practice of a particular craft could only mean to deviate from those ends