Phaedrus — Plato

p. 194irony or any other shift in order that he might avoid answering?

You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit the person whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, ** for this sort of nonsense won't do for me,'* then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question to him, neither he nor any one can answer.

And suppose he were to say, ** Thrasymachus, what do you mean ? And if the true answer to the question is one of these numbers which you interdict, am I to say some other number which is not the right one? — is that your meaning? How would you answer him? Yes, said he ; but how remarkably parallel the two cases are !

Very likely they are, I replied ; but even if they are not, and only appear to be parallel to the person who is asked, can he to whom the question is put avoid saying what he thinks, even though you and I join in forbidding him ? Well, then, I suppose you are going to make one of the interdicted answers? I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them.

But what if I give you a new and better answer, he said, than any of these ? What do you deserve to have done to you? Done to me ! I can but suffer the penalty of ignorance ; and the penalty is to learn from the wise — and that is what I deserve to have done to me. What, and no payment ! that's a pleasant notion ! I will pay when I have the money, I replied.

But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon ; and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates. Yes, he replied, and I know what will happen; Socrates will do as he always does — not answer, but take and pull the argument to pieces.

Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he had some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of 2p. 195authority not to utter them ? The natural thing is, that the speaker should be one who knows, like yourself; and I must earnestly request that you will kindly answer for the 338- edification of the company and of myself. 343 Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was really eager to speak ; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself.

But at first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates ; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you. That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true ; but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny.

Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have ; and how ready I am to praise any one who speaks well you will very soon find out when you answer, for I expect that you will answer well. Listen, then, he said ; 1 proclaim that might is right, justice the interest of the stronger. But why don't you praise me?

Let me first understand you, I replied. [Socrates now puts a series of questions to Thrasymachus, and in answering^hrasymachus is led to admit statements which contradict nis own definition of justice.

When he finds himself cornered in the argument, he tries to escape by means of a long speech upon the advantages of injustice, as follows :J You fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of States, who are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night.

O, no ; and so entirely astray are you in the very rudiments of justice and injustice as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good ; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant ; whereas the reverse holds in the case of injustice ; for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just : he is the stronger, and his subjects do what 3ig6 PLATO THE TEACHER is for his benefit, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all in their private dealings : wherever the unjust is the partner of the just the conclusion of the affair always is that the unjust man has more and the just less.

Next, in their dealings with the State : when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income ; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much.

Observe also that when they come into office, there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, but he will not compensate himself out of the public purse because he is just ; moreover he is hated by his friends and relations for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. Now all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man.

I am speaking of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent, and my meaning will be most clearly ^^^ seen in that highest form of injustice the perpetrator of which is the happiest of men, as the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable — I mean tyranny,- which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, 4iot retail but wholesale ; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for any one of which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating them singly, he would be punished and incur great dishonor ; for they who are guilty of any of these crimes in single instances are called robbers of temples and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves.

But when a man has taken away the money of the citizens and made slaves of them, then, instead of these dishonorable names, he is called happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For injustice is censured because the censurers are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice ; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest. Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go