I will argue that Plato’s reply to Glaucon’s first objection, that justice is no more than a compromise, is correct and efficiently deconstructs Glaucon’s objection. In order to understand Plato’s reply, we must first understand Glaucon’s objection, hence that will be what this essay will cover first and foremost. Next, this essay will evaluate Plato’s reply in three parts. The first part will analyze the construction of the ideal city and where justice can be found in said city. The second part will analyze the connection between justice in the ideal city and justice in the individual soul. Finally, this essay will asses Plato’s final defense for justice against Glaucon’s first objection, that the just life is better than the unjust life.
Glaucon begins with telling his story of the natural origin of justice, which was “to do injustice is naturally god and to suffer injustice bad. But the badness of suffering it far exceeds the goodness of doing it. Hence, those who have done and suffered injustice and who have tasted both – the ones who lack power to do it and avoid suffering it – decide that it is profitable to come to an agreement with each other neither to do injustice nor to suffer it” (358e4-359a2). This is what they decided to call ‘justice.’ Therefore justice is always the second-best situation – something settled for instead of the best-case scenario which would be being powerful enough to dominate over everyone around them. This is why Glaucon says that people only do justice unwillingly, that people are just only because they realize that they’re not strong enough to get away with being unjust, but if they could get away with it they would definitely choose injustice as the better life in itself. Therefore, justice is a compromise. Glaucon wants Plato to demonstrate the value of justice and injustice in the soul, independent of their consequences.
To respond to this challenge Plato introduces the political metaphor, the structure of an ideal city (368d). Plato constructs the ideal city because a city is larger and easier to observe compared to a soul, and then we can see what this city tells us about justice in the soul. Plato first observes that a city forms because “none of us is individually self-sufficient, but each has many needs he cannot satisfy” (369b6-7) and therefore we need others to prosper and to survive. Plato then introduces the foundational principle of human society: the principle of specialization. The principle of specialization states that each person must perform the role for which he is naturally best suited, “more plentiful and better quality goods are more easily produced, if each person does one thing for which he is naturally suited and does it at the opportune moment, because his time is freed from all the others” (370c4-7). Plato separates society into three classes: the class of producers (including farmers, craftsmen, doctors, etc.), the class of warriors (auxiliaries), and the class of rulers (guardians).
With these three levels of society established, the ideal city is functional and Plato can now determine the city’s virtues where justice can be found. These virtues consist of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Wisdom is found in the guardians’ knowledge “about the city as a whole, and about how its internal relations and its relations with other cities will be best possible” (428d). Courage is found in the auxiliaries ability to preserve “through everything the correct and law-inculcated belief about what should inspire terror and what should not” (430b). Temperance can be found in both the rulers and subjects as a sort of ‘harmony’ (431c). Temperance is “a sort of order, the mastery of certain sorts of pleasures and appetites” (430e). Finally, justice can be found in “doing one’s own work and not meddling with what is not one’s own” (431b). However, Plato continues to explain how this take on justice is not definite, “Let’s not state it as fixedly established just yet. But if this kind of thing is agreed by us to be justice in the case of individual human beings as well, then we can assent to it” (434d). But, before we can understand the definite meaning of justice, we must talk about how this ideal society can exist. Plato argues that in order for the ideal city to exist, we must make philosophers the rulers (473d) because they are lovers of wisdom, and have grasped the forms. The forms are eternal, unchanging, and complete. Since the forms are complete (in terms of being), then to grasp them is to have knowledge. Therefore, philosophers have knowledge and are most capable of watching over the city.
This essay will now discuss the correlation between justice in the ideal city and justice in the individual soul, as the explanation of justice stated above is only valid if it also explains justice in the individual. In order for there to be a legitimate correlation between the two, the individual, like the city, needs to have various parts that are each best suited in performing a specific role in the individual’s life. Plato successfully relates the three parts of the soul to the three parts of the city and identifies their corresponding virtues as well.
In order to prove the link between the parts of the soul and the parts of the city, Plato brings forth the Principle of Opposites, “It is clear that the same will not do or suffer opposites, at least with regard to the same and toward the same, at the same time” (436b–437a). Thirst is an opposite (437b1-d7). Plato reports that we often experience mental conflict, an example is how “Some people are thirsty sometimes, yet unwilling to drink” (439c3–4). When this happens “there is an element in their soul urging them to drink, and also one stopping them — something different that masters the one doing the urging” (439c6–8), and “the element doing the stopping in such cases arises — when it does arise– from rational calculation, while the things that drive and drag are present because of feelings and diseases” (439c10-d2). Therefore, “there are two elements, different from one another; and to call the element in the soul which it calculates, the rationally calculating element; and the one with which it feels passion, hungers, thirsts, and is stirred by other appetites, the irrational and appetitive element” (439d4-8). On these grounds “we have distinguished these two kinds of elements in the soul” (439e1-2). However, there’s another distinct element from the appetitive element, “the one with which we feel anger” (439e2-3). This is the spirited element. The spirited element can be seen in “small children,” before they are rational, and furthermore, reason can conflict with spiritedness (441a–b). Therefore, the spirited element is distinct from both the rational and the appetitive elements of the soul (441c). This brings us to have three distinct parts of the soul: the appetitive part, the spirited part, and the reasoning part. Thus, the individual is just in the same way the city is just. The individual is just in that they do their part without meddling with what’s not their own.
With this secure account of the nature of justice in the individual soul, we can finally asses Plato’s final reply to Glaucon’s first objection. Plato hypothesized that the just life is better than the unjust (tyrannical) life. To prove this he compares the individual lives of a just soul with an unjust soul. The just person is ruled by reason. Plato describes how having a just soul allows a person to thrive because it is only in the just soul that the person is at peace with themselves (588a-e). By being ruled by reason, the just soul is able to obtain psychological harmony. In contrast, the tyrannical person is ruled by all desires including lawless ones. Lawless desires are unrestrained desires, for example having sex with anyone (ex. your mother) no matter how shameful. It’s unrestrained because it has no concept of moderation, lacks reason and contains excessive pride. Plato then gives three reasons as to why the tyrannical person has the worst life.
First, the political proof. Just like a city ruled by a tyrant (a tyrannical person) where the subjects are enslaved, a soul ruled by a tyrant (ex. lust) is enslaved. Furthermore, the tyrannical city and soul will both be poor due to their desires never feeling satisfied. They will also both be full of fear due to fearing that someone will kill them for their position, as seen in the story of the Ring of Gyges. Next, Plato gives psychological proof. There are three kinds of lives: the “money-loving and profit-loving” (581a), the “victory-loving and honor-loving” (581b), and the “learning-loving and philosophic” (581b). Each of these three lives considers their own life to be the most pleasant, as they view their own object of affection as the most valuable. But, how can we tell which one is telling the truth? Plato concluded that the life of a philosopher is best because the philosopher is best suited to imaginatively place themselves in each of these lives and to assess them. The philosopher will tell the truth because unlike the profit and honour lovers, philosophers have experienced all the forms of pleasure. Lastly, Plato presents metaphysical proof. This states that there is a neutral/calm state in addition to pleasure and pain. A common misconception is that pleasure is the absence of pain. Another misconception is that physical pleasures are real pleasures, when in fact, they are just urges and pangs of hunger. In reality, we eat because we are hungry and we don’t want to be hungry anymore. These are not true pleasures. In consequence, a pure pleasure is something not caused by a lack of something. For example, a true pleasure is solving a crossword puzzle because your brain didn’t hurt before you solved it. Therefore, desires of reason are true pleasures. We can now understand why one would not want to be at the mercy of their desires, as the tyrannical person can only obtain psychological disharmony, which is never desirable.
In conclusion, Plato successfully refutes Glaucon’s first objection. He does so by constructing an ideal city with three class levels and then finding justice in said city. Through this model, Plato is able to correlate the city’s three classes to three parts of an individual’s soul. By doing so, the nature of justice in the city is an accurate depiction of justice in the individual’s soul. With a valid account of the nature of justice in the individual’s soul, Plato then compared the life of a just and unjust soul. In this comparison, Plato is able to conclude that, the unjust man is the most miserable, therefore, one would prefer to live a just life instead of an unjust life, ergo justice is not a compromise.