Republic Outline VIII, Book II
Prof. Bill Long 9/7/05
Understanding the Rest of Glaucon's Argument
Glaucon then turns to this third topic and describes the respective lives of the just and unjust person. 360e-367a. This is seemingly the method of "parallel speech" mentioned but rejected by S in 348a. By having this method provoke S's reaction for the rest of the Republic, Plato may be saying that this is a more cogent and worthwhile method to use in discussing subjects than elenchus.
What, then, do the parallel lives of our just and unjust person look like? G wants to paint them in their extreme form so that we truly understand what is at stake for one who argues that the just life is better than the unjust life. The unjust person is described first (361a). He will act as a clever craftsman, fooling the populace into thinking he is a competent producer when, in fact, he isn't. For the unjust person this means that "while doing the greatest injustice, he has nonetheless provided himself with the greatest reputation for justice. If he happens to make a slip, he must be able to put it right" (361b). If someone discovers one of his unjust acts, the unjust person must be able to speak persuasively or use force to make sure that the story of his injustice doesn't get out. Thus, the unjust person rules the city "because of his reputation for justice...he has contracts and partnerships with anyone he wants; and besides benefiting himself in all these ways, he profits because he has no scruples about doing injustice" (362b). In any case, he "outdoes" (pleonexein again) his enemies and pursues his ways of injustice.
On the other hand, the just person (in the extreme case) will be simple and noble but will be misunderstood by people and persecuted because of it. "We must strip him of everything except justice and make his situation the opposite of an unjust person. Though he does no injustice, he must have the greatest reputation for it, so that his justice may be tested full-strength and not diluted by wrong-doing or what comes from it" (361c-d). Then, in a line that was so brutal and so insightful that the early Church Fathers, five centuries later, thought was some kind of pagan prophetic recognition of Jesus, Plato says:
"They'll say that a just person in such circumstances will be whipped, stretched on a rack, chained, blinded with fire, and, at the end when he has suffered every kind of evil, he'll be impaled" (361e).
Socrates is duly impressed by this parallel portraits: "Whew! Glaucon, I said, how vigorously you've scoured each of the men for our competition, just as you would a pair of statues for an art competition" (361d).
One More Thing, However
G might think he is finished describing the contrasting pictures of the two types of people (just and unjust) but his brother Adeimantus ("A") jumps in and says that G's picture is incomplete because it lacks the way that people talk about justice and injustice in real life. At first A will speak of the way people praise justice and find fault with injustice (363a-e). Then, he turns to something that G hasn't mentioned, and that is how the unjust not only can manipulate and force his way here on earth but that he also has resources to compel the gods to treat him favorably (364a-367a). "But the most wonderful of all these arguments concerns what they have to say about the gods and virtue." What do they say? That "if the rich person or any of his ancestors has committed an injustice, they can fix it with pleasant rituals....for by means of spells and enchantments they can persuade the gods to serve them" (364c). A even quotes the higest poetic authority of all, Homer, to the effect that "the gods themselves can be swayed by prayer." Thus, the unjust person not only will control things on earth but will control the gods.
The question naturally follows: "When all such sayings about the attitudes of gods and humans to virtue and vice are so often repeated, S, what effect to you suppose they have on the souls of young people?" (365a) In brief, young people will believe that an unjust person, "who has secured for himself a reputation for justice, lives the life of a god" (365b). What should a person do? "Create a facade of illusory virtue around me to deceive those who come near." But what if the objection arises that it isn't easy to dissimulate, to conceal the life of injustice? A has an answer for that, an answer that could (strikingly) be applied to politics in our own day. In order to remain undiscovered people form secret societies and political clubs and hire "teachers of persuasion" to "make us clever in dealing with assemblies and law courts" (365d). That is, you hire a PR firm and dig deep into your political party/cronies for help.
A concludes with a flourish. "But if we are unjust, we get the profits of our crimes and transgressions and afterwards persuade the gods by prayer and escape without punishment" (366a). With all these advantages to injustice he can conclude that "no one is just willingly" (366d). People who are just or act justly do so out of weakness. They do it "only because they lack the power to do injustice, for the first of them to acquire it is the first to do as much injustice as he can" (366d).
Conclusion
I think we catch the drift of the brothers G and A. They feel S has only given a "theoretical argument" in confuting T (367b), but now they want S to give an account of why justice in itself is superior to injustice. S is momentarily stunned after they end their speech. Indeed, as he says, their eloquence in articulating a position which they don't share indicates that they must be "affected by the divine" (368a). He is temporarily at a loss what to do but, at the urging of G and the others, he takes heart and plunges in. The next essay describes how S decides to respond to the apparent tour de force of the brothers' argument.
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Copyright © 2004-2007 William R. Long
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