[357a]
Socrates
When I had said this I supposed that I was
done with the subject, but it all turned out to be only a prelude. For
Glaucon, who is always an intrepid enterprising spirit in everything, would
not on this occasion acquiesce in Thrasymachus's abandonment1 of his case,
but said, “Socrates, is it your desire to seem to have persuaded
us
[357b]
or really to persuade us that it is
without exception better to be just than unjust?”
“Really,” I said, “if the choice rested with
me.” “Well, then, you are not doing what you wish. For
tell me: do you agree that there is a kind of good2 which we would choose to possess, not from desire
for its after effects, but welcoming it for its own sake? As, for example,
joy and such pleasures are harmless3 and nothing
results from them afterwards save to have and to hold the
enjoyment.”
[357c]
“I
recognise that kind,” said I. “And again a kind that we
love both for its own sake and for its consequences,4 such as understanding,5 sight, and health?6 For
these presume we welcome for both reasons.”
“Yes,” I said. “And can you discern a third
form of good under which falls exercise and being healed when sick and the
art of healing and the making of money generally? For of them we would say
that they are laborious and painful yet beneficial, and for their own sake
[357d]
we would not accept them, but only
for the rewards and other benefits that accrue from them.”
“Why yes,” I said, “I must admit this third
class also. But what of it?” “In which of these classes
do you place justice?” he said.
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1 So in Philebus 11 C, Philebus cries off or throws up the sponge in the argument.
2 Aristotle borrows this classification from Plato (Topics 118 b 20-22), but liking to differ from his teacher, says in one place that the good which is desired solely for itself is the highest. The Stoics apply the classification to “preferables” (Diogenes Laertius vii. 107). Cf. Hooker, Eccles. Pol. i. 11. Elsewhere Plato distinguishes goods of the soul, of the body, and of possessions (Laws 697 B, 727-729) or as the first Alcibiades puts it (131) the self, the things of the self, and other things.
3 Plato here speaks of harmless pleasures, from the point of view of common sense and prudential morality. Cf. Tim. 59 Dἀμεταμέλητον ἡδονήν, Milton's “Mirth that after no repenting draws.” But the Republic(583 D) like the Gorgias(493 E-494 C) knows the more technical distinction of the Philebus(42 C ff., 53 C ff.) between pure pleasures and impure, which are conditioned by desire and pain.
4 Isocrates i. 47 has this distinction, as well as Aristotle.
5 Some philosophers, as Aristippus (Diogenes Laertius x. 1. 138), said that intelligence is a good only for its consequences, but the opening sentences of Aritotle's Metaphysics treat all forms of knowledge as goods in themselves.
6 Plutarch (1040 C) says that Chrysippus censured Plato for recognizing health as a good, but elsewhere Plato explicitly says that even health is to be disregarded when the true interests of the soul require it.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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