Plato, Republic

[358a] “In my opinion,” I said, “it belongs in the fairest class, that which a man who is to be happy must love both for its own sake and for the results.” “Yet the multitude,” he said, “do not think so, but that it belongs to the toilsome class of things that must be practised for the sake of rewards and repute due to opinion but that in itself is to be shunned as an affliction.”

“I am aware,” said I, “that that is the general opinion and Thrasymachus has for some time been disparaging it as such and praising injustice. But I, it seems, am somewhat slow to learn.” “Come now,” [358b] he said, “hear what I too have to say and see if you agree with me. For Thrasymachus seems to me to have given up to you too soon, as if he were a serpent¹ that you had charmed, but I am not yet satisfied with the proof that has been offered about justice and injustice. For what I desire is to hear what each of them is and what potency and effect it has in and of itself dwelling in the soul,² but to dismiss their rewards and consequences. This, then, is what I propose to do, with your concurrence. I will renew [358c] the argument of Thrasymachus and will first state what men say is the nature and origin of justice; secondly, that all who practise it do so reluctantly, regarding it as something necessary³ and not as a good; and thirdly, that they have plausible grounds for thus acting, since forsooth the life of the unjust man is far better than that of the just man—as they say; though I, Socrates, don't believe it. Yet I am disconcerted when my ears are dinned by the arguments of Thrasymachus and innumerable others.⁴ But the case for justice, [358d] to prove that it is better than injustice, I have never yet heard stated by any as I desire to hear it. What I desire is to hear an encomium on justice in and by itself. And I think I am most likely to get that from you. For which reason I will lay myself out in praise of the life of injustice, and in so speaking will give you an example of the manner in which I desire to hear from you in turn the dispraise of injustice and the praise of justice. Consider whether my proposal pleases you.” “Nothing could please me more,” said I; [358e] “for on what subject would a man of sense rather delight to hold and hear discourse again and again?” “That is excellent,” he said; “and now listen to what I said would be the first topic—the nature and origin of justice. By nature,⁵ they say, to commit injustice is a good and to suffer it is an evil, but that the excess of evil in being wronged is greater than the excess of good in doing wrong. So that when men do wrong and are wronged by one another and taste of both, those who lack the power