Plato, Laws

[661a] “drives his spear against the foe at close quarters,” whereas the unjust man dares not “to look upon the face of bloody death,” nor does he outpace in speed of foot “the north wind out of Thrace,” nor acquire any other of the things called “good.” For the things which most men call good are wrongly so described. Men say that the chief good is health, beauty the second, wealth the third; and they call countless other things “goods”—such as sharpness of sight and hearing, [661b] and quickness in perceiving all the objects of sense; being a king, too, and doing exactly as you please; and to possess the whole of these goods and become on the spot an immortal, that, as they say, is the crown and top of all felicity. But what you and I say is this,—that all these things are very good as possessions for men who are just and holy, but for the unjust they are (one and all, from health downwards) very bad; and we say too that sight and hearing and [661c] sensation and even of itself are very great evils for the man endowed with all the so-called goods, but lacking in justice and all virtue, if he is immortal forever, but a lesser evil for such a man if he survives but a short time. This, I imagine, is what you (like myself) will persuade or compel your poets to teach, and compel them also to educate your youth by furnishing them with rhythms and harmonies in consonance with this teaching. Am I not right? Just consider: [661d] what I assert is that what are called “evils” are good for the unjust, but evil for the just, while the so-called “goods” are really good for the good, but bad for the bad. Are you in accord with me, then,—that was my question,—or how stands the matter?

Clinias
We are, apparently, partly in accord, but partly quite the reverse.

Athenian
Take the case of a man who has health and wealth and absolute power in perpetuity,—in addition to which I bestow on him, if you like, matchless strength and courage, together with immortality [661e] and freedom from all the other “evils” so called,—but a man who has within him nothing but injustice and insolence: probably I fail to convince you that the man who lives such a life is obviously not happy but wretched?

Clinias
Quite true.

Athenian
Well, then, what ought I to say next? Do you not think that if a man who is courageous, strong, beautiful, and rich, and who does exactly as he likes all his life long,