[612b]
of the
argument, and we have not invoked the rewards and reputes of justice as you
said Homer and Hesiod1 do,
but we have proved that justice in itself is the best thing for the soul
itself, and that the soul ought to do justice whether it possess the ring of
Gyges2 or not,3 or the helmet of Hades4 to boot.”
“Most true,” he said. “Then,” said
I, “Glaucon, there can no longer be any objection,5 can there, to our assigning to justice and
1 363 B-C.
2 359 D f.
3 Cf. 367 E.
4 Iliad v. 845, Blaydes on Aristoph.Acharn. 390.
5 Cf. Soph. 243 A, Laws 801 Eἄνευ φθόνων, Eurip.Hippol. 497οὐκ ἐπίφθονον, Aeschines, De falsa legatione 167 (49). Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 406 does object and finds the passage inconsistent with the idealism of 592 and with Laws 899 D ff. and 905 B. Cf. Renan, Averroes, pp. 156-157, Guyau, Esquisse d'une morale, pp. 140-141. See Unity of Plato's Thought, p. 80 and n. 612, Idea of Justice in Plato's Republic, pp. 197-198. Gomperz, ignoring this passage and interpreting the Republic wholly from 367 E, strangely argues that Phaedo 107 C proves that the Phaedo must have been composed at a time when Plato was less sure of the coincidence of justice and happiness. A religious thinker may in his theodicy justify the ways of God to man by arguing that worldly happiness is not the real happiness, and yet elsewhere remark that, as a rule, the righteous is not forsaken even in this world. Cf. Psalm 37.25 ff., Prov. 10.3 and passim. See Renan, Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, p. 376: “Il en est de ces passages comme de tant de préceptes de l’Evangile, insensés si on en fait des articles de code, excellents si on n'y voit, que l'expression hyperbolique de hauts sentiments moraux.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.