FREE ESSAY ON JUSTICE

JUSTICE

ABSTRACT: This paper has a two-fold task. First, I show that there are three types of
individuals associated with the Thrasymachean view of society: (a) the many, i.e., the
ruled or those exploited individuals who are just and obey the laws of the society; (b)
the tyrant or ruler who sets down laws in the society in order to exploit the many for
personal advantage; (c) the stronger individual (kreittoon) or member of the society who
is detached from the many and aspires to become the tyrant. Second, I argue that if
Thrasymachus's account of the perfectly unjust life of the tyrant is to be more than a
theoretical ideal, then the stronger individual who aspires to the tyrant's position
would do well to lead a double life—namely, pursuing private injustice while
maintaining the public 'appearance' of justice. My interpretation accords with that of
Glaucon, noted at the beginning of Republic II. I want to extend Glaucon's interpretation
to include the stronger individual as well. I argue that the standpoint of the stronger
individual, as distinct from the standpoints of the tyrant and the many, shows
Thrasymachus's three statements regarding justice to be consistent with one another.
I.
In the beginning of Republic II, during a conversation with Socrates and Adeimantus about
which individual is deemed happier, the one who is just or the one who is unjust, Glaucon
states:
For the extreme of injustice is to seem to be just when one is not. So the perfectly
unjust man must be given the most perfect injustice, and nothing must be taken away; he
must be allowed to do the greatest injustices while having provided himself with the
greatest reputation for justice. And if, he should trip up in anything, he has the power
to set himself aright; if any of his unjust deeds should come to light, he is capable
both of speaking persuasively and of using force, to the extent that force is needed,
since he is courageous and strong and since he has provided for friends and money.
(361a-b)(1)
I believe that Glaucon has captured the essence of the Thrasymachean position concerning
the best way for the unjust individual to live. The one who pursues the life of injustice
must at the same time be courageous and crafty, strong and shrewd, power-driven and
persuasive. But most importantly, the unjust individual must be dastardly and deceptive.
This deception is captured by Glaucon when he states that the perfectly unjust man must
seem to be just. Appearances and reputations played a central role in the fifth century
b.c.e. Greek polis and so it makes sense that Glaucon would cast light upon the idea of
an individual's pursuit of the unjust life while providing for the greatest reputation
for justice.(2) Such an individual leads a kind of double life and therefore has a double
duty to perform in seeming to be just while actually being unjust.
These comments regarding Glaucon's view of the perfectly unjust individual hint at the
purpose of this discussion. This paper has a three-fold task. First, I will show that
there are three types of individuals associated with the Thrasymachean view of society:
a) the many, i.e., the ruled or those exploited individuals who are just and obey the
laws of the society; b) the tyrant or ruler who sets down laws in the society to exploit
the many for personal advantage; c) the stronger individual (kreitton) or member of the
society who detaches from the many and aspires to become the tyrant.
Most commentaries dealing with Thrasymachus' position give the tyrant and the many
central roles in the discussion of justice and injustice.(3) My view draws out the role
of the stronger individual in Thrasymachus' account in order to show the activities
associated with the genesis of the tyrant from the society. The stronger individual, in
seeking the life of injustice, naturally detaches from the many and aspires to develop
into the perfectly unjust tyrant. In the third section of this paper I shall argue that
if Thrasymachus' account of the perfectly unjust life of the tyrant is to be more than a
theoretical ideal, then the stronger individual who aspires to become the tyrant would do
well to lead a double life of pursuing private injustice while maintaining the public
appearance of justice. My view conforms to Glaucon's interpretation noted in the
quotation above whereby a double life of justice and injustice is maintained by the
tyrant who seeks to maintain power over the society. I want to extend Glaucon's
interpretation to include the stronger individual as well.
In the final section of this paper I will enter into dialogue with those commentators who
maintain that Thrasymachus' position concerning justice and injustice is inconsistent
overall. I believe that a solution to the problem of inconsistency in Thrasymachus'
position can be achieved when considering the role of the stronger as a separate type of
individual in the society. Thus, I will argue that the standpoint of the stronger, as
distinct from the standpoints of the tyrant and the many, has value in that it shows
Thrasymachus' three statements regarding justice to be consistent with one another.
II.
It is clear throughout Republic I, and specifically in his speech at 344a, that
Thrasymachus has in mind the tyrant as exemplary of the perfectly unjust individual who
by stealth and force takes away what belongs to others, both what is sacred and profane,
private and public, not bit by bit, but all at once. It is also clear, given the three
statements Thrasymachus makes about justice as a) being advantageous to the stronger
(338c), b) obedience to law (339c) and c) the good of another (343c) that the tyrant sets
down laws in the society strictly for the tyrant's own personal advantage. From the
standpoint of the many, the three statements regarding justice are consistent with the
idea that what is just is always advantageous to the tyrant. Seen from this standpoint,
the very act of obedience to the laws set down in a society involves the many in an
exploitative situation. According to Thrasymachus, the tyrant, in seeking a life of
perfect injustice, overreaches (pleonektein) in exploiting the many. This means that the
tyrant always greedily seeks to acquire more than a fair share and as Thrasymachus puts
it, get the better in a big way (343e).
The tyrant can exploit the many because of the fact that the tyrant is the stronger of
the two. At 339c and 343c Thrasymachus concludes that in every political situation the
ruling body sets down laws that are to the advantage of the rulers precisely because such
a ruling body is stronger than the hoi polloi. As the stronger ruler, the tyrant has the
power to punish lawbreakers (338e), take away what belongs to others (344a), kidnap and
enslave the many (344b) with the added benefit of being called happy and blessed for so
doing (344b-c). Thrasymachus makes a connection between the notion of strength and the
capacity for leading an unjust life. At 343c justice is defined by Thrasymachus as really
someone else's good, the advantage of the man who is stronger and rules.(4) Injustice, we
are told is the opposite, and it rules the truly simple and just. So the life of
injustice in its essence will be a self-seeking activity and the tyrant, who can pursue
this life most perfectly on a grand scale, is in the position to frame social interaction
in a way that is wholly self-advantageous. Thus, Thrasymachus can say to Socrates and
company:
injustice, when it comes into being on a sufficient scale, is mightier, freer, and more
masterful than justice; and, as I have said from the beginning, the just is the advantage
of the stronger, and the unjust is what is profitable and advantageous for oneself.
(344c)
Thus far I have made explicit the existence of the tyrant as the unjust exploiter and the
many as the just exploited in Thrasymachus' view of the society. But there is another
type of individual associated with society who, in a strict sense, is neither the tyrant
nor a member of the many—namely, the kreitton. In his long speech that runs from
343b to 344c, Thrasymachus speaks of the tyrant as exemplary of the most perfect
injustice. But within the context of this speech, he also mentions those who are only
partially unjust: temple robbers, kidnappers, housebreakers, defrauders and thieves.
(344b) Further, in contrasting concrete examples that distinguish the benefits of the
unjust life as distinct from the just life, Thrasymachus states: the just man everywhere
has less than the unjust man. He continues:
First, in contracts, when the just man is a partner of the unjust man, you will always
find that at the dissolution of the partnership the just man does not have more than the
unjust man, but less. Second, in matters pertaining to the city, when there are taxes,
the just man pays more on the basis of equal property, the unjust man less; and where
there are distributions, the one makes no profit, the other much. (343d)
Here, Thrasymachus is not speaking specifically of the tyrant in relation to the many.
The type of unjust individual Thrasymachus speaks of in this quotation, as well as the
housebreaker and thief, are those individuals who realize that to do justice means to
place oneself in a weaker exploitative situation. Such individuals exemplify the stronger
person who seeks the unjust life of what is profitable and advantageous for oneself. The
stronger resembles the tyrant in seeking the unjust life but lacks the perfection of
injustice which by stealth and force overpowers the many all at once.
Thrasymachus is concerned to show that if individuals in the society are in a position to
do so, they should strive to do whatever is in their power to achieve the status of the
tyrant because he thinks that the one who rules is the strongest, most powerful and
consequently happiest individual in the society (344a-b). There is a developmental
genesis of the tyrant within the context of society being made explicit by Thrasymachus'
account of the stronger. Thrasymachus' examples of defrauders, kidnappers and those
thieves who violate the commutative and distributive laws of justice confirm this to be
the case. Actually, by explicating the role that the stronger plays in Thrasymachus'
social milieu, we get a better understanding of both the just and the unjust individual.
Seen in this way, the stronger acts as a kind of midpoint character between the many and
the tyrant—between justice and extreme injustice. The stronger is on the way to
tyranthood transcending the exploitations of the society as exploiter; however, such
exploits fall short of the tyrant who, in the words of Thrasymachus, does injustice
entire (344c).
III.
It is appropriate that Thrasymachus uses the image of sheep or cows in his speech at 343b
to describe the many because there is a sense in which the individuals subject to a
tyranny are incapable of overpowering the sheep/cow-herder or, like grazing animals, are
unaware of what is truly going on around themselves. The question then becomes, Are the
many really so naive as to allow themselves to be exploited by some tyrannical ruler? Two
responses come to mind. The first is No. People are not so naive as to not know that they
are being exploited. They obey the laws and rules because they know full well who has the
power and fear the consequences of disobedience. Or, they obey because they think they
can placate or appease the tyrant's self-indulgent pleonexia. Still some, like Socrates
himself, know who is in charge and what is really going on, but obey the laws nonetheless
on the grounds of a principle or ideal. This response would be consistent with
Thrasymachus's standpoint concerning the ruling power of the tyrant.
The second response to the question of the many's naivete is Yes. It could be the case
that the many are a group of really dense individuals who just cannot see the
exploitation. There is another response related to this idea of naivete which considers
the possibility that the tyrant in a society sets up laws that appear to be for the
advantage of the many, but in reality are for the tyrant's advantage. This has to do with
Glaucon's statement which I quoted in the first lines of this paper relating to the idea
of seeming to be just when one is not. In his article entitled, In Defense of
Thrasymachus T. Y. Henderson considers a similar alternative when he offers a
hypothetical case whereby a politically ambitious... intelligent and courageous man named
Setarcos is able to elevate himself to the status of the ruler by maintaining a public
facade of honesty and integrity.(5) In public Setarcos professes that the just life is
the best life for individuals and is in fact, in the public arena, obedient to the laws
of the society. But he secretly leads a private life of immorality whereby he advances
his own fortunes at the expense of others.(6) Eventually, through his private immoral
maneuverings, and his public facade of justice, honesty and integrity, he becomes the
ruler of the society. And when in power as the ruler, he is able to maintain this public
facade for a long time or even indefinitely, while remaining a thoroughly unjust man.(7)
Henderson asks if it is really possible for an immoral individual to dupe an entire
society in such a way. Surely there would be some individuals who would catch on to
Setarcos' plans and realize that in acting justly by following the laws of the society,
they would actually be serving the interests of Setarcos. In response to this, Henderson
states that Setarcos would want everyone in the state (except himself who knows better)
to act justly, to live just lives, and to believe sincerely that in doing so they were
serving their own best interests.(8) Henderson believes this to be a plausible account
that is consistent with Thrasymachean immorality. As Henderson states:
If Setarcos were able to convince everyone in the state that he is a completely just man,
that because he is just he is happy, that justice in general is most profitable to man as
a way of life, while at the same time being able, covertly, to cheat and steal from the
people systematically, then he would conform perfectly to Thrasymachus' conception of the
strong man.(9)
Henderson's account is valuable for two reasons. First, it shows how the tyrant can
remain unjust without being an iron-fisted dictator who, in Thrasymachus' words, takes
away what belongs to others, both what is sacred and profane, private and public... all
at once (344a). Even the most dense member of the society is going to recognize the
villainy of an iron-fisted dictator and will consequently harbor feelings of fear and
resentment toward such an approach. Henderson shows us that the tyrant can be cunning,
covert and corrupt while appearing to be courteous, caring and concerned. And further,
Henderson shows the value of such an approach as it lends itself to happiness on the
parts of both the tyrant and the many. The tyrant's happiness lies in true exploitation;
the happiness of the many lies in believing that leading a just life is actually to their
advantage.
Secondly, Henderson's account is valuable because it underscores the point I have been
making about the existence of the stronger in the society. Henderson tells us that
the strongest man in the state is most likely to be, or to become the ruler. He rises to
the top naturally because he takes advantage of every opportunity to make an unjust
profit and to further his own cause at the expense of others. Everyone and every group
who deal with him justly are exploited by him for his own profit.(10)
This account of the stronger can be coupled with the idea expressed by Glaucon that the
unjust individual must seem to be just or the account given by Henderson that, as he
rises to the top, the strong man Setarcos maintains a public facade of honesty and
integrity. In this way, the stronger leads a double life of pursuing injustice while
seeming to pursue what is just. And in this way, the stronger dupes both the many and the
tyrant.
That the stronger dupes both the many and the tyrant can be verified when we look at what
Thrasymachus says in the text itself. Thrasymachus has made it clear that the unjust life
is to be preferred to the just and that individuals in the society do act and should act
so as to dupe their fellow neighbor. On the one hand, the stronger individual is clever
enough to exploit the many as in Thrasymachus's example of the broken contract at 343d.
Again, we are told that as a result of such a contractual relationship, the just man does
not have more than the unjust man. But on the other hand, the stronger individual is
clever enough to dupe the many along with the tyrant as in the case of the tax evasion
mentioned in the same section: in matters pertaining to the city, when there are taxes,
the just man pays more on the basis of equal property, the unjust man less (343d). This
again shows the distinction more explicitly among the types of individuals (i.e., the
many, the stronger and the tyrant) that can be found in Thrasymachus' presentation of the
just versus the unjust. And further, the stronger is shown to clearly and consistently
conform to Thrasymachus' description of the unjust individual.
IV.
We are now in a position to address the issue of consistency in Thrasymachus' position.
Commentators concerning Thrasymachus' position are divided. There are those, like G. F.
Hourani, who see Thrasymachus as advocating a legalism.(11) And there are those, like G.
B. Kerferd, T. Y. Henderson and Julia Annas who maintain that Thrasymachus holds to an
immoralism.(12) Many commentators are in agreement, however, that Thrasymachus position
concerning justice and injustice is lacking in self-consistence.(13) The reason
commentators see a lack of consistency in Thrasymachus' position has to do with the fact
that Thrasymachus says three distinct things about justice in the course of his
conversation with Socrates and company. Justice is at once:
1) nothing other than the advantage of the stronger (338c)
2) obeying the laws of the ruler(s) (339b)
3) really someone else's good, the advantage of the man who is stronger and rules (343c)
The inconsistency arises precisely because both the ruled and the ruler must be taken
into account when considering justice and injustice. Thrasymachus ultimately reveals that
justice is another's good and it is this statement that involves him in a logical
contradiction and much controversy from Socrates onward. Some commentators, such as
Henderson, maintain that these three statements are consistent when seen from the
standpoint of the many.(14) Considered from this standpoint, Thrasymachus' three
statements about justice and its opposite are consistent because the other that
Thrasymachus refers to is the ruling tyrant: justice is obeying the laws set up by the
ruler (statement #2 at 339b), and in obeying these laws the many are concerned for the
other (statement #3 at 343c), i.e., the tyrant who has set up these laws with the
advantage going to the tyrant as the stronger of the two parties (statement #1 at 338c).
From the standpoint of the tyrant, however, the statements regarding justice and
injustice are inconsistent. Kerferd and Annas are examples of commentators who have
maintained that Thrasymachus' position is not consistent overall. Despite the
inconsistency, they think that Thrasymachus is ultimately advocating an immoralism since
justice is defined as another's good, i.e., the advantage of the stronger tyrant. From
what he says at 343b, Thrasymachus makes it clear that the life of justice as another's
good is to be rejected and that the life of injustice is to be accepted; thus, the
immoralist position. However, when this definition of justice is applied to the ruled as
well as to the ruler, there arises the problem of consistency in the definition itself.
Statements 1)-3) hold from the standpoint of the ruled in society. In this sense, the
another's good which the ruled promotes in being just or violates in being unjust is
precisely that of the ruling tyrant. But the injustice of the second part of the
statement implies that the other in the first part is not the ruling tyrant, but the
ruled many. Herein lies the problem of inconsistency, and, as Annas points out:
The same situation is described as both being just, form the point of view of the
subjects who are serving the interests of another, and as unjust, from the point of view
of the ruler who is exploiting them in his own interests.(15)
From the standpoint of the ruled, the another is the ruler; from the standpoint of the
ruler, the another is the ruled. So, it is clear that the praising of injustice from the
ruler's perspective rests upon a standard of justice that is found to be the case from
the ruled's perspective and therefore, the ruler never really escapes the standards of
justice and injustice as Thrasymachus would want us to believe.
Annas notes that Thrasymachus starts off with a muddled position and, once in dialogue
with Socrates, makes his position clearer. The three statements Thrasymachus makes
strictly speaking conflict with one another in the end. Thrasymachus began by thinking
only of strong and successful rulers(16) and, because of this, he first defines justice
in a way that strictly applied only to their subjects, who by acting justly are serving
the interests of their rulers, the stronger, and who are acting in a way that is to the
interests not of themselves but of others.(17)
Likewise, Kerferd maintains that if all the statements that Thrasymachus makes regarding
justice are to be taken seriously, then he cannot have an overall consistent account of
justice to offer.(18) In light of this overall inconsistency, Kerferd and Annas feel
justified in holding that the third statement, i.e., justice is another's good is the
real Thrasymachean position. Kerferd holds this view because he envisions Thrasymachus as
trying to give an account of justice that will take into account the ruler and the ruled
in society. According to Kerferd, the ruler is the stronger other in the society who lays
down laws specifically for the interest of exploiting the ruled. Kerferd continues to
state that Thrasymachean justice always entails seeking another's interest and therefore
must be scorned as something silly. The true ideal is for everyone to seek his own
interest by leading a life of injustice.(19) To this extent, it would be just for the
ruled in a society to obey the laws because these laws are set out for the good of
another—namely, the tyrant. Kerferd does not see an inconsistency between the
statements justice is the interest of the stronger and justice is another's good when
considered from the standpoint of the ruled. In this case, when the ruled act justly,
they do so for the stronger other's benefit who happens to be the ruling tyrant. But
justice as obeying the laws is viewed by Kerferd as being inconsistent with justice as
another's good or the interest of the stronger because the laws that are laid down by the
tyrant for the ruled to follow could be mistakenly laid out and found to actually not be
in the interest of the other, i.e., the ruling tyrant.
Annas and Kerferd's concerns are well noted and justified. The inconsistency might be
reconciled if we hold the view that the tyrant remains unjust in the concern for self
only if the third statement about justice as being a concern for the other reveals that
the other is merely the many. We really cannot maintain that the other Thrasymachus
speaks of at 343c is the many because this other is immediately qualified as the man who
is stronger and rules or the tyrant. (343c) And again, we see that outside of this
limited interpretation of the other as the many, the tyrant would be mitigating against
the personal advantage that is sought whenever the tyrant acted unjustly. When taking
Thrasymachus' three statements regarding justice and injustice in their entirety, it
seems to follow that if justice is what is advantageous for the tyrant, then injustice,
as its opposite, would be disadvantageous for the tyrant. The tyrant, in acting unjustly
towards the many, wants the many to act justly towards the tyrant. However, from the
standpoint of the tyrant Thrasymachus cannot endorse the injustice he defines.
When all is said and done, it seems apparent that Thrasymachus was not concerned with
this inconsistency and that the utter power and strength associated with the notion of
injustice became his real concern. That the strength and power associated with injustice
became Thrasymachus' ultimate concern is upheld by Annas and Kerferd,(20) but also
verified in the text when Thrasymachus rejects Cleitophon's suggestion that what
Thrasymachus meant by the advantage of the stronger is really what the stronger merely
believes to be an advantage. (340b) At this point in the dialogue, Cleitophon's
suggestion has given Thrasymachus the option of choosing to adopt a legalist position
whereby justice is defined as obeying the laws, or the position more conducive to the
immoralist one whereby justice is defined as what is in the interest of the stronger. If
Thrasymachus had adopted Cleitophon's suggestion, then he would be advocating the
legalist view that justice is obedience to the laws and a commentator such as G. F.
Hourani would have a clear case for his position.(21) This is so because the tyrant in a
society would be laying down laws regardless of whether they would be truly in the
interest, or merely seem to be in the interest of the tyrant. In either case, justice
would be defined legalistically as an obedience to the given laws of the tyrant at a
given time and place.
However, Thrasymachus specifically denies Cleitophon's suggestion and thereby denies the
legalist position in favor of defining justice as the interest of the stronger. (340c)
What this means is that a distinction between the concepts of the tyrant (qua ruler) and
the stronger is made explicit. In Cleitophon's view, the tyrant enacts laws that would be
just for the many to obey whether they were in the interest of the tyrant or not. If this
were the case then justice would be defined as the ruled many obeying the laws of the
tyrant. But Thrasymachus is interested in the tyrant only insofar as such an individual
is understood as the stronger. (343c) Thrasymachus assumes that the strongest person will
become the tyrant and when such a tyrant enacts laws for the many to follow, these laws
are enacted with an eye to the many's exploitation. In this way, justice is the interest
of the stronger, tyrant who happens to be the ruler of the society.
Thrasymachus' rejection of Cleitophon's suggestion commits him to a position of
immoralism and draws out the distinction between the conceptions of the tyrant and the
stronger. Thrasymachus' commitment to this immoralism also saddles him with the charge of
being inconsistent when proffering a definition of justice. Both Thrasymachus' immoralism
and the inconsistency in Thrasymachus' position concerning the status of the tyrant as
living the life of injustice give credence to my claim that there is this third type of
individual in society, distinct from the tyrant and the many—namely, the stronger.
When we consider the definition of justice and injustice form the standpoint of the
stronger, Thrasymachus' three statements actually remain consistent. The unjust life of
the kreitton entails violating the laws of the ruler at all costs since the concern and
advantage would be for the stronger's own self-interest.
Once the stronger individual is recognized as a part of Thrasymachus' schematization,
then it is possible to see how, from the standpoint of the stronger, the three statements
that Thrasymachus makes regarding justice and its opposite remain consistent.
Unfortunately, the problem of envisioning the same situation as being both just and
unjust at the same time from the points of view of the many and the tyrant remains. When
taking Thrasymachus' three statements regarding justice and injustice in their entirety,
it seems to follow that if justice is what is advantageous for the tyrant, then
injustice, as its opposite, would be disadvantageous for the tyrant. However, if we take
what Thrasymachus is saying regarding justice and injustice as applicable to the
stronger, the inconsistency issue is skirted. This is to say that from the standpoint of
the stronger, what is unjust would be disadvantageous both for the many as well as for
the tyrant. The other which was the cause of inconsistency and concern for Kerferd and
Annas can be either the ruled or the ruler or both. It makes no difference as both the
ruled and the ruler are exploited by the kreitton. The many follow laws and are exploited
by the tyrant. The stronger individual realizes this and does what is unjust, in terms
either of breaking the laws or of exploiting the many. So, in this sense, the stronger
individual, if he or she can get away with it, always seeks to exploit the exploited as
well as exploit the exploiter.
V.
What I have attempted to do in this paper is to draw out of Thrasymachus' account a
genesis of the tyrant from the many in a society. A tyrant just does not come out of
nowhere and rule over a group of people. I believe that, in his conversation with
Socrates and Cleitophon, Thrasymachus is offering us a developmental account of how the
stronger individual detaches from the many to rise to the ranks of tyranthood by leading
a life of injustice. At the same time, this life of injustice must be buffered, I
believe, by a seeming or an appearance of justice whereby the stronger individual can
dupe both the tyrant and the many in the ascent to tyranthood. I have tried to argue for
this double life of justice and injustice through the support of Thrasymachus' own words
coupled with the suggestions of Glaucon in Republic II and Professor Henderson's account
of Setarcos.
I have also tried to show how the inconsistency issue can be skirted if we take
Thrasymachus' three statements regarding justice from the standpoint of the stronger.
Both the ruler and the ruled become exploited by the kreitton. The task, then, for the
stronger individual becomes devising ways in which to always get away with the
exploitation. For it seems possible that the many and the tyrant, if confronted with the
stronger's activities, would not allow themselves to be exploited. Thrasymachus suggests
that stealth be used by the perfectly unjust tyrant who possesses unlimited strength.
(344a) But this stealth seems to be an option also for the stronger individual in the
exploiting process. Stealth offers the path of least resistance as was pointed out in
Henderson's example of Setarcos. Furtive and covert unjust activity masked by outward
signs of justice and integrity would enable the stronger individual to get away with
exploiting the exploited and the exploiter. I have suggested that seeming or appearing to
be just in the public realm while privately pursuing injustice would be conducive to this
stealth that is endorsed by Thrasymachus. Thus, the double life of justice and injustice
that the stronger individual leads.
Leading the stronger's life of pleonexia, whereby an individual seeks to overpower and
dupe another for the purpose of personal advantage and happiness is
possible—certainly, Henderson's Setarcos and Thrasymachus think so. But such a life
would entail an individual's leading double roles. One would find it necessary to put up
a deceptive front or an appearance of leading a life of justice so as to have the freedom
to pursue what is entailed in the unjust life. Such a double-rolled life can be applied
both to the stronger, imperfectly unjust individual who seeks tyranthood and to the
strongest, perfectly unjust tyrant as in Henderson's example of Setarcos. However, when
all is said and done about the kreitton or the tyrant who spend so much of life in the
realm of appearance, the question arises as to whether such individuals are truly most
blessed and happy. Is such blessedness and happiness worth the price given all of the
deception and one-upmanship entailed in such a livelihood? Consider what Socrates says
about those afflicted with a tyrannical nature in Republic IX:
Therefore, they live their whole life without ever being friends of anyone, always one
man's master or another's slave. The tyrannic nature never has a taste of freedom and
true friendship. (576a)
Bibliography
Glaucon's position on justice