The State-Soul Analogy in Plato's Argument that Justice Pays

Abstract

The State-Soul Analogy in Plato's Argument that Justice Pays LEON GALIS IN A PAPER1 published some years ago, David Sachs argued that Plato failed to make out the main argument of the Republic. According to Sachs, Plato's primary purpose in the dialogue is to show that, contrary to both common belief and the views of "immoralist " intellectuals such as Thrasymachus and Callicles, justice is "the best policy," which is to say, the just man will, on the whole, be happier than the unjust man. Glaucon, Sachs says, asks that this be demonstrated for the ordinary, common sense notion of justice. But the demonstration fails because Plato proves, not that the conventionally just man will be happier than the conventionallyunjust man, but only that the Platonically just man will be happier than the Platonically unjust man. In order for the demonstration to go through with respect to the conventionally just man, Plato must show, in addition, that Platonic and conventional justice are linked in such a way that anyone who exemplifies either will exemplify both. But since Plato only assumes, but does not prove, that there is such a link, the conclusion that Platonicallyjust men are happier than Platonically unjust men, even if soundly arrived at, is irrelevant to Glaucon's original question whether the conventionallyjust man is happier than the conventionally unjust man. Sachs' paper provoked a number of responses,2 but not, apparently, until the appearance of a pair of papers by Gregory Vlastos'3 has anyone succeeded in locating, in the Republic, an explicit argument for the allegedly missing link in Plato's defense of the claim that justice pays. Vlastos agrees with Sachs, and others who have commented on this problem, that Plato does indeed distinguish a conventional sense of 'justice' (Vlastos calls it the social sense) from the Platonic sense of 'justice' (Vlastos calls it the psychological sense) that has come to be regarded as Plato's most distinctive contribution to moral philosophy. Vlastos observes, further, that the two senses of 'justice' are "entirely distinct" (514-515 JPH), the former having to do with one's conduct (what Plato speaks of as "doing one's own") and the latter, of course, with the fight ordering of the soul (which is the condition of the soul in which each of its elements does its own), but that Plato is fully aware of the difference and does in fact offer an argument designed to show that a man who instantiates either definition will instantiate both, thereby linking the two senses of 'justice' in just the way the Justice Pays thesis requires. According to Vlastos, 1 "A Fallacy in Plato's Republic," PhilosophicalReview, LXXII, 2 (April, 1963), 141-158. 2 R. Demos, "A Fallacy in Plato's Republic?" PhilosophicalReview, LXXIII, 3 (July, 1964), 395-398; R. Weingartner, "Vulgar Justice and Platonic Justice," Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch , XXV, 2 (December, 1964), 248-252; and J. Schiller, "Just Men and Just Acts in Plato's Republic," Journal of the History of Philosophy, VI, 4 (October, 1968), 1-14. 3 "The Argument in the Republic that 'Justice Pays'," Journal of Philosophy, LXV, 21 (November 7, 1968), 665-674, hereafter referred to in parentheses in the text as JP; and "Justice and PsychicHarmonyin the Republic," Journalof Philosophy, LXVI, 16 (August21, 1969),505-521, hereafter referred to in parentheses in the text as JPH. [285] 286 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the argument intended to provide this link occurs at 441 C-E, with one premise imported from 435A, and runs (in paraphrase) as follows: (1) The same three kinds of elements exist in the state as exist in the soul. (441C5-7) (2) If the same predicate is predicable of any two things, then, however they may differ in other ways, they must be exactly alike in the respect in which it is predicable of each. (435A5-7) (3) The state and the person will possess in the same way anything which pertains to any moral quality whatever. (441D2-3) (4) A man is just in the same way a state is just. (441D5-6) (5) A state is just in virtue of each of its three kinds of elements doing its own...