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1 Advocates for this view of the Republic include Foster, M.B., Mistake in Plato's
Republic', Mind 46 (1937), 386-93, Irwin, Terence, Plato's Ethics (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 1992); Sachs, David, Fallacy in Plato's Republic', Richard Kraut
ed., Plato's Republic: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing 1997), 1-16; Kraut, Richard, "The Defense of Justice in Plato's Republic', Richard
Kraut ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge Press 1992),
309-337; White, Nicholas, A Companion to Plato's Republic (Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing 1979).
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2 James Butler
consequences whatever for the agent's happiness that might flow m any way
from the agent being just.2
This paper will argue, contrary to Mabbott, that the Republic is eudaimonist, so that the way justice is 'welcomed for its own sake' cannot be
by its being desirable apart from happiness. Rather, justice is 'welcomed
for its own sake' as a means to happiness in a perfectly ordinary causal
way: justice produces the happiest life.
1
Interpreters generally agree that the fundamental question of the Republic begins in Book II when, on behalf of Thrasymachus, Glaucon and
Adimantus challenge Socrates to show the superiority of justice even
when the rewards of reputation are set aside. The challenge begins with
Glaucon making a three-fold classification of goods:
Do you agree that there is a kind of good which we would choose to
possess, not from a desire for its after-effects, but welcoming it for its own
sake, as for example, enjoyment and pleasures which are harmless and
where nothing happens because of them in the future, except to keep on
enjoying ... And again there is a kind that we love both for its own sake
and for its consequences, such as understanding, sight, and health ...
And can you discern a third kind of good under which fall exercise and
being healed when sick and the art of healing and money-making generally? For of them we would say that they are irksome, yet beneficial,
and we would not choose to have them for their own sakes, but only for
the rewards and other things that accrue from them. (357b-d)3
Socrates thinks that justice belongs to the second, finest class: those
things that must be welcomed both for their own sake and for their
consequences by anyone who is going to be blessed [
] (358a2-3). Nonetheless, he agrees with Glaucon that most peo-
2 Advocates for this position include Mabbott, J.D., 'Is Plato's Republic Utilitarian?',
Mind 46 (1937), 468-74, (reprinted with revisions in Plato , G. Vlastos ed., Garden
City, NY ([1971] 57-65), Annas, J., An Introduction to Plato's Republic, Oxford: Oxford
University Press (1982), and Devereux, D., "The Structure of Socrates' Argument for
Justice in the Republic (APA Pacific Meeting, Berkeley, March 1999).
3 All translations are based on Shorey with my occasional modifications.
pie place justice in the third class, as irksome yet 'practiced for the sake
of rewards and reputation stemming from opinion' [ '
] (358a5-6). In an attempt to resolve
the difference of opinion, Glaucon asks Socrates to say 'what justice and
injustice are and what sort of power () each one itself has when
alone in the soul but to leave out the rewards and the things that come
from them' [ ' '
' ]
(358b5-7). Adimantus agrees, asking Socrates to set aside all those rewards that depend upon reputation and show that justice is welcomed
for its own sake (367c).
The nature of the question put to Socrates, especially the distinction
between 'welcomed for its own sake' and 'welcomed for its consequences' is not immediately clear. And for good reason: one is unsure to
what the expressions 'welcomed for its own sake' and 'welcomed for its
consequences' refer. One thing is certain, however: We must take care to
interpret this distinction as Plato intends it, and not simply to read it in
accordance with our modern views.
Mabbott argues that the distinction is between on the one hand those
goods that are 'good in themselves' without any reference to any other
good (including ) and on the other hand those goods that are
welcomed for their consequences.4 Since Socrates places justice in the
second class of goods, his task, according to Mabbott, is two-fold:
the task of Socrates, on my theory, is to show that justice is in "the best
class" good in itself and good for its consequences. In proving the first
half of the thesis all consequences must be eliminated ... In proving the
second, the necessary and inevitable consequences must be brought
back in again. (1937,471)
This view, therefore, divides the Republic into two distinct sections.
Mabbott states that On my view Plato shows in Book IV that justice is
good in itself and in Book IX that it is good for its consequences' (1971,62).
Eudaimonists however, claim that Mabbott is mistaken, for happiness
seems to be an ongoing theme in Socrates' entire discussion. So rather
than dividing Books II-IX into two separate arguments, eudaimonists
argue that the whole discussion is intended to establish that justice
4 James Butler
should be 'welcomed for its own sake' because justice by itself is a means
to the happiest life. (Book X then establishes that justice is 'welcomed for
its consequences' by producing a good reputation among gods and men.)
As a group, however, eudaimonists are scarcely in agreement about
exactly how Socrates shows that justice by itself is a means to the happiest
life. Foster argues that justice produces two types of beneficial results,
those that follow directly from the possession of justice and those that
follow from justice only in conjunction with circumstances (like reputation).5 Thus, Socrates' project in Books II-IX is to show that justice is
'welcomed for its own sake' because the happy life is the direct result of
justice without the need of any other good.6
Irwin, on the other hand, introduces a distinction widely employed
(certainly since Ackrill7) between instrumental means and component
means, and consequently attacks the talk of happiness as a result of
justice as talk of justice as an instrumental means to happiness. Irwin
suggests that rather than being an instrumental means to happiness,
justice is an essential component or part of happiness. Hence, we might
call Irwin's view 'Component Eudaimonism'. According to Component
Eudaimonism, because justice is a component of happiness, if we say
that we desire the whole (i.e., happiness) 'for its own sake', we are
justified in saying that we desire a part or certainly a part as important
as justice for its own sake.
In this paper I shall primarily take issue with the views of Mabbott
and Irwin. Mabbott is incorrect to think that Socrates is showing justice
is good in itself apart from happiness in Books II through IV. On the other
side, Irwin who is surely correct that the three-fold classification of
goods refers to means to happiness is too quick to dismiss the view
that happiness is a consequence of justice in favor of the view that justice
is an essential part of happiness.
Even so, this is not to imply that I endorse Foster's position. Although
Foster is essentially correct to think that the three-fold classification is
about the causal means to happiness, he is incorrect to think that being
'welcomed for its own sake and for its consequences' contains a distinction between direct and indirect consequences. Instead, the point of the
three-fold classification is that some goods are 'welcomed for their own
sakes' because they are a means to happiness in their immediate aspects
and others are 'welcomed for its consequences' because they are a means
to happiness in their broader aspects. For instance, Glaucon says of those
goods welcomed only for their own sakes (e.g., enjoyment and harmless
pleasures) that 'nothing happens because of them in the future, except to
keep on enjoying.' Glaucon's explanation of these goods suggests that
in their immediate aspects immediate temporal aspects in this case
such goods are an immediate means to happiness, though they provide
nothing as a means to future happiness except perhaps to keep on
enjoying. Similarly, when discussing those goods that are welcomed
merely for their consequences (exercise, money making, etc.) Glaucon
says, 'we would say that they are irksome, yet beneficial'. His statement,
coupled with the contrast between these goods and those 'welcomed for
their own sake', again suggests that in the present goods welcomed
merely for their consequences are irksome and so not a means to happiness, but their later consequences (health, wealth) are a means to happiness. Justice then, being welcomed both for its own sake and for its
consequences, is desirable for two reasons: (i) its immediate aspect (a
well-ordered soul) is a means to happiness and (ii) its broader aspects
(e.g., having a good reputation) are also a means to happiness.
I shall suggest that we can further understand the fundamental question of the Republic by examining where, I believe, Plato answers this
question: the comparison of the just and unjust lives in Book IX. There,
Socrates gives three proofs the third of which he calls 'most decisive'
showing that justice produces a happier life than injustice. Arriving
at this conclusion, Socrates immediately returns to the Book II challenge,
implying that the three proofs constitute his response. The fundamental
challenge of the Republic, therefore, is to show that justice not injustice
produces the happiest life.8
8 One of my referees (who I would like to thank for his extended comments) has
pointed out to me that some scholars may take Socrates' promise in Book IV (435c)
6 James Butler
Mabbott
Mabbott believes that when Socrates places justice among the things
'welcomed for their own sake and for their consequences' and Glaucon
seeks to know justice's power 'itself by itself, phrases like 'for its own
sake' and 'itself by itself stand for justice itself regardless of consequences.9
of goods welcomed simply for their own sakes, Mabbott is committed to the view
that harmless pleasures and enjoyment are good in themselves regardless of consequences, contrary to what many modem philosophers (following Kant) have come
to believe.
10 Cf. Annas, An Introduction to Plato's Republic, 68
11 Devereux (14-15) further argues that since just actions are said to be profitable
because they produce just state of the soul (444cl-d2), justice itself must be valuable.
But because at this stage in the argument justice itself is not said to produce
anything, Devereux concludes that justice must have value in itself. We should grant
that just acts are profitable because they produce a just soul, and thus justice must
be valuable, but it does not follow that justice is good in itself. Justice is said to be
profitable as well (445a) and we may ask 'profitable to what?' We could answer, as
the eudaimonist theory would have it, that justice is profitable in contributing to the
happiest life. Thus, justice is not good in itself; it is merely valuable as an intermediate good, leading to the happiest life.
8 James Butler
itself (at least in part). Then, after establishing that justice is good in itself,
Socrates shifts arguments to show that justice leads directly to the
happiest life. (Then in Book X, he argues that justice provides one with
a good reputation amongst gods and humans).
Mabbott's view, I believe, is untenable and the eudaimonists' criticism
of it is surely correct. Irwin (1992) argues that when Socrates claims that
justice must be welcomed both for its own sake and for its consequences
T?y anyone who is going to be blessed' ( ),
'the clause "to anyone who is going to be blessed" shows that the three
classes of goods are meant to include all the goods that might be
considered as ways of achieving happiness' (1992,190). Thus, Socrates'
comment immediately after the three-fold classification of goods designates happiness as the ultimate reason why such 'goods' are to be
welcomed.
No doubt Mabbott would concede that Socrates does argue in Books
V-IX that justice contributes to happiness, but that particular argument
is wholly separate from the argument that justice is good in itself in Book
IV.12 Yet, if Socrates is indeed giving wholly separate arguments that (i)
justice is good in itself (Books II-IV) and (ii) justice contributes to happiness (Books V-IX), we would expect him not to consider the happiness
of the just life until after showing that justice is good in itself at 444cl-5b7.
We do not find anything of the sort however. Two passages in Book IV,
prior to the crucial link between justice and health at the end of the book,
explicitly tell us that the aim of Socrates' investigation is about happiness;
they mention nothing about justice being good in itself.13 At 420b Socrates states that what he and the brothers have been inquiring into for a
long timepresumably why justice is to be 'welcomed for its own sake'
from Book II is how to make the city as a whole (and analogously the
person) happiest.14 He mentions nothing which suggests that their inquiry has anything to do with justice being good in itself.
a city and injustice, by contrast, in the one that is governed worst and that by
observing both cities, we'd be able to judge the question we've been inquiring into
for so long' (420b; my emphasis).
15 This phrase bears a striking resemblance to Socrates' claim in Book II that one must
welcome justice if one is to be blessed [ ) ]. Just as the
Book II passage (as Irwin points out) makes happiness the context of the three-fold
classification, this Book IV passage is further evidence that Socrates' argument is
about happiness.
16 I mention in passing that I believe that at the end of Book IV, Plato is responding to
10 James Butler
Irwin
the first part of Glaucon's (and Thrasymachus) claim that injustice is good by nature
(348c, 358e) Hence Socrates shows (444d-e) that injustice is contrary to nature, and
justice is in accordance with nature. Yet in establishing this, it is not necessary that
Plato show that it is good in itself; nor is it necessary that such a response is
independent of the relation of justice to happiness.
17 As White (1979) notes: '... by his phrases "for its own sake" and "because of its
consequences", as the Greek expressions are translated, Plato does not intend the
same contrast that we translate and understand him to intend' (79).
that when Socrates places justice among the second class of goods, he
cannot have in mind a distinction between direct and indirect consequences; for such a distinction belongs equally to the third class.
What then does Socrates hope to show by placing justice in the second
class, all the while maintaining a connection between justice and happiness? On Irwin's view, since 'welcomed for its own sake' cannot refer to
the direct results of being just, he infers that Socrates is trying to show
that justice is the dominant component of happiness which 'contributes
non-causally to happiness by being a part of it' (193). Irwin bases this
inference on his reading of the analogy between justice and health in
Book IV, where (as he believes) health is shown to be a crucial component
of happiness:18
The absence of health makes life no longer worth living only if I cannot
perform any significant human activities to a worthwhile degree ... In
such a case I am justified in choosing health (more exactly, a sufficient
degree of health to avoid this intolerable condition) over any combination of other bodily or external goods. Health therefore is dominant
over other bodily or external goods. (1992,255)
18 'Plato believes that the analogy between justice and health helps to explain not only
why justice is an intrinsic good but also why it dominates other goods' (1995,254).
12 James Butler
19 Mabbott's view of '' (1937,470 and 1971, 60) is similar to that of Irwin.
20 We might rhetorically ask Irwin in this case: If health were an intrinsically good part
of happiness, then shouldn't we still choose it even if the intolerable condition
continues?
third class even though it has both direct and indirect consequences. But
Irwin (like Foster) misconstrues the distinction between 'welcomed for
its own sake' and 'welcomed for its consequences'. The distinction (as I
suggested above) is between something (i) being a means to happiness
in its immediate aspects and (ii) being a means to happiness in its broader
aspects.21 Thus, nothing prevents these means of achieving happiness
from being causal means. Justice is accordingly welcomed for its own
sake because its immediate aspects (a well-adjusted soul) causes happiness right away and its broader aspects (building a good reputation)
causes happiness in the future.
In conclusion, Irwin is correct in thinking that the fundamental question of the Republic is ultimately about happiness: justice is to be welcomed because it is a means to the happiest life. Yet, he has given
insufficient grounds for believing that justice is a means to the happy life
by being a part of happiness, rather than by producing happiness.
4
Book IX
21 My way of reading the distinction, unlike Foster's, escapes Irwin's criticism: In its
immediate aspects (e.g., sweat, toil, and pain) exercise is not a means to happiness,
but in its broader (perhaps even direct) aspects (health) it is a means to happiness.
Thus exercise belongs in the third class.
22 It is clear from the text of the first proof that the tyrant's unhappy life is filled with
pain (578a, 579b-c, and esp. 579d9-e6). These references to the tyrant's life being
painful in the first argument, we shall see, cast some doubt on other interpreters'
contention that the first argument is about happiness but the second and third are
only about pleasure
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14 James Butler
23 See Kraut (1992), 309-37; Murphy (1951), 207; Gosling and Taylor (1982), ch. 6; White
(1979), 226, and Cross and Woozley (1964), ch. 11.
24 See Butler (1999), 37-48.
pleasure arguments, that the just person's life is happier and also more
virtuous, elegant and beautiful than the unjust.
Having reached these conclusions, Socrates immediately moves the
discussion back to the Book challenge:
Since we've reached this point in the argument, let us return to the first
things we said, since they are what led us here. / think someone said at
some point that injustice profits a completely unjust person who is believed to
be just. Isn't that so? ... Now let us discuss this with him, since we've
agreed on the respective powers () that justice and injustice have.
(588b) [emphasis mine]
16 James Butler
Conclusion
I hope that I have given plausible reasons to read the Republic as thoroughly eudaimonistic: From the outset of the challenge to Socrates in
Book II to the final judgment in favor of the just life in Book IX, Plato is
ultimately concerned to show that justice is better than injustice because
justice produces a happier life than injustice. But more than that, because
Socrates uses pleasure as the ultimate authority when comparing the just
and the unjust lives, he believes that what makes a life happiest is that it
is most pleasant. The Book IX proofs, therefore, tell us Socrates' reason
why justice should be 'welcomed for its own sake': justice results in the
most pleasant life. Thus we may plausibly conclude that when Glaucon
and Adimantus ask Socrates to show that justice is 'welcomed for its own
sake' but to leave aside the rewards of reputation, Socrates understands
this as a request to show that justice produces the most pleasant life.28
Department of Philosophy
Berea College
Berea, KY
U.S.A.
jim_butler@berea.edu
of pleasure which attends on a just state of the soul. Rather, as Ryle points out (1949,
107-110) pleasure is taken in things which only the just soul has access to, e.g.,
knowledge, reason and the Forms.
28 I would like to thank Amber Ross, Daniel Devereux, Nicholas Smith, Naomi
Reshotko, Tony Chu, Pat Mooney, George Rudebusch, and two anonymous Apeiron
referees, all of whom offered valuable comments on this paper. In particular, I
would like to thank Terry Penner for his invaluable guidance and helpful discussion
during all stages of this paper.
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Butler, James, 'The Arguments for the Most Pleasant Life in Republic IX: A Note Against
the Common Interpretation', Apeiron 32 (1999) 37-48.
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