This week continued the discussion of justice, and whether it is bad or good for the individual.

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We will be back next week with book 3. As always, discussion questions are in the comments.

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Summary:

Frustrated, Thrasymachus leaves the conversation, but Glaucon and Adeimantus carry on his position. Glaucon states there are three types of goods: those valued for themselves, for themselves and their results, and for their results but not themselves. He asks Socrates what kind of good Justice is. Socrates believes it is in the second, but Glaucon thinks that for the masses it is in category three, burdensome but with good consequences.

Glaucon then speaks about the natural origin of justice, saying primitive people discovered that doing injustice was good, but suffering it was bad. Through experiencing both they realized the pain of suffering injustice was greater than the pleasure of inflicting it, so they agreed among themselves to not victimize each other. This makes justice something that is always settled for, never the best case scenario, therefore justice is always done unwillingly.

To illustrate the view that if people can get away with injustice, they will, Glaucon tells the story of the ring of Gyges. A man with a magic ring that can make him invisible uses it unjustly with no fear of consequence, and uses it to indulge in all his materialistic, power hungry, and lustful urges.

Glaucon and his brother Adeimantus ask Socrates to prove that justice itself makes someone happy, and how injustice itself harms a person. They take the view that an unjust person with a reputation for justice would live like a god, while a just person with a reputation for injustice would be miserable.

To answer the question, Socrates uses the metaphor of an ideal city to represent a larger scale. Cities are founded because people need other people. People in the city occupy toles which they are best suited for, creating a division of labor. Roles are populated starting with basic needs, creating a producing class. This city is healthy because it is governed by necessity.

Glaucon disagrees with this metaphor because nobody is living in luxury, and Socrates responds that if they were to look at a luxurious city they might find the origin of justice and injustice. Another city is described where new goods and occupations are required to supply luxury, and therefore an army will be required to protect those goods and secure new ones. This army is made up of a class called the Guardians.

Guardians are required to be trained in a certain way to produce a balance between strict enforcers and gentle protectors. They would be trained from children, and told stories about the gods. Since the wellbeing of the entire city is at stake, it will be necessary to censor some stories to not let wrong ideas distort the character of these malleable minds.