Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.”
Plato · Platonism · Ancient · c. 375 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading treats the line as Thrasymachus's challenge: so-called justice is the interest of whoever holds power, dressed up as a virtue. A competing reading argues about whether he means a cynical observation about actual cities or a definition of what justice really is. Socrates spends the rest of Book I trying to pull the claim apart, and the Republic as a whole is an answer to it. Quoting the sentence as Plato's own view reverses the book.
Did Plato really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Thrasymachus says this. Socrates spends the rest of Book I attacking it. It is not Plato's conclusion. The English is close to G. M. A. Grube's translation of Republic 338c.
Where it comes from
Republic I, 338c
Approximate date: c. 375 BCE.
How to use it
A policy described as fair because it suits the people who wrote it, a parking scheme, a shift pattern, a tax tweak, is the phenomenon he is naming. The advantage may be real. Calling it justice is the extra step, and ask who counts as the stronger in this case, and whether anyone not in that group had a say worth the name.
A mindset reading
The habit is to hear a hostile definition as hostile. Do not file the line under Plato's opinions because it sits in a dialogue of his. Ask what it would take to show that a rule is more than the interest of the people who can enforce it.
Understand the philosophy
Thrasymachus is answering Socrates's search for what justice is, and sneering at the search. The stronger, he explains, are the ruling party, and the laws they pass for their own advantage are what subjects call justice. Socrates will argue that rulers can mistake their advantage, and later that justice is a health of the soul and the city. The sentence is the problem, not the result.
- justice
- power
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading treats the line as Thrasymachus's challenge: so-called justice is the interest of whoever holds power, dressed up as a virtue. A competing reading argues about whether he means a cynical observation about actual cities or a definition of what justice really is. Socrates spends the rest of Book I trying to pull the claim apart, and the Republic as a whole is an answer to it. Quoting the sentence as Plato's own view reverses the book.
Did Plato really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Thrasymachus says this. Socrates spends the rest of Book I attacking it. It is not Plato's conclusion. The English is close to G. M. A. Grube's translation of Republic 338c.
Which work is it in?
Republic I, 338c Approximate date: c. 375 BCE.