Glaucon Vs Plato

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In Book II of Plato’s Republic, Glaucon offers an implicit argument for the conclusion that justice is not good in itself. He argues that no one “believes justice to be good when kept private” (359c). He has come to the conclusion that performing justice is not beneficial and that it is only the consequences, i.e. the praise and reputation that justice brings that makes it rewarding. Glaucon furthers his argument with the story of Gyges’s ancestor; a Shepard who got the opportunity to have a ring with the power of invisibility. This results in Gyges’s ancestor seducing the king’s wife, killing him and taking over the kingdom. Glaucon continues his argument by generalizing that anyone in this position would follow in the footsteps of the Shepard with being unjust, because those benefits far exceed any advantage of being just. An unjust person could “take what he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do all the other things that would make him a god among humans” (359c). These unjust acts have the opportunity of benefiting an individual, and giving them the best advantage to succeed unlike being just. …show more content…
Human have the desire “to outdo others and get more and more. This is what anyone’s nature naturally pursues as good” (359c). In place to stop these practices are laws and repercussions that discourage individuals performing injustice, and yet again “nature is forced by law into the perversion of treating fairness with respect” (359c). Glaucon concludes that without laws in place or any repercussions, human nature would push individuals into doing what is best for them, and that is behaving
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