Why Thrasymachus never agrees with Socrates I think that one reason that the Socrates and Thrasymachus talk past each other so much is that their views of justice are derived from their prior beliefs. Most of their prior beliefs are not explicitly discussed in the discussion – In fact, prior beliefs are usually left silent in debates, which causes misunderstanding when differing prior beliefs result in a difference in the beliefs being debated. Thrasymachus’ prior beliefs Although Thrasymachus never explicitly says so, I suspect that Thrasymachus believes that there is no God, or at least he lives as if there were none. The reason that pointing this out is important is not so that theists can know that they can ignore Thrasymachus (as they would consider this prior belief to be clearly wrong) or as a way of condemning his view, but because it is a prior belief that strongly influence’s Thrasymachus’ view of justice. …show more content…
Based on this, it seems that Thrasymachus believes in no moral accountability for wrongdoing, and that because wrongdoing results in greater gain for the unjust person, the unjust person should get away with whatever he can. This goes hand-in-hand with Thrasymachus’ implicit definition of happiness: He seems to believe that the unjust man will be happy because he gets whatever he wants, such as more power, riches, or reputation. Therefore, it is better to be unjust, because it will make you be