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Thrasymachus Theory Of Justice

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Intro: (Thesis) Thrasymachus believes justice is having an advantage over another because of strength. Socrates soon brings out the fallacies in this argument by mentioning how rulers help their subjects, improve the art they specialize in, and how they should be reimbursed for the service they provide. Socrates successfully refutes Thrasymachus’ theory by bringing up these fallacies and showing that justice is not just the stronger surviving, there is a genuine good in people that prevents this theory from taking hold.
Main Argument: Thrasymachus’ theory is that justice is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger. He provides an example of how different cities are governed by various forms of government like democracies, aristocracies, …show more content…

Thras brings up the point that craftsmen, physicians, and rulers do not err but instead only makes such a mistake when they are not acting in their respective jobs. It is also brought up that rulers are not infallible and can make mistakes at times and should not be considered a ruler when mistakes are made. This means that since they are not a ruler at the time of erring that there is no advantage lost. Just because the ruler has the title of ruler, does not mean he is a ruler all the time, especially when he makes mistakes. When he is in the position of ruler though, he only enacts what is best for …show more content…

Whenever a business dealing occurs between two people, the just person will always be in the position of power compared to the unjust person who has the bad part of the deal. To illustrate how a ruler runs things, one can imagine how someone that does an act to wrong someone else feels good about it and the person that is wronged often feels miserable when they would never even consider doing such an act. This leads to the advantage of the stronger and the unjust being taken advantage of to provide profit for the just. No matter the situation, there will always be someone that is at a disadvantage due to justness.
One objection is that every man does things for his own advantage and not for the good of others. As we previously learned, some believe that no matter the act, man is always trying to do good for himself. If he does an act that appears to help someone else out, it was to only make himself feel good and not actually for the benefit of those he helped.

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the Republic, Socrates argues that justice ought to be valued both for its own sake and for the sake of its consequences (358a1–3). His interlocutors Glaucon and Adeimantus have reported a number of arguments to the effect that the value of justice lies purely in the rewards and reputation that are the usual consequence of being seen to be just, and have asked Socrates to say what justice is and to show that justice is always intrinsically better than is acting contrary to justice when doing so would win you more non-moral goods. Glaucon presents these arguments as renewing Thrasymachus’ Book 1 position that justice is “another’s good” (358b–c, cf. 343c), which Thrasymachus had associated with the claim that the rulers in any constitution frame

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In Book 1 of the republic, by Plato, we are introduced to two central figures in the argument of justice, Socrates and Thrasymachus. Thrasymachus claims that justice is the advantage of the stronger. Socrates then asks if his understanding, that what is beneficial to the stronger is just and must be beneficial to the weaker people, to which Thrasymachus replies that no, this is not so. He explains that justice is that which obtains the advantage of the stronger.

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The same goes for rulers in real life too, there are always other contributing factors that complicates things. If everybody agreed on everything, we wouldn’t have things like war. But sadly, we live in an imperfect world where people always disagree on thing; sometimes one of those people is a

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This will result in the just person living in misery, for his life can only exceed to the minimum standard of living. Just individuals serve for the stronger because they enable themselves to be stolen from which makes the unjust people stronger, and the just miserable. The reason why not all individuals commit crimes which are advantageous, is “not the fear of doing injustice but of suffering” (344c) the consequences of committing crimes. Injustice is more relevant to please individual desires to satisfy our psychological

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Therefore, since Athens has a part to play in corrupting Socrates’s life as well as his mistaken visual of the truth, Socrates must understand that by obeying the state, he has done injustice to his soul for it will not be in true harmony. Furthermore he will be doing an injustice to the state because Plato would have established that, objectively, Athens laws are unjust and even if Socrates thinks that they are just, it is only because Socrates has been corrupted by

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In effect, Thrasymachus tries to invalidate the entire notion that justice should be a guiding moral principle: a strict or universal definition within these terms is not only unnecessary but also factually incorrect. This view presents an pessimistic position on the nature of humanity, and seems to suggest that there are no intrinsically good ways to live one’s life or structure a society. One could characterize these beliefs as a kind of nihilism. The idea of justice, from this point of view, is purely used under pragmatic

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In Book IV of Plato’s Republic, Socrates and his peers come to the conclusion that a city is going to need people who have an understanding of what justice should be. Socrates at the end of Book IV can make the difference between individual, political, and social justice. He knows that individual and political justice is so much in common because they both weigh in heavy on truth, honor, and appetitive soul. That appetitive soul is an element that helps the secure the just community with love and support.

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