[14] This is the same distinction as that drawn by Epiktetus between the φιλόσοφος and the ἰδιώτης (Arrian, Epiktet. iii. 19). An ἰδιώτης may be just in the ordinary meaning of the word. Aristeides was an ἰδιώτης. The Greek word ἰδιώτης, designating the ordinary average citizen, as distinguished from any special or professional training, is highly convenient.
[15] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 582 C. τῆς δὲ τοῦ ὄντος θέας, οἵαν ἡδονὴν ἔχει, ἀδύνατον ἄλλῳ γεγεῦσθαι πλὴν τῷ φιλοσόφῳ.
Plato’s sense of the word Justice or Virtue — self-regarding.
The Platonic conception of justice or Virtue on the one side, and of Injustice or Vice on the other, is self-regarding and prudential. Justice is in the mind a condition analogous to good health and strength in the body — (mens sana in corpore sano) — Injustice is a condition analogous to sickness, corruption, impotence, in the body.[16] The body is healthy, when each of its constituent parts performs its appropriate function: it is unhealthy, when there is failure in this respect, either defective working of any part, or interference of one part with the rest. So too in the just mind, each of its tripartite constituents performs its appropriate function — the rational mind directing and controuling, the energetic and appetitive minds obeying such controul. In the unjust mind, the case is opposite: Reason exercises no supremacy: Passion and Appetite, acting each for itself, are disorderly, reckless, exorbitant. To possess a healthy body is desirable for its consequences as a means towards other constituents of happiness; but it is still more desirable in itself, as an essential element of happiness per se, i.e., the negation of sickness, which would of itself make us miserable. On the other hand, an unhealthy or corrupt body is miserable by reason of its consequences, but still more miserable per se, even apart from consequences. In like manner, the just mind blesses the possessor twice: first and chiefly, as bringing to him happiness in itself — next also, as it leads to ulterior happy results:[17] the unjust mind is a curse to its possessor in itself, and apart from results — though it also leads to ulterior results which render it still more a curse to him.
[16] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 591 B, iv. p. 444 E.
[17] Plato, Republic, ii. p. 367 C. ἐπειδὴ οὖν ὡμολόγησας τῶν μεγίστων ἀγαθῶν εἶναι δικαιοσύνην, ἃ τῶν τε ἀποβαινόντων ἀπ’ αὐτῶν ἕνεκα ἄξια κεκτῆσθαι, πολὺ δὲ μᾶλλον αὐτὰ αὑτῶν, &c.
This theory respecting justice and injustice was first introduced into ethical speculation by Plato. He tells us himself (throughout the speeches ascribed to Glaukon and Adeimantus), that no one before him had announced it: that all with one accord[18] — both the poets in addressing an audience, and private citizens in exhorting their children — inculcated a different doctrine, enforcing justice as an onerous duty, and not as a self-recommending process: that he was the first who extolled justice in itself, as conferring happiness on the just agent, apart from all reciprocity or recognition either by men or Gods — and the first who condemned injustice in itself, as inflicting misery on the unjust agent, independent of any recognition by others. Here then we have the first introduction of this theory into ethical speculation. Injustice is an internal taint, corruption of mind, which (like bad bodily health) is in itself misery to the agent, however he may be judged or treated by men or Gods; and justice is (like good bodily health) a state of internal happiness to the agent, independent of all recognition and responsive treatment from others.
[18] Plato, Republic, ii. p. 364 A. πάντες ἐξ ἑνὸς στόματος ὑμνοῦσιν, &c. Also p. 366 D.
He represents the motives to it, as arising from the internal happiness of the just agents.
The Platonic theory, or something substantially equivalent to it under various forms of words, has been ever since upheld by various ethical theorists, from the time of Plato downward.[19] Every one would be glad if it could be made out as true: Glaukon and Adeimantus are already enlisted in its favour, and only demand from Sokrates a decent justification for their belief. Moreover, those who deny its truth incur the reproach of being deficient in love of virtue or in hatred of vice. What is still more remarkable — Plato has been complimented as if his theory had been the first antithesis to what is called the “selfish theory of morals” — a compliment which is certainly noway merited: for Plato’s theory is essentially self-regarding.[20] He does not indeed lay his main stress on the retribution and punishments which follow injustice, because he represents injustice as being itself a state of misery to the unjust agent: nor upon the rewards attached to justice, because he represents justice itself as a state of intrinsic happiness to the just agent. Nevertheless the motive to performance of justice, and to avoidance of injustice, is derived in his theory (as it is in what is called the selfish theory) entirely from the happiness or misery of the agent himself. The just man is not called upon for any self-denial or self-sacrifice, since by the mere fact of being just, he acquires a large amount of happiness: it is the unjust man who, from ignorance or perversion, sacrifices that happiness which just behaviour would have ensured to him. Thus the Platonic theory is entirely self-regarding; looking to the conduct of each separate agent as it affects his own happiness, not as it affects the happiness of others.