Over and above the analogy between the just commonwealth and the just individual, we find two additional and independent arguments, to confirm the proof of the Platonic thesis, respecting the happiness of the just man. Plato distributes mankind into three varieties. 1. He in whom Reason is preponderant — the philosopher. 2. He in whom Energy or Courage is preponderant — the lover of dominion and superiority — the ambitious man. 3. He in whom Appetite is preponderant — the lover of money. Plato considers the two last as unjust men, contrasting them with the first, who alone is to be regarded as just.
The language of Plato in arguing this point is vague, and requires to be distinguished before we can appreciate the extent to which he has made out his point. At one time, he states his conclusion to the effect — That the man who pursues and enjoys the pleasures of ambition or enrichment, but only under the conditions and limits which reason prescribes, is happier than he who pursues them without any such controul, and who is the slave of violent and ungovernable impulses.[41] This is undoubtedly true.
[41] Plato, Republic, ix. pp. 586-587.
But elsewhere Plato puts his thesis in another way. He compares the pleasures of the philosopher, arising from intellectual contemplation and the acquisition of knowledge — with the pleasures of the ambitious man and the money-lover, in compassing their respective ends, the attainment of power and wealth. If you ask (says Plato) each of these three persons which is the best and most pleasurable mode of life, each will commend his own: each will tell you that the pleasures of his own mode of life are the greatest, and that those of the other two are comparatively worthless.[42] But though each thus commends his own, the judgment of the philosopher is decidedly the most trustworthy of the three. For the necessities of life constrain the philosopher to have some experience of the pleasures of the other two, while they two are altogether ignorant of his: moreover, the comparative estimate must be made by reason and intelligent discussion, which is his exclusive prerogative. Therefore, the philosopher is to be taken as the best judge, when he affirms that his pleasures are the greatest, in preference to the other two.[43] To establish this same conclusion, Plato even goes a step farther. No pleasures, except those peculiar to the philosopher, are perfectly true and genuine, pure from any alloy or mixture of pain. The pleasures of the ambitious man, and of the money-lover, are untrue, spurious, alloyed with pain and for the most part mere riddances from pain — appearing falsely to be pleasures by contrast with the antecedent pains to which they are consequent. The pleasures of the philosophic life are not preceded by any pains. They are mental pleasures, having in them closer affinity with truth and reality than the corporeal: the matter of knowledge, with which the philosophising mind is filled and satisfied, comes from the everlasting and unchangeable Ideas and is thus more akin to true essence and reality, than the perishable substances which relieve bodily hunger and thirst.[44]
[42] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 581 C-D.
[43] Plato, Republic, ix. pp. 582-583.
[44] Plato, Republic, ix. pp. 585-586.
His arguments do not go to the point which he professes to aim at.
It is by these two lines of reasoning, and especially by the last, that Plato intends to confirm and place beyond dispute the triumph of the just man over the unjust.[45] He professes to have satisfied the requirement of Glaukon, by proving that the just man is happy by reason of his justice — quand même — however he may be esteemed or dealt with either by Gods or men. But even if we grant the truth of his premisses, no such conclusion can be elicited from them. He appears to be successful only because he changes the terminology, and the state of the question. Assume it to be true, that the philosopher, whose pleasures are derived chiefly from the love of knowledge and of intellectual acquisitions, has a better chance of happiness than the ambitious or the money-loving man. This I believe to be true in the main, subject to many interfering causes — though the manner in which Plato here makes it out is much less satisfactory than the handling of the same point by Aristotle after him.[46] But when the point is granted, nothing is proved about the just and the unjust man, except in a sense of those terms peculiar to Plato himself.
[45] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 583 B. Ταῦτα μὲν τοίνυν οὔτω δύ’ ἐφεξῆς ἂν εἴη καὶ δὶς νενικηκὼς ὁ δίκαιος τὸν ἄδικον· τὸ δὲ τρίτον … τοῦτ’ ἂν εἴη μέγιστόν τε καὶ κυριώτατον τῶν πτωμάτων.