[49] Plato, Republic, x. pp. 612-613.
Plato then proceeds to argue the case upon this hypothesis, which he affirms to be conformable to the reality. The just man will be well-esteemed and well-treated by men: he will also be favoured and protected by the Gods, both in this life and after this life. The unjust man, on the contrary, will be ill-esteemed and ill-treated by men: he will farther be disapproved and punished by the Gods, both while he lives and after his death. Perhaps for a time the just man may seem to be hardly dealt with and miserable the unjust man to be prosperous and popular but in the end, all this will be reversed.[50]
[50] Plato, Republic, x. p. 613.
The second line of argument is essentially different from the first. Plato dispatches it very succinctly, in two pages: while in trying to prove the first, and in working out the very peculiar comparison on which his proof rests, he had occupied the larger portion of this very long treatise.
In the first line of argument, justice was recommended as implicated with happiness per se or absolutely — quand même — to the agent: injustice was discouraged, as implicated with misery. In the second line, justice is recommended by reason of its happy ulterior consequences to the agent: injustice is dissuaded on corresponding grounds, by reason of its miserable ulterior consequences to the agent.
It will be recollected that this second line of argument is the same as that which Glaukon described as adopted by parents and by other monitors, in discourse with pupils. Plato therefore here admits that their exhortations were founded on solid grounds; though he blames them for denying or omitting the announcement, that just behaviour conferred happiness upon the agent by its own efficacy, apart from all consequences. He regards the happiness attained by the just man, through the consequent treatment by men and Gods, as real indeed, — but as only supplemental and secondary, inferior in value to the happiness involved in the just behaviour per se.
In this part of the argument, too, as well as in the former, we are forced to lament the equivocal meaning of the word justice: and to recollect the observation of Plato at the close of the first book, that those who do not know what justice is, can never determine what is to be truly predicated of it, and what is not.[51] If by the just man he means the philosopher, and by the unjust man the person who is not a philosopher, — he has himself told us before, that in societies as actually constituted, the philosopher enjoys the minimum of social advantages, and is even condemned to a life of insecurity; while the unphilosophical men (at least a certain variety of them) obtain sympathy, esteem, and promotion.[52]
[51] Plato, Republic, i. p. 354 B.
[52] Plato, Republic, vi. pp. 492-494-495-497.
Now in this second line of argument, Plato holds a totally different language respecting the way in which the just man is treated by society. He even exaggerates, beyond what can be reasonably expected, the rewards accruing to the just man: who (Plato tells us), when he has become advanced in life and thoroughly known, acquires command in his own city if he chooses it, and has his choice among the citizens for the best matrimonial alliances: while the unjust man ends in failure and ignominy, incurring the hatred of every one and suffering punishment.[53] This is noway consistent with Plato’s previous description of the position of the philosopher in actual society: yet nevertheless his argument identifies the just man with the philosopher.