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Chapter Four: The Nature of Spiritedness
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the role of spiritedness in the republic An inquiry into what the Republic has to teach about the relationship between spiritedness and courage must not overlook that this teaching is not the dialogue ’s primary theme.1 That theme is justice. The bulk of the conversation reported in the Republic deals with the e=orts of Socrates and two young companions to construct a city in speech in order to illuminate the nature of justice. Socrates embarks on this project in order to defend justice against powerful arguments that two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, level against it. Neither of them is an enemy of justice—far from it. Rather, they are dissatisfied with justice as they have heard it discussed; they know of no compelling argument that shows justice to be truly good for its possessors. They announce their dissatisfaction at the beginning of Book II of the Republic, having just heard Socrates in Book I argue against the sophist Thrasymachus’ attacks on justice. Or, rather, they have heard Socrates silence him. As far as they are concerned, Socrates has merely proven to be a better sophist than Thrasymachus; even though he has outmaneuvered Thrasymachus, he has not o=ered what they consider a persuasive defense of justice (see 358b). The boys therefore challenge Socrates to o=er a better defense in light of the considerations that they raise. Glaucon presents the stronger challenge. Whereas Adeimantus explains why he is dissatisfied with traditional defenses o=ered on behalf of justice (362e), Glaucon goes on the o=ensive. He presents a compelling and justifiably famous attack on justice, which he claims to have learned from the sophists (358c). He The Nature of Spiritedness chapter four first contends that justice is merely a contract o=ered by the weak to persuade the strong, who could otherwise commit successful injustice, to abide by the city’s laws and concern themselves with others’ good (358e–60d). In fact, Glaucon suggests , if both a just and an unjust man possessed the ring of Gyges, which, according to legend, can make one invisible, both would embrace injustice. For injustice is the best means for human beings to get the good things they want, such as money, sex, and power, and the only thing that prevents them from acting unjustly so as to get these things is the fear of punishment. By making their injustice impossible to detect, invisibility takes away their fear and liberates them to acquire what they desire without regard for justice. Ultimately, Glaucon demands that Socrates show that justice is choiceworthy even in the direst of circumstances in order to prove that it is choiceworthy at all. He wants Socrates to show that justice is an end in itself, so desirable that one should choose it even if everyone else believes him to be unjust and inflicts terrible punishments such as crucifixion on him (360e–62c). Amazed both by the power of Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ arguments and by the persistence of their concern for justice, Socrates agrees to defend justice as much as he can (368b), and in order to do so he enlists their assistance in constructing a city in speech. The professed rationale for this project is the claim that the city can serve as a model for the individual soul. Insofar as the city is analogous to the soul, Socrates asserts that by finding justice in the former, they will be able to discover what justice is and what power it has in the latter (368e–69a). In collaboration at first only with the more moderate Adeimantus, Socrates describes a city that comes into being to supply its members’ economic needs. The cause of the city’s coming into being is that individuals need assistance from each other because no one can fend entirely for himself. Moreover, to ensure that all these needs are not only satisfied but satisfied in the best way possible, each man specializes in a particular art. So that the city may be adequately supplied, there must be many di=erent kinds of artisans, including not only those who make goods but also those who trade them. That only economic needs are addressed here is manifested by Socrates’ comment that the city has grown to “completeness” or is “perfect” (371e10) before he ever mentions the family (cf. Aristotle, Politics I.2). Socrates thus constructs a city in which there are no complicating attachments , in which the city satis...