The Just and Happy Man of the Republic : Fact or Fallacy?

The Just and Happy Man of the Republic: Fact or Fallacy'? ROBERT W. HALL IN A STUDY by David Sachs, Plato has been charged with committing the fallacy of irrelevancy in the Republic. The charge stems from Plato's failure to connect the two kinds of justice that are prominent in the dialogue, vulgar justice and Platonic justice? More recently, Jerome Schiller has tried to deal with one important aspect of the fallacy, the relation of the just soul to just actions. 2 But throughout his discussion Schiller, like Sachs, apparently restricts Platonic justice to a few members of the community. This restriction in turn results in Schiller's tentative suggestion of a theory of multiple senses of justice which not only continues the restriction, but raises problems of consistency with the text of the Republic and especially with what I take to be its univocal view of justice. It is my contention that there is no textual basis for the fallacy of irrelevancy as understood by Sachs and Schiller and that the extension of Platonic justice is not as limited in its application to members of the ideal community as they would have us believe. Underlying Sach's point of view is his assumption that the central problem of the Republic is to establish a necessary connection between justice as it is described in Books I and II, primarily by Glaucon and Adeimantus but also by Socrates, and happiness. This kind of justice is described by Sachs as vulgar justice. It is to be distinguished sharply from Platonic justice which appears most prominently in Book IV; vulgar justice also is found, according to Sachs, throughout the Republic? To escape the charge of the fallacy of irrelevancy Plato must show (1) that Platonic justice necessarily entails vulgar justice and (2) that vulgar justice entails Platonic justice. 4 Vulgar justice is to be understood as the nonperformance of actions such as lying, killing, cheating, embezzling, sacrilege, and the like. i David Sachs, "A Fallacy in Plato's Republic," Philosophical Review, LXXII (1963), pp. 141-158, reprinted in Plato's Republic (Belmont, Calif. 1966), Alexander Sesonske, ed., pp. 66-82. All references in this paper will be to the article as it appears in the volume edited by Sesonske. 2 Jerome Schiller, "Just Men and Just Acts in Plato's Republic," Journal of the History of Philosophy, VI, 1 (1968), pp. 1-14. 3 Cf. pp. 67-75 for the contrast between vulgar justice and Platonic justice. 4 Sachs's discussion of the fallacy is found on pp. 75-81. [147] 148 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY According to Sachs, Platonic justice must be demonstrated to entail vulgar justice, otherwise no assurance exists that the Platonically just man would be just in the sense discussed in the first and second books. As Sachs rather flamboyantly puts it, without such a demonstration of the entailment of vulgar justice by Platonic justice "the most that can be said on behalf of Plato's argument is that crimes and evils could not be done by a Platonically just man in a foolish, unintelligent, cowardly, or uncontrolled way." 5 Platonic justice is the arranging of the three aspects or parts of the soul in its natural, hierarchical order with reason ruling the whole. The second necessary entailment required by Sachs to avoid the fallacy of irrelevancy is that of Platonic justice by vulgar justice. This entailment stems from the need to show according to the requirements set out in Book I, that justice, actually vulgar justice, brings more happiness than (vulgar) injustice. But what is shown in the Republic is that Platonic justice produces more happiness than injustice. In Sachs's words Plato "has to prove that his conception of the just man applies to--is exemplified by---every man who is just according to the vulgar conception." 6 Schiller has given an effective answer to Sachs's contention that Platonic justice should be shown to entail vulgar justice.7 He is on sound ground when he emphasizes that just action is the necessary exercise of a just soul and is, in fact, the only way to guarantee that the soul will remain balanced in its natural, hierarchical...