Key Arguments

• People often err about who is good or evil; then they would ‘do good to the evil and evil to the good,’ which is unacceptable.
• Refining ‘friend’ to ‘one who is, as well as seems, good’ avoids the epistemic error but does not solve whether harming is just.
• Injuring horses or dogs deteriorates them in their proper virtue; likewise, injuring humans deteriorates them in human virtue.
• Human virtue is justice; therefore, harming makes people more unjust.
• No art makes its subject worse in its own virtue (the musician does not make people unmusical); similarly, the just person by justice cannot make others unjust.
• Therefore, ‘the good’ cannot harm anyone; since the just is the good, harming cannot be an act of justice.
• Hence repaying ‘evil’ to enemies as a debt is not wise, because ‘the injuring of another can be in no case just.’

Source Quotes

Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil. Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? That is true.

And how is the error to be corrected? We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said. You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies?

Of course. And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man? Certainly.

Certainly. And that human virtue is justice? To be sure.

Impossible. And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad? Assuredly not.

Clearly not. Nor can the good harm any one? Impossible.

Impossible. And the just is the good? Certainly.

I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates. Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,—to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just. I agree with you, said Polemarchus.

Key Concepts

• many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?
• We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good;
• And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man?
• And that human virtue is justice?
• can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad?
• Nor can the good harm any one?
• And the just is the good?
• the injuring of another can be in no case just.

Context

Republic I: Socrates tests and refines Polemarchus’ Simonidean maxim, moving from semantic clarification (‘friend/enemy’) to a substantive ethical principle that justice never harms.

Perspectives

Plato

Endorses the positive result: justice is beneficent and cannot be a source of moral corruption; he uses the craft-analogy to underwrite the normative claim.

Socrates

Concludes that justice is intrinsically good-making, thus incompatible with harming; he reframes justice away from tribal partiality toward a universal principle.