The Republic · Chapter
BOOK II explained
Glaucon and Adeimantus renew the challenge to Socrates to defend justice for its own sake, not for its rewards.
What happens
Glaucon and Adeimantus renew the challenge to Socrates to defend justice for its own sake, not for its rewards. Glaucon presents the common view that justice is a social contract born from weakness, and illustrates with the myth of Gyges' ring that anyone would act unjustly if they could do so with impunity. Adeimantus adds that society praises justice only for its external benefits. Socrates accepts the challenge and proposes to first examine justice in a city (the 'city in speech') to better understand it in the individual soul.
Themes in this chapter
Justice and Morality
The core debate is renewed: is justice intrinsically good or merely a social contract for the weak? Glaucon presents justice as a compromise to avoid suffering injustice.
The Ideal State (Kallipolis)
Socrates proposes to construct a city 'in speech' as a larger-scale model to locate justice, marking the beginning of the Kallipolis construction.
Characters to notice
- Socrates
Accepts the renewed challenge to defend justice intrinsically and proposes constructing a city in speech to find justice.
- Glaucon
Leads the renewed attack on justice, classifying goods and presenting the social contract theory and the myth of Gyges to argue justice is not chosen willingly.
- Adeimantus
Supports his brother's challenge, arguing that society's praise of justice focuses only on its reputation and rewards, not its intrinsic value.
- Thrasymachus
His argument is referenced as the starting point for Glaucon's renewed challenge, though he is no longer actively speaking.
Key passages
“They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil... hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just.”
Justice originates as a social compromise. People agree to laws not because injustice is bad, but because suffering it is worse. Justice is the lesser evil, not a true good.
Glaucon articulates the social contract theory of justice.
“Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice.”
If both a just and an unjust person had a ring of invisibility (like Gyges'), they would act the same. This proves people are just only out of necessity, not choice.
The Myth of Gyges is used as a thought experiment to challenge the intrinsic value of justice.
“I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied...”
Glaucon demands a defense of justice that shows it is desirable for its own sake, independent of any rewards or good reputation it brings.
This sets the central task for Socrates in the remainder of the dialogue.