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PAUL WOODRUFF
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199646043.003.0006
Platonic justice in the Republic is essentially a pragmatic notion: justice is whatever virtue is
most important to the success of the city, where success is understood in terms of the growth
of other virtues and the prevention of civil war. This pragmatic assumption about justice puts
the distribution of goods. Plato instead calls attention to a matter in ethics or to the
psychological character that citizens must have in a city that is successful on his terms. Plato
is right about this: an adequate pragmatic account of justice must privilege ethical character
AS a virtue, Platos justice is in the soul, and it has nothing to do with fairness.1 His account
procedures, in behaviours, or even in distribution (apart from the distribution of offices). Plato
instead calls attention to ethicsto the psychological character that citizens should want to
have. He does so by way of looking into the character of the just city, holding it up as an
In this paper I argue for two theses, a scholarly one about Platos text, and a philosophical one
about justice. My scholarly thesis is that Plato is committed to the view that the citizens of a
healthy polis are personally just, that failures of personal justice undermine civic justice. A
healthy polis is one that resists stasiscrippling division or civil war. The health of such a city
consists mainly in what I call civic justice. Plato develops his concept of civic justice by
constructing an ideal city, Callipolis, which cannot survive unless its citizens maintain a
package of personal virtues that includes personal justice. Plato defines justice in persons as an
ethical concept in its own right; it is not merely derived from justice in institutions as it
would be if he had defined justice in persons as the attitude that supports a previously defined
justice in institutions.
The philosophical thesis of this paper is that Plato is right about the link between personal and
civic justicea position we can take (p.90) without agreeing to the organization and controls
he provides for Callipolis. Justice is not a matter of principle, either as a virtue of individuals
or as a quality of the polis, and in this it contrasts with fairness.2 Civic justicejustice in
virtue of their ability to resolve disputes in such a way that no division or stasisarises severe
enough to prevent the community from achieving its goal. Justice depends on fair procedures
in some cases, but not in all, and sometimes justice requires us to ignore fairness altogether.
Julia Annas has written a powerful chapter on my topic, entitled The Inner City: Ethics without
Politics in theRepublic.3 The title states the main point: the ancients who followed Plato
understood the Republic not as an idealist venture into political theory but as an ethical work
continuing the Socratic project of investigating virtues as qualities of individual souls. The
ancients were right, Annas argues, and I agree. Plato has Socrates construct Callipolis
through logoi in order to illustrate justice in the soul; he does not do this from the thought that
we must start by building the ideal city in factas if we could not cultivate virtue outside an
ideal state. Ancient political theorists wisely did not start from the Republic; Plato comes closer
to political theory in later works, the Statesman and the Laws.4 But the ethical theory of
the Republic cannot be unbreakably tied to Callipolis, as it is meant to apply to us in the non-
ideal world, and indeed, it is not essentially tied to life in thepolis at all.5
I agree with all that: Platos theory of justice in the Republic is (p.91) ethical. It is nevertheless
related to a theory of the polis in general, whether ideal or not. And on this too I believe I am
in harmony with Annass thinking about ancient ethics in general.6 Plato does not require us to
dwell in an ideal polis if we wish to have justice in our souls, but he does appear to require that
we have some measure of justice in our souls in order to dwell in a polis at allassuming, of
course, that we cannot properly dwell in a polis that is fractured by civil war. This necessity of
personal justice to community is an idea Plato represents elsewhere as due to Protagoras,7 but
here in the Republic he shows how failures of ethical virtue may be correlated with civil
disturbance and political collapse. Plato is right about this: the justice that sustains a community
is an ethical virtue. Cultivating personal justice while in a degenerate polis is not the same as
Plato connects personal and civic justice first through the image of a text presented both small
and large. Justice in the city is like a text written in large letters above smaller ones that are
harder to make out; after reading the larger text we may look to see whether the smaller text,
justice in the soul, is the same (368 D 17, cf. 435 A 5B 2). In book 4 and again in book 8
Plato explores the analogy, finding it apt again and again.8 He does very little to examine the
relation between the two, however. Some readers have supposed that no one can be just outside
of the ideal city,9 but (as Annas shows) Plato cannot intend this. It would make a mockery of
theRepublics grand argument, which is an answer to Glaucon and Adimantus. (p.92) They
want to know why we should try to be just in the non-ideal world; if no one could be just except
In the end Socrates allows only one limitation for the non-ideal world: outside Callipolis the
wise and just person may not engage in politics (592 A). The justice Socrates urges on the wise
person is not otherwise curtailed by non-ideal political circumstances; we can see from 591 E
that wise people outside Callipolis may have money, so long as they do not value it too highly.
True, the education needed for justice will come easier in Callipolis,10 but the main argument
in the Republic is not about how we may become just, but about why we should make the
attempt.
Platos text creates a problem, however, by defining justice for all of us in a way that makes it
dependent on a kind of knowledge that none of us (barring a miracle) can have. The text leaves
us to propose solutions. TheApology gives us a clue: Socrates lacks godlike wisdom, but claims
to have human wisdom. Probably Plato holds that there are imperfect human versions of all the
virtues that the gods perfectly exemplify. In the case of justice, I suppose this must be what he
says it is in book 4the psychological condition of one who is disposed to accept the good
judgement (euboulia)11 of reason over the demands of the spirit or the blandishments of sensual
desire. This disposition Socrates identifies as inner harmony, making it explicit that this
harmony is available to people who engage in business and own property12a class of people
who would not be allowed to practise philosophy in Callipolis. Nowhere in book 4 does
Socrates define justice in terms of knowledge of the Forms, and here he is urging people who
could not possibly know the Forms to maintain psychic justice. Full knowledge may well turn
out to be impossible outside Callipolis; after all, not even Socrates claims to have that. Personal
justice does not require full knowledge, however, (p.93) and therefore it does not on
Citizens, then, do not depend on the city for their personal justice. Does the city depend on its
citizens virtue for its civic justice? Here the question is more complicated. The question
divides in two, for Callipolis and for non-ideal communities. In Callipolis, certain virtues of
citizens are transferred to the city because of its organization; for example, the city will be wise
because its rulers are wise, and courageous because its Guardians are courageous (428 E; 429
B). But the presence of Socrates did not make Athens wise or courageous. Take away the
structure of Callipolistake the virtuous people out of leadership rolesand their virtues will
not rub off from part to whole. Does the same distinction hold for justice and soundness of
mind?
By contrast with courage and wisdom, sphrosun (431 E432 A) and justice (433 A) spread
through the whole of Callipolis. They appear to do so in different ways: sphrosun in the city
puts all the citizens into harmony, singing together, so apparently each of them is to some
degree sphrn.13 Callipolis, then, depends on all of its citizens for its sphrosun. Each citizen
must exhibit what I will call civic sphrosun through agreeing that the wisest should rule (431
DE). By itself, this result does not entail that civic sphrosun depends on
personalsphrosun, which Plato defines as the personal agreement that a sphrn person
Plato has further reasons for holding that personal sphrosun is necessary for the
corresponding civic virtue. Civil war arises in a polis when its people14 are unable to acquire
personal sphrosun, (p.94) which apparently would prevent civil war (555 C with 556
E).15 Civic sphrosun therefore entails personalsphrosun outside Callipolis, and almost
The justice of Callipolis, by contrast, is expressed in its structure, rather than in properties of
its citizens. Like happiness, justice may be analogous to beauty: a sculptor may aim to make a
statue beautiful without aiming to make all (or indeed any) of its parts beautiful to the same
degree as the whole (420 B ff.). On this analogy, we may aim to put justice in the city without
putting it into the parts of the city. Plato would be wrong to hold that justice in a whole entails
justice in its parts; that would have two awkward consequences, and for cleanliness of theory
the same kindi.e. justice as a harmony of partsin each part of that whole. If so, we would
have to find justice in each part of the soul, which would require further subdivision of the
soul; each of the three parts of the soul would have to have three parts, and so on for ever. But
that would be absurd.16 Second, if all the citizens in a just city are just, then either each citizen
would have an internal wise ruler, or else would have to submit to an external wise ruler,
Nevertheless, the justice of the city does depend on its citizens justice, albeit for a different
reason: not because of the wholepart inference, but because civic justice depends on
civic sphrosun for its lasting power, and civic sphrosun in turn depends on
Sphrosun entails justice. Justice is the power that enables them [sphrosun, courage, and
wisdom] to come to be in the city and once (p.95) there to survive (453 B 910). Sphrosun,
surely, cannot come to be in the absence of justice, since it consists in agreement that rule
should be by the wise (in the city, 431 D 9E 2), and reason (in the soul, 442 C 10D 1). There
will be nothing to agree to unless the structures of the soul and the city are just, at least to some
degree; the rational part of the soul must be capable of ruling, and the other parts of being ruled.
So if all the citizens of Callipolis are personally sphrones, they will also be personally just.
Moreover, when a city fails, or falls from one degree of corruption to a lower one, its citizens
are evidently failing with respect to personal justice, though Plato does not make the point
explicit. The citizens who lead their city downward are themselves led by personal fealty
towards honour or money or desire in place of reason, and so are personally unjust. The decline
is not due to faulty institutions.18 This is evident from Socrates admission that Callipolis will
decline when its leaders do not carry out their duties correctlynot because they give up on
the institutions, but because of mathematical errors in eugenics (546 C 6D 8) that lead to a
Justice in the city requires sphrosun in the city. This is true for Plato not as a matter of logic,
but in virtue of the way human beings behave. We can consistently construct in thought-
experiments a Platonically just entity that lacks sphrosun. But if its citizens were human,
that entity would be highly unstable and would soon collapse, leaving justice behind. It is
robust justice, justice with staying power, that entails sphrosun. The examples in book 8
show both souls and cities declining or ruptured by stasis as a result of failures ofsphrosun.
Especially telling is the tale of the miserly moneylovera clear example of someone who fails
atsphrosun who restrains his appetites through fear and compulsion (anank) rather than
through persuasion and the gentling effect of logoi (554 C 11D 3). In this he resembles the
oligarchy that is setting itself up for the civil war that will erupt as soon as the downtrodden
realize how weak their rulers actually are (556 D 2E 1). Failure of agreement as to who should
rule leads to a decline from justice. So justice withoutsphrosun is fragile, if it can occur at
all.
The ruler in a just soul or a just city must secure the harmonious (p.96) agreement of the
elements that it rules (519 E 1520 A 4). This it apparently must do mainly by persuasion,
which will begin with education in poetry, music, and gymnastics, and continue through an
adult culture involving myth. Socrates does not envisage using force (bia) for this end, probably
because it does not appear capable of establishing true harmony. He does speak of anank in
such contexts (e.g. at 519 C 9).19 Securing agreement among citizens is a political activity,
mirrored in the soul. Socrates interest in persuasion, even through lies, is evidence for his
preference for harmony over force. Manipulative rhetoric is what enables a community of
people who are not all perfectly rational to function under direction by reason.
The construction of Callipolis was guided from the start by the concept that turned out to be
justice, yet Socrates will not say that justice is the virtue most important to the city; all four
virtues are essential (433 D 7E 1).20They come as a package; the structure of justice makes
no sense unless the rulers have wisdom and the Guardians have courage; it cannot survive
unless the whole city is harmonious. The package of virtues in the soul amounts to psychic
health.
Although justice on Socrates view leads to just actions, Socrates does not define justice in
terms of just actions or in terms of rules for just action. And although he holds that justice in
the soul supports justice in the city, he does not define justice in the soul as a disposition to
support justice in the city. He defines personal justice in terms of an internal division of labour,
on the analogy of justice in the city. This internal division of labour does not inevi (p.97) tably
bring on fairness or even fair-mindedness, but it does enable us to share in human communities
such as poleis. Part of the good at which personal justice aims is the value of being connected
appetite and the love of honour are harmoniously regulated by reason, which aims at what is
best for the whole person. So defined, justice benefits the individual, because it prevents the
love of honour or appetite from leading to actions that would not be best for the whole person.
The main point of the Republic, after all, is that justice benefits the individual who has it. Less
obviously, such a character in individuals is also beneficial to the polis in which they dwell, as
I have argued above. In fact, Socrates has apparently been known to hold the view that justice
is beneficial, without specifying who it is that receives its benefit.22 He probably believes that
Neither in city nor in soul does Plato show much interest in fairness. Democracy in the city
uses the lottery to achieve a kind of fairness that Plato always considers dangerous (Rep. 557
A 25; 558 C 36; Laws 757 A 5758 A 2). In the soul, democracy gives equal weight to
desires, with the result that the desire of the moment can lead one into trouble. There is one
sort of inequality that Plato decries, which results from mixing people of different abilities in
the same class (547 A 24), but this is objectionable not because it is unfair but because (like
The contrasting concept of justice as fairness has been most clearly stated in modern
philosophy by John Rawls in his original statement of his theory of justice as fairness.23 He
opens the famous (p.98) paper in which he made public his theory of justice this way: The
fundamental idea in the concept of justice is that of fairness. There he discusses justice as a
virtue of institutions constituting restrictions as to how they may define offices and powers,
and assign rights and duties; and not as a virtue of particular actions, or persons.24His
rejecting any principle that could not be acknowledged by all sides to a dispute. Because justice
is fairness, and fairness is based on principles, he contends, utilitarianism cannot account for
justice. In the case of slavery, he argues, utilitarianism can reliably yield the right result only
Rawls and Socrates are engaged with different kinds of subject; Rawlss subject is political,
while Socrates is ethical. For Rawls, justice is primarily a virtue of institutions, while for
Platos Socrates has no trust in institutions unless they are managed by people with individual
virtues. The difference he identifies between a king and a tyrant is not about institutions but
about virtue. Institutions managed by vicious people, Socrates holds, go into decline. Platos
emphasis on individual virtues continues from the Republic into the Laws: the survival of the
city depends on having scrutiny of magistrates carried out by ethically good people; otherwise
the sense of justice that unites all interests in the state is destroyed (945 D 56, Saunderss
translation).
Rawls defines justice in terms of principles, Socrates in terms of the good at which it aims.
Fairness has been attractive to recent thinkers because its principles are mostly valueneutral
and do not attempt to resolve disputes about what is good. A problem with fairness is that its
principles have no way to cope with fundamental disagreements about value, except through
the hope that rational (p.99) people can learn to live with differences of opinion about such
matters.
Consider an example familiar to our profession. A philosophy department must decide how to
distribute a small sum of money available for salary increases. One member has a distinguished
reputation as a scholar and is being actively courted by other universities; another has devoted
herself to teaching large numbers of students and to winning over their minds to philosophical
pursuits. Advocates for the scholarly star argue that all members will be better off if the
department retains their star, as the department will then be able to tease more money out of
the higher administration. Although the distribution will be unequal, the less advantaged
members will be better off as a result of the inequality. Advocates for the devoted teacher,
however, call it a disgrace for philosophers to set such value on reputation or money; they do
not agree that the teacher would be better off if the star is given a greater reward, and so they
angrily reject the proposed inequality. There does not appear to be a principled way to resolve
this dispute, but a cohesive department, united by respect and good communication, will
is committed to a dominant concept of the good, which trumps any principle of the kind treated
at the opening of the Republic: telling the truth and returning what one has borrowed are not
always good, and so cannot be defining of justice (331 C). That is why the wisdom that knows
(or aims to know) what is good in each case is central to Platonic ethics.
Socrates seeks to motivate justice through self-interest, a gambit that is not open to an advocate
of justice as fairness. Socrates conception of justice is such that he believes he can answer the
question Why should I be just? by showing how justice is to my advantage. But a principled
concept of fairness does not lend itself to an argument of that sort. Contractarians argue that
fairness proceeds from (p.100) a notional agreement that people would accept in so far as they
are rational. But why should I be swayed today by an agreement made in the past, or in a
Socrates, by contrast, insists on actual agreement of all parties (even those with weak rational
faculties) in the here and now, because failures of agreement can lead to civic collapse or an
unhealthy use of force. Unlike fairness, Platonic justice is not a product of agreement. The
reverse holds: agreement is the product of justice. The people are persuaded to agree on
Platonic justice because of what it is, because it aims at the good of all.
Here lies another striking difference. Rawls posits an ideal situation in which people with
certain qualities and varied conceptions of the good will autonomously agree to principles of
fairness. Plato constructs an ideal community in which highly imperfect people are persuaded
to agree to a harmonious order based on a rich understanding of the good that is accessible to
only a tiny minority of them. The persuasion of the citizens is to be continuous, built into a
culture of music, poetry, and dance that Callipolis keeps under tight control.27
We do not have to accept a tightly controlled culture in order to appreciate the importance of
persuasion in a healthy community. A basic level of agreement is essential for any community
to maintain its health, as Plato understood very well. Force may hold a group together for a
while, but force will not make the group into a community, and the tension that results from
force is fundamentally unhealthy, both for the group and for the individuals who comprise