The_Republic

The Republic Thrasymachus and Glaucon begin Republic by arguing that there are three types of lives to be lived: the successful unjust life, the just life, and the unsuccessful unjust life. Of these, the two men argue that the successful unjust life is much better and more worthwhile than the life of a just or unsuccessful unjust person. Socrates disagrees with Thrasymachus and Glaucon by arguing that the just life is much more beneficial to a person. He tries to prove this by using a comparison between the just polis and the soul of a just individual. Thrasymachus argues that justice is the advantage of the stronger; however, this is not always the case. For example, if the slave lives the just life, then he is obeying his master. Unfortunately, the slave does not benefit in any way from obeying his master, and is eventually driven to the unjust life in an effort to obtain a better lifestyle. The downfall to living an unjust lifestyle is that society dislikes these individuals and will make it more difficult for the openly unjust person to succeed. This means that the successful unjust life is most beneficial because it allows a person to obtain whatever he life, unjust, person, just, justice, successful, one, polis, must, individual, thrasymachus, about, successfully, soul, socrates, society, part, others, glaucon, beneficial, within, truth, three, off, obtain, members, lives, lifestyle, good, defined, because, whatever, using, unsuccessful, telling, tell