How does Plato answer Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’s Challenge from Book 2 to supply an argument for the Good of Justice in and for itself

Drefcinski document that in the Plato’s Book 2 the “Republic”, Glaucon and Adeimantus are found to challenge a claim made by Socrates that states that justice is made for the sake of the good and are the good that value it and its consequences. According to Glaucon, people who are unjust are much better than the good who are just. This is developed to say that the injustice can be good but its outcomes leads to suffering which exceeds the goodness of being unjust. However, one cannot avoid suffering injustice and thus covenants and laws have been developed to protect the good from unjust sufferings. And this is claimed to be the source and the concept of justice. Hence, justice is said to position one between two extremes which as explained, to be unjust without paying for it and to suffer injustice made by others without being revengeful. Thus, the good will always value justice because they are afraid to suffer consequences of being unjust. Thus, this satisfies Socrates’s claim that justice belongs to the good and it’s this society that values it together with its consequences. Moreover, it is only the brave one that can opt to be unjust and wouldn’t fear the sufferings of being unjust. With this account of justice, Plato is able to create a social theory that provides Glaucon and Adimantus an alternative on their views about justice. And this theory is a persuasive argument which describes that the good are those people who are just and they do just acts and are afraid to be unjust because they are weak to face its consequences. Also, the good are those protected by laws that discourage injustice.

Work Cited

Drefcinski, Shane. Why Socrates Rejects Glaucon’s Version of the Social Contract. (n.d). Web. Retrieved< http://people.uwplatt.edu/~drefcins/233PlatoSocialContract.html>.