Thrasymachus

(450+/- B.C.E.)

 

In the Republic, Thrasymachus is portrayed as the Sophist who asserted that injustice is to be preferred to the life of justice. He did not look upon injustice as a defect of character. On the contrary, Thrasymachus considered the unjust person as positively superior in character and intelligence. Indeed, he said that "injustice pays," not only at the meager level of the pick-pocket, although there is profit in that too, but especially in the case of those who carry injustice to perfection and male themselves masters of whole cities and nations. Justice, he said, is pursued by simpletons and leads to weakness. Thrasymachus held that people should aggressively pursue their own interest in a virtually unlimited form of self-assertion. He regarded justice as being the interest of the stronger and believed that "might is fight." Laws, he said, are made by the ruling party for its own interest. These laws define what is right. In all states alike "right" has the same meaning for "right" is the interest of the party established in power. So, says Thrasymachus, "the sound conclusion is that what is "right" is the same everywhere: the interest of the stronger party."

Here, then, is the reduction of morality to power, an inevitable logical consequence of the progressive radicalism of the Sophists, which led to a nihilistic attitude toward truth and ethics. It was Socrates’ chief concern to unravel the logical inconsistencies of the Sophists and to rebuild some notion of truth and also to establish some firm foundation for moral judgments.

FRAGMENTS

Justice is simply the advantage of the stronger.

The gods evidently do not see human affairs;

if they did they would not neglect to bestow justice on mankind,

for it is the greatest of blessings and yet men make little use of it.