2.5: The Teaching of Justice

See 362c-367e. Adeimantus approves of his brother Glaucon’s challenge and joins him in urging Socrates to explain how justice “because of itself” benefits a person. He explicitly asks for something more than a mere “argument that justice is stronger than injustice.” What he means by this is not entirely clear, but Socrates presumably needs to do more than define justice as human virtue, point out that virtue is necessarily beneficial and injustice necessarily harmful, and leave it at that. He needs to explain what the benefit is – what there is to appreciate in being just – even when one finds oneself universally despised. A further point that Adeimantus thinks Glaucon could have mentioned in setting out the argument for the other side concerns moral education. How are children taught to be just? Parents do not praise justice itself, in fact, but all the good things that eventually come from being thought just: rewards that flow from the esteem of other people and the gods. The way we teach our children suggests that we believe in our hearts that justice is a valuable means to further ends, not that it is itself pleasant or in any way directly desirable.

• What reason should children be given for being just? Any reason? (“Because I said so, that’s why.” “Because that’s how we behave.” “Because justice pays.” “Because if you don’t, you’re going to get it.”)

• Can a child be taught to love justice for its own sake? If so, how?

• “Would you like it if someone did that to you?” This is generally recognized as a useful rhetorical question to put to a child one is teaching to be good. But what is its point? If it is for children to come to think that harming others will make it more likely that others will harm them – if the point is to get the children to fear reciprocation – then it is not at all clear that the question gets them any closer to valuing justice for its own sake.

  What other point might asking the question have?

• Is it sensible to try to teach children to value justice for its own sake through a system of rules, rewards, and punishments? At first glance this seems wrong, for rewards and punishments coming from others are plainly consequences distinct from justice itself, and it appears unhelpful to teach children to be mindful of such things when it is the value of justice itself that one is trying to get them to appreciate. And yet, consider how musicianship is traditionally taught. Parents insist through a system of rewards and punishments (some subtle, some less so) that their children regularly practice their musical instruments. Step by step, year after year, it continues: scales, simple etudes, short pieces, harder etudes, more complex pieces, simple duets, more difficult scales, more complex chamber music, and so on. The idea is that what begins under a regime of incentives as awkward and ugly and frustrating will come in time to be loved for itself – a language through which the child can freely give shape and voice to emotions and thoughts otherwise inexpressible. But it generally goes without saying that musicianship is desirable for its own sake. Is there anything to love for its own sake in justice?