Thrasymachus Definition Of Justice Essay

Thrasymachus defines justice as what is advantageous to the stronger. This assumes a hierarchical society is always established. Those at the top of the hierarchy are thus able to decide what is and isn’t just by shaping other’s perception and standards of justice through laws or other means, including social norms. Justice for Thrasymachus, holds an instrumental utility for the people in power.The definition he poses doesn’t define justice as a tangible concept but a key characteristic of justice and how it is played out in a society.
The switch to the discussion of profitability changes the scale in which justice is analyzed from justice as an overarching concept to an individual in action. From his view, justice has a key role in society but for an individual it is more profitable to be unjust. As a moral skeptic, Thrasymachus doesn’t believe justice to hold an intrinsic good. For an …show more content…
I argue against the comparison of a craftsman because a material creation is required of a craft. The creation of laws doesn’t fit this definition because they aren’t creating anything tangible. The labor and end result for physical creation and intellectual creation are intrinsically different from each other. This is true today as seen through the acknowledged differences of white collar and blue collar jobs. A law is something that should be acted upon and enforced but is reliant on whether or not someone follows Thrasymachus and Socrates’ definition of being just. Their claiming that ruling and lawmaking is a craft is false because it only affects those in the tangible world if people choose to acknowledge it. Socrates also emphasizes the differences later on with the separate grouping of guardians and producers. If the philosopher kings could be compared to the craftsmen, then the virtues of the groups would also shift. The guardians, with an assumed craft of lawmaking, would be more affected by