Glaucon

Glaucon and Adeimantus were both prominent advocates with their perspectives against justice being an intrinsic good. An intrinsic good - something good in itself, what we value for what it naturally is and nothing more, such as friendship or happiness or emotions as a whole are considered to be intrinsic goods. Glaucon raised experimental ideas against Socrates’ philosophy towards justice and challenged him with narrative examples and whatnot. He also brought forth that there are 3 types of…

So, having presented how two similar starting points lead to very different paths, are there any similarities one can draw from both philosopher's accounts? In Book II of the Republic, Glaucon offers a “social contract” explanation for the nature of justice What men want most is to commit injustices without consequence What men want least is to be subject to injustices without the ability to fight back Justice, as such, is the result of the contracts between men to avoid these extremes…

well-being. The “Ring of Gyges,” an excerpt from Plato’s Republic, addresses the question of whether an unjust man experiences more happiness, or goodness, than a just man. In this excerpt, Glaucon contemplates the idea that injustice is potentially more powerful and more beneficial than justice. Philosophers such as Glaucon would argue that in order to maximize personal gain, it would be more reasonable for everyone to act…

In book II of the Republic, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus explore the question "What is good about living a just life?". They start by analyzing goodness and then they move onto categorizing what kind of good is justice. When I was first asked the question "what is good about living a just life?" the first thought that came to my mind was that when an individual is living a just life he/she does not go to jail. Up until I started reading The Republic, the picture of justice that I had in my…

Socrates remains firm. It is already apparent the power behind the consequences of justice. So much so, that it leads certain people, like Thrasymachus, to believe that justice’s one best and only attribute is indeed its consequences. Then there’s Glaucon and Attimentus, who bring up the argument of justice being a social contract. This works as a suitable medium falling in between two extreme scenarios of getting trampled over while not being able to do anything about it and stepping all over…

According to Glaucon and Adeimantus, many people believe that doing just deeds is only good for the benefits, including the rewards from the gods and an honorable reputation that comes about from their actions. As a result, nobody believes that just deeds are done because they are inherently good. In Book 2 of Plato’s The Republic, Glaucon and Adeimantus challenge Socrates to demonstrate that justice is inherently good for the soul. In addition, Glaucon makes this challenge more difficult for…

Hi everyone! My biggest reaction to the readings was Glaucon and Hobbes’ three counts of how we live in a selfish society. The first issue, “(1) Humans choose to live in a society with rules because they are concerned with their own safety and for no other reason,” (Rosenstand, pg. 178). This makes sense to me, and I do not see what purpose most rules would serve a purpose for in our society if it did not help preserve our safety. There could be exceptions of l those that are supposed to help us…

In Republic, Plato sets up a dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates wherein Glaucon seeks an argument in favor of justice by hypothetically arguing against it. One main point of Glaucon’s argument against justice is that men are naturally unjust. Glaucon’s evidence for his position lies in a thought experiment he presents, which relies on understanding his definitions of justice and naturally unjust. Glaucon begins his argument by stating, “those who practice justice do so involuntarily and…

debate about justice between Socrates and Thrasymachus, Glaucon plays a devil’s advocate and argues with Socrates about justice. Glaucon starts out his argument by stating, “we can see most clearly that those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power to do injustice” . He then goes on to say that people do just acts out of fear and weakness and are afraid of punishments for injustice. At the end of Book IV, Glaucon changes his view and agrees with Socrates.…

Secondly, as mentioned previously, I argue that Glaucon and Adeimantus are responsible for the just city and Plato’s Socrates is not committed to the proposals he makes. One reason for this is that Roochnik (2003) disputes is that in books 2-7, we see a change from the question-and-answer style of discussion seen in book 1 to a speech-against-speech style of discussion. This style was prompted by Glaucon, who challenges Socrates to defend that his claim that a life of justice is better than one…