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On one's Conduct toward others

• "...to do injustice is a greater evil, and to suffer it a lesser one. With what then, shall a man provide himself to secure this double advantage: insurance from  doing wrong and from suffering it ? Is it power that he needs, or will-power ? What I mean is this: can a man escape from being wronged merely by willing to escape it, or may he escape it by acquiring power to prevent it ?"

Plato, from Gorgias; Socrates in discourse with Callicles

(section 510), W.C. Helmbold translation, 1952

Good Governance

In discourse with the philosopher Socrates, the Greek citizen Thrasymachus posits the view that 'might makes right', that the ruler imposes his 'rights' by sheer force, that in a society-- justice or right, is that which is defined by the stronger, by those in power.  Socrates disagrees in this way:

• "...the art of medicine does not study its own interest, but the needs of the body, just as a groom shows his skill by caring for horses, not for the art of grooming.  And so every art seeks, not its own advantage--for it has no deficiencies--but the interest of the subject on which it is exercised...no art ever studies or enjoins the interest of the superior or stronger party, but always that of the weaker over which it has authority... and so with government of any kind: no ruler, in so far as he is acting as ruler, will study or enjoin what is for his own interest.  All that he says and does will be said and done with a view to what is good and proper for the subject for whom he practices his art."

Plato, from the Republic; Socrates in discourse with Thrasymachus

Part I (Book I, Ch. 3), Francis Cornford's translation 1941

Posted  October  6, 2004

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