Socrates' defence of justice in the Republic: the dialogical dynamic and the importance of the consequences of justice

Abstract

This paper argues that the dialogical dynamic gives important information on the importance of, and the hierarchy between, the reasons illustrated in favour of justice in Plato's Republic. Despite his interlocutors' request to focus exclusively on the effect of justice in and by itself, Socrates indicates that the description of the consequences of justice included in Book 10 (608c2-621d3) is an integral part of his defence, and that some of these consequences, the rewards assigned by the gods in the afterlife, are more important than both the other consequences of justice and the benefit of justice in and by itself.