Socrates Vs. Unjust One In Plato's The Republic

In Plato’s, The Republic, Book I, Socrates tries to prove to Thrasymachus “whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones” (352d). He argues that everything has a predisposed proficiency at a function, and that this functions are performed well by the peculiar virtue and badly by means of its vice (353a-353d) . The point of this paper is to present Socrates argument and evaluate it to the best of my ability. This argument can be categorized as an inductive generalization. Socrates states that the function of anything is what it alone can do or what it does best. His statement brings up controversy, making the argument fail to back up its point.

Socrates argues that a just soul and a just man will live well, and an unjust one badly. This argument consists of the following: 1. The function of each thing is what it alone can do or what it does better than anything else. 2. The functions are performed well by means of its own peculiar virtue and badly by means of its vice. 3. A bad soul rules and takes care of things badly and a good soul does all these things well. Then, it follows that a just soul and a just man will live well, and an unjust one badly.

The argument at first glance seems to be valid and sound. But not all of the premises appear to be true, and given that all the

When someone performs a task efficiently, satisfaction is there, either it was an unjust task or a just one. The example of the pruning knife really made a mark in my brain, yes the pruning knife is made for pruning, but a knife can complete the task even though it is not its peculiar virtue. Socrates also gave a few examples and then automatically claimed that his argument worked for all things. I think that his conclusion is true in a sense, but to fully prove his conclusion his premises had to have more examples that could apply to everything as he