Justice

Use in the book

The early uses are conversational. At 156a Charmides qualifies his recognition of Socrates with εἰ μὴ ἀδικῶ γε, idiomatically “if I am not mistaken.” The supplied translation instead reads it as a courtesy about wronging Socrates by failing to recognize him. The Greek gives no explicit object “you,” and the expression should not bear the weight of a developed claim about injustice. Socrates then says it is only right for so well-born a youth to excel (157d–e). The latter is part of an elaborate compliment, not a proof that justice consists in inherited privilege.

A more determinate use occurs at 170a–b: knowledge of the healthy belongs to medicine, knowledge of the just to political expertise. Merely recognising knowledge does not supply either of those contents. The just is thus a field requiring substantive understanding, parallel in the argument to the healthy. Socrates does not define it here or explain how political knowledge relates to the final knowledge of good and bad.

At 175a he says he rightly blamed himself for an inquiry that achieved nothing useful. This adverbial use concerns justified self-criticism. Across the examples the word-family offers judgments of rightness at different levels; it does not resolve the political and ethical questions by itself.

Places to read

1. 156aCharmides qualifies his recognition with an idiom of being in the wrong; the supplied translation interprets it as a respectful reference to injustice.
2. 157d–eSocrates calls excellence fitting for Charmides’ lineage
3. 170a–bThe just is the object of political knowledge, distinct from knowledge as such
4. 175aSocrates says he rightly blamed his own investigation

Translation in this edition

The edition uses “the just” at 170b, “right” in the encomium and “rightly” in the self-criticism. “Doing one's own business” at 161b is proposed as temperance, not explicitly as justice; the Republic parallel belongs in comparison, not in the translation.

δίκαιος

Attested: δίκαιον / δικαίου (dikaion / dikaiou). Right or fitting in the praise of Charmides’ expected excellence; the just, as a field of knowledge, in the later distinction between statesmanship and knowledge of knowledge. References: 157d, 170b. Lexical identification: lemma: δίκαιος. See Justice and the just.

Use in the book

Justice enters as the proposed standard of the political competence Alcibiades claims. Having agreed that peace and war must be undertaken with the right people, at the right time, and for the right duration, he must say what their “better” consists in. At 109a–b2 he names deception, force, and deprivation as grievances. Socrates does not treat suffering these things as enough to establish injustice: he asks whether they were suffered justly or unjustly. Alcibiades himself calls that difference complete and decisive. The first task is therefore discriminating the moral character of a grievance, not simply recognizing an injury to oneself.

The next concession is deliberately more awkward. Asked whether he will recommend war against wrongdoers or just actors, Alcibiades says no one would admit recommending war against those acting justly. Socrates calls such a course unlawful or contrary to accepted right; Alcibiades adds that it does not appear fine. The argument moves through what a public speaker can acknowledge. At 109c Socrates obtains assent that the better in questions of war is the more just, but the exchange has not yet supplied an account of justice or shown that speakers act on the standards their speeches profess.

The educational inquiry exposes this gap. Alcibiades has asserted his understanding of injustice since his childhood games. His confidence that he was wronged is precisely what Socrates questions, rather than independent proof that he knew. If learning requires recognition of a lack, the young man's unbroken certainty gives him no identifiable discovery of justice. His appeal to the many produces a second problem: unlike ordinary word use, on which speakers agree, just and unjust persons and actions generate disagreement intense enough to cause war. Homeric conflicts and the battles at Tanagra and Coronea are presented as evidence of this instability. They are not instances of a definition that the dialogue has already established.

At 113d Alcibiades tries to separate political advantage from justice. Socrates answers through a sequence of his interlocutor's concessions: just actions are fine, fine actions good, good things advantageous. The resulting claim at 116d is that just things are advantageous. Its force depends on the intervening treatment of goodness and fine action, including the difficult movement from good-in-a-respect to an unrestricted conclusion. The article on Advantage follows that movement. Here it is essential that the result does not give Alcibiades a new store of political knowledge. He immediately admits that his answers fluctuate. Justice remains something he has to learn to judge.

At 127c another attractive formula is tested: each person doing his or her own business is said to be just. Alcibiades also expects justice to produce friendship. Yet his identification of friendship with shared expert agreement has made specialized work exclude friendship. The text ends this exchange in perplexity, not with the definition of justice as specialization that a reader might import from the Republic.

Justice returns decisively at 134c, paired with temperance as what Alcibiades must procure for himself and the city in place of unrestricted rule. Just and temperate action is then associated with looking toward the divine and bright, understanding one's goods, and doing well. At 135e Alcibiades promises to begin caring for justice. The ending thus changes its position in his life: what he initially presumed to know becomes the object of sustained care. Socrates' fear of the city's strength keeps that promise prospective. Neither the final commitment nor the earlier chain of admissions licenses treating Alcibiades as already just or the ethical program as already fulfilled.

Places to read

1. 109a–109c2The distinction between just and unjust suffering supplies the proposed standard for deliberating about war
2. 109d–113c234567Alcibiades cannot establish how he learned or discovered the justice he confidently judges
3. 113d–116e234567The attempted separation of justice from advantage is refuted through Alcibiades’ concessions, followed by his admission of instability
4. 127a–127d2Doing one’s own business, justice, and friendship produce an unresolved contradiction
5. 134c–134e2Justice and temperance replace unrestricted authority as the proper goal
6. 135eAlcibiades undertakes to care for justice; Socrates fears the city may defeat that undertaking

Translation in this edition

“Just,” “unjust,” and “do wrong” keep the family recognizable. At 109c6 the translated plural “these things” follows Burnet without the bracketed τὸ δίκαιον, as the note explains. The final δικαιοσύνη is a virtue to be cared for, whereas earlier τὰ δίκαια often designates matters of judgment or action.

ἄδικος / ἀδικέω / ἀδίκημα

Attested: ἀδικοῦντας (adikountas; 109b); ἠδικούμην (ēdikoumēn; 110c); ἀδικήματα (adikēmata; 113d). At 109b: Those doing wrong, proposed as appropriate targets of the city’s war. At 110c: I was being wronged, the boy Alcibiades’ confidently asserted judgment. At 113d: Wrongful deeds from which Alcibiades says some agents have profited. Lexical identification: family label: ἄδικος / ἀδικέω / ἀδίκημα. See Justice and injustice.

δίκαιος / δικαιοσύνη

Attested: δικαιότερον (dikaioteron; 109c); δικαιοσύνην (dikaiosynēn; 134c); δικαιοσύνης (dikaiosynēs; 135e). At 109c: The more just, accepted as the standard of better decisions about making war or not. At 134c: Justice as a virtue to procure for oneself and the city instead of unrestricted power. At 135e: Justice as the announced object of Alcibiades’ future care. Lexical identification: family label: δίκαιος / δικαιοσύνη. See Justice and injustice.

Use in the book

Justice enters the argument as the alternative to ritual purchasing power. If the gods look at the soul and whether a person is holy and just, then wealth cannot ensure divine favour while leaving conduct unexamined. The point applies to cities as well as private people, matching the earlier account of benefit for the city and oneself.

At 150a–150b justice and intelligence are said to be especially honoured by gods and by humans with sense. Socrates then brings the just and intelligent within the description of those who know what they must do and say toward gods and people. This recalls the account of intelligence at 140e and adds the explicit twofold field of application. It gives the religious conclusion a practical and cognitive structure.

The dialogue does not, however, supply an independent derivation proving that every conceivable sense of justice is identical with intelligence, or enumerate all just actions. Its final formulation is compact and responsive to the immediate problem of prayer and sacrifice. Reading it as a fully worked out theory would suppress the fact that Alcibiades still needs education in what the right disposition and discrimination require.

Places to read

1. 140eThe earlier account of intelligence supplies the pattern later extended to justice.
2. 149eThe just soul becomes the proper object of divine attention.
3. 150a–150bJustice and intelligence are jointly honoured and connected with knowing right action and speech.
4. 150dThe proposed education applies toward gods and people alike.

Translation in this edition

Burnet deletes ē at 150b2, as the apparatus and Editorial Note record, and the translation follows the printed construction. The edition’s choice intelligence keeps the connection with phronēsis visible. Justice here must not be confused with payment or a reciprocal commercial balance between worshippers and gods.

Use in the book

The first quoted moral line tells the passer-by to go on with just thoughts. Its setting is important: an ordinary journey is made the occasion for attention to the quality of one’s intentions. The saying does not specify a legal dispute, name a law or give a procedure for distinguishing just actions. It offers a general demand for a rightly directed mind.

The syntax joins movement and disposition. The imperative orders the person to proceed; the participle characterises the manner or accompanying state in which that proceeding should occur. “With just thoughts” therefore avoids turning the command into a promise that a particular path is legally permitted or safe. The road supplies the literal action, while the adjective broadens its significance to conduct.

Within the narrative this maxim precedes the more immediately relevant command not to deceive a friend. The sequence gives the friendship injunction an ethical setting, but Socrates does not explicitly derive it from a theory of justice. Nor does he return to define δίκαια in the later reasoning about gain. The absence is instructive: the discussion repeatedly asks whether gain is good or beneficial, while the public moral text presents justice as a demand whose precise relation to advantage remains unexplained.

A reader may therefore ask whether a gain that benefits its recipient can nevertheless violate justice toward someone else. That question exposes a possible limitation in treating benefit as a complete account of gain’s goodness. It is an analytical question prompted by juxtaposition, not a solution supplied by the inscription itself. The maxim should not be made to prove a doctrine that the dialogue never develops.

Places to read

1. 229aστεῖχε δίκαια φρονῶν — The whole ethical clause binds proceeding to a just disposition.
2. 229aμνῆμα τόδ’ Ἱππάρχου — The injunction is presented as Hipparchus’ memorial.
3. 229bμὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα — The next quoted maxim gives a more determinate relational prohibition.

Translation in this edition

“Go your way with just thoughts” keeps both the physical imperative and the participial disposition. “Act justly” would be a plausible broad paraphrase but would suppress the road’s role. The edition does not introduce a technical theory of justice into this line, and the lexicon likewise distinguishes an ethical injunction from a definition.

Use in the book

Justice enters through a chain beginning with animal improvement. The same craft that makes horses and dogs best also punishes rightly and recognizes good and bad quality. The interlocutor grants the same structure for humans. Socrates then names the civic knowledge that punishes lawbreakers rightly and asks whether any other knowledge is called justice. The answer is no, this one.

This gives justice an epistemic role: it is something by which one knows how to act correctly and distinguish persons. It also assigns justice a corrective function, since the chain has linked punishment with making best. The dialogue does not independently demonstrate that every just act is punitive or that justice is exhausted by courtroom procedure. Its chosen route concentrates on the judicial case and expands from there.

The identity with temperance depends on the discriminating capacity. The knowledge by which people punish rightly also knows decent and worthless subjects. The self is included among the human subjects, and self-knowledge is identified with temperance. At 138b Socrates concludes that justice and temperance are the same. This is stronger than mutual support between virtues; it makes their apparently different activities functions of one knowledge. The disputed or compressed steps, especially the move from expert knowledge to knowledge of oneself, remain part of that conclusion’s support.

Justice then becomes the means by which a city and household are well ordered. The statesman’s, king’s, tyrant’s, manager’s and master’s arts are identified with it. Here the argument extends one normative competence across scales of rule, rather than merely saying that rulers should obey existing judges.

The closing demand places the philosopher under this standard. He must be able to follow and contribute when a judge speaks, but also must himself punish while judging rightly in his household. If friends entrust arbitrations or the city assigns a decision, he cannot be content to appear second or third. The text thereby gives philosophy an unmistakable orientation toward just judgment while stopping short of a sentence defining philosophy as justice or as judicial knowledge.

Places to read

1. 137dοὐχ ἡ δικαστική — The proposed answer is the judge’s knowledge.
2. 137dκαλεῖς καὶ δικαιοσύνην — That knowledge is explicitly named justice.
3. 138bΤαὐτὸν ἄρα ἐστὶ καὶ δικαιοσύνη καὶ σωφροσύνη — Justice and temperance are asserted to be one.
4. 138eδικάζοντα ὀρθῶς — The final requirement concerns judging rightly.

Translation in this edition

The edition translates the word family consistently enough to trace its stages while leaving “the judge’s” less abstract than a modern “judicial science.” Its Key Words identify dikēn didonai separately as paying the penalty. That distinction matters: punishing, judging and the wrongdoer’s undergoing a penalty occupy different places in the same civic relation.

Use in the book

At 314c–d2 Socrates begins with persons: the wise are wise by wisdom, the just just by justice, and lawful people lawful by law. The sequence then crosses from verbal relation to substantive appraisal: lawful people are just and lawless people unjust. That step is agreed by the companion, but it is not simply contained in the morphology of the Greek. An argument that merely records the words' shared roots has not yet proved the identity of legality and justice.

The next step makes law and justice fine and preserving, their opposites shameful and destructive. This prepares the exclusion of base civic resolutions from law. The early connection between justice and lawfulness is therefore not incidental praise; it determines which putative laws can survive the proposed definition.

The companion's Carthaginian example keeps a different possibility in view: people can take a practice to be holy and lawful “for them” when Athenians regard it as unholy (315b–c). Ta nomima elsewhere names inherited or practical usages without by itself resolving their rightness. The phrase can describe the rules of gardening or cookery, and the lasting usages attributed to ancient lawgivers. Its meaning must be read in the particular claim being made.

At 315e Socrates shifts from just persons to just things. Asking whether just things are unjust or just secures a correct identity of predication. It does not establish that different peoples identify the same concrete acts as just. The general conclusion that whoever misses what is misses the lawful makes correctness essential, and the craft argument later states the restriction openly: what is not right is lawless, however much it seems law to those without knowledge (317c).

This is a strongly evaluative account of law, but the dialogue does not formulate a program of civil disobedience, give a test for citizens to apply against every enacted rule, or discuss punishments for refusing obedience. The claim concerns what genuinely deserves to be called law. Its practical content is sharpened by the question of which lawgiver makes souls better, left unanswered at the end.

Places to read

1. 314cοἱ δίκαιοι δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοι; οἱ νόμιμοι νόμῳ νόμιμοι — The opening parallel concerns persons and the qualities by which they are characterized
2. 314dΟἱ δὲ νόμιμοι δίκαιοι; Οἱ δὲ ἄνομοι ἄδικοι — The substantive connection between lawful and just
3. 315b–cὡς ὅσιον ὂν καὶ νόμιμον αὐτοῖς — The companion reports what Carthaginians regard as holy and lawful for themselves
4. 315eτὰ μὲν δίκαια δίκαια, τὰ δὲ ἄδικα ἄδικα — Correct predication concerning just and unjust things
5. 316bτοῦ νομίμου ἁμαρτάνει — Missing the lawful is joined to missing what is
6. 317cἔστιν γὰρ ἄνομον — What is not right is called lawless despite its appearance as law

Translation in this edition

“Lawful,” “lawful usages,” “lawless,” and “lawlessness” preserve a family of English words. The masculine οἱ νόμιμοι at 314c–d2 should be understood as lawful people; the neuter usages and the substantivized “lawful” elsewhere should not be indiscriminately turned into persons. Burnet prints ἄνομοι at 314d, with ἀνόμιμοι reported as a variant in F.

Injustice — ἀδικία (adikia)

ἀδικία (adikia)

Injustice. The moral opposite of justice, grouped with lawlessness as shameful and destructive. Attested: ἀδικία (314d). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Just people — δίκαιος (dikaios)

δίκαιος (dikaios)

Just people. Persons characterized by justice; the masculine forms precede the later questions about just things. Attested: δίκαιοι (314c). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Just things — δίκαιος (dikaios)

δίκαιος (dikaios)

Just things. The neuter things or acts to which Socrates asks the companion to apply the predicate just. Attested: δίκαια (315e). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Justice — δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē)

δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē)

Justice. The quality by which just people are just; later paired with law as fine and preserving. Attested: δικαιοσύνῃ (314c). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

The lawful — τὸ νόμιμον (to nomimon)

τὸ νόμιμον (to nomimon)

The lawful. The standard or object missed when someone misses what is; not the plural customs of a particular people. Attested: τοῦ νομίμου (316b). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Lawful people — νόμιμος (nomimos)

νόμιμος (nomimos)

Lawful people. People lawful by law, then agreed to be just; the connection with justice is an additional premise. Attested: νόμιμοι (314c). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Lawless people — ἄνομος (anomos)

ἄνομος (anomos)

Lawless people. Those characterized by lawlessness and then identified as unjust. Attested: ἄνομοι (314d). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Lawlessness — ἀνομία (anomia)

ἀνομία (anomia)

Lawlessness. The condition by which lawless people are lawless, later paired with injustice as destructive. Attested: ἀνομίᾳ (314d). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Unjust people — ἄδικος (adikos)

ἄδικος (adikos)

Unjust people. The moral characterization of lawless people accepted in the exchange. Attested: ἄδικοι (314d). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Unjust things — ἄδικος (adikos)

ἄδικος (adikos)

Unjust things. The contrary class in the question whether just and unjust things are to be called what they are. Attested: ἄδικα (315e). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Wisdom — σοφία (sophia)

σοφία (sophia)

Wisdom. The quality by which wise people are wise in Socrates' opening verbal parallel. Attested: σοφίᾳ (314c). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Wise people — σοφός (sophos)

σοφός (sophos)

Wise people. The first class of persons in the sequence wise by wisdom, just by justice, lawful by law. Attested: σοφούς (314c). Justice, lawfulness, and lawlessness.

Use in the book

The unjust is opposed to the just at 216b, as part of the objection to making every opposite a friend of its opposite. At 222d the unjust person’s supposed friendship with the unjust exposes the return of an earlier difficulty.

The paired δίκαιος, “just,” supplies the positive side of the contrast. These moral adjectives help test proposed rules; the dialogue does not give separate definitions of justice and injustice.

Places to read

1. 216bτὸ δίκαιον τῷ ἀδίκῳ — The just to the unjust.
2. 222d

Use in the book

Socrates is about to ask which boy is δικαιότερος, “more just,” and wiser when Menexenus is called away. Unlike the comparisons of age, birth, beauty, and wealth, this question never receives an answer in the opening exchange.

The occurrence therefore marks an intended shift toward evaluative qualities, but does not supply a definition of justice or a verdict on either boy. The lexical entry should preserve the interruption: attributing a developed argument about justice to this adjective would overstate the text.

At 216b the just is opposed to the unjust as a counterexample to the rule that opposites are friends. This later logical use draws on an accepted contrast without defining justice.

Places to read

1. 207dὁπότερος δικαιότερος καὶ σοφώτερος — which of the two was more just and wiser.
2. 216b

Use in the book

Hesiod contrasts human justice with animals devouring one another. The Hermetic passage presents Justice as a power overseeing earthly wrongs, parallel to the ordering functions of providence and necessity. Another Hermetic account locates justice within soul: desire and spirit acquire an equal disposition under reasoning. Social order, divine oversight, and psychic balance are related themes, not interchangeable definitions.

Places to read

1. I.3.1Justice distinguishes human life in Hesiod’s contrast.
2. I.3.52Justice governs the consequences of earthly wrongdoing.
3. I.49.4.2Justice arises from a balanced disposition of psychic powers.
4. I.3.55b.3Justice is a preserving virtue in company with self-restraint and understanding.

Translation in this edition

Capitalization marks personification where appropriate. “Justice” also renders the unpersonified condition of soul.

Justice as virtue

Dikaiosunē names justice as a quality or virtue. In I.3.55b.3 it joins self-restraint and understanding among the powers that preserve human beings, contrasted with injustice, insolence, and folly. This use complements dikē as justice, judgment, or personified Justice without making the two nouns interchangeable in every construction.

Use in the book

The shared-source maxim places justice beside justesse. The longer warning about equality then distinguishes a clear idea from a just arrangement: justice needs measurement, calculation and the balance rather than mere ease of conception. A final fragment includes indulgence—or the patience attributed to Marcus Aurelius—within justice. The three witnesses connect judgment, proportion and forbearance; none permits replacing them all with a single notion of mathematical exactness.

Places to read

1. I, p. 45, entry begun p. 44, no. 1, ¶9Justice and rightness share a source without becoming one noun.
2. I, p. 258, entry 10, ¶1Justice requires more than intellectual clarity.
3. II, p. 675, entry 8, ¶1Forbearance is included within justice.

Translation in this edition

The English translation renders justesse as rightness in the pair, and à vue d’œil as “by eye alone” where it is opposed to measured judgment. It leaves the gap before justice in the last witness and keeps indulgence distinct from the reported patience.

Use in the book

IV.41 refuses to locate every misery in the external arrangement of things. The decisive disorder is a heart that has departed from justice, equity, and right; restoring its rule makes the world newly delightful. This is a demand upon the recipient, not permission to call every social arrangement just.

The soul’s range also includes the divine justice manifested in punishment. IV.67 describes its capacity to recognize that justice while loving persons and actions far removed in time or space. Justice thus belongs to the comprehensive spiritual vision that sees more than whatever immediately gratifies the observer. It cannot simply be replaced by agreeable feeling.

Places to read

1. IV.41The heart’s departure from justice disorders its enjoyment of things.
2. IV.67The soul can contemplate divine justice as part of its reach beyond the present.

In this edition

Justice is less frequent than righteousness in the primary text. The latter’s expansive account of rightly ordered love should inform, but not replace, these local uses.