Why it is good to be good or why it is Goodness Constructive - Essay Example

Evil is differentiated from good in this essay, because it creates injustice and comes from violating the virtues of the soul, according to Book II of The Republic. I agree with Plato that being good is good in itself, and it is also good because of its virtuous individual and social consequences, and these arguments support the claims that a just soul is good and a just city is also good. In order to understand what is good, it is important to examine the meaning of justice, because this essay shows that justice is good for humanity.

One of the ways to establish what justice means is through defining what it is not. In Book I, the Sophist Thrasymachus argues: “justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.” He says this to undermine the need for justice, since Sophists are known to lambast virtues as useless to society. He feels that justice does not serve the needs of the whole, and instead, it only preserves the interests of whoever is in power. Socrates counters that injustice is the one that is wrong because it opposes wisdom.

He explains how people pursue their talents, since they have the wisdom to do so, but when they stop pursuing their talents, then there is injustice. In this sense, justice does not serve the strong only, but also every individual who knows that what is just is to do achieve their specialized potential (Plato Book IV). Socrates also shows through his arguments that certain rules which allow a group to act in common help them reach their goals and there is justice in that. Thrasymachus already praised before the need to follow a set of rules.

Lastly, Socrates argues that if justice is a virtue of the soul, and the virtue of the soul refers to the health of the soul, justice is attractive because it contributes to the health of the soul. Socrates asks: “Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable?” Indeed, this essay agrees that the just is happy,