The Role of the Healthy City in Socrates’ Defense of Justice: The Republic I-II

Abstract

In this work, it is argued that Glaucon’s disparaging comment that pigs would live better in the healthy city  must be understood based on the classification of goods he makes at the beginning of his speech, thus indicating that in the healthy city there are no goods that are pleasant in themselves, which means that there are no activities that  allow for praise of justice for its own sake (cf. 358d), in which what appears just is distinguished from what is truly just (cf. 367c). For this reason, Socrates abandons the healthy city and carries out his defense of justice in the sick city.