POLUS: How can that be, Socrates?
SOCRATES: It’s because doing what’s unjust is actually the worst thing there is.
POLUS: Really? Is that the worst? Isn’t suffering what’s unjust still worse?
SOCRATES: No, not in the least.
POLUS: So you’d rather want to suffer what’s unjust than do it?
SOCRATES: For my part, I wouldn’t want either, but if it had to be one [c] or the other, I would choose suffering over doing what’s unjust.
POLUS: You wouldn’t welcome being a tyrant, then?
SOCRATES: No, if by being a tyrant you mean what I do.
POLUS: I mean just what I said a while ago, to be in a position to do whatever you see fit in the city, whether it’s putting people to death or exiling them, or doing any and everything just as you see fit.
SOCRATES: Well, my wonderful fellow! I’ll put you a case, and you criticize [d] it. Imagine me in a crowded marketplace, with a dagger up my sleeve, saying to you, “Polus, I’ve just got myself some marvelous tyrannical power. So, if I see fit to have any one of these people you see here put to death right on the spot, to death he’ll be put. And if I see fit to have one of them have his head bashed in, bashed in it will be, right away. If I see fit to have his coat ripped apart, ripped it will be. That’s how great my power in this city is!” Suppose you didn’t believe me and I showed you [e] the dagger. On seeing it, you’d be likely to say, “But Socrates, everybody could have great power that way. For this way any house you see fit might be burned down, and so might the dockyards and triremes of the Athenians, and all their ships, both public and private.” But then that’s not what having great power is, doing what one sees fit. Or do you think it is?
POLUS: No, at least not like that.
[470] SOCRATES: Can you then tell me what your reason is for objecting to this sort of power?
POLUS: Yes, I can.
SOCRATES: What is it? Tell me.
POLUS: It’s that the person who acts this way is necessarily punished.
SOCRATES: And isn’t being punished a bad thing?
POLUS: Yes, it really is.
SOCRATES: Well then, my surprising fellow, here again you take the view that as long as acting as one sees fit coincides with acting beneficially, it is good, and this, evidently, is having great power. Otherwise it is a bad [b] thing, and is having little power. Let’s consider this point, too. Do we agree that sometimes it’s better to do those things we were just now talking about, putting people to death and banishing them and confiscating their property, and at other times it isn’t?
POLUS: Yes, we do.
SOCRATES: This point is evidently agreed upon by you and me both?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: When do you say that it’s better to do these things then? Tell me where you draw the line.
POLUS: Why don’t you answer that question yourself, Socrates.
[c] SOCRATES: Well then, Polus, if you find it more pleasing to listen to me, I say that when one does these things justly, it’s better, but when one does them unjustly, it’s worse.
POLUS: How hard it is to refute you, Socrates! Why, even a child could refute you and show that what you’re saying isn’t true!
SOCRATES: In that case, I’ll be very grateful to the child, and just as grateful to you if you refute me and rid me of this nonsense. Please don’t falter now in doing a friend a good turn. Refute me.
POLUS: Surely, Socrates, we don’t need to refer to ancient history to refute [d] you. Why, current events quite suffice to do that, and to prove that many people who behave unjustly are happy.
SOCRATES: What sorts of events are these?
POLUS: You can picture this man Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, ruling Macedonia, I take it?
SOCRATES: Well, if I can’t picture him, I do hear things about him.
POLUS: Do you think he’s happy or miserable?
SOCRATES: I don’t know, Polus. I haven’t met the man yet.
[e] POLUS: Really? You’d know this if you had met him, but without that you don’t know straight off that he’s happy?
SOCRATES: No, I certainly don’t, by Zeus!
POLUS: It’s obvious, Socrates, that you won’t even claim to know that the Great King9 is happy.
SOCRATES: Yes, and that would be true, for I don’t know how he stands in regard to education and justice.
POLUS: Really? Is happiness determined entirely by that?
SOCRATES: Yes, Polus, so I say anyway. I say that the admirable and good person, man or woman, is happy, but that the one who’s unjust and wicked is miserable.
POLUS: So on your reasoning this man Archelaus is miserable?
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is in fact unjust. [471]
POLUS: Why of course he’s unjust! The sovereignty which he now holds doesn’t belong to him at all, given the fact that his mother was a slave of Alcetas, Perdiccas’ brother. By rights he was a slave of Alcetas, and if he wanted to do what’s just, he’d still be a slave to Alcetas, and on your reasoning would be happy. As it is, how marvelously “miserable” he’s turned out to be, now that he’s committed the most heinous crimes. First he sends for this man, his very own master and uncle, on the pretext of [b] restoring to him the sovereignty that Perdiccas had taken from him. He entertains him, gets him drunk, both him and his son Alexander, his own cousin and a boy about his own age. He then throws them into a wagon, drives it away at night, and slaughters and disposes of them both. And although he’s committed these crimes, he remains unaware of how “miserable” he’s become, and feels no remorse either. He refuses to become “happy” by justly bringing up his brother and conferring the sovereignty upon him, the legitimate son of Perdiccas, a boy of about seven to whom [c] the sovereignty was by rights due to come. Instead, not long afterward, he throws him into a well and drowns him, telling the boy’s mother Cleopatra that he fell into the well chasing a goose and lost his life. For this very reason now, because he’s committed the most terrible of crimes of any in Macedonia, he’s the most “miserable” of all Macedonians instead of the happiest, and no doubt there are some in Athens, beginning with yourself, who’d prefer being any other Macedonian at all to being Archelaus. [d]
SOCRATES: Already at the start of our discussions, Polus, I praised you because I thought you were well educated in oratory. But I also thought that you had neglected the practice of discussion. And now is this all there is to the argument by which even a child could refute me, and do you suppose that when I say that a person who acts unjustly is not happy, I now stand refuted by you by means of this argument? Where did you get that idea, my good man? As a matter of fact, I disagree with every single thing you say!
POLUS: You’re just unwilling to admit it. You really do think it’s the way [e] I say it is.
SOCRATES: My wonderful man, you’re trying to refute me in oratorical style, the way people in law courts do when they think they’re refuting some claim. There, too, one side thinks it’s refuting the other when it produces many reputable witnesses on behalf of the arguments it presents, while the person who asserts the opposite produces only one witness, or none at all. This “refutation” is worthless, as far as truth is concerned, for [472] it might happen sometimes that an individual is brought down by the false testimony of many reputable people. Now too, nearly every Athenian and alien will take your side on the things you’re saying, if it’s witnesses you want to produce against me to show that what I say isn’t true. Nicias the son of Niceratus will testify for you, if you like, and his brothers along with him, the ones whose tripods are standing in a row in the precinct of [b] Dionysus. Aristocrates the son of Scellias will too, if you like, the one to whom that handsome votive offering in the precinct of Pythian Apollo belongs. And so will the whole house of Pericles, if you like, or any other local family you care to choose. Nevertheless, though I’m only one person, I don’t agree with you. You don’t compel me; instead you produce many false witnesses against me and try to banish me
from my property, the truth. For my part, if I don’t produce you as a single witness to agree with what I’m saying, then I suppose I’ve achieved nothing worth mentioning [c] concerning the things we’ve been discussing. And I suppose you haven’t either, if I don’t testify on your side, though I’m just one person, and you disregard all these other people.
There is, then, this style of refutation, the one you and many others accept. There’s also another, one that I accept. Let’s compare the one with the other and see if they’ll differ in any way. It’s true, after all, that the matters in dispute between us are not at all insignificant ones, but pretty nearly those it’s most admirable to have knowledge about, and most shameful not to. For the heart of the matter is that of recognizing or failing to [d] recognize who is happy and who is not. To take first the immediate question our present discussion’s about: you believe that it’s possible for a man who behaves unjustly and who is unjust to be happy, since you believe Archaelaus to be both unjust and happy. Are we to understand that this is precisely your view?
POLUS: That’s right.
SOCRATES: And I say that that’s impossible. This is one point in dispute between us. Fair enough. Although he acts unjustly, he’ll be happy—that is, if he gets his due punishment?
POLUS: Oh no, certainly not! That’s how he’d be the most miserable!
[e] SOCRATES: But if a man who acts unjustly doesn’t get his due, then, on your reasoning, he’ll be happy?
POLUS: That’s what I say.
SOCRATES: On my view of it, Polus, a man who acts unjustly, a man who is unjust, is thoroughly miserable, the more so if he doesn’t get his due punishment for the wrongdoing he commits, the less so if he pays and receives what is due at the hands of both gods and men.
[473] POLUS: What an absurd position you’re trying to maintain, Socrates!
SOCRATES: Yes, and I’ll try to get you to take the same position too, my good man, for I consider you a friend. For now, these are the points we differ on. Please look at them with me. I said earlier, didn’t I, that doing what’s unjust is worse than suffering it?
POLUS: Yes, you did.
SOCRATES: And you said that suffering it is worse.
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And I said that those who do what’s unjust are miserable, and was “refuted” by you.
POLUS: You certainly were, by Zeus!
SOCRATES: So you think, Polus. [b]
POLUS: So I truly think.
SOCRATES: Perhaps. And again, you think that those who do what’s unjust are happy, so long as they don’t pay what is due.
POLUS: I certainly do.
SOCRATES: Whereas I say that they’re the most miserable, while those who pay their due are less so. Would you like to refute this too?
POLUS: Why, that’s even more “difficult” to refute than the other claim, Socrates!
SOCRATES: Not difficult, surely, Polus. It’s impossible. What’s true is never refuted.
POLUS: What do you mean? Take a man who’s caught doing something unjust, say, plotting to set himself up as tyrant. Suppose that he’s caught, [c] put on the rack, castrated, and has his eyes burned out. Suppose that he’s subjected to a host of other abuses of all sorts, and then made to witness his wife and children undergo the same. In the end he’s impaled or tarred. Will he be happier than if he hadn’t got caught, had set himself up as tyrant, and lived out his life ruling in his city and doing whatever he liked, a person envied and counted happy by fellow citizens and aliens alike? [d] Is this what you say is impossible to refute?
SOCRATES: This time you’re spooking me, Polus, instead of refuting me. Just before, you were arguing by testimony. Still, refresh my memory on a small point: if the man plots to set himself up as tyrant unjustly, you said?
POLUS: Yes, I did.
SOCRATES: In that case neither of them will ever be the happier one, neither the one who gains tyrannical power unjustly, nor the one who pays what is due, for of two miserable people one could not be happier than the other. But the one who avoids getting caught and becomes a [e] tyrant is the more miserable one. What’s this, Polus? You’re laughing? Is this now some further style of refutation, to laugh when somebody makes a point, instead of refuting him?
POLUS: Don’t you think you’ve been refuted already, Socrates, when you’re saying things the likes of which no human being would maintain? Just ask any one of these people.
SOCRATES: Polus, I’m not one of the politicians. Last year I was elected to the Council by lot, and when our tribe was presiding and I had to call for a vote, I came in for a laugh. I didn’t know how to do it. So please [474] don’t tell me to call for a vote from the people present here. If you have no better “refutations” than these to offer, do as I suggested just now: let me have my turn, and you try the kind of refutation I think is called for. For I do know how to produce one witness to whatever I’m saying, and that’s the man I’m having a discussion with. The majority I disregard. And I do know how to call for a vote from one man, but I don’t even [b] discuss things with the majority. See if you’ll be willing to give me a refutation, then, by answering the questions you’re asked. For I do believe that you and I and everybody else consider doing what’s unjust worse than suffering it, and not paying what is due worse than paying it.
POLUS: And I do believe that I don’t, and that no other person does, either. So you’d take suffering what’s unjust over doing it, would you?
SOCRATES: Yes, and so would you and everyone else.
POLUS: Far from it! I wouldn’t, you wouldn’t, and nobody else would, either.
[c] SOCRATES: Won’t you answer, then?
POLUS: I certainly will. I’m eager to know what you’ll say, in fact.
SOCRATES: So that you’ll know, answer me as though this were my first question to you. Which do you think is worse, Polus, doing what’s unjust or suffering it?
POLUS: I think suffering it is.
SOCRATES: You do? Which do you think is more shameful, doing what’s unjust or suffering it? Tell me.
POLUS: Doing it.
SOCRATES: Now if doing it is in fact more shameful, isn’t it also worse?
POLUS: No, not in the least.
[d] SOCRATES: I see. Evidently you don’t believe that admirable and good are the same, or that bad and shameful are.
POLUS: No, I certainly don’t.
SOCRATES: Well, what about this? When you call all admirable things admirable, bodies, for example, or colors, shapes and sounds, or practices, is it with nothing in view that you do so each time? Take admirable bodies first. Don’t you call them admirable either in virtue of their usefulness, relative to whatever it is that each is useful for, or else in virtue of some pleasure, if it makes the people who look at them get enjoyment from looking at them? In the case of the admirability of a body, can you mention anything other than these?
[e] POLUS: No, I can’t.
SOCRATES: Doesn’t the same hold for all the other things? Don’t you call shapes and colors admirable on account of either some pleasure or benefit or both?
POLUS: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Doesn’t this also hold for sounds and all things musical?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And certainly things that pertain to laws and practices—the admirable ones, that is—don’t fall outside the limits of being either pleasant or beneficial, or both, I take it.
[475] POLUS: No, I don’t think they do.
SOCRATES: Doesn’t the same hold for the admirability of the fields of learning, too?
POLUS: Yes indeed. Yes, Socrates, your present definition of the admirable in terms of pleasure and good is an admirable one.
SOCRATES: And so is my definition of the shameful in terms of the opposite, pain and bad, isn’t it?
POLUS: Necessarily so.
SOCRATES: Therefore, whenever one of two admirable things is more admirable than the other, it is so because it surpasses the other either in one of these, pleasure or benefit, or
in both.
POLUS: Yes, that’s right.
SOCRATES: And whenever one of two shameful things is more shameful than the other, it will be so because it surpasses the other either in pain [b] or in badness. Isn’t that necessarily so?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well now, what were we saying a moment ago about doing what’s unjust and suffering it? Weren’t you saying that suffering it is worse, but doing it more shameful?
POLUS: I was.
SOCRATES: Now if doing what’s unjust is in fact more shameful than suffering it, wouldn’t it be so either because it is more painful and surpasses the other in pain, or because it surpasses it in badness, or both? Isn’t that necessarily so, too?
POLUS: Of course it is.
SOCRATES: Let’s look at this first: does doing what’s unjust surpass suffering [c] it in pain, and do people who do it hurt more than people who suffer it?
POLUS: No, Socrates, that’s not the case at all!
SOCRATES: So it doesn’t surpass it in pain, anyhow.
POLUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: So, if it doesn’t surpass it in pain, it couldn’t at this point surpass it in both.
POLUS: Apparently not.
SOCRATES: This leaves it surpassing it only in the other thing.
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: In badness.
POLUS: Evidently.
SOCRATES: So, because it surpasses it in badness, doing what’s unjust would be worse than suffering it.
POLUS: That’s clear.
SOCRATES: Now didn’t the majority of mankind, and you earlier, agree [d]with us that doing what’s unjust is more shameful than suffering it?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And now, at least, it’s turned out to be worse.
POLUS: Evidently.
SOCRATES: Would you then welcome what’s worse and what’s more shameful over what is less so? Don’t shrink back from answering, Polus. You won’t get hurt in any way. Submit yourself nobly to the argument, as you would to a doctor, and answer me. Say yes or no to what I ask you.
POLUS: No, I wouldn’t, Socrates. [e]
SOCRATES: And would any other person?
Complete Works Page 126