3 The 5th-Century Defence of Justice

We have now considered the Traditional View of Justice, as canonised by Hesiod in WD, and a challenge posed to it in the 5th century by several sophistic authors. These Moral Cynics rejected the religious assumptions that provided the foundation of Hesiod’s worldview as well as his account of the origin of justice and argued instead that justice and the laws have a perfectly immanent human origin. By systematically and sober-mindedly thinking through the consequences of their new naturalistic worldview and its implications for human prospering, these sophists arrived at several dangerous conclusions about the value of justice. At least for the capable few, they thought, the select and intelligent practice of injustice was more profitable and prudent than the scrupulous practice of justice. The previous chapter ended by highlighting the impact that this challenge had on Greek thought and by calling attention to the perceived need to respond to it.

Though the Cynics may not have known it at the time, the shocking results of their investigations would substantially shape discussions about justice for the better part of a century to come. Our evidence suggests that many people were goaded into engaging with the Cynics and responding to their arguments in a far more direct way than Aristophanes and Thucydides. Moreover, not everyone did so by appealing to the interventionist gods that the Cynics had eschewed. Indeed, several important attempts to show that justice was better for humans—including the capable few—were made using the same naturalistic assumptions found in SF or OT. Whether this was because other intellectuals in the late 5th century had become convinced that the traditional gods were irrelevant to moral questions or because they wished to defend justice in a way that the Cynics and their adherents would be forced to contend with is, at least in some cases, something we will likely never know. But we can say that a number of sophistic authors argued directly against Cynical ideas and tried to establish that justice is more profitable for the individual than injustice. These authors—the Friends of Justice—make up the second half of the first philosophical debate about the value of justice from ancient Greece. It is to these authors that we must now turn.

In what follows I offer a selective analysis of the ‘Anonymous Iamblichi’, Prodicus’ ‘Choice of Heracles’ and the ethical and political fragments of Democritus. In discussing the texts of the Friends of Justice, I aim to do three things in particular. Because these texts are generally less well studied than those discussed in Chapter 2, I will first highlight and explicate the arguments and ideas in them that bear on the question of justice and its value. No attempt is made to cover the entire contents of these texts (which, especially in the case of Democritus, would take us too far afield), but pain is taken to reconstruct the relevant arguments and to situate them in their intellectual context. To help identify this intellectual context I will, second, show that the Friends were consciously responding to several Cynical views or ideas in their extant texts. That is to say, I will try to show that the authors discussed in this chapter understood themselves as contributing to a genuine debate about justice and not simply stating their own views in isolation. Finally, I will relate each of the texts back to the Traditional View of Justice. We shall see that insofar as the 5th-century Friends of Justice objected to the Cynics and argued that justice is more prudent and profitable than injustice, they represent a sort of return to the view considered in Chapter 1. However, because they make no use of the interventionist gods in their arguments, they are best seen as advancing a modernised and secular version of the Traditional View.

‘Anonymous Iamblichi’ is a short and wonderful, if understudied,¹ text which, as Friedrich Blass first identified in 1889, is quoted extensively by Iamblichus in the twentieth chapter of his Protrepticus.² Little is known about Iamblichus’ life beyond the fact that he was a Neoplatonist philosopher who probably studied with Porphyry and who founded his own school in Apamea (modern-day Syria), where he worked in the late 3rd or early 4th century ce. Sadly, even less is known about the author of the text that concerns us here. The Neoplatonist does not so much as identify their name—hence the customary title of our text. Yet because our text makes much of the hallmark distinction between νομός and φύσις and evinces a preoccupation with the looming figure of ‘the tyrant’, it is almost certain that our text was written near the end of the 5th century. The author was also intimately familiar with the sophistic movement. Indeed, this has seemed so obvious that over the past 130 years there has been a race among pre-eminent scholars of the ancient world to pin the authorship of this text on virtually every known sophist. Critias, Hippias, Protagoras, Antisthenes, Democritus and even Antiphon have all had their adherents in the past, though most scholars today would either plead ignorance or make the modest suggestion that the author is an otherwise unknown figure.³ Because it is unlikely that any conjecture will ever establish itself sufficiently to win widespread approval, I make no assumptions about whom Iamblichus was quoting.

The fact that Iamblichus quoted AI in his Protrepticus is, however, worthy of note.⁴ Standardly, a protreptic text—that is, an exhortation to philosophy—operates by arguing that the practice of philosophy contributes to the prospering life in one way or another.⁵ That Iamblichus could so easily include AI in his Protrepticus suggests that at least one of its primary objectives was to offer advice about the prudent way for humans to live.⁶ Particularly notable for our purposes is that the author very explicitly objects to the Cynical idea that it is profitable to break the laws and practise injustice in the pursuit of one’s own selfish ends, or to pursue πλεονεξία.⁷ Our text rejects injustice and recommends justice and virtue instead. Two broad arguments are presented to demonstrate the value of justice and virtue. Firstly, AI argues that only through virtuous behaviour can an individual hope to achieve the sort of good reputation that produces an immortal repute, which, it is assumed, makes one’s life successful. I call this argument Immortal Repute. And secondly, AI argues that humans are the sort of creatures that require a properly functioning community if they are to live prosperously and, moreover, that such a community cannot exist unless its citizens follow the laws and respect justice. I call this argument Political Animals. Together, these two arguments make for a highly innovative response to the Cynics and present a powerful case for justice’s value.

Let us begin with Political Animals. After several introductory fragments that discuss how to become successful at a given pursuit as well as how to win a good reputation, our text addresses the question of how best to use one’s accomplishments once they have been attained. Readers are encouraged to use their abilities for good and lawful purposes, both because this will help ward off the envy of their peers and because it is how one becomes ‘completely good’ (ἁγαθός τελέως, P.97.22/DK89 B1 3.2).⁸ After some further discussion, the author introduces and objects to a different suggestion as to how we might use our talents (P.100.5–9/B1 6.1):

Furthermore, one must not rush towards having more

nor believe that power aiming at having more is virtue,

while obeying the laws is cowardice. For this very

thought is most wicked, and from it comes everything

opposed to the good things: both vice (κακία) and harm (βλάβη).

The first three lines of this passage introduce an intellectual position, which will be fleshed out more fully in what follows, according to which obeying the laws is cowardice and striving for unjustly having more (assumed here to be in the service of one’s selfish interests) is virtuous. The complete thought here objected to holds that the power aiming at πλεονεξία is good because such a power secures more good things—and, in particular, money (see P.97.17/B1 3.1)—than a just and apparently cowardly obedience to the laws. In response, AI denounces this sort of thinking and claims that it leads to both vice and harm (βλάβη). The mention of harm in addition to vice is important, for it confirms that AI’s objection to the pursuit of πλεονεξία is, as we might say, both moral and prudential. Such a pursuit is not only bad, it is also bad for the individual.

In the following sections, our author develops Political Animals to respond to this harmful idea. I quote the theoretical core of the argument in its entirety here (P.100.9–17/B1 6.1):

For if humans were born unable to live as individuals

but—yielding to necessity—joined together, and if

their whole way of life as well as mechanisms for

that life was discovered by them, and if humans are

not able to be with one another and pass their lives

in lawlessness (for this would be a greater punishment

than living an isolated way of life)—well then, because

of these necessities law and justice rule as kings among

people, and they could have in no way been set aside. For

these are firmly fixed [in us] by nature.⁹

The content of this passage is very rich and deserves to be studied carefully. The majority of the passage is one long conditional sentence with a four-part protasis and a two-part apodosis. The construction is meant to motivate the inference—familiar enough from modern evolutionary biology and psychology—that because of what human beings are like and because of what they encountered in a past environment, certain things hold for their present lives. Like much recent evolutionary biology, AI does not offer independent evidence that its historical claims are true.¹⁰ Yet because our author refers to the postulates introduced in the four protases as ‘necessities’ and then confidently infers that justice and law rule among humans, he presumably believes the conditional claims presented in the early part of this passage are true and support the conclusion.¹¹

Let us now turn to the substance of this passage and unpack the historical narrative presupposed by it. At some point early in human history, it seems, our ancestors lived as isolated individuals. Although our text does not state this explicitly, it can be inferred from the first two lines: we are told that humans were born naturally unable to live alone before learning that they yielded to necessity (presumably, the necessity of escaping the hardships of solitary life) and joined together (NB the aorist ‘συνῆλθον’, P.100.10) with others. Thus, our inability to thrive in isolation is what drove our ancestors into large groups in the past. Understandably, the transition from struggling as isolated individuals to living in social groups was a radical one: the text suggests that this transition resulted in a totally new way of life (πᾶσα δὲ ἡ ζωὴ, P.100.11–12) and necessitated the development of new technologies to support this way of life (τὰ τεχνήματα πρὸς ταύτην, P.100.12). We are not given any information about what these might have been, but one imagines that many tools must have been invented for navigating the hitherto unknown demands of social interaction and cooperative activity. Probably we are to imagine that these early humans developed writing techniques so that rules could be promulgated and preserved as well as the crafts necessary to build a public infrastructure. In any case, our text implies that this new way of life was better for our ancestors than living alone so long as it remained lawful and regulated.

This sort of historical narrative is broadly akin to the one presented by SF and discussed in the previous chapter. It purports to explain how human beings removed themselves from an early, inhospitable condition and thereby improved their lot. But the considerations adduced here apparently license the decidedly anti-Cynical conclusion that law and justice rule over humanity and that this rule is fixed into our very nature. It is important to gain clarity about what this means and why the author believes this inference is justified. As I understand the argument, we must supply the assumption that humans have a natural drive to live and, wherever possible, to live well. Coupled with the fact that we are not the sort of creatures that do well when isolated in the wilderness, this explains why early humans gathered into groups and developed techniques to make their new sort of life successful. But—and this is crucial for the argument—living with other people is neither possible nor profitable in a condition of lawlessness. Why this should be so is unfortunately not specified in the passage: all we are told is that living with others in a lawless condition is worse for humans than living alone. But this is enough for the argument. Because living in a condition of lawlessness is worse for humans than living alone, our author can trust that the same natural tendency that impelled early humans to join with one another would also lead them away from the disastrous state of lawlessness if they ever found themselves in it.

It follows that there is a natural tendency for humans not only to live in groups but also to live in cooperative and regulated groups. The conclusion of the argument—that law and justice rule among humans—can be derived if one makes the further assumption that being governed by law and justice is necessary to escape the lawlessness that all people must naturally flee. Given that our text emphatically affirms the conclusion, we must attribute some such assumption to the author. One can perhaps explain why he did not feel the need to defend or articulate this assumption by noting that the Greek word used here for lawlessness, ‘ἀνομία’, is derived from ‘ἄνομος’, which literally means ‘without law’.¹² From an etymological and no doubt common-place perspective, the rule of law and justice definitively preclude lawlessness. Furthermore, later sections of the text strongly imply that lawfulness, the condition opposed to lawlessness, is nothing other than the rule of law and justice.¹³ Thus, it may have simply seemed obvious to our author that law and justice are the antidotes to lawlessness.¹⁴ Whatever the exact reason for making this assumption, however, once made the argument can conclude that the rule of law and justice is both natural and beneficial for human beings. The statement that law and justice are fixed in us by nature should, I think, be understood as a reminder that it is our ineliminable natural desires that, together with facts about the sort of creatures we are, push us into a stable community governed by laws and justice.

There can be little doubt that this passage contains a highly innovative argument purporting to show that it is profitable and natural for human beings to live in a society regulated by laws and justice. By using the same historical style of investigation employed by the Cynics, the text responds to the Antiphontic contention that the laws are conventional restraints on the free exercise of our faculties and are, therefore, hostile to our nature and its ends. AI ingeniously presents the laws as one of the sine qua nons of a stable and peaceful society, which is itself something that no one can reasonably do without. It thereby reconceives of the laws as necessary for the successful life that every person naturally desires and, therefore, as themselves profoundly natural. Moreover, the historical account AI offers is—and was surely intended to be—much more compelling than the account offered by the Cynics. The reader will recall that the account presented in SF and likely presupposed in OT began with a beastly situation in which humans were harming one another. That is to say, it began at a time in which humans were already social and provided no explanations or even indications as to why humans first came together or remained in society. Yet absent such an explanation, an objector might reasonably demur, how could a Cynic be so confident that they understood the true motivations of early humans and their interactions with one another? The account offered in AI takes an extra step back in time to explain how it was that humans came together and began interacting with one another. This gives AI’s account more explanatory power and makes it a far more compelling historical narrative than its competitors.¹⁵

We can now see the beginning of an attractive objection to the claim that the power aiming at having more is virtue and good for the individual. Our author can fairly claim to have shown the foundational importance of law and justice for everyone and, moreover, to have identified the disastrous harm of lawlessness. That being said, Political Animals has several limitations. For one thing, though it may be able to show that it is natural for humans to follow laws, it cannot establish that any particular set of laws or social organisation is correct. The considerations about history and human nature only show that people need a society governed by rules and regulations. Nothing in the above passage suggests that one set of laws is more natural or beneficial than another. So long as the laws produce a society in which people might achieve prospering, I cannot see how AI could have any theoretical basis to object.¹⁶ For a similar reason, the considerations adduced above would have a hard time proving that any particular law is natural and profitable for humans. With perhaps certain extreme exceptions, it can only show the necessity of a whole system of laws and would, therefore, be largely impotent to respond to the questions Pheidippides asks about the particular law proscribing striking one’s parents. But more significantly for present purposes, this argument faces the significant limitation that it cannot definitively show that justice will invariably be more profitable for the individual agent than injustice. True enough, it suggests that were society to collapse into a condition of lawlessness because of injustice, this would be terrible. But it does not show that any individual violation of justice will lead to lawlessness and, therefore, that any individual violation of injustice will harm the unjust individual in the pursuit of having more.

Our author may have recognised this shortcoming because the text goes on to offer two addenda to Political Animals. The first comes immediately after in Fragment 6 (P.100.18–101.4/B1 6.2–4):

If someone were born having such a nature from birth—

invulnerable of skin, free from disease and suffering,

superhuman and adamantine in both body and soul—

one might perhaps think the power aiming at having more

would befit such a person (for such a person can

remain unpunished without submitting to the law), but

they would not think correctly. For if, per impossibile,

there were such a person, they would be saved if they allied

themselves with the laws and justice, fortified them, and

used their strength for them as well as what serves them.

Otherwise, they would not endure. For due to their

lawfulness all people would seem to have a settled hostility

to such a nature, and either by skill or power the crowd

would prove themselves superior and overcome such a man.

It is in this passage that one can most clearly detect the traces of another thinker’s argument intruding into AI. At least two considerations make this clear. Firstly, P.100.9–17/B1 6.1 and this continuation of it break the train of thought presented in our text. Far from following from the preceding arguments, these passages read more like interjections that the author anticipated his readers might make. Secondly, it is very unlikely that the thought experiment featuring this adamantine ‘supervillain’ was first developed in AI. Why would a Friend of Justice introduce a wild and admittedly impossible example of profitable injustice if no one had ever thought of or mentioned it before? It is surely more likely that some Cynic had advanced the idea of a superior human being who could and should profit from injustice and AI is here responding to them. In further support of this, consider that both Glaucon in Republic and Callicles in Gorgias also theorise a strongman who violates the precepts of conventional justice in their desire to have more (Rep. 359b and 359c–360b; Grg. 483e–484c). One suspects Plato also would not have put such an example into the mouths of his greatest critics of morality if it was first introduced and promulgated by a Friend. So we must conclude that some earlier Cynic came up with this thought experiment, or in any case one very similar to it, in order to argue for the unjust life devoted to pursuing πλεονεξία and then, afterward, the author of AI felt the need to respond to this argument.¹⁷

In any case, AI’s response to this thought experiment is to note that not even a person of superhuman strength could practise injustice and avoid suffering punishment. If they were to refuse to submit to the laws, everyone else would stand opposed and bring a fierce reckoning down upon them. A fortiori, neither can any regular person practise injustice since they would be stopped and brought to ruin far more easily than the adamantine villain of superhuman strength.

This looks as if it is designed to plug the theoretical gap left over from P.100.9–18/B1 6.1 insofar as it claims that the unjust agent will suffer direct punishment for their injustice in addition to the possible indirect harms of a lawless condition. This is a much more pressing problem for the person striving after having more and might be a strong prudential reason to avoid injustice. Sadly, even if successful, this new consideration only establishes that visible or otherwise recognisable acts of injustice are harmful. Citizens must first recognise the adamantine villain’s crimes before they can organise and make war against him. This intervention cannot show that secret injustice will lead to punishment and harm. Nevertheless, this addendum is not totally ineffective. For one thing, some of the passages discussed in the previous chapter suggested that individuals should recklessly and publicly flout the laws in their society. And for another thing, the threat of an entire population bearing down on a criminal might have been sufficiently terrifying to persuade some people it was imprudent to commit any injustice and risk the possibility that it might be discovered and punished.

One further addendum strengthens the overall impact of Political Animals. The text goes on to explain that lawfulness is the best, and lawlessness the worst, condition for society and the individuals within it.¹⁸ Our author lists the benefits that accrue to lawful and just societies: we are told that trust arises from lawfulness and that, because of this trust, a great deal of money is circulated in society, which is particularly advantageous to the poor (P.101.17–22/B1 7.1); in a lawful society the downtrodden are helped by the more fortunate (P.101.23–9/B1 7.2); people needn’t attend to public problems and can instead focus on their personal affairs (P.102.4–7/B1 7.4); and finally, everyone can go to bed without anxiety and with high hopes for the next day (P.102.8–17/B1 7.5). In a lawless and unjust society, the opposite is the case. Citizens are unable to focus on their private affairs and must waste their time on public problems (P.102.26–103.3/B1 7.8); good fortune is never safe and those who are downtrodden receive no help (P.103.4–7/B1 7.9); society is torn apart by war (P.103.8–13/B1 7.10); and finally, the citizens go to bed with anxious thoughts and fears (P.103.14–19/B1 7.11). These considerations are meant to further support the idea that justice pays insofar as the just share in the benefits of a lawful society, and that injustice harms insofar as those who are unjust share in the tribulations of a lawless society.

It is worth noting that this list bears a striking similarity to Hesiod’s enumeration of the rewards and punishments that Zeus bestows upon just and unjust cities (WD 225–47). Indeed, a number of the rewards and punishments named in WD appear on AI’s list, and the overall tone and import of the two passages is much the same.¹⁹ This is notable for at least two reasons. Firstly, it indicates that AI accepts a broadly traditional picture of the External Goods, though, as we shall see when we turn to Immortal Repute, reputation looms larger in AI than it did in Hesiod’s poem. But secondly, it highlights the extent to which AI is offering a response to the Cynics that draws on and to a certain extent rehabilitates the Traditional View of Justice. This is not to deny that there are important differences between the benefits that AI ascribes to lawfulness in this list and the rewards of justice earlier mentioned in WD. There are. Most notably, the gods are completely absent from AI’s list and, indeed, from the whole text. AI’s ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ for lawfulness and lawlessness are not explained by divine intervention but by relying on (rather sophisticated) economic insights about the circulation of money or psychological insights about the beneficial consequences of trust in one’s community.²⁰ What we find in this text is a thoroughly enlightened, secular way of explaining the value of justice and how it produces External Goods for all.

AI’s second argument, Immortal Repute, makes the case not for the life of justice but for the more demanding life of virtue, which requires not only respect for the laws and the fair treatment of others but also supererogatory action. As noted above, the early sections of the text offer advice about how to master practical skills and go on to explain how to gain a good reputation with this mastery. It turns out that avoiding the envy of others and winning their adoration is a tricky task because people generally resent those who are recognised as superior to them in any way. Because people are especially apt to bear grudges against those who win great success in a short amount of time, AI instructs its readers to train diligently from a young age (P.96.1–15/B1 2.1–3). They must also use their accomplishments for good and noble ends, since others are much less likely to resent those who use their talents to benefit everyone than those who use them for their own self-aggrandisement. The best way to obtain a good reputation is, in fact, by using one’s skills to win complete virtue. We are told (P.97.25–8/B1 3.3):

We must also consider what word or deed would enable one

desiring complete virtue to be most excellent. They would

be such if they were as useful to as many people as possible.

To win complete virtue one must become as useful to as many people as possible. We can here start to appreciate the difference between virtue and mere justice. Recall that in Political Animals the author contends that justice is natural to humans and strongly implies that most people in societies are basically just (if they were not, they would not work together to overcome the adamantine supervillain, P.100.24–101.4/B1 6.3–4). Winning complete virtue, however, is not something that most people can ever hope to do. True enough, one cultivates virtue by becoming a servant ‘to the laws and to justice, for this is what establishes and holds together both people and cities’ (P.98.9–11/B1 3.6). Virtue is, therefore, in some sense on a continuum with the natural human disposition towards just and lawful behaviour. But only outstanding contributions to the laws and justice can render someone completely virtuous. It is a distinction reserved for exceptional individuals who help a great number of people in a significant way.²¹

In any case, our text advises those concerned to win a good reputation to cultivate complete virtue. The author assumes that the desire for such a reputation will be a strong motivational pull for people, and indeed he appears to applaud this all-too-human motivation.²² It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the author cleverly appeals to this motivation in stating the core of the text’s second argument, Immortal Repute. I quote the core of the argument in full (P.99.22–7/B1 5.2):

But since what happens in a prolonged life is old age—

quite an evil for humans—and not immortality, it is indeed

a great stupidity and a perversion due to wicked arguments

and desires to do all one can for this life at the cost of

infamy and not leave behind instead of this mortal thing

something immortal, an eternal and ever-living good repute.

It would be a great stupidity, our text announces, to follow wicked arguments and prolong our life in infamy rather than to win immortal praise and an enduring reputation.²³ Notably, AI simply assumes that an immortal good name is more profitable and therefore better for us than the pursuit of wicked desires which might lead one to infamy. No consideration is provided in support of this assumption. Given the assumption, however, our author can produce a neat argument in favour of the virtuous life. For if the only way an individual can win the sort of recognition that produces an eternally good name is by being as beneficial to as many people as possible, then the individual concerned to prosper has compelling prudential reason to pursue complete virtue.

Two things should be said about this argument. Firstly, it must be admitted that in the above passage our author simply presupposes that no one will win a reputation for virtue unless they do, in fact, behave virtuously and are beneficial to a great number of their contemporaries. This might strike some people as naïve or as an obvious mistake. But if it is a mistake, then our author comes by it honestly. For he accepts what I call the Bob Marley Principle: ‘You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.’²⁴ According to the bleak picture of human psychology outlined early in the text, people’s default reaction to the success of others is annoyance. They believe that any praise credited to another’s ledger is debited from their own. Readers are told in no uncertain terms that for others to give you the honour you deserve they must be forced ὑπό τῆς ἀνάγκης αὐτῆς—and still they will do so unwillingly (P.96.11–15/B1 2.3)! People are so inherently suspicious of their peers that absent the force of necessity itself they will continue to believe that another is hunting for a good reputation through fraud or embellishment (P.96.15–19/B1 2.4).²⁵ For better or for worse, our author appears to be fully convinced that no one who is less than completely virtuous will ever be recognised as completely virtuous by others.

Secondly, it is worth noting that one can detect under the surface of this argument a new complexity to the debate about justice. In contrast to WD, where justice is rewarded with all the goods required for human prospering, the 5th-century sophists were starting to grapple with the fact that the External Goods did not always come as a package deal. Immortal Repute encourages its readers to give up the Cynical pursuit of money and wicked pleasures and pursue instead a good reputation and posthumous fame. This sort of encouragement evidently implies the belief that one sort of behaviour is likely to lead to what I shall call the ‘Refined External Goods’ of reputation and honour, whereas a different sort of behaviour is more likely to lead to what I shall call the ‘Crude External Goods’ of wealth and the other means to satisfy one’s base desires. And while the author of AI obviously regarded the Refined External Goods as more valuable and recommended the sort of behaviour that was likely to result in them for that reason, it should also be clear that this value judgement is contestable. Even those who agreed with the author of AI about which sort of behaviour is likely to result in these goods might reasonably disagree about whether these goods are of central importance for human prospering. This gives rise to what I shall call the ‘Problem of the Plurality of the Goods’. In a world bereft of an all-seeing Zeus to reliably reward justice and punish injustice, just and unjust behaviour may well result in different External Goods. This adds a degree of complexity to the question of whether justice or injustice is more profitable. I return to this problem in the next section and then, more fully, in the next chapter.

Despite the limitations of Political Animals and Immortal Repute, AI is an extremely inventive and impressive early defence of conventional morality, and it deserves to be recognised as a significant work of 5th-century moral and political philosophy. In direct response to the Cynical claim that the power aiming at having more is virtuous and beneficial for humans, a host of considerations are raised to show that law and justice are both natural and beneficial to human beings. By employing the same secular and historical kind of analysis earlier used by the Moral Cynics, Political Animals argues that because humans are the sort of creatures that naturally strive to live and to live well, laws and justice are natural to us. Immortal Repute advises individuals to give up the unjust pursuit of ‘wicked arguments and desires’ and instead turn towards the path of justice and virtue. This is the profitable and prudent thing to do because only complete virtue results in the sort of everlasting good name which, our text assumes, makes a great contribution to our prospering. These two arguments make a strong case for the profitability and prudence of justice without claiming that the gods created justice or will punish violations of it. There can be no doubt that AI presents justice as beneficial, as resulting in important External Goods and as the most prudent way to live one’s life. By largely endorsing the third, fourth and fifth theses of the Traditional View of Justice without appealing to the interventionist gods, AI presents us with an important modernised and secular defence of this view.

We are lucky to know more about Prodicus than we do about the author of AI. Born in Ceos during the first half of the 5th century, he became a famous intellectual during the second half and died early in the 4th century. He is best known for his trademark ability to draw subtle distinctions between nearly synonymous words, yet, much like most of the other sophists, Prodicus made contributions to many different fields, including anthropology, religion and ethics. The contribution that concerns us here is ‘Choice of Heracles’. The main evidence we have for the sophist’s famous speech about Heracles is preserved in the second book of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, which was composed early in the 4th century and is not itself a sophistic text. Nonetheless, in this work Xenophon’s Socrates claims to present Prodicus’ speech as an exhortation to his interlocutor, Aristippus. Socrates begins, ‘The wise man Prodicus in his work on Heracles, which he presented to very many people, gave an account about virtue, speaking—as far as I recall—like this’ (Mem. 2.1.21/DK84 B2.21).²⁶ He ends by saying, ‘Thusly Prodicus described the education of Heracles by Virtue, although he dressed his thoughts with still more splendid words than I have now done’ (2.1.34/B2.34). The speech is thus presented as authentically Prodicean. This permits us to treat Xenophon’s version of the speech as evidence about, at the very least, the philosophical content of the original.²⁷

The speech begins with an adolescent Heracles retiring to a place of peace to consider what sort of life he should lead. He has a vision in which two tall, beautiful women approach him. The first eagerly rushes up to him and advocates a life of hedonistic indulgence made possible by the unjust treatment of others; the second calmly suggests a life of virtue that requires working hard for the benefit of others. In the process of exhorting Heracles towards their preferred way of life, the two women argue with one another. The speech thus offers a dramatised verbal contest over the question of whether a gifted individual ought to live an unjust and vicious life or a just and virtuous life, not totally unlike what we saw earlier in the Melian Dialogue and the contest between the Right and Wrong Arguments.²⁸ Ultimately, CH suggests that the virtuous life is better for the individual because only it can provide the prospering secured by an immortal reputation—that is to say, the speech advances its own version of Immortal Repute. But the version found in CH is more radical than the one in AI, and it deserves to be studied apart from it.

The first woman begins her sales pitch in the following way (2.1.23/B2.23):

Oh Heracles, I see you are wondering to which sort of path you

should turn your life. If you follow me as your friend, I will

lead you down the sweetest and easiest path. No pleasure will

go untasted and you will spend your life experiencing no hardships.

In what follows this woman highlights, in particular, the Crude External Goods of food, drink and young boys as reasons to follow her path (2.1.24–5/B2.24–5).²⁹ Moreover, she promises Heracles a life of ease: he will never have to work hard or concern himself with political affairs to luxuriate in pleasure. Others will toil, and he will take from them.³⁰

Once her initial presentation is complete, Heracles asks this champion of lazy indulgence her name. She replies, ‘My friends call me Prospering, but those who hate me play with terms and name me Vice’ (2.1.26/B2.26). The remainder of the text reveals that Vice, as she is most properly called, is tempting Heracles down a path that is both ethically bankrupt and deeply harmful to his own enlightened self-interest. Yet CH allows Vice to make a prima facie appealing case in favour of her own life and even to call herself ‘Prospering’. This is a notable feature of our text which suggests that Prodicus recognised there was something genuinely attractive about the unjust way of life. The fact that his Vice is able to argue as persuasively as she does and pique Heracles’ interest attests to the fact that Prodicus realised that the Crude External Goods promised by Vice have some real value. Though they may not be as valuable as the immortal fame and honour that Virtue offers Heracles, CH does not deny that money, sex and power are genuinely good.

I will have more to say about this when I discuss the Problem of the Plurality of Goods in the next chapter. For the moment, consider the following tirade Virtue delivers to Vice (2.1.31/B2.31):

Immortal though you are, you’ve been cast out from the

gods and dishonoured by good human beings. Of the sweetest

sound of all—praise of oneself—you’re unhearing; and of

the sweetest sight of all, unseeing. For you’ve never yet seen

a fine deed of your own. Who would trust anything you

say? Who would assist you if you require anything?

Who in their right mind would dare keep company with you?

According to Virtue, Vice is so far gone that she cannot appreciate what is most pleasurable in life: seeing one’s own fine deeds and hearing praise of oneself. The clear implication is that Vice’s concern for the base pleasures has corrupted her and left her unable to appreciate what is truly valuable or truly pleasurable. The string of rhetorical questions with which Virtue ends her tirade further implies that Vice has no place in decent society. The message to Heracles is that those who follow Vice’s way of life risk rendering themselves untrustworthy and unfit for friendship.

Of course, this line of thought is as much an argument in favour of the just and virtuous life as it is an argument against the unjust and vicious way of life.³¹ To make oneself a welcome member of decent society, to enjoy the benefits thereof, and to hear oneself being praised, one ought to follow the path of virtue. Surprisingly, Prodicus is open about how difficult and challenging the virtuous life may be. Virtue tells Heracles—and, by implication, the audience of CH as well—both that he will have to forgo many of the pleasures associated with Vice and also that he will have to labour for the benefit of others if he is to live the life of virtue. She explains: ‘For of the things that are really good and noble, the gods give none to people without labour and care’ (2.1.28/B2.28). If Heracles wishes to be loved by his friends, he must aid them (εὐεργετητέον); if he wishes to be honoured by his city, he must help it (ὠφελητέον); and if he wishes all of Greece to admire his virtue, he must try to do good (εὗ ποιεῖν) for all of Greece. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

Yet what an individual can hope to win through this hard work is of the greatest value. Virtue ends by eulogising those who follow her and promising Heracles a stunning reward (2.1.33/B2.33):

Because of me they are dear to the gods, loved by their friends,

and honoured by their fatherland. And indeed when they come

to their fated end, they do not lie dishonoured and forgotten, but

they blossom through memory and are sung about for all time.

Oh Heracles, child of good parents, if you cultivate yourself

as I have described, you may win the most blessed prospering.

Those who pursue justice and virtue can look back on their life with pride, enjoy old age and rejoice in the love they get from others. Most importantly, though, once the virtuous individual dies, they are not forgotten or slandered but remembered and honoured for all time. Virtue’s advice to Heracles is, then, to travel the path of justice and virtue so that he may experience a blessed prospering via an immortal reputation. Note that this is not just the end of Virtue’s speech; it is also the end of Prodicus’ whole presentation. The climax of Virtue’s lesson to Heracles thus coincides with the climax of Prodicus’ lesson to his audience. This strongly suggests that Prodicus endorses Virtue’s account of prospering. So too does Prodicus’ use of the figure of Heracles. For as every member of his audience would have known, Heracles completed twelve great labours, rendered Hellas safe and became one of the great benefactors of Greece.³² And because of his benefaction, he—true to Virtue’s words—continues to be remembered and praised to this very day. He is ever-living proof of Virtue’s promise that those who follow her way of life can win undying fame.³³

Let us pause here to note how deeply CH resonates with the second argument discussed in AI. There we are told that an individual can achieve an immortal good name if they develop complete virtue, reject the wicked arguments and pleasures that result in dishonour and benefit as many people as possible. Here, Virtue tells Heracles that he will be sung about and praised for all time if he follows her way of life and puts in the hard work required to benefit others. She also counsels Heracles to reject the wicked arguments of Vice and to spurn the pleasures she promises.

However, Prodicus’ version of Immortal Repute is both more interesting and more radical than the version found in AI. To see why, consider an objection to my interpretation. The objection takes its cue from the fact that in CH Virtue refers to the traditional gods a number of times. Virtue tells Heracles that nothing good is given to humans from the gods without hard work and care (2.1.28/B2.28); she says that Vice has been cast out of the immortals (2.1.31/B2.31); and she twice says that those who follow her way of life are dear to the gods (2.1.32–3/B2.32–3). This is all surprising, for we have independent evidence that Prodicus gave a genealogical account of the belief in the gods which was likely atheistic, and even if it did not deny the existence of any gods it left no room for the traditional Greek gods mentioned in CH. The objection, then, is that Virtue cannot be articulating Prodicus’ own account of prospering because they hold importantly different beliefs: Virtue frequently refers to interventionist gods, whose existence Prodicus denied.

Though I agree that Prodicus could not have literally believed in the statements his Virtue makes about the gods, it is a mistake to infer from this that he did not endorse Virtue’s account of human prospering and the means thereto. First of all, we must bear in mind that CH was written as a display speech couched in the form of a mythological parable. Parables do not normally function by presenting stories that are literally true. Instead, they use stock characters and familiar tropes in order to convey an important moral lesson. The audience of CH was not to understand, I take it, that Heracles literally sat himself down at a rock and was visited by two apparitions who engaged in a philosophic debate over what life he should live. Was this a real event or was it imagined? It doesn’t really matter.³⁴ Since Prodicus obviously did not expect his speech’s allegorical framework to be understood literally, he could have endorsed the essentials of Virtue’s account while nonetheless rejecting the mystical and religious details of her speech, which, in any case, are not essential to her position. This would have been convenient, I suspect, since this speech was intended for the general public, the vast majority of whom believed in the existence of the gods.³⁵

Secondly—and more importantly—5th-century intellectuals had to be careful about advertising their heretical religious commitments. According to David Sedley’s important article on SF and Greek atheism, artists and philosophers were likely more cautious in presenting their views about the gods than previous scholars have assumed.³⁶ Whether one understands Prodicus as a complete atheist or simply as a radical revisionist, he certainly would have needed to exercise caution to avoid inviting the charges of impiety that his predecessors Anaxagoras and Protagoras are reported to have faced for publicising their beliefs about the gods.³⁷ It would have been dangerous for him to openly state that the gods did not exist and he must have welcomed the opportunity to pay lip service to the traditional gods in his mythological parable.

So Prodicus could have easily endorsed the central argument of CH without literally believing in the gods mentioned in it. This is important for our purposes because it shows that Prodicus’ defence of the just and virtuous life did not depend on interventionist gods. Like AI, what we find in CH is a largely secular defence of a morally upstanding life as superior to the unjust and lawless life. However, it is likely that Prodicus wanted the intelligent members of his audience to wonder about the place of the gods in CH, for in thinking about this one quickly sees that CH’s veneer of piety is compatible with a deeper, more subversive and more tantalising interpretation.

To the best of our knowledge, Prodicus maintained that the Greeks came to believe in the gods after their ancestors deified the useful features of their environment and then those individuals who bestowed great services on humankind. Robert Mayhew summarises Prodicus’ account as follows:

It is the second stage that concerns us here. The woman who first discovered agriculture was called Demeter and was prayed to so that our ancestors could continue to enjoy the fruits of the field; the first man to successfully make wine was called Dionysus and had festivals named in his honour, presumably to encourage the production and consumption of further vintages. Although the details of how this is supposed to have happened are not at all clear, this must have occurred a number of times over an extended period in the past. And at some point humanity eventually forgot the true origins of their belief and the standard catalogue of gods came into existence.

What is particularly striking about Prodicus’ anthropological account of the development of religion is how well it fits with the view developed in CH. This, I believe, is no coincidence. Prodicus wrote CH to contain two different yet compatible and reinforcing interpretations of his text—one superficial and easily understood, the other more profound and accessible only to the clever. Consider the superficial interpretation first. Those in the audience who had no knowledge of Prodicus’ other works or philosophical ideas could understand Virtue to be maintaining that, upon their death, virtuous individuals might be remembered, sung about by their descendants and—perhaps, if they were exceptional—by their city as well. Any audience member who accepted that winning this sort of loving memory would contribute to the prosperous life and accepted that practising virtue was the only reasonable strategy for winning this sort of memory would thereby incur a strong prudential consideration in favour of the just and virtuous life. Now consider the deeper interpretation. The few clever members of Prodicus’ audience who knew something about his anthropology might detect a different promise made by Virtue. They might hear Virtue whispering between the lines that an individual could truly become revered as a god after their death. For if Prodicus was right and the Olympic gods were once mortal individuals, it should in principle be possible for another individual to become revered as a god in the future. They would presumably have to be spectacularly virtuous and just, but the stage was set for anyone to manufacture their own apotheosis by attaining the undying esteem of posterity.³⁹

I suspect that some readers may find this ‘deeper’ interpretation of CH far-fetched. But consider that if Prodicus ever hoped to indicate in a public speech that an exceptionally virtuous individual could become revered as a god in the future, he could never have said so in so many words. This is not only because he would have risked being punished for voicing a heretical suggestion. It is also because the Greeks who revered the gods thought they genuinely existed—and thought they existed qua immortal and living gods, not qua dead and gone benefactors. If Prodicus were to convince all the Greeks that his genealogical account was correct, he would at the same time destroy their belief in the gods and the possibility of anyone being revered as a god in the future.

Additionally, one should consider again Prodicus’ choice of Heracles for this speech. As I have already noted, Heracles would seem to be a fitting figure insofar as anyone listening to CH would have known that he followed a virtuous way of life and achieved immortal fame because of it. But Heracles is also a fitting figure for someone wishing to hint that the gods are deified projections of mortal women and men who once conferred a spectacular benefit to humankind. Every member of Prodicus’ audience would surely have known that, according to the myths, Heracles was born a mortal and that it was only once he had been recognised as the greatest of all Greek heroes that he was immortalised, when immolated at the peak of Mt Oeta in central Greece, and elevated to the rank of a god. It seems unlikely that this is all a coincidence.⁴⁰ Within the religious myths there existed a figure who illustrated the very truth of Prodicus’ genealogical account: born mortal, Heracles was later welcomed into the divine ranks because of the great services he rendered to his fellow Greeks. By using Heracles in his CH, Prodicus hints that this might happen again.

These considerations make the deeper reading of CH at least more plausible. We may cautiously infer that Prodicus expected some of his audience to connect the dots and extrapolate from his speech that mere mortals could, in some rare circumstances, bridge the gap between the human and the divine. This surely makes CH’s version of Immortal Repute powerful and appealing. Very few Greeks could have denied that any person sung about for all time and honoured as a god had lived a successful and prosperous life, if not the most blessedly prosperous life possible. If Prodicus’ clever audience members were convinced that they could win a posterity of praise for themselves through their virtuous behaviour, they would have incurred a very strong consideration in favour of adopting the just life and cultivating virtue.⁴¹ However, it is important to note that one need not accept this deeper interpretation of CH to see it as a defence of the just and virtuous life. For on any reasonable interpretation of the speech, the just and virtuous life is profitable insofar as it enables one to hear one’s deeds praised, see one’s glorious and noble deeds and win a posthumous reputation. This is enough to conclude that CH endorses the third and fifth theses of the Traditional View of Justice without appealing to the gods for divine support. We once again find a modernised and secular defence of traditional ideas in a sophistic text.

It may seem out of place to include Democritus in a chapter on sophistic discussions of justice. Best known as the presocratic champion of atomism, Democritus is most often studied as an important natural philosopher and epistemologist. Given his influence on Epicurus, Lucretius and, through those two, the development of early modern science, this is not surprising. But it is somewhat surprising that he has not also been recognised as an important ethical and political thinker. Diogenes Laertius lists eight full works of his that concern ethical topics.⁴² And the reader may be surprised to discover that of the paltry scraps of Democritus’ writings that survive today, very few say anything about natural philosophy or epistemology at all; the vast majority of the purportedly verbatim fragments concern what we today would call value theory.⁴³ Why, then, has Democritus’ value theoretic credentials not been widely recognised? This may be due to influential early judgements of his ethics as undeserving of serious consideration.⁴⁴ It may be because several notable attempts to connect his ethics with his far more well-known science were largely unsuccessful.⁴⁵ Excessive scepticism about the authenticity and reliability of the ethical fragments may also have contributed to this neglect.⁴⁶ Whatever the reason, there has been relatively little work done on Democritus’ ethics and even less on his politics.⁴⁷ Sadly, it remains uncommon to treat him as an important moralist as well as a notable natural philosopher.

Additionally, it is important to note that the simplistic picture of the sophists as exclusively concerned with ethical questions and the presocratics as exclusively concerned with natural philosophy cannot be maintained. Democritus was interested in value theory just as many of the sophists were interested in natural science. Antiphon’s OT, for example, includes discussions of physics (DK87 B15, B29 and B30) and complex mathematical problems (B12) alongside reflections about the nature and value of justice.⁴⁸ It was normal for curious Greek thinkers to partake in many intellectual pursuits. Democritus’ well-deserved reputation as a serious natural philosopher should not, therefore, lead us to think he was uninterested in justice or would have refused to engage with those we now label ‘sophists’. The biographical evidence we have indicates that our atomist would have been familiar with the central debates about justice and its value. We possess reports that he travelled extensively to learn all that he could, and we have his own words that he spent time in Athens, the centre of intellectual debate (DK68 A1 and B116). We also have reason to believe that he was acquainted with the work of his fellow Abderite, Protagoras, whose epistemological views our evidence suggests he attacked, and who was almost certainly a major voice in 5th-century discussions about justice, society and the individual’s place within it.⁴⁹ I thus agree with Adkins (1972, 103), who claimed that ‘[t]‌he atomist Democritus may be broadly classed with the sophists when he is concerned with ethical topics’. And importantly for our purposes, an unprejudiced reading of his ethical fragments reveals that Democritus actively responded to (what he saw as) a pernicious challenge to justice and a corresponding trend towards injustice.

Consider just one example before we move on. Recall that, according to Antiphon, it is often profitable to break the laws absent witnesses who might report one’s transgression. In such cases the unjust agent will suffer no adverse shame or punishment as a result of following their natural inclinations (DK87 B44(a)1.12–2.10). Democritus was aware of this sort of thinking, and in a number of fragments he responds directly to it.⁵⁰ Highlighting the problem of secret injustice, he explains, ‘for it is likely that the one barred from injustice by law will do wrong in secret’. He then floats a possible solution to this problem: ‘but the one led to do what they ought by persuasion is not likely to do anything offensive either secretly or openly’ (DK68 B181).⁵¹ Democritus recognises that if punitive force is the only thing holding back unjust behaviour, then people will find ways to practise injustice that cannot be effectively policed by the laws. The threat of punishment only deters behaviour that might be recognised.⁵² A more effective way to prevent injustice is to persuade people to do what they should. Though B181 does not explain how this persuasion would operate in practice, another fragment fills the gap: ‘Even if you are alone, neither say nor do anything base; but learn to feel shame before yourself much more than before others’ (B244; cf. B84 and B264). Democritus invokes the powerful psychological force of shame as a deterrent to unjust behaviour. The idea seems to be that well-educated agents want to avoid feeling shame before themselves and will, consequently, avoid doing or saying anything objectionable.

The suggestion that one should feel shame before oneself is remarkable. Standardly, shame was thought to be a social emotion triggered by the recognition—and, in particular, the sight—of another.⁵³ It is for this reason Antiphon claims that the unjust agent escapes shame if their violation goes unrecognised. By arguing that shame should operate in private Democritus was both making a significant moral psychological innovation (to which we shall return) and posing a novel solution to the problem of the secret injustice. Indeed, it is very tempting to interpret Democritus’ two fragments as a direct response to OT. Antiphon claimed that the unjust agent who goes unnoticed (λάθῃ) will escape both shame (αἰσχύνη) and punishment (ζημία). In B181 Democritus seems to concede that the person who does injustice in secret (λάθρῃ) may avoid legal punishment, but he is quick to note that this is not the end of the story. B244 adds that humans can and sometimes do experience enough shame (αἰσχύνεσθαι) to regulate their behaviour even when it is done in secret. The temptation to interpret B181 and B244 as a response to the claims made in OT, though admittedly speculative, is not completely unmotivated. One might think that the tight etymological relationship between Antiphon’s verb λάθῃ and Democritus’ adverb λάθρῃ, on the one hand, and Antiphon’s noun αἰσχύνη and Democritus’ infinitive αἰσχύνεσθαι, on the other, betrays a conscious attempt to oppose the view advanced in OT.⁵⁴ Mercifully, it is not important for our purposes to determine whether Democritus had Antiphon or some other figure in his crosshairs. My point in stressing the thematic and linguistic similarities between these two authors is not to establish influence or chronology. It is to highlight Democritus’ awareness of, and his attempt to respond to, the sort of ideas introduced and endorsed by the 5th-century Cynics.

If an unprejudiced reading of Democritus’ texts shows that he engaged in moral debates, it also indicates that he defended a broadly traditional account of justice according to which it is best for the individual to behave justly. Working through the fragments one can reconstruct two strands of thought defending justice as valuable and exposing injustice as unprofitable. The first and most recognisable strand focuses on the importance of a properly functioning society for the prospering of the citizens within it. In Democritus’ most important political fragment he writes (B252):

How the city’s affairs will be well-managed ought to be

considered as the greatest of all things. One should not be contentious beyond what is reasonable nor increase one’s

strength beyond the common utility. For the city’s being

well-managed is the greatest source of success, and everything depends on this one thing. If this is preserved, everything is

preserved; and if this is destroyed, everything is destroyed.

This fragment advances what J. F. Procopé (1989, 310) calls ‘the primacy of the common good’. Because the city’s being well managed is a prerequisite for the success of the projects within it—including, crucially, the projects of each citizen—the success of the individual’s life is inextricably tied to the success of the city (cf. B287). Promoting the proper functioning of the city thus becomes an imperative for the individual who wishes to prosper.⁵⁵ So too does stopping any unjust or otherwise self-serving behaviour (cf. B259). This is why Democritus feels entitled to demand of his readers that they not be contentious or increase their strength beyond the common good. To do so would harm the city in which they live and, hopefully, thrive, the very foundation of their well-being.

There is obviously a great deal of wisdom in this fragment. At a time when ostracism and exile could be tantamount to death, there was little hope for leading a satisfying life outside the protective walls of a city.⁵⁶ This is a basic truth about humans to which everyone who profits from a society ought to attend. But it is also a truth that people neglect. Humans have a well-documented tendency to forget or downplay the extent to which their own prospering depends on a stable and peaceful society.⁵⁷ Democritus may well have been right to think his contemporaries needed to be reminded about the importance of the polis and the responsibilities they incur to preserve it. Yet though it may be true that a city is vitally important for the citizens within it, no arguments based on this basic truth can prove that justice is invariably more profitable than injustice for the individual. Democritus’ reasoning in this fragment is broadly similar to the reasoning in Political Animals: because everyone profits from a well-run city and because an unjust city is not well run, individuals threaten their own prospering when they act unjustly. We have already seen that this is not very convincing. Though an individual’s prospering surely depends on their city, it is simply not true that every criminal or unjust act threatens the stability or proper functioning of that city. One can be contentious or unjustly increase one’s strength without harming the common utility.

I thus leave this strand of thought behind and turn to the novel and more impressive of Democritus’ defences of justice, which is rooted in a clear appreciation of what really matters for a successful human life. One can find in the atomist’s fragments (possibly for the first time in Western philosophy) clear traces of a highly sophisticated and relatively well worked out account of what prospering is and what it takes for a human to prosper. This understanding manifests itself, in the first place, in Democritus’ dogged attempts to debunk his contemporaries’ common assumption that political power and wealth are important. What really matters is not acquiring External Goods of any kind but that we cultivate psychological well-being. So far as one can tell from the extant fragments, Democritus identifies a particular psychological condition as productive of human prospering. The fragments further indicate that just and virtuous behaviour tends to produce and sustain this condition of the soul and, additionally, that unjust desires and behaviour tend to undermine it. One can thus reconstruct a clear Democritean argument according to which justice is more valuable than injustice for us because of the direct effects it has on our souls.

To see that Democritus denied that External Goods had any great value, we must attend to his criticisms of a vulgar conception of prospering held by his contemporaries. We can do this by attending to his use of the word ‘εὐδαιμονία’. It must be noted that before the time of Plato this word did not always have the philosophically rich meaning that is sometimes ascribed to it today. Recall that in WD the life of divinely bestowed material riches as well as favourable social recognition was said to be εὐδαίμων. And the word retained a strong connotation of material wealth well into the 5th century, so much so, in fact, that Herodotus explicitly contrasts the εὐδαίμονες with the πένητες—a word that literally means day labourer but is more often used simply to mean ‘poor’ (1.133.1).⁵⁸ The historian’s use of these words is, as other commentators have noted, presumably in keeping with standard use at that time. As one authority tells us, ‘in common usage the idea of material prosperity is much more evident in εὐδαιμονία than “happiness” would suggest’.⁵⁹ This is not to deny that εὐδαιμονία meant prospering. It is rather to highlight how central wealth was to people’s understanding of prospering. The poor were assumed to be miserable and possessing wealth was assumed to be—at the very least—a significant part of the prosperous life.

We can see Democritus actively reject these common assumptions in B251:

Poverty in democracy is as much more choice-worthy

than so-called prospering (καλεομένης εὖδαιμονίης)

under tyrants as freedom is than slavery.

This fragment preserves the contrast between poverty and εὐδαιμονία found in Herodotus but undermines it with the mocking expression ‘so-called prospering’ and the pointed comparison of wealth with slavery. Democritus is clearly challenging commonplace assumptions about wealth and prospering by pointing out that a poor but free life is better than a rich but unfree life (cf. B283, where he challenges a commonplace understanding of poverty). At the very least, B251 suggests that the value of material wealth is contingent on other possessions, such as the freedom to use it as one pleases and the intelligence to use it well. Several other fragments criticise wealth and other external possessions by stressing the huge practical and psychological difficulties to which a desire for External Goods gives rise (B191, B219, B224 and B284).⁶⁰ Democritus’ overall attitude towards the External Goods seems to be akin to the attitude of some people today towards firearms. They are necessary tools that are useful for certain, circumscribed purposes, but they can also be highly dangerous, especially for those who exhibit an excessive zeal for their acquisition and use.

But if not material prosperity, what makes for a successful life? In yet another fragment rejecting the assumption that wealth makes one prosperous, Democritus encourages people to look within: ‘Prospering does not reside in herds or gold; the soul is the dwelling-place of the δαίμων’ (B171; cf. B187). Playing off the near etymological tautology that εὐδαιμονία is having one’s δαίμων in a good condition, the atomist identifies the soul as the seat of prospering. The importance of the soul for Democritus is, thus, made abundantly clear. Yet when one tries to discover what state or condition of the soul is productive of prospering, things get more complicated. It is easy enough to identify what Democritus called the condition that is best for human beings (B189):

The best thing for a person is to live life with as

much εὐθυμίη (ὡς πλεῖστα εὐθυμηθέντι) as

possible and as little as possible dispirited …

As this very important fragment notes, the best thing for humans is to possess as much εὐθυμίη as possible. That this concept is central to Democritus’ ethics is confirmed by the later doxographical tradition. Cicero tells us that Democritus held εὐθυμίη to be the ‘blessed life itself’ (A169), and Stobaeus informs us that he calls prospering εὐθυμίη (A167). So far, so good.

The real difficulty begins when one tries to articulate what εὐθυμίη is and what it means to have as much of it as possible. This, sadly, is no easy task. The extant fragments do not contain a clear discussion of its nature and the later doxographical reports are only marginally instructive.⁶¹

Progress can be made, firstly, by noting that just as εὐδαιμονία is to have one’s δαίμων in a good condition, to have εὐθυμίη must be to have one’s θυμός in a good condition; and secondly, by attending to the way earlier authors understood this term.⁶² θυμός is an important and frequently studied, if poorly understood, feature of early poetic psychology. There is a general scholarly confusion as to what, exactly, the θυμός is or does. In Homer the word appears to have such a bewildering number of senses that one prominent scholar has said it covers ‘almost every important aspect of inner human experience … [I]‌t seems possible only to translate each occurrence as is fitting to that passage without attempting consistency.’⁶³ For our purposes, however, we may note its importance for the emotions—one grieves, rejoices and seethes in the θυμός—and its role as a powerful source of motivation. Homeric heroes often imply that their θυμός is urging them towards a certain course of action and then take it.⁶⁴  Sometimes they endorse this course of action, but not always. Heroes may deliberate with or in their θυμός and wonder at what their θυμός ‘says’ to them.⁶⁵ On rare occasions, they object to what it says and represent it as pressuring them to do things contrary to what they think they should do.⁶⁶ One’s θυμός is, therefore, not always under one’s conscious control and may at times motivate behaviour that feels strange or alien.

As we move towards the 5th century, the psychological vocabulary becomes more precise and tractable. All the mental and affective functions eventually become part of a singular entity, the ψυχή, which is sharply contrasted with the visible σῶμα and is understood to be the animating force behind it.⁶⁷ At this point, the θυμός becomes one identifiable part of the whole soul with its own unique functions. It retains the emotive and motivational power it had in earlier literature and takes on a number of new circumscribed roles or associations as well. In the lyric and elegiac poets, for example, the θυμός becomes particularly associated with the experience of joy and delight.⁶⁸ It also becomes increasingly tameable. Though these later poets continue to represent the θυμός as responding to external stimuli in ways that might surprise the individual who possesses it, there is a growing sense that people can exert control over it in the long run. The θυμός can mature and become restrained—ultimately, it may even be cultivated so as to react to life’s ebbs and flows in a way that makes it easier for its owner to cope.⁶⁹ This is connected to a final development seen in later authors, namely, the normative assumption that the θυμός should come to react to the world in certain ways. In some texts, the θυμός serves as a sort of barometer of the moral character of the individual and can even be assigned credit for their virtuous behaviour.⁷⁰

Democritus’ thinking appears to be broadly consonant with this tradition. As in the poets, responses implicating one’s θυμός are understood to be subjective (by which I mean both that they vary depending on the subject and that the subject is somehow especially aware of them): they are emotions or feelings elicited by external events and, in particular, by events that have the potential to bear on others’ appraisal of the subject’s character. It is also clear from Democritus’ fragments that the θυμός is a particularly intractable part of our psyche prone to respond to external events in unruly and even harmful ways. However, like the lyric and elegiac poets, our atomist thinks that the good person can master their obstinate spirit and train it to become better (B236), though doing so requires both hard work on the part of the individual and an ethical education. Several fragments offer advice about self-cultivation and how an individual may achieve εὐθυμίη (B3 and B191). Other fragments tell us from what it arises. In B258 it is said to come from upstanding, helpful behaviour, and in B191 Democritus suggests that the enjoyment of moderate pleasures leads to εὐθυμίη. It is also suggested that those who manage to master their θυμός can expect to experience less emotional turmoil than others, lead largely pleasurable lives and be generally content with their place in the world (B191). Finally, some remaining fragments stress the connection between εὐθυμίη and motivation. The ‘eu-thumetic individual’⁷¹ has a positive, forward-looking motivation and a strong sense of agency because they have a sense of what they can and cannot accomplish (B3 and B174).

Taking this all together, we may say that εὐθυμίη is a pleasant psychological condition characterised by a justifiably confident and even joyous outlook about one’s place in the world. It is commonly translated as ‘cheerfulness’ or something similar.⁷² Such translations accurately capture the positive and subjective features of Democritus’ concept. They are particularly good at conveying the obvious fact that εὐθυμίη is characterised by a great deal of pleasure or enjoyment. But these translations may otherwise be misleading. In particular, they do not reflect the fact that mastering one’s θυμός is a genuine accomplishment. One must have a fairly sophisticated understanding of one’s abilities and work at self-cultivation to achieve this condition. At least in my English, this long-term project is by no means required for good cheer. ‘Cheerfulness’ also strikes me as too trivial or superficial to capture the full force of εὐθυμίη, which, as we have seen, is the best thing for humans.⁷³ Were it not for the baggage this word has in ancient scholarship, ‘happiness’ (understood according to our contemporary and subjectivist ideas about happiness) would be an appropriate translation for εὐθυμίη. But given this baggage, and in order to preserve the connection with the θυμός, ‘joyful spirits’ will have to do. Hence, I suggest we adopt this translation and understand the eu-thumetic individual to have a full appreciation of their powers, to rejoice at their active role in the world and to be generally pleased with how their life is going.

So much for what εὐθυμίη is. Now consider the richest characterisation of the eu-thumetic individual in Democritus’ fragments (B174):

The εὔθυμος is impelled towards just and lawful deeds. They

rejoice in sleep and wakefulness and are strengthened and free from

worry. But the one who disregards justice and doesn’t do what

ought to be done, this person is pained at all such things when they

remember them and fear and reproach themselves.

This confirms that the eu-thumetic individual is generally pleased and contented with their place in the world. Crucially for our purposes, though, we also learn from this fragment that this individual is also impelled towards just and lawful deeds (NB the passive ἐπιφερόμενος) and that the person who disregards justice reproaches themselves, feels fear and, we may safely assume, is lacking εὐθυμίη.⁷⁴ The claim that the individual with a joyful disposition is impelled towards just and lawful deeds may come as a bit of a surprise, but we must remember that Democritus believes joyful spirits require ethical education and self-cultivation. This education would inculcate an appreciation for just and lawful deeds and could, Democritus thought, irrevocably change the student: ‘Nature and teaching are similar. For even teaching reshapes the person, and by reshaping it makes a second nature’, one famous fragment reads (B33; cf. B242). In the case of ethical education in particular, Democritus must have thought that the individual comes to accept and identify with the values they are taught. Once they do, some deep feature of themselves—likely the θυμός itself—exerts some internal force impelling them to pursue these values in practice. For the individual discussed in B174, the identification is so complete that their behaviour becomes an expression and affirmation of their commitment to law and justice.

Unfortunately, the fragments do not contain much information about the ethical education that reshapes our nature and has such profound effects on our character. It’s safe to assume that Democritus would have expected formal instruction as well as informal associates to inculcate an appreciation for fundamental values in youths (B179, B181, B184 and B208). He also seems to have assigned the laws a particularly important role in educating the sort of ethically sensitive individual that is likely to achieve joyful spirits. According to B248, ‘the laws wish to help people’s lives and they can whenever people wish to do well. For they display their virtue to those who obey.’⁷⁵ How obedience to the law is supposed to help us appreciate our virtue is, again, sadly not elaborated upon. But what does seem clear from this fragment is that Democritus expected the acquisition of virtue to make our lives better and increase our chances of prospering. Taken together with B174, this comes close to an explicit statement that the good person—the one impelled towards just and lawful deeds—is the individual with joyful spirits. And while nowhere in the extant fragments does Democritus say this in so many words, he does often take pains to highlight that justice is preferable to injustice and that injustice leads to misery.

Consider B215:

Justice’s glory is confidence and imperturbability of mind;

injustice’s end is a fear of disaster.⁷⁶

Given that εὐθυμίη is so closely associated with a calm and confident demeanour, this comes close to saying that justice leads to joyful spirits and, therefore, prospering (cf. B191). It certainly reveals Democritus’ considered judgement that justice has better consequences for our lives than injustice. He seems to double down on this sentiment in B45: ‘The one doing injustice is more miserable than the one suffering it.’ Some commentators have found the content of this fragment so Platonic that they doubt its authenticity, but the considerations adduced are not convincing.⁷⁷ We have already seen that Democritus associates just, lawful and virtuous behaviour with the eu-thumetic individual, and indeed that the person who disregards justice is pained and reproaches themself. It is no great leap from this to claim that the unjust individual is somehow harmed by their injustice and made miserable through their unjust behaviour. And though this on its own does not establish the comparative claim that the unjust person is worse off than the person they harm, we have noted already that Democritus believes the good person is able to withstand unfortunate circumstances tolerably well and, therefore, may manage being wronged without falling into ruin (B191).

Though these fragments are sufficient to show that Democritus regarded the just life as superior to the unjust life, it is worth considering two further fragments which seem to explicate the way in which the unjust agent undermines their own psychological well-being. Consider B262:

And those who do things deserving exile or imprisonment

or who deserve a punishment must be tried and not set

free. The one who, desiring profit or pleasure, frees them

contrary to law does injustice. And it is necessary that this

weigh on their heart (τοῦτο ἐγκάρδιον ἀνάγκη εἶναι).⁷⁸

And now B264:

Don’t feel any more shame before other people than before

oneself; be no more willing to do something wicked if no

one or everyone will know it. Rather, be ashamed before

yourself most of all, and establish this law in your soul:

that you do nothing unfitting.

The first of these fragments begins with a statement of the necessity of punishing those who do wrong. Criminal acts threaten the stability and the proper functioning of the state, especially when they are not publicly denounced and punished. Because of this, it is very important that punishments are in place to sanction those who have violated the laws and that citizens dutifully distribute those punishments. To fail to do so would itself be an injustice. But interestingly, the delinquent pleasure- or profit-seeking jurors are not threatened with the same formal punishments they fail to mete out. Instead, Democritus insists that their perversion of justice will ‘weigh on their heart’—or, as we might say, that they will feel terrible regret. Presumably, Democritus expects them to feel this way because they are jeopardising the common good, on which every citizen depends, for their narrow interests. It may also be that such people fear that their injustice will become known to others and that they may suffer as a result (B45 and B174).⁷⁹  Either way, all this psychological anxiety is enough to upset our spirit and make injustice disturbing to us.

In turning to the second of these fragments, the reader should recall that I earlier called attention to Democritus’ introduction of feeling shame before oneself. To better understand how the atomist would have expected shame to work in practice, one must recall how important ethical education is for the eu-thumetic individual. An effectively educated individual comes to accept, internalise and endorse certain fundamental values. To gloss B33, these values become part of the individual’s very nature. Democritus’ great insight was to see that the person tempted to do something unfitting would, in being so tempted, be motivated to violate a norm partly constitutive of their character. An individual experiencing this conflict is psychologically divided and at odds with themself. I might, for example, desire to acquire Midas’ gold and plan to take it by assaulting his person. Yet I might also sincerely believe that violent assault is wrong. Having recognised my desire to do something contrary to the norms I accept, it would be natural for me to feel a painful twinge of shame urging me against this course of action. We might even imagine that Democritus would say that my θυμός ‘sees’ the unjust motivation driving me to violate one of its ideals and that this occasions an experience of shame as well as a force resisting my wicked plans. And if—heaven forbid—this internal force is not strong enough to stop me from giving in to my temptation, my assault on Midas will show that my integrity has been compromised.

It is entirely likely that Democritus saw shame operating both as a prospective deterrent against the general practice of injustice and as a retrospective punishment for having committed acts of injustice.⁸⁰ If properly educated, anyone tempted to break the laws and commit injustice would be ashamed of their desire to do wrong. This would cause mild to moderate psychological distress, but Democritus clearly hoped it would also prevent actual injustice. In B264 the result of feeling shame before oneself is supposed to be that one does nothing unfitting (cf. B179). But if this deterrent feature of shame failed and someone went in for injustice all the same, a more severe sort of shame might then function as a punishment for the one who acted on their wicked desires and dared to commit an injustice. This must be how shame could function as a ‘punishment’, or at least cause psychological discomfort, after the sort of unjust behaviour mentioned in B174 and B262. Democritus apparently thought that wrongdoers would suffer significant psychological distress upon realising that they had betrayed their ethical commitments and compromised their own integrity. This presumably also explains why the atomist thought the person who commits injustice is more miserable than the one who suffers it. The unjust person turns out to be the author of their own distress and assumes responsibility for their lack of integrity. As many of us can attest from our personal experiences (and as the Greeks knew, too),⁸¹ this is a dreadful situation.

It should be obvious that Democritus’ second strand of thought defending the value of justice is closer in spirit to the later philosophical tradition (sometimes thought to be initiated by Socrates or Plato) than to the arguments made by the other 5th-century Friends of Justice. In contrast to AI and CH, the atomist does not appeal to the Refined External Goods in order to respond to the Cynics; instead, he appeals to the internal life of the individual and argues that whereas just behaviour promotes psychic well-being, unjust behaviour undermines it. This strategy has the considerable advantage that it can sidestep the Problem of the Plurality of the Goods that we briefly discussed above. Democritus need not concede that power, money or the base pleasures won through unjust behaviour are all that valuable. He can claim that unjust behaviour will destabilise the agent’s psychological well-being while denying that the unjust gains from such behaviour offer much in the way of recompense (B218 and B220). Of course, no Cynic was forced to accept that the state of one’s soul was particularly important for one’s prospering. They could (and no doubt did) reject his account of joyful spirits as well as his ideas about how prospering is won. Nevertheless, Democritus’ focus on the soul represents an important philosophical advance that would be picked up and developed by Plato and Aristotle in the following century.

In any case, while the atomist goes much further than the other 5th-century Friends of Justice in certain respects, other features of his thought are reminiscent of the thinkers discussed earlier in the chapter. For he, too, puts forward a line of thought similar to Political Animals. And, like the author of AI and Prodicus, he purports to establish the benefits and ultimate prudence of justice without recourse to the interventionist gods. In defending the fifth thesis of the Traditional View of Justice, he should also be seen as offering a modernised and secularised version of that view.

The texts discussed in this chapter represent some of the most sophisticated written defences of morality from the 5th century. In them we find, among other things, three different attempts to establish that the just and virtuous life is more conducive to human prospering than the unjust and vicious life. Some arguments present justice as a necessary prerequisite for a well-functioning human society, which is itself a necessary prerequisite for the prospering of every member of that society. Others represent the eternal renown achieved through virtuous behaviour as significant enough to make the honourable practice of justice more profitable than the shameful practice of injustice. And still others argue that justice leaves one in a psychologically sound state whereas injustice leaves one psychologically distraught and upset. All of the Friends of Justice’s ideas are worth studying as serious contributions to Greek ethical and political thought in their own right. However, if the guiding insight of these first three chapters is correct, these texts are not just isolated investigations into the fundamental concerns of human morality. Like the early humans of which the Friends are wont to talk, their texts are part of something much bigger. Each of these texts responds directly to Cynical ideas that present injustice as valuable for the individual and, moreover, they do so without appealing to the interventionist gods that the Cynics had themselves rejected. The Friends of Justice thus made the case for a life of justice in a way that the Cynics could not dismiss out of hand and must, therefore, be understood as contributing to a larger debate about the value of justice. Through their new and innovative arguments, they offer a modernised and naturalistic version of the Traditional View of Justice with which we began.