Three Kinds of Good

In Book Three of The Republic, Glaucon tries to trick Socrates by insisting that there are three kinds of goods:

1.    “some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them,” and
2.  “also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results?” and
3.   “third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making --these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them.”

Glaucon wishes to argue that “justice,” which has been the object of discussion so far is of the third class: “that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided.”

As a runner, I might draw an analogy between gymnastics, which Glaucon also places in the third class, and justice. I started running, as Glaucon says, for the good that came from it. There were times I found it tedious and unpleasant. I doubt that I would have continued had it continued to be nothing more than an unpleasantness that I had to get through in order to get to something else. Eventually, it had to become an end in itself, though not simply the first class, something pleasant an insignificant, but the second class, something that is good in itself, and also has good results. 

When I run I run in order to run. I want nothing more. I know that later I will feel more alive, more in tune with life and with myself. I might run for that feeling if it wasn’t that I would have never discovered that feeling unless I started running for the sheer joy of running preceded those feelings. 

Is there are parallel to justice? Can it proceed in a similar way, practicing (or pretending to be) just for the benefits, finding that just eventually becomes an end in itself, then gives the benefits that were originally sought? An interesting aspect of this analogy is that when I originally started running I did it for health reasons. Now, as much as I appreciate the health benefits, I run for the more direct benefits, much of which I can only incompletely attach a name to. In other words, what I originally ran for, while recognizably beneficial, I don’t see as significant as what I now run for. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it is a counterfeit, but it isn’t what keeps me going. I can say that about justice. Those first benefits mentioned by Glaucon, “rewards and reputation” are counterfeit justice, and do not deserve the name.