Just Prospering? Plato and the Sophistic Debate about Justice

Just Prospering? Plato and the Sophistic Debate about Justice introduces new research about the first secular discussions concerning the value of justice from the Western Tradition. In Part I, Anderson addresses the debates of the sophists, a group of politically minded intellectuals from the 5th Century BCE, considering relevant extant texts to produce the following conclusion: some of the sophists argued that being just was bad for the just individual, and that an individual would do well to be unjust instead, whereas others took it upon themselves to defend justice by arguing that the just life was best. Anderson continues in Part II to demonstrate that Plato, writing in the 4th Century, was aware of this debate and wanted to settle the matter himself. In his Republic, one of the great philosophical treatises of all time, he revives the earlier dialogue of the sophists to argue that the just life is the best life for human beings.

Merrick Anderson, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California

Merrick Anderson studied Philosophy and Political Theory at the University of Toronto and received his PhD in Classical Philosophy from Princeton University, before taking up a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at University College London. In 2024, he moved to Los Angeles to become an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California's School of Philosophy. His research focuses on the moral philosophy of the Ancient Greek philosophers, especially the sophists and Plato, though he is broadly interested in the wider history of moral and political philosophy as well as certain topics in contemporary value theory.

Lists of TablesAcknowledgementsIntroductionI: The 5th Century Debate about Justice1. The Traditional View of Justice2. The 5th Century Challenge to Justice3. The 5th Century Defence of JusticeII: The Debate in Plato4. Transition to Plato5. A Challenge to Old and New6. The Divisions of Good and the Defence of Justice7. Further Sophistic EchoesConclusionBibliographyGeneral IndexIndex Locorum