Is Justice Intrinsically Good?

Here is a very crude and simple reconstruction of Socrates’ argument for the claim that justice is good for its own sake:

1. If justice is merely good for the sake of something else (merely instrumentally good), then being just without being properly related to that something else has no value.
2. But being just even without being properly related to that something else does have value.
3. Hence, it is false that justice is merely good for the sake of something else
4. Hence, justice is good for its own sake

Analysis
Premise 1 is simply definitional. If x is merely instrumentally good, then x is good only in relation to some other thing. So, take away that other thing and x ain’t good at all. 

Premise 2 is where all the action is. Socrates defends it by attempting to show that it is better to be just even if one is perceived by all as being unjust than it is to be unjust even if one is perceived by as being just. If he can show that, then justice is not good merely because of its relation to other things. It is good all by itself. 

He argues for that along these lines:

Justice in a human is a type of proper functioning of the various parts of the soul of the human. Thus, injustice in a human is a type of improper functioning of the various parts of the soul of the human. Improper functioning of the various parts of the soul of the human is a kind of disintegration of the human (a lack of unity of the parts of the soul). Thus, injustice in a human is a kind of disintegration of the human. The disintegration of x is the destruction of x (to the degree that x is disintegrated x is destroyed to that degree). Thus, injustice in a human is the destruction of a human. Thus, injustice is a kind of death of the human soul and justice is the integration, unification, and life of a human soul. Hence, being just even without being properly related to something else does have value. 

Premises 3 and 4 follow from 1 and 2.  

Thoughts?

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