The second argument of Glaucon in defense of a life of injustice is that those who practice justice "do so against their will . . . but not as a good" (255). In other words, to behave justly is a hardship, even for the best of the just, presumably because it is so much easier to behave unjustly. The third argu ment proceeds from the second, that "the life of the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just" (255). This is Glaucon's formulation of the view that crime pays, that there are material rewards for behaving badly but little reward for behav ing well. Therefore injustice is to be preferred to justice.
The strength of the arguments together is that the weight of real-world evidence is all on the side of Glaucon's view that it is difficult to behave justly on one hand, for the reason that on the other hand there is no reward for doing so. Material advan tage confers privilege and benefit on everyday experience of those who can manipulate their environment and who do not shrink from doing so just because it may impinge on the well-being of others. Indeed, to maintain the good life, the natural human tendency is to seek advantage at the expense of others.
The strength of an argument that those who behave justly do so against their will derives from the fact that the society in which test of justice comes is governed not according to the nat ural unfolding of social intercourse but according to the rule of law. Fear of punishment, not natural inclination to do good, mo tivates those who might seek their own advantage at the expense of others to go ahead and behave decently toward others. Were man to have absolute freedom of choice, he would seek his own advan tage. As Glaucon puts it, citing the story of Gyges the shepherd, who became king because the power of a magic ring enabled him to become invisible and kill the ruler, "wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. . . . If you coul...