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2 2 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3for most of the Republic. After all, it is clearly the case that all citizens ofKallipolis will be required to practice justice of the conventional or “vulgar”sort: they will be required to keep their hands off the belongings of others,to shoulder their share of the public burden, and on the whole, to refrainfrom pleonexia (see 433e–434a). The practice of this sort of justice is a necessaryconcomitant to activity that makes the city happy as a whole. Yet thequestionable (even doubtful) value of this sort of justice is precisely whatmotivated Glaucon to resuscitate Thrasymachus’s critique of justice. Thus,until we know whether it is better to be just than unjust (even if conventionaljustice is not the whole of justice), we cannot possibly know whether a happycity necessarily or even probably contains happy citizens. Thus, at least priorto book 9, the status of the city’s happiness must remain in question.It might be thought, however, that Socrates does resolve the issue afterthe three proofs for the superiority of justice (576b–588a). Although thethird proof contains language suggesting that none but the wise is happy(see 586d–587a), the proofs are followed by an argument that law serves as asubstitute for wisdom among the nonwise, and, in particular, that law servesto foster justice in the soul of the nonwise (589c–591b). If we assume (as weare invited to do) that justice of soul is necessary for happiness, then we couldconclude that, by virtue of their law-abidingness, the citizens of Kallipolis arein fact happy and that the happiness of the city as a whole converges with thehappiness of the citizenry.Nonetheless, as I have argued elsewhere, 46 Socrates’s defense of law is difficultto credit. First, it is unclear whether this argument applies solely toKallipolis or to all cities. Socrates speaks quite generally. Yet the Republiccontains many passages suggesting that existing cities do not have laws thatreliably instill virtue in the souls of those subject to them. 47 Further, sincethe just soul is ordered toward the attainment of wisdom, the Republic leavesit unclear why those who are incapable of wisdom are nonetheless happierhaving souls ordered in a way analogous to the wise man’s rather than (say) ina way approximating Thrasymachus’s tyrant. If, on the other hand, the passageis read as applying solely to Kallipolis, we are still left with uncertainty.The second objection just mentioned would still apply: why should nonphilosophersbenefit from this sort of psychic constitution? And, beyond that,this statement about the purpose of the law conflicts with Socrates’s earlier46Culp, “Who’s Happy in Plato’s Republic?,” 297–98.47See, for example, 425c–427a, 488a–489a, 492a–494a, 496a–497a, and 514a–517a.