Justice in the City of SocratesWhile Adeimantus and Glaucon seem to enthusiastically accept Socrates' conclusions about the nature and benefits of justice at the end of Book IV, even going so far as to complete his argument regarding the benefit of justice themselves, they do so only because they followed Socrates' argument in a linear fashion, without going back to test new claims against established premises. Had they done so, they would have discovered the flaws in Socrates' logic and the full implications of his constructed city – a city that not only failed to illustrate how profitable justice was in itself and was correlated with happiness, but which in reality proved precisely the merits of justice. vision of justice as a sacrificial act that it was constructed to refute. Glaucon and Adeimantus' uncritical willingness to agree with Socrates' assertions throughout the argument is particularly dangerous when it leads them to ignore clues that something in his argument is misleading. They approve of the censorship rules he proposes, even though he himself admits that they are somewhat questionable. When Socrates suggests banning all poetry that paints a gloomy picture of Hades, he admits that this would in fact amount to banning the best poetry when he says: "the more poetic [the verses] are, the less they should be heard" ( III, 387). Later, when he suggests banning Marsyan's sensual instruments, he admits that this decision amounts to "purging the city that we earlier called luxurious" (III, 399). In both cases, Glaucon and Adeimantus are quick to justify the removal of things to which even Socrates attributes virtue in the name of the greater good of the city, but in doing so they themselves subvert one of their own goals in the argument: showing that the common good consists of being both happy and just for the citizens of the city, but it is the existence of men like Glaucon and Adeimantus, those whose knowledge extends beyond the city and from whom the “noble lie” emanates – this actually proves Thrasymachus’ point that justice is a pointless chore in someone else’s name. Rulers, Socrates explains earlier, are the only citizens allowed to lie (III, 389). Since it is admitted that “possessing the truth [is] a good” (III, 413), while citizens are necessarily deprived of the good, it is in their interest to seize power, as Thrasymachus suggests, because power confers knowledge in the city. Thus, we return to the introduction to Thrasymachus' dialogue, which begins with him demanding a fine if Socrates is found to have been mistaken. His confusion between knowledge and power at the expense of justice is precisely the method of the city of Socrates..