  The challenge that Glaucon and Adeimantus present has baffled modern  readers who are accustomed to carving up ethics into deontologies  that articulate a theory of what is right independent of what is good and consequentialisms that define what is right in terms of what  promotes the good (Foster 1937, Mabbott 1937, cf. Prichard 1912 and 1928). The insistence that justice be praised “itself by  itself” has suggested to some that Socrates will be offering a  deontological account of justice. But the insistence that justice be  shown to be beneficial to the just has suggested to others that  Socrates will be justifying justice by reference to its consequences.