 In a famous passage in Republic 1, which has many affinities with dialogues of our group, a sophist named Thrasymachus challenges Socrates to define justice without saying (as he was apparently known for doing) that justice is the beneficial or the advantageous (336d). Instead, Thrasymachus insists on the precision that specifies who receives the benefit or advantage of justice; in Thrasymachus’ view it is the rulers who reap the benefits, while those who are ruled pay a heavy price. Socrates defends the use of terms such as “beneficial” in defining justice, implying that he would accept some sort of instrumental view, but he plainly holds that justice is beneficial to everyone who is touched by it. This is the main theme of the Republic, but it also resonates with the shorter ethical dialogues, as we shall see. The ending of the  Hippias Major  bears on the problem of instrumentality through a discussion of the beneficial as replicating its own goodness (as virtue engenders virtue). Socrates appears to be the first to make eudaimonia (happiness, the good life) a goal in ethics. On the relation between virtue and happiness in Socrates’ thought, see Reshotko 2013 and Woodruff 2023.