 Near the beginning of the dialogue, a challenge is launched by the character Thrasymachus, mentioned above, asserting that all actual cities define justice so as to serve the advantage of the rulers. He takes this to mean that the laws which their subjects are bound to obey and the associated ethical virtue of justice which they are enjoined to cultivate (traditionally seen as the necessary bond among citizens and the justification for political rule), in fact amount to a distorted sham. (See the entry on  Callicles and Thrasymachus.)  The question which Thrasymachus poses and which Plato’s brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus reformulate—why should the individual be just if he or she can get away with not being just, when elevated above the demands of ordinary justice either by special power or good fortune?—thus already has a political valence from the outset.