Fortune and what remains valuable › Does injustice really fail?

Book IV brings back the question that worldly disappointment alone cannot answer. The prisoner objects that evil flourishes under a governor who is supposed to be good. Philosophy responds by redefining the relevant success: everyone seeks good, but the wicked fail to attain the good that would make them happy. Their apparent power does not secure their ultimate end (Book IV, prose 1; prose 2).

The argument distinguishes effective control over others from success in living well. A tyrant can have the former while failing at the latter. This helps explain why Philosophy can call wicked people weak without denying that they can imprison someone. Her standard of power concerns the attainment of the genuine human good, not simply the ability to produce an intended immediate result.

Yet there is a danger of answering a different question. Even if wrongdoing damages the wrongdoer, the victim still suffers. Moral failure in the perpetrator does not restore the victim's freedom. The argument challenges envy of successful injustice more directly than it explains why an innocent person was exposed to it. A fair reading gives it that force without pretending it has already solved the whole problem of evil.