Does Plato Succeed in Showing, Both in the Crito and the Republic, That It Is Never in My Interest to Harm Others?

All the badness on the earth is based on the essential that someone harms the others. Why this many wars have taken part in the historyÐ'¬? Can committing murders, people fighting on the roads everyday, wives and husbands trying to divorce in the law courts, fathers who are beating their sons and many examples like these be explained without using the word “Harm”? Since the world has been existed; many philosophers, scholars, prophets and the mankind have searched the answers of these questions; such as Mark, William, Hans, Juan, Moses, Socrates, Plato had and has done the same. All these people have tried to distinguish the differences between; good & bad, true & false, beauty & ugly. They have tried to solve the secrets of life; which is better, more qualified and more productive. During and after these seeking efforts, they have shared and taught all the knowledge which is obtained and they are going to be keeping in the same way until the ends of their lives. The common opinion they agree with is; that harming someone is neither reasonable, nor acceptable. But if the word “Harm” is taken out of the dictionary, then is it able to erase concepts of the badness from books? Or the words; good, true, real are shown as bold and italic?

In the book Crito, the dialogues take place in Socrates’ jail; Socrates explains to Crito that it would be unjust for him to leave his cell. Since the Laws exist as one entity, to break one would be to break them all, and in doing so, Socrates would cause them great harm.’ To do so is right, and one must not give way or retreat or leave one’s post, both in war and in courts and everywhere else, one must obey the commands of one city’s and country, or persuade it as to the nature of justice. It is impious to bring violence to bear against your mother and father; it is much more so to use it against your country. What shall we say in reply, Crito, that the laws speak the truth or not?’(p54). For Socrates, to break a rule is something like to harm our parents. We are respectful to our parents and we have to act same as for the laws. Rather than simply break the laws and escape.

In the Republic, Plato, speaking through his teacher Socrates, sets out to answer two questions. What is justice? Why should we be just? Book I sets up these challenges. While among a group of both friends and enemies, Socrates asks the question, “What is justice?” He proceeds to refute every suggestion offered. Also he offers no definition of his own. That part of reading is interesting because it challenges not only our conception of right and wrong, but Socrates’ usual way of finding truth. Socrates proceeds by building up knowledge out of people’s true beliefs. If he is right, then we do not have any true beliefs about justice. All we have are beliefs forced on us by rulers. In order to discover the truth about right and wrong, we must abandon the old method and start from beginning, building up knowledge without resting on traditional beliefs. He wants to define justice, and to define it in such a way as to show that justice is worthwhile in and of itself. He meets these two challenges with a single solution: a definition of justice that appeals to human psychology, rather than to perceived behavior. вЂ?Then, it follows, Polemarchus, that it is just for the man, who are mistaken in their judgment, to harm their friends, who are bad, and benefit their enemies, who are good. And so we arrive at a conclusion opposite to what we said Simonides meant. вЂ"that certainly follows. But let’s change our definition, for it seems that we did not define friends and enemies correctly. вЂ"How did we define them, Polemarchus? вЂ"We said that a friend is someone who is believed and useful.’ For this argument a good man is your friend wont harm you and the bad man is your enemy, and he might harm you .He argues that since it was agreed that justice is a virtue of the soul, and virtue of the soul means health of the soul, justice is desirable because it means health of the soul.

Badness and harm, which is the key word of the badness, can be considered in different ways. Sometimes, badness can be done for own interests, pleasures and satisfaction of ego; but other times it can also be done with a good intent too. People prefer to harm in order to be wealthier, more powerful and some other times for destroying their enemies; but also it can be applied without demand or in the process of doing a favour. Actually, is every badness truly bad; is every goodness good? Can’t someone harm willingly or unwillingly own self or somebody else as a purpose of doing a favour? Such as the things, which are perceived as harm but are done for a good goal. All of these facts can be explained by the concepts: false and true. All of the above points can be explained by the concepts of False and True, which expresses False better than even it’s own meaning.

Truth has several meanings such as reality, factual, genuine, correct, flawless, honest, and logical. Is it true that the meaning of Truth is true? The truth of the concept of True, which is fairly relative, is open to discussion. The real truth has no benefiting worries. Then, how do we decide who knows the truth? There exist different people, different point of views and different beliefs. The truth completely changes with the point of view. If our thoughts are oppositely different than the ones of other people, then our truths become false for other ones. A good example for that is the lunacy concept. We all know the meaning of lunacy; however, by which criteria are some of the people named as lunatic? A person, who thinks and acts differently in society, is called as lunatic. By the same way, that lunatic can also define other people as lunatics.

One of the biggest philosophers Gettier has brought forward an interesting theorem during his university years. “Two men watch the outside from window in a foggy weather. One of them says: - There are three sheep and a dog in the garden. Other one replies: - No! There are two dogs and a sheep right there. They bet on the number of animals at the outside and decide to go to the garden in order to see the truth. In fact the view of the first man was right; however, till they reach to the garden, the conditions change and the new situation is just as the second man’s view. Because, while they are on the way, two sheep leave the garden and another dog arrives.”

Gettier had successfully given his masters, doctorate and professorial thesis by the above theorem.

A scientist