The Republic, Plato

Readings: Book 1, Plato, The Republic, [W]

Assignment: Write brief answers to the following questions:

1) Describe the different notions of Justice discussed in the reading.

2) What is the value of justice, or what purpose does it serve in both individual lives and in the lives of societies?

In Book I of the Republic, Plato ponders the different notions of justice. He considers the nature and value of justice and the other virtues as they appear both in the structure of society as a whole and in the personality of an individual human being. His goal is to discover the nature of the subject at hand, but also to involve arguments, criticisms and justifications of several insufficient attempts at defining what justice really is. He presents several notions but never makes a decisive opinion as to what justice actually is. His indecisiveness of justice demonstrates the ambiguous and infinite nature of philosophy.

The wise, wealthy Cephalus says “it is telling the truth, and returning what you have been given.” Socrates partially agrees but points out that his definition would fail in certain conditions if they do not have any exceptions. Socrates argues that “returning a borrowed weapon to an insane friend”, for example, would be an instance of following the rule but would not be an instance of just action. The presentation of a counter-example of this sort tends to show that the proposed definition of justice is incorrect, since its application does not correspond with our ordinary notion of justice.

In an effort to avoid such difficulties, Cephalus’ son, Polemarchus supports his father definition but revises it by proposing that justice means "giving to each what is owed." His new definition codifies our norms of being kind and helpful to the good and condones vigilantness for people to punish the wrongdoers. Both the son and the father’s definitions share an underlying principle of deciding what is due and giving what is right.

Thrasymachus who represented the new and critical view, propounded the radical theory of justice. He defines justice as "the interest of the stronger". For while, every man acts for himself and tries to get what he can, the strongest is sure to get what