The Republic and Justice

1.      A. Justice requires no retribution: justice is not about causing harm or paying one’s dues; causing harm to another person would be injustice

B. Justice and Gods: the just men are friends with the gods, because they are considered just, while the unjust men are enemies with the gods (page 36)

C. A doctor, cook, navigator and in anyone with a profession has the ability to implement justice: a doctor’s job is to provide remedies for the body for those are just, but a doctor also has the ability to harm or kill a person that is unjust.

D. Just men are those that able to implement justice and they don’t expect any sort of reward: just men carry out justice and when offered honors and rewards he doesn’t accept them, therefore showing that he had pure intentions and can truly be considered a just man.

E. Justice brings about happiness and knowledge: to live a just live brings bring emotional and spiritual tranquility, and brings about the knowledge needed to live a just life.

2.      Socrates is trying to get Polemarchus to analyze what his father said—through Simonides’s statement about justice— justice being a matter of telling the truth and paying one’s debts. Socrates starts by saying to Polemarchus, “…tell me, what is this saying of Simonides that you think tells us the truth about doing right?” First of all, who defines truth? Neither Socrates nor Polemarchus can define truth or determine if someone is telling the truth. The next example that Socrates uses is the example of returning money to one’s friend. Socrates asks Polemarchus, “…as between two friends one is not giving the other his due when he returns a sum of money the other has entrusted to him if the return is going to cause harm—is this what Simonides means?” (page 8). Polemarchus agrees with the question posed by Socrates, and also agrees to the statement that enemies too should be given their due by being harmed. Justice, in Polemarchus’s view is about retribution. Justice for a good person would be a reward and justice for a bad person would mean something harmful. However, this conclusion in the real world is not always true. For example, one always hears the phrase, “Bad things happen to good people.” Instead of a good person being rewarded, a good person is harmed. Meanwhile, a bad person’s justice is a kind of reward. For example, a person that was accused of first-degree murder, because he or she was in the wrong place at the wrong time is sentenced to life in jail, while the person that actually committed the crime is not found guilty. The justice system that exists in all societies does not always work how it should. The conclusion that Socrates is trying to get Polemarchus to reach is that, there is a function needed to be performed by everyone and that those who try to perform other people’s functions do so wrongly, and is referred to as injustice. As in the example above, the reason why our justice system is unfair at times is because there are people whose function is not to determine whether a criminal is innocent or not, but they do it anyway which causes the injustice. Justice is not only what is seen in the court room, but it is all around us which is what Socrates was trying to get at.

The next statement that Socrates gets Polemarchus to agree to is that medicine is a type of skill. Socrates asks Polemarchus what does medicine supply and appropriate. Polemarchus responds to Socrates saying, “Obviously that is the skill that supplies the body with remedies and with food and drink” (page 9). Socrates then uses the example of cookery and asks Polemarchus what that supplies. Polemarchus responds with “the flavor to our food.” Socrates uses these examples to finally ask what justice supplies. Justice supplies “the skill that enables us to help and injure one’s friends and enemies.” However, how does one determine who their real friend is or who their enemy is? In Socrates view is it not up to us to determine who should be punished or not, because for some of us that is not our skill or function to perform.

In conclusion, the two points that Polemarchus agrees to, in my opinion are fatal because his previous statement that it is “right to give every man his due” had multiple flaws. First, Polemarchus just accepts the statement made by Simonides as it is without further analyzing. Even though, there are parts in the statement that make it ambiguous as Socrates states on page 11, “Simonides was talking about what is right with a poet’s ambiguity.” Secondly, the statement that Simonides says is not specific enough, because a person cannot know for certain who their real friends are or their enemies. The fact that Socrates gets Polemarchus to agree that medicine is a skill proves further the point that Polemarchus’s statement was flawed. Since medicine is a skill it means that there is a specific person who is meant to fulfill this job, which is to supply “the body with remedies and with food and drink” (page 9). What Socrates means by this is that there is someone whose function or skill is to determine who needs to pay their “dues.” A person whose function is not that cannot determine what due is appropriated to a person.

3.      A. Socrates first criticism with respect to Thrasymachus’s belief that the pursuit of self-interest or injustice paid better than that of justice was that just men like craftsmen do not compete with one another. Thrasymachus’s stand on this was that just men compete with unjust men, but not with just men. While unjust men compete with both unjust and just men.  Men with skill (techne), for example craftsmen will not compete with men with the same skill, because their sole function is create something. They do not do it for the competition, but for the reward they will get out of fulfilling their function, which is also justice in Socrates opinion. However, a person who is not a craftsman will compete with both the craftsmen and the ones that are not craftsmen. Since the person who is not at the same level of the skilled craftsmen he will have to compete to reach that level, so in other works to gain that knowledge. Since both the just men agree on how to behave and the craftsmen agree on how to carry out their work, the two are similar and in no need to compete with one another. Back to the medicine skill, doctors do not need to compete with each other because their sole purpose is to help the sick, which at the end of the day is their reward and function.

Thrasymachus makes a good point when he talks about the unjust man and how he must compete with both the men that are like him and the unjust man to have more than he has. However, in some cases in reality the unjust men obtain the power and riches, and the just men are given mediocre things. Even though, this happens the just men are able to retain to their integrity which is what makes them just men in the first place. The just men do need to commit indiscretions to obtain what they want. Justice is supposed to be, in my opinion the reward a just man obtains from doing things morally, and the unjust man is not given anything because he did things immorally.

B. Socrates next argument was that injustice is actually a source of weakness. Thrasymachus stated that injustice was more effective and a form of strength. However, that is contradictory because justice is referred to as strength and knowledge, while injustice is associated with ignorance (page 35). Thrasymachus also states that an unjust state will be more efficient in “subjection” than a just one. However, since justice is associated with knowledge, for a state to be successful there must also be justice. Injustice causes disunity and if men are unjust and harm one another then they will be weak. Unjust men quarrel with each other and in turn cause disunity between them; injustice causes hatred and if unjust men hate each other then they cannot work with one another. Socrates uses the example of a robbery; a robbery cannot be successful if the unjust men are fighting each. Justice is required for something to successfully be carried out and properly function, if there exists injustice in a society or in a group of people it is possible that nothing will successfully work and therefore, cause disunity and dissent.

C. The third criticism that Socrates makes is that he argues that the just man is happier than the unjust man. Both Socrates and Thrasymachus agree that, “…justice was the peculiar excellence of the mind and injustice its defect.” I think what they meant by that is that justice requires the full cooperation of the brain in fulfilling a just act, which is the “peculiar excellence of the mind.” Injustice is its defect, because something must have gone wrong where the brain did not use its full potential to commit a just act and committed an unjust act instead.

It was concluded that the just man will be happy and prosperous, while the unjust man will quite the opposite. Injustice causes hatred, “It will produce its natural effects also in the individual. It renders him incapable of action because of internal conflicts and division of purpose” (page36). An unjust man is unhappy and full of hate; therefore he cannot be happy for the time being. This is further solidified by Socrates other statement, “It doesn’t pay to be miserable, but rather it pays to be happy.” When thinking about this statement is sounds a lot like the question “would you rather be doing something that you love your whole life or do something that you hate your whole life?” It’s the same with justice making someone happier than injustice. For example, a person is meant to be a surgeon that is his skill, but rather works in some other field which makes him miserable and unhappy, he is being unjust. Justice is supposed to bring about happiness and that occurs when someone is fulfilling their function. Another example is, if someone has obtained power and riches by doing it in a just manner they will be happy and there will be people that he or she can share that power with, if he so desires. Which contributes to my definition of justice which is that justice is supposed to bring about joy, happiness, and solidarity.

4.      A. Glaucon and Adeimantus’s positions on justice are flawed and I disagree with both of their statements. Glaucon argues that justice is merely a matter of convenience. It’s what the person will receive from committing the act and how that would benefit him. However, Socrates would argue that what makes a man just is that he carries out his function without looking for a reward, because the reward is that he is able carry out his function, which might be to heal a person or provide food for someone. For example, in the story of the man and the gold ring we see the roots of injustice. The man, Adeimantus says, is both a just man and a unjust man (page 44), but already one see the injustice. Injustice causes hatred and conflict in the individual. As soon as the man turns invisible and commits the unjust acts of stealing and killing the woman’s husband he no longer is a just man. The man is doing nothing ‘right’ or ‘just’ because he is not obtaining all those riches in a moral way, but rather he is obtaining the title of unjust man. I think that in order for a person to be truly just and happy is that they do not look for quantitative compensation, which is like money or honors for the just act they committed. They are fulfilling their function, which should be reward enough in Socrates point of view.

Glaucon states, “…that no man is just of his own free will, but only under compulsion, and that no man thinks justice pays him personally, since he will always do wrong when he gets the chance.” If doing wrong will get the just man the power and position he desires he will commit an unjust act. Injustice makes someone arrogant and he is not able to gain the knowledge he needs to be just. Socrates would argue that the unjust act will not make him happy because it brings about deceitfulness and greed. In my own definition of justice, justice is meant for the ones that are modest, the ones that do not ask for honors or rewards for their rightful action. By rejecting those honors and rewards he truly shows his purity and respect for what he has done, and shows to the public that he is a just man.

B. Adeimantus’s position that people only do right for what they get out of it is something I also disagree with. Well, first Socrates would disagree with this because by doing “right” one is not supposed to look for what they would gain from the just act, but instead be satisfied with the fact that they are committing a just act. Also, Socrates believes that everyone has a function to fulfill and in our society some people’s functions are to help others. One is causing harm to oneself for committing injustice, which is unjust and brings about unhappiness. In our society people do just acts not for what they will get out of it but because they are doing something for the better of someone else.  Money and power are two things that sometimes drive unjust men to act as they do, and Adeimantus uses the example of worshipping gods. The gods punish the ‘good’ men with nothing, but the ‘bad’ men with riches, because these men go and worship them. Adeimantus states that people are inculcated with the idea from a young age that they must perform ‘good’ acts in this world, so they can have a good standing with heaven. However, Socrates would disagree because with this because by not having pure intentions on the matter the person is being unjust. There is even greater injustice in persuading the gods to favor the unjust men, since the gods are supposed to be just. Just men are not supposed to persuade others to take their side or do what they say, that is what unjust men do. They are also being unjust because they are competing with others to secure a place in heaven by being deceitful and greedy.

Justice in my opinion is not meant for those that commit just acts just because they want to reach heaven, they must commit the good acts because they want to help others. I think this is the greatest flaw in both of Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’s statements, because the men that expect compensation and are greedy are the unhappy men. Another flaw with both Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’s statements are that we can never know what a person is thinking, so we will never know be able to determine if someone’s intentions are pure or if the person is just trying to get something out of the act. Even if one tests the just man, like Adeimantus proposes on page 45 we cannot for certain determine the intentions of the person. Justice, in Socrates perspective, is meant for those that are meant to fulfill this function or skill, and you will know he is meant to do it because he will be happy and not look for further compensation. The unjust man will be unhappy, deceitful, and conflicted.