Plato #3 — Different views on the question “What is justice?

” in Plato’s Republic I
Phil 201 – Dr. T. Hoffmann

The question “what is justice” is a question of personal interest for each one, and not a
problem of abstract morality. See 344d–e: “After hurling such a speech to us, Thrasy-
machus, do you intend to leave before adequately instructing us or finding out whether
you are right or not? Or do you think it a small matter to determine which whole way of
life would make living most worthwhile for each of us?”

There are four main views, represented by four different persons.

I. Cephalus (in the formulation of Socrates): Justice is “speaking the truth and paying
whatever debts one has incurred.” (331c)*
objection:
Socrates: doing these things is sometimes just and sometimes unjust. Example:
give weapons back / tell the whole truth to someone who is out of his mind. (331c)

II. Polemarchus (quoting Simonides): just is “to give each what is owed to him.” (331e)
Socrates asks Polemarchus to be more concrete. Polemarchus thus comes up with the following
formulation:
II’. Polemarchus: “justice … gives benefits to friends and does harm to enemies.”
(332d)
objection:
Socrates: “it isn’t the function of a just person to harm a friend or anyone else,
rather it is the function of his opposite, an unjust person.” (335e)

III. Thrasymachus: “justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.” (338c)
consequence: “justice is really the good of another, the advantage of the stronger and
the ruler, and harmful to the one who obeys and serves (343c). ⇒ “A just man
always gets less than an unjust one.” (343d) “[I]njustice, if it is on a large
enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice.” (344c)
objection:
Socrates: “no one in any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, seeks or orders
what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his subjects.” (342e)

IV. Socrates: “[J]ustice is virtue and wisdom and … injustice is vice and ignorance”
(350d).
“[T]hose who are all bad and completely unjust are completely incapable of
accomplishing anything.” (352c)
“[A] just soul and a just man will live well, and an unjust one badly … a just person
is happy, and an unjust person wretched.” 353e–354a.

* All quotations are taken from: Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992).