No other philosophic book
so powerfully expresses the human
longing for justice while satisfying the
intellect's demand for clarity
the problems of justice as presented by
Plato arouse more interest, excitement
and perhaps disagreement, at some points
than at others.
When non-philosophers begin their
acquaintance with philosophers they
frequently say
"This is nonsense", but sometimes they say
"This is OUTRAGEOUS NONSENSE!",
and at such moments their passions
really become involved with the
philosophers, frequently culminating in
hatred
or in love. Right now, Plato is both
attractive and repulsive to the young
minds and rightfully so because
in the days of thoughtless optimism
Plato was considered irrelevant and his
criticism was not made available
to warn us of possible dangers.
Now it is recognized that he had all the
doubts that we have today,
and that the founding myth of his city
treats men and women as literally rooted
in its soil.
Everybody's sure that Plato knew
something about community but he makes
today's comfortable
communitarians uncomfortable by
insisting that so much individuality
must be sacrificed to the community.
Moreover, they
rightly sense that Plato partly
parodies the
claims and the pretensions of the
community.
The uninvolved Socrates, distrustful of
neat solutions,
does not appear to be a very reliable
ally
of movements. Plato, criticized in the
recent past for not being a good liberal,
is now
shunned for not being a wholehearted
communitarian.
Take the republic, for example, the book
starts off with Socrates and Cephalus
having a conversation.
Cephalus is talking about how he is okay
with being an old man
because now he's free from his old masters such as
sex
money, power. He talks about how he does
not care about these factors in his life
anymore because of his old age...
and that he's at peace with himself.
Socrates, very curious, of course, asks him
whether he has inherited most of what he
has and not earned it
Cephalus of course claims that he has
earned it
Socrates replies by saying "You see, the
reason why I ask,
is because I am not so sure why you are
not very attached to your money, because
a man who has earned money is obviously
going to be attached to it,
while a man who has inherited it perhaps will
not be...
and since you are not attached to your
money I can only argue whether
you have inherited it or there is some
other reason for your detachment."
Cephalus laughs it off by saying that it
is because of his old age because he
understands that
this money cannot be taken into the
afterlife hence he didn't want
to indulge in money knowing that it will
bother him in the afterlife if he cannot
return any money that he owes someone
or receive money that he lent someone
before dying. (Money is being the root of all injustice)
The reason for that is that if you live
an unjust life you suffer in the
afterlife.
You have to pay the penalty for being
unjust during your living time
and borrowing money from someone and not
returning it would mean that you are
unjust.
and must pay the penalty after death,
To this Socrates replies by saying, "So
your definition of justice is return
what is owed?"
Cephalus replies by saying "Affirmative"
Socrates then goes on a rant about how
the idea of "owing somebody something and
then returning it
is supposed to be justice" is extremely
poor. Now
at this point, Polemarchus has come into
the conversation
and Cephalus who is not so sure about
how he should be answering these
questions
decides to leave the conversation.
Cephalus is supposed to be a
personification of convention
so him leaving the conversation is a
type of a symbolism.
Now Polemarchus says
"Why do you think that it is a poor
definition?"
to which Socrates replies, "Well perhaps
think of it this way...
I take a weapon from you, on a loan
I am borrowing it and I am supposed to
return it to you.
Understandable, right? But when I come to
return it to you I see that you have
lost your mind.
You are now a madman, running around the
street throwing pebbles at people.
Should I still go ahead and do justice
by giving you the weapon?
I mean if I give you the weapon you
might either kill yourself or somebody
else!
Surely that's not a good idea but if I
keep it,
am I being just, because I'm keeping it
to myself and if I'm keeping it to
myself
I am keeping something to myself that
doesn't belong to me,
something that I should have given away
to somebody that I owe it to?"
Polemarchus replies by saying, "That
is incorrect, because it is a just thing
to do...
to save your friends, to do good to them."
"Okay, fine", say Socrates, "so your
definition of justice is give back what
is owed
but also make sure that you do good to
your friends
and not bad to them?"
Polemarchus replies with affirmative, and Socrates
says
"Fine, so that means that if we have to do
good to our friends, then it is just.
That it must also be just to do bad to
our enemies?"
Polemarchus says, "yes, that seems about
right." "For example
a judge who sits in the court of law is
the unique excellence as we call him
"your honor" or "your excellence" or "your
majesty" (for a king who is judge)
whatever you prefer, that man's job
is to make sure that anybody who is a
criminal
is an enemy of law, and must therefore be
punished
while anybody who is a friend of law,
like a soldier or a police officer
must be rewarded, isn't that right
Polemarchus?"
Polemarchus says, "Yes, that sounds
about right..."
now Socrates goes on a rant about how it
is
unclear whether the right thing is going
on
"You see, if we are hurting the bad people
we are also doing something that is
against
justice... wouldn't you say that a
policeman
is also a good thief because he
understands how police thinks and he
understands how thieves think?"
"Right". "What about a particular doctor,
he is very good at stopping the spread
of diseases, he must be really good at
spreading them, especially, being undetectable?"
"Yes, that is true". "How about
your Just man. He's very good at safe
keeping your money, he must also be very
good at stealing it?
"That sounds about right" "Yes it does,
so in that matter if you think of it
that way,
that man who is just is also
a thief he obviously doesn't choose
to
steal from you because you're his friend."
"yes that is true"
He says, "Fine,
if that man is a good thief and
only chooses to steal from people who
are his enemies,
and not his friends, then wouldn't you
say that "Justice is an
art of theft which is designed to be
practised for the benefit of friends and
harm to the enemies?" This
makes Polemarchus very upset
Socrates has somehow twisted the entire
definition of justice into
"theft" that is designed for the practice
of
doing good to his people, that he cares
about and bad to the people he doesn't.
Polemarchus is trying to argue but he
doesn't have anything to give yet
now Socrates just puts up another
argument saying
"okay" Socrates, is saying, "how about this,
do we not, as humans, make mistakes?" "Yes, we
do", says Polemarchus
Socrates says "Do we even know that
these friends that are pretending to be
our friends are really our friends,
maybe they are our enemies and they are
deceiving us... What about our enemies?
They might actually be good people, they
might be our friends
right? So it is "Justice to do good deeds to
our friends when they are being good,
and it is also Justice to do harmful deeds to our
enemies when they are being evil."
but should just people harm anyone at
all?"
Polemarchus says, "Of course they are to
harm
those who are being evil and are our
enemies!"
"When horses are harmed,
are they better or worse?
"of course they are worse" "In other words
the horses are worse in the comparison
to
other horses and not in comparison to,
say dogs, right?"
"Yes, they are also worse with respect to
the unique excellence of
horses, with respect to their virtue?"
"Right yes"
You can say the same about dogs as well?
"Yes"
"What about people? Will not people who
are harmed be worse with respect to the
unique excellence of humans?
A human that is harmed
will be worse with respect to the unique
excellence, the unique virtues of humans.
But isn't justice, the unique excellence
of humans? I mean
we do go to the court judge and say "your
honor"
"your excellence" which means that the
judge is a chief
justice. He IS justice, he stands for
justice as he is representing it.
So a judge who punishes a criminal
is essentially harming him and making
him worse
with respect to the unique excellence,
which is justice, so
"people who are harmed become less just
and more unjust"
"...which means that justice is harming a
criminal
and making him more unjust."
"So can a musician use music to make
people less musical?"
"No!". "Then how can a just man use justice to
make
people less just, if a musician cannot
use
music to make people less musical?
Generally speaking, can good people make
other people bad
through human virtue? That should be
impossible!"
These are effects of the opposite causes,
in fact,
to cause harm is not the effect of
goodness
but of its opposite(evil).
Just person is good, so it's wrong to
injure a friend or
anyone else because it's wrong to say
that."
"Injuring a friend or anyone else is not
act of a just
person but of the opposite one:- who is
unjust"
"Then it's wrong to say that justice
consists of repaying debts
and that goodness is the debt that a
person, who is just, owes to friends
whereas evil is debt owed to enemies.
We have clearly shown that intentionally
harming anyone cannot be
just(even bad people). So
that means we probably started off with
the wrong
information. We probably started off with
the wrong definition of justice
all this time..."
"So what is the true definition of
Justice?"
