Polemarchus's Justice Analysis

Polemarchus’s Justice

In this paper, I will be analyzing the concept of justice, tackled during the conversation between Polemarchus and Socrates. The Republic, (book I), the dialogues oppose, one by one, different concepts of justice.. Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus offer each an answer to the Socratic question “What is justice?”. After discussing this issue with Cephalus, it is now Polemarchus’s turn to inherit the argument. After a debate, mostly monopolized by Socrates, the definition of justice is ambiguously concluded. I might, question the following: Can a just man by doing justice be doing injustice ? To answer this question I will discuss Socrates’s interpretations in the light of the arguments given by Polemarchus

If we concider the example of physicians, we find that in issues related to health and diseases, physicians more than other people can “ help friends and harm enemies” (plato,334b). In a related example, a sailor’s job ends after the sailing is done. But Socrates confirms that the just man should be regarded as someone who has some kind of knowledge or expertise in a precise field. However, this expertise can and cannot be related directly to justice. In a way we may always ask about the nature of someone’s actions regarding of his crafts. In a way, Socrates’s definition of justice as being a craft is

In this sense, the just man can be also considered as a thief. At that point, Polemarchus renounces of this idea of justice as being theft or craft, but he emphasizes on it as doing good to a friend and bad to an enemy. Socrates wouldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to raise the definition of a friend and an enemy. In trying to define these terms, Socrates introduces indirectly that there are circumstances that indicate wheter our actions are just or not, for example, lying can be in several circumstances just or