Socrates Discussion Of Justice In The Republic By Plato

In the “The Republic” by Plato, Socrates is debating the matter of Justice and what it is in their society. This discussion is brought up when Socrates meets Polemarchus’ aged father Cephalus, who says that wealth wards off god’s wrath once he commits an act of injustice. Socrates then begins to bring up a thought provoking question based off of this opinion. If justice is nothing more than to speak the truth and pay off debts, then are there no other exceptions? Socrates asks “that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? (pg. 4). Labeling this man as a madman because he is referring to the weapon he gave to you as you borrowed it and he is not in the right mind to be handling a weapon. I believe that Socrates used this analogy to describe that this isn’t the true meaning of justice however, the society’s upper class believes that justice can be bought because of the way the political system therefor, Socrates uses this question to make them rethink their opinion and ponder the idea of justice because if you won’t give a madman a weapon why

After finishing his talk with Cephalus with the question. Cephalus had to have thought about his meaning behind his statement because he agrees with Socrates before he leaves but doesn’t give a reason to why he agrees yet he passes the torch to Polemarchus to finish. This means that maybe Cephalus didn’t really have a reason to believing this claim and after being questioned he began to think about his reasons for being unjust which is what Socrates wanted. Which makes Cephalus’s claim seem invalid from the beginning because he didn’t give a reason why he believed