Why Is Socrates Doing Good To Enemies

The Republic

Went down to the Piraeus, Socrates and Glaucon saw Polemachus, Adeimantus, Niceratucs and some other friends. For long time no see, they invited Socrates and Glaucon to home, Polemarchus’s father. Then Cephalus and Socrates went to the question: What is justice? For Polemarchus, justice is “doing good to friends, doing evil to enemies”. “Friend” is meant, by Polemarchus, that help friends if they are decent, damage enemies if they are bad people, doing so is justice. This is a good argument, but it is not that good. Everyone who has at least one friend and one enemy is also a friend and enemy to somebody else. As Socrates meant, if we all do good to our friends and do evil to our enemies, that means we probably accidentally turning

Glaucon gave Socrates three classes: “goods are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes”; “second class of goods are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results”; the goods, as Glaucon meant, that people like because they got wages form work. Socrates thought the second one is the best, while Glaucon people would choose the third one rather than other. Glaucon debated that justice exists not because it is not a good thing to do, but people scared that, if they do injustice to other people, these people will do the injustice things back, so instead of doing injustice works, people made a kind of agreement to protect themselves. He also said that if someone was not scared of what people did bad to them, no one would be justice. For this, he told a story named Ring of Gyges. There was a man and an invisibility ring which make this man invisible. This guy attracted the Queen and then they made a plan to kill the King, so they could take the Kingdom. The inside meaning Glaucon wanted to say that the injustice man would do whatever he wanted to do to get advantage, or to get a best life such as having a lots money, having beautiful lady whereas the just man would not do. Adeimantus rejoined and claimed that no one wanted to be justice for its own sake, but for the reward they could get from it to have better lives. As Socrates had chosen from Glaucon’s classes, “second class of good, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results”. Adeimantus forced Socrates to prove why he chose that. Socrates proved with example about a State, the Republic. To create the Republic people worked together. The Republic would need, as Socrates told, “the first and greatest of necessities is food”, “the second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like”. Then Socrates divided job for each person by which they