Socrates Role Of Justice

INTRO: Plato, through the modem of his mentor Socrates explores the roles and forms of justice throughout The Republic. Through the discourse expressed between Socrates and his comrades, Socrates addresses and dispels the prevailing and dated theories of justice as a modem of blank and blank while expressing his own perceptions of justice, its role in society and how it comes into fruition. It is not until the end of Socrates’ discourse that the true manifestation of justice is brought forth; in which justice is expressed not in regards to “minding his external business” but on reflection of “what is within, with respect to what truly concerns him and his own.” (The Republic, 443c-d) Throughout The Republic, Plato argues through Socrates that

The “external business” in which Socrates refers to involves the outside forces that may deflect the focus of an individual from their internal maintenance and progression within the Polis. The “external forces” that are referred to are derived from theories from Socrates’ comrades Cephalus, Polemarchus and Thrasymachus. Cephalus suggests that justice is “speaking the truth and paying whatever debts one has incurred (The Republic, 331c), Polemarchus argues that justice “gives benefits to friends and does harm to enemies” (The Republic, 332d) and Thrasymachus states that “justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger” (The Republic, 338c) and while each of their theories vary in their expression and derivations, each alludes to justice as something external in which justice is based on fortuity or external force. External forces that are in play, as suggested throughout The Republic ranging from interactions with other individuals such as thievery or dishonesty, revenge or acts of honesty are repelled as external forces as Socrates suggests that justice is bringing integrity to the individual or the

Until we as a society view justice as an internal process rather than something shaped by “external forces,” (The Republic, 433c) we will never comprehend our true place within the Polis nor our own soul’s state of fulfillment as we begin to recognize our ‘just’