The Definition Of Justice In Plato's Plato Republic

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In the first book of Plato Republic, readers are given a few definitions of what justice could be. Then Immediately following each each definition, Socrates, the protagonist of the story finds ways to turn it down or simply prove it to be untrue. Weather or not it is the intention of Plato to deny the readers of a simple definition, the author still hents at key elements of what he believes justice to look like. At 335 point “e” Socrates asks a fellow thinker, “has it become clear to us that it is never just to harm anyone?”. When the people of modern day are asked to acknowledge this statement, for its accuracy, the correct answer should not be a simple true or false, but rather an acknowledgement of why it is both. In order to that the readers …show more content…

Not only is this a critical point in the origin of the claim in question, but also the watershed in the conversation between Socrates and Polemarchus. In this section of the book,socrates asks “friends, do you mean those a person believes to be good and useful to him or those who are actually are good and useful, even if he doesn’t think they are? With this question socrates opens the door for a search for a definition of the term friend. After Polemarchus tries to provide a definition, socrates bombards him with questions that are designed to give readers an idea of what friends truly are. To shorten the conversation, socrates’s words lead to the understanding that a friend is someone that is believed to be good and useful, though he also makes it clear that humans are not perfect and can mistake good people as enemies and bad ones as friends. The next significant claim takes place at 335 point “a”. Socrates begins by posing the question of whether “it is just to treat well a friend who is good and to harm an enemy …show more content…

In the beginning of this discussion, Polemarchus made the claim that a just man helps his friends and hurts his enemies. The error in this idea is that if someone goes around hurting who he believes to be enemies, he will find himself with fake friends. Socrates is not claiming that having enemies is bad, he is simply stating that it is not easy to tell who your enemies are. This is very true.in the world of international politics large countries often claim to be friends, but when push comes to shove, their actions are louder than there words. In the past North korea has raised arms against the united states and their south korea. China a powerhouse country with trade connections to the United States as well as North Korea, has a history of randomly taking different sides. In the 60s, and 90s china was the guardian of north Korea and its endeavors, but in the 70s they aided the united states in protecting south Korea, and in 2011 they came to the aid of the U.S when North Korea threatened war. The next claim made is that one cannot make something just by being unjust. The example given in the plato's republic is how a horse, if treated well will become a good horse. But the same horse, if treated poorly will lose virtue in the way of horses. This claim is not always true, such as the son of an abusive alcoholic may go to college for social work, or in

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