Justice According To Cephalous And Socrates

Book One
1. What is justice?
2. How does one preform it?
Cephalous and Socrates discuss age, death, and wealth.
• As you get older you begin to value conversations more than things.
• According to Cephalous, the greatest advantage to wealth is “setting on thing against another”. There is no need to fraud against others. You can also give as mush to the Gods as you want o It doesn’t matter how much you inherit, but it matters how much you earn
Their discussion about justice (speak the truth and pay your debts).
• Friend asks you to watch his weapons…is it right to give it back to them if the ask for them back? o Cephalous excuses himself before answering. Polemarchus takes his spot.
• Justice is giving to each man what they owe o Justice does
o In this city, telling stories to children should be banned o Thinks Gods should not be represented as lying or deceitful.
Book three
• Socrates and Adeimantus agree that literature should not portray death negatively, the afterlife shouldn’t be described as bad, and that no heroic figure should be depicted as grieving someone in any work.
1. Socrates thinks grieving shows weakness and too much emotion, therefore he thinks grieving and laughing should be limited. -They want the youth to be moderate in everything.
2. Taking these aspects of literature away will teach children not to be afraid of death.
 Will have to beg Homer and other poets not to be angry when they ask them to remove these aspects.
• They return to the subject of lying
1. Only guardians should be allowed to lie for the benefit of the youth.
 Ex. Only doctors can prescribe medicine, because they know what is good for their patient.
• They also want to remove any stories about receiving or giving gifts as a form of praise.
• Stories that involve Gods raping should also be removed.
• Poetry should never depict happy people as unjust. It should be used as a tool to promote the idea of
• How children are raised o Women and children won’t belong to just one family, but to the whole city o Guardians will choose men and women groups o Everyone lives together o Sex should be a reward
 Can only happen when they are in their prime and are commanded to by religion
 Incest babies are executed-but how do you know they are incest if you don’t raise like a family? o No private property. Everyone must have equality.
 When one person hurt, the whole city hurts. o They discuss how their city will use different terminology and how that will affect the city
 Cliques won’t exist
 Poor and rich won’t exist
• War in the city o Only non-Greek, barbarian enemies should be enslaved o Other Greeks are friends, treat them moderately
• Socrates thinks that a philosopher (love of wisdom) should rule the city o Socrates says this principle holds true for philosophy. A lover of wisdom doesn't just love some parts of wisdom and not others- he loves all