Justice versus Injustice: An Interpretation of Socrates Dialogues
The dialogical philosophy of Socrates, the extensity to which Socrates used dialogues and questions in the search for truth is well explicated in Plato’s book the republic, a compilation of what is widely acknowledged as Socrates’ contribution in the realm of knowledge. The republic, which comprises of book I to book X, exonerates a variety of Socrates dialogues in the endeavor to address problems of philosophy related to virtue, morality, justice, and politics. In this essay, emphasis is given particularly to book II to VII, in an attempt to present a logical view of Socrates’ conception of justice vis-à-vis injustice based on Glaucon and Adeimantus’ arguments. …show more content…
However, he has not been willing to give a full account of the erotic structure of the just city, and so to cater to the nature of Glaucon, no doubt because one cannot consider eros thoroughly without rising up to philosophy, a step that, for all his intelligence, Glaucon cannot take. Socrates is compelled to go into these matters by two people who are radically less erotic than Glaucon, and who are puzzled by the shocking advocacy of women and children in common. It is notable that Adeimantus takes time to feel the shock, but Glaucon never feels it (362c-364e). His construction of the just city is not simply voluntary. He is compelled to defend justice by his piety, but once he begins this defense, he has to accommodate it to the several and different elements in his audience. Indeed, the analogies to the other crafts of medicine, gymnastic, and cookery invoked by Socrates to explain to Polus what he understands justice to be clearly suggest that, in this context, he understands it as involving practices rather than a condition of the soul. Craft-language in general connotes the practices of the craftsman much more than his interior condition. It is important to observe that Socrates does not claim to know what justice is, other than to know that justice is the soul’s proper order, that by which men become law-abiding and orderly. He does …show more content…
Another way to relate a just person and a just society is to apply the concept of justice first to a person, define it for this case, and then conceive of a just society as a society composed of just persons defined. Such a conception of a just society would be like a conception of a divine city as a city composed of angels. Unlike Glaucon who supposed the origin of justice to be found in individuals’ desires, the scarcity of resources for satisfying them, and the consequent conflicts among individuals, Socrates suggests that the origin of the city-state is to be found in human needs, the fact that each individual is not self-sufficient to satisfy them, and in the resulting cooperation between them. In Glaucon’s view, human desires, scarce resources, and the consequent conflicts among individuals set up the need for justice over these resources as dominant in the modern times. Glaucon begins his arguments by telling the origin and nature of justice. Instead of viewing people as social and caring by nature, he argues that everyone by nature is self-centered. Everyone looks out for his own good. Justice originates in a world of scarce goods in which we would life to be free to take from people whatever we want or to harm