“JUSTICE”
In book one of the novel Republic revised by C.D.C. Reeve, Plato through the words of Socrates tries to answer the question: What is justice? The story begins at a festival where Polemarchus meets Socrates and invites him to his house. At Polemarchus houses Socrates meets Cephalus, an old aged man who is very happy about his life right now and the life he has already lived. Socrates proceeds talking to him because he believes that older man have more knowledge and experience than the younger ones and one can learn a lot from them, since they have seen life more than we have. During this conversation Socrates asks Cephalus whether he truly thinks that “justice is as simple as telling the truth and returning what you receive.” To strengthen his argument, he gives the following as an example: “if a person receives a weapon from a friend who then becomes insane, would it be just to return that weapon if the friend asked for it back? In this case, what awould be justice - giving him his weapon back or not?” The two men then agree that telling the truth and returning what you receive cannot be the definition of justice. Then this same question was addressed by and attempted to be answered by Polemarchus. There were few arguments give by him but yet was not able to please Socrates.
Polemarchus first attempt to answering Socrates question was as follows: “justice is giving each his due." Socrates objection to this argument was by giving each person his "due," you would also harm your enemy. As seen in the friend and weapon example given by Socrates earlier. Then Polemarchus revises his definition of justice and says: “justice is helping your friends and harming your enemies.”
Socrates then questions: “are friends people who seem honest, or people who are honest but don't seem so?” In other words Socrates says we might be mistaken about who our friends and enemies are. The reply to Socrates question by Polemarchus was that -Friends are those who you...