Socrates as a champion of justice

To find a common ground for these statements is a quite ambitious perspective. To clarify
what I mean I will try to conduct my own vision for both statements as they are presented in
Socrates’ quotes. My proposition is that a contradiction is not what these quotes are about. As I
believe, for Socrates it was not the same being a statesman and being a champion of justice. In
the critic of his accusers, Socrates uses rhetoric and logical sequences as a weapon against
ignorance and slander around him. I think the real statesmanship, from the Socrates point of
view, is about making clear statements for a public court. To convince people where the
nonsense lies is sophisticated art of being permanently critical towards your opponent’s speech.
The real politician in this sense has to concentrate on the way his speech flows. Considering
defence of justice, I assume it is a question of responsibility to divine powers, which could not be
rejected even by Socrates. As he mentions in the Apology, he has an ability to expose what is
untrue and share his words of wisdom with others.1 Hence, by doing that he follows the path of
justice as he cares about human virtue and teaches young people to live a life of the just.
Comparatively speaking, there is not so much contradictory within these quotes as it may seem.
Regarding the Socrates’ defence speech, I can denote him as a champion of justice in a
following way: Socrates happened to stuck in an unpleasant situation where he was indicted by
people, who, as he believed, did not even elaborate their accusations. The injustice surrounding
him was perceived as a chance to prove that even in front of the unfair accusers it is supremely
important to stay a just man. It means that every public virtue, if it is a goal of a community, has
to start with an individual confidence in its own match with the divine justice. Moreover, such
measure implemented on a level of future generations could provide a good potential for the
community prosperity, which was the main point of Socrates accusation and his defence.2
Interestingly enough, Socrates himself reflects the idea of justice through its opposite term –
injustice. Thereby, he puts himself in a position where he has to refute the charges eventually
breaking down what it means to be unjust.
Moving forward to the concepts analysis, I should bring some primary notes. It is
important to mention, there were no clear concepts given by Socrates himself. What is presented
in later Plato’s dialogues is a fictional character, presumably based on a historical persona.3 With
that being said, we can only track the Plato’s interpretations of Socrates’ words or even the
Plato’s words embedded into Socrates character. In the text of Republic, we can see that Socrates
defines justice by analogical comparison. Just as justice in the ideal city, depicted in the Republic,
is defined by each of its social class holding on its own business and engaging the one thing for
which class is mostly fitted. So justice in the soul is defined by each of its faculties minding its
own business doing the one thing it does in the best way. In the first book of Republic Socrates
argues with Polemarchus about an ability of a just man to punish (or harm) his opponents.
Socrates proves that justice, as one of the human virtues, does not allow anyone to make other
people unjust.4 Here, we see a familiar balance, as we aforementioned it. By the Republic book
3 Plato’s character Socrates turns to defining injustice the same way so he can answer
Thrasymachus’ claim that it’s better to be unjust. Again, he defines injustice the same way - by
analogical comparison - since the city is ruined by class warfare, so a soul divided against itself by

1
Thomas G. West, Plato’s Apology of Socrates: An Interpretation, with a New Translation. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1979. p. 19. URL: http://www.sjsu.edu/people/james.lindahl/courses/Phil70A/s3/apology.pdf
2
Ibid. p. 6. URL: http://www.sjsu.edu/people/james.lindahl/courses/Phil70A/s3/apology.pdf
3
Johnson, Curtis. Socrates On Obedience and Justice, The Western Political Quarterly,
Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), p. 720.
4
Jeffrey, Andrew. Polemarchus and Socrates On Justice and Harm, Phronesis, Vol. 24, № 1 (1979), p. 54.
unjust crimes cannot flourish.5 Therefore, despite the popular view about it pointed out by
Thrasymachus, it is better after all for the good of any soul to be just always.
In the Apology, we do see that Socrates refused to give in to political pressure when he
himself served on citizen juries, as well as refusing to lie to save his own life when he was put on
the Athens trial in what probably was a show trial. He believed he owed loyalty to his own city-
state by living in it his whole life. 6 Being loyal enough to the justice offered there, he submitted
to the point of death even though his friends wanted to spirit him away. It is interesting to notice
that sometimes he claims a right for civil disobedience as he refuses to cease his spreading of
philosophy. As close as you may get, it might be possible to say that he believed in being
honourable, honest, dispassionate and fair, which could be linked to the entity of a soul,
presented in the Republic text. However, in the Apology, as he was the one who faced the trial,
we can distinguish this concept as an ‘individualistic’ one. Thus, comparing two defined concepts,
we can suppose that justice in the Republic was understood as a restraint for collective virtue. In
the Apology, in its turn, it is a more personal comprehension of individual justice.
To sum up the entire work, I can argue that it is not so obvious to build up a contradiction
between given Socrates’ quotes. Speaking on Socrates being a defender of justice, I noted that
for him it is significant to abide by the way of divine law and not to turn aside under whatever
circumstances. For the last task, I defined two concepts of justice presented in the Republic and
the Apology respectively. I emphasized that the Republic concept is more connected to state and
civil relationship, since justice appears to be an important part of the civil dignity. In the Apology,
Socrates tests his own belief in practice, so to say, affirming the individual obligation to remain
fair despite the injustice around.

Number of words: 1005

5
Plato. The Republic. Trans. by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1991. p. 75. URL:
http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Political_Thought/Plato-Republic.pdf
6
Thomas G. West, Plato’s Apology of Socrates: An Interpretation, with a New Translation. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1979. p. 12. URL: http://www.sjsu.edu/people/james.lindahl/courses/Phil70A/s3/apology.pdf
 Bibliography

1) Jeffrey, Andrew. Polemarchus and Socrates On Justice and Harm, Phronesis, Vol. 24, № 1
(1979), p. 54.
2) Johnson, Curtis. Socrates On Obedience and Justice, The Western Political Quarterly,
Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), p. 720.
3) Thomas G. West, Plato’s Apology of Socrates: An Interpretation, with a New Translation.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979. p. 12. URL:
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/james.lindahl/courses/Phil70A/s3/apology.pdf
4) Plato. The Republic. Trans. by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1991. p. 75. URL:
http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Political_Thought/Plato-Republic.pdf