Plato
Plato
The Republic
Setting: Piraeus; House of Polemarchus
Characters:
Socrates
Glaucon
Adeimantus
Polemarchus
Cephalus
Thrasymachus
Book I
What is money good for?
Socrates: But what if you have a friend who asked you to keep a
weapon then becomes insane and comes back and asks for it? Do we
owe to return the weapon?
Polemarchus: Give people what they owed. Benefit to our friends and
harm to our enemies.
Socrates: But people make mistakes as to who are friends and
enemies.
Socrates: But bad people are already bad but shouldn’t we do good to
them so they can better? Justice to everybody benefits everyone.
Thrasymachus: Tyrants, the most unjust, are the happiest and richest
because of their tyranny. Victims of tyranny, those most unwilling to do
injustice, are the most wretched. Men oppose injustice because they
are afraid of being harmed by it, not because they fear engaging in it.
Socrates: Good men rule out of fear of a bad ruler being forced
upon them.
Socrates: Does a just man have a happier life than the unjust?
Book II
What motivates us to behave ethically?
Socrates is proposing to argue from the general, the justice of the city
or group, to the particular, the concept of justice and the individual.