Socrates and Definitions of Justice

### Who was Socrates IRL?

• Socrates was Plato's teacher
• He questioned people to reach true answers about fundamental ideas
• He was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth by suggesting new ideas, but he refused to apologize and take back his teachings.
• He committed suicide as opposed to apologizing.
• Socrates believed morality is more important than the law.

Cephalus

• Cephalus is the father of Polemarchus
• He is a rich and old man, but he is happy because he lived a just life
• His definition of justice is "Speak the truth and pay your debts."
• This means fulfilling your obligations, both physical (returning borrowed items) and moral (returning good deeds)
• Socrates argues that truth and justice are good things, but sometimes justice must be prioritized over truth.

Polemarchus

• Polemarchus defines justice as "giving each what is owed to him"
• This means benefiting friends and harming enemies
• Socrates refutes this definition, arguing people make mistakes and that harming enemies doesn't promote virtue.
• He uses the metaphor "It isn’t the function of heat to cool but its opposite" (pg.11, line 333d) to illustrate that harming someone is not just.
• Socrates believes that the just person will harm no one.

Thrasymachus

• Thrasymachus is arrogant and a bully.
• His definition of justice is "the advantage of the stronger".
• This means doing what is best for those with power.
• He believes that "A bad life happens when you live in a bad city" and "A good city is a just city".

Democracy

• A just city is one where everyone is kind and follows basic moral principles.
• Justice and Democracy should be for everyone.
• Cornel West argues that Democracy cannot be based solely on majority rule.
• Wendy Brown states that Democracy means "People governing themselves".
• Plato believed that "A city divided by wealth and poverty doesn't work".
• A Syrian refugee stated that Democracy is not freedom, but justice: "Freedom for what?".

Macroscopic Justice

• Justice is a macro concept that applies to an entire city.
• Cities exist because:
  • People need many things and are not self-sufficient.
  • People have different talents.
• Societies need to avoid extremes of both wealth and poverty to maintain balance and harmony.
• Moderation is key to achieving harmony, meaning everyone should have an equal balance of work, food, and money.
• Just cities are those where everyone does their part well and avoids meddling in others' affairs.
• Justice is order in both the soul and the city.

The Cave Allegory

• The people chained up in the cave represent producers, who only believe in the shadows created by puppets as reality.
• The guardians are the puppet masters who control the information the producers receive.

Empiricism and Rationalism

• Empiricism: knowledge is limited to our experiences, we are born as a blank slate (Locke and Hume)
• Rationalism: some ideas are innate and we are not blank slates (Kant, Descartes, and Hegel)

Hegel’s Dialectic

• Hegel believed in progress and change, and developed the concept of "dialectic".
• The Dialectic is a model for understanding how progress occurs.
• The dialectic views everything as interconnected and avoids separating mind and body (dualism).
• The process of progress can be broken down into three stages:
  • Thesis: The initial idea
  • Anti-Thesis: Conflict and negation
  • Synthesis: The evolved state
• Not every dialectic scenario will have a good synthesis or a synthesis at all.