Justice As Depicted In Plato's The Republic

Plato’s The Republic revolved around the process of understanding what justice meant. It is clear that reaching an agreement on the meaning of something like justice is never easy. Socrates, Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon and others try to have a discussion on what is the true meaning of the term. Everybody, however, had their own beliefs and views on life. Thus each individual's answer was different from the other. Individual people have different ideas on what they think the basis of a society should be. Some people believe its freedom others believe its a world without prejudice. However, the foundation of Socrates’s ideal city was specialization.

In The Republic, there were different definitions of justice being thrown around but they all seemed to have holes in them. One of them was Polymarcus idea “That it is just to give to each what is owed”(I ,331e) This basically meant that justice is doing good to friends and causing harm to your enemies. Socrates pointed out the flaws in this argument as well as in others. Thus Socrates and

He believes that women and children should have a place in society but they do not have the same equalities. “We’ll tell the nurses and mothers to tell the approved tales to their children and to shape their souls”(II, 377c) This could however be because of the time period that The Republic was written in, because at that time only men were considered citizens. Also in his just city he wants to wipe out wealth. Wealth divides people and in this best city you can come from nothing and end up being a guardian. However, there is no real way for you to choose your own line of work. When you are a child somebody else must notice that you belong to a certain class. There is no way for you to climb to where you want to be. Thus if you were told that you were born to be a farmer but you hate farming then you would just have to live with