Platos Views on Justice

Plato has many thoughts on justice spread throughout his book The Republic. The first time he discusses justice is in Book I page 13. This is when Socrates is talking to Cephalus about justice. Cephalus' thinks that justice is paying your debts to whoever your debtors are and always telling the truth. Soon after, Cephalus leaves to tend to the sacrifices at the temple leaving Polemarchus to give his ideas on justice to Socrates. I think that Polemarchus explains justice better to Socrates than Cephalus. Polemarchus tries to explain that justice is giving to each man what is rightfully his. Therefore, if you have an enemy you shouldn't treat them with kindness but instead you should treat him how he treats you. Basically, justice in Polemarchus' eyes is that if someone wrongs you then you shouldn't repay your debt to them. And if someone is your friend then you should pay them back your debt. Socrates disagrees with this because sometimes we don't have the most virtuous friends. Also, our enemies aren't always the evilest of people even though we may think they are.
Around page 19 of book 1 we are introduced to a new character in the book named Thrasymachus he is a type of person known back then and today as Sophists. Sophists are people who believe that justice is worthless and should be done away with entirely. He had been trying to get in on the argument the entire time Socrates and Polemarchus were talking but was always ignored or told to be quiet. He was also very perturbed by all the flaws in Socrates' argument about justice. One thing that Thrasymachus said on page 24 of book 1 really interested me he said “...justice is the interest of the stronger.”. This meaning that whatever is right is decided by who ever has more power, money, etcetera. But Socrates uses the captain of a ship of sailors (and many others) as a way to show that even though justice is in the interest of the stronger the stronger usually has the interests of the weaker in mind when making decisions. To these examples Thrasymachus says that the only reason the stronger helps the weaker is to get a head in life. This is when Thrasymachus' true colors start to show and we as readers are introduced to the idea of living unjust as the right way to live. The way that Thrasymachus supports this is him saying that only the more intelligent and strong of this world are the only ones able to be unjust because they are smart enough to think for themselves. He also is saying that the more unjust you are the more things you get using a tyrant as an example
In the end of book I Thrasymachus leaves due to the fact that he thinks that Socrates is trying to do him personal harm by making him look bad in front of his friends. Glaucon (another person of the group) was dissatisfied when Thrasymachus left because he was hoping to give Socrates a better chance at explaining why justice is better than injustice. He is introduced in page forty-one of book II. Since he wanted closure on this subject he started to question Socrates himself. The way he does this is by trying to continue Thrasymachus' argument. Another person that was in the group but really hasn't talked much until now is a man called Adeimantus. His main purpose is to question the virtue of justice as just or something entirely different. Socrates talks for a while about the old days where justice was non existent and law wasn't even thought of. It was basically every tribe for itself but this posed problems because no one was able to rise to power since there was no law and no way of keeping people under control. This time was not a happy one since a lot of people were in need of some form of help because they weren't strong enough or smart enough to get things on their own. So a crude form of law was established.
So what I learned about justice from The Republic is that without it we are indeed a very weak people contrary to Thrasymachus' thinking. If we do not have law and order everything we try to do will fail since everything in God's world has order and balance and justice.