ot in use (money and property), and because good keepers are in a position to be the best thieves, justice appears to be the craft of thievery, to the benefit of one’s friends.Polemarchus objects to Socrates’ conclusion. Socrates says that maybe his problem is that he does not know what Polemarchus means by “friend.” Polemarchus responds that friends are those who we think are good and helpful to us. However, asks Socrates, can we be mistaken about who our friends and enemies are? If we can, we may be helping or harming the wrong people, which could not be justice. Thus there is a contradiction, justice can both help and harm friends. Polemarchus then says that a friend is someone that is good is a friend.Socrates then says that it cannot be a function of justice to harm anyone at all. Do we not consider justice to be an excellence of character? Socrates then says that no excellence – whether of horses or humans – is ever achieved through destructive means. The function of justice is to improve human nature. Whatever else it is, justice is a form of goodness that cannot participate in anything injurious to someone’s character. Socrates uses his Socratic method when he seeks to find out what justice is. It is a technique of questions and answers used to discover knowledge. By questioning someone, Socrates refines their definition of something and thus together they reach a better understanding. The flaw of this type of method is that it presumes that Socrates will find the correct answer. However, what is he does not, as will happen in the question of what is justice? Socrates is able to refute Thrasymachus’ claim that justice is whatever benefits of the stronger by questioning Thrasymachus, but he does not come to any conclusion about justice.Thrasymachus then accuses Socrates and Polemarchus of talking nonsense with all this questioning and answering. Thrasymachus wants to know why Socrat...
