Gargi Ketkar
Hogan
Social Foundations, Tuesdays
16 October 2015
Summation: Book I Introduction: The main questions explored in the first book of the Republic are questions of morality and justice. How do each of the characters Socrates interacts with define what makes something or someone moral? What is justice’s role in a functioning society?
Cephalus: Socrates begins talking to Cephalus saying that he believes that we have a lot to learn from the old because they can tell us about what may lie ahead for us in life since they have experienced so much. Socrates asks Cephalus if it’s difficult to be on this threshold of old age, if he misses things about his life, if there’s things he can no longer enjoy (like sex). Cephalus tells Socrates …show more content…
Socrates asks him what he (Polemarchus) thinks morality is. Polemarchus defines morality/justice as “giving anyone back what you owe them.” Socrates argues against this point by once again bringing up the example of the once sane but now crazed friend. He finally gets Polemarchs to elaborate further on what he was saying before. Polemarchus then says that you must give people what is owed to them. According to Polemarchus we should do good deeds for our friends and we owe an enemy what an enemy deserves, something bad. Socrates goes on to challenge this again saying that it could also be the case that the people who we call our friends, could actually be bad people, and maybe the people who we claim to be our enemies could actually be good people. Following this logic, it could be possible that if we applied Polemarchus’s definiton of justice and morality we could be accidentally doing good things for people who are actually bad (we just don’t know it). Hearing Socrates out, Polemarchus then develops another definition. He concedes that maybe morality has to do with doing good things for a person who is fundamentally good and moral and to punish or harm a person who is fundamentally
Hogan
Social Foundations, Tuesdays
16 October 2015
Summation: Book I Introduction: The main questions explored in the first book of the Republic are questions of morality and justice. How do each of the characters Socrates interacts with define what makes something or someone moral? What is justice’s role in a functioning society?
Cephalus: Socrates begins talking to Cephalus saying that he believes that we have a lot to learn from the old because they can tell us about what may lie ahead for us in life since they have experienced so much. Socrates asks Cephalus if it’s difficult to be on this threshold of old age, if he misses things about his life, if there’s things he can no longer enjoy (like sex). Cephalus tells Socrates …show more content…
Socrates asks him what he (Polemarchus) thinks morality is. Polemarchus defines morality/justice as “giving anyone back what you owe them.” Socrates argues against this point by once again bringing up the example of the once sane but now crazed friend. He finally gets Polemarchs to elaborate further on what he was saying before. Polemarchus then says that you must give people what is owed to them. According to Polemarchus we should do good deeds for our friends and we owe an enemy what an enemy deserves, something bad. Socrates goes on to challenge this again saying that it could also be the case that the people who we call our friends, could actually be bad people, and maybe the people who we claim to be our enemies could actually be good people. Following this logic, it could be possible that if we applied Polemarchus’s definiton of justice and morality we could be accidentally doing good things for people who are actually bad (we just don’t know it). Hearing Socrates out, Polemarchus then develops another definition. He concedes that maybe morality has to do with doing good things for a person who is fundamentally good and moral and to punish or harm a person who is fundamentally