Justice (capital "J" justice)

Hello.

Tonight, the assignment is the kind I like the least. I really don’t like answering these direct text questions, by that, I mean questions that can be looked up in the text. While they prove that someone is reading the text, there is no room for opinion or judgment of what has been said. I hope that you are reading this, Mr. Jana. To the questions…

Who are Cephalus and Polemarchus?

Chephalus is an old man who lives in the sea port of Piraeus. He speaks, in the first part of this section, about old age and how each man takes it differently. He appears to be wealthy, but not too wealthy, though he cares nothing for money.

Polemarchus is Chephalus’ son and appears to be a friend of Socrates’. As of yet, he has not spoken very much.

What is the profession of Cephalus?

Now he is an old man, and so has no real profession. His father and his grandfather both had and made money (though his father seemed to lose more than he made). He has made some of his own money, though some of it was inherited. I would guess that his family was in the merchant business.

What was Cephalus doing right before the discussion that took place?

Sacrificing something. There seems to be some kind of caravel or festival going on in devotion to some goddess.

According to Cephalus, what are the virtues of old age?

You are not plagued by desires for sex (in Cephalus’ case, though there are some me who yearn for youth, parties and physical pleasure), again in Cephalus’ case, you don’t care much about money and it is a time to right all your wrongs and contemplate what happens to someone when they die.

What are Cephalus’ view of justice?

Cephalus believes that you should be truthful and repay all of your debts, because, especially in his case, he believes that it is stupid to take money with you when you die.

What is Socrates response?

That it is not always right to be truthful (which I agree with, sometimes, I think that it is better to tell someone what they want to hear, but this only extends to small matters. In anything large, I believe one should always tell the truth) or to return things that you have borrowed, for example, if you borrowed a weapon from a man that then when mad and wanted it back, it would be best not to give it to him, or tell him the truth about his madness, say.

As to who I agree with, I say that I agree with ELEMENTS, elements only, of both arguments. I agree that nine times out of ten, you should be entirely truthful, and that tenth time, you shouldn’t tell an outright lie, but more of a half truth. Cephalus believes that you should ALWAYS be truthful, but I don’t think that. I can’s agree with Socrates either, because I believe that nine times out of ten, you should return something that has been borrowed, of course, in Socrates’ example, I wouldn’t recommend putting a weapon in the hand of a mad man, but the rest of the times, I would say that it is better to return something.

Part of the reason that I like Cephalus’ argument is that it is very different from the other arguments that we talked about in class. Those arguments were, Justice is truth and returning what you borrowed (Cephalus’), Justice is helping your friends and harming your enemies, or, there is no Justice, there is only force and the strong and what the strong make you do, the punishments that they exact to keep people from misbehaving. I have paraphrased these, so they may be a little different. In the other arguments, force is always implied, help your friends HURT your enemies. MIGHT is right. So I like Cephalus and think that his argument because it is very peaceful, though not necessarily right all the time.

More updates on Plato to come.

Goodbye.