Platos Republic and Justice

Plato’s Republic: A Definition of Justice
According to Plato, “justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect of the soul” (20). Another definition of it, however, is that justice is “the repayment of a debt” (4). This is a rather narrow definition of justice, and it is one that Socrates unpacks—but it to can get to the heart of the underlying meaning. The just man is one who pursues the good, while the unjust man is one who pursues evil. Of course, as is always the case with Socrates, everything must come around eventually to a definition of the good, which Plato defines in the dialogue as transcendental ideals that objectively exist as universals: to know justice is, as Socrates explains in the Allegory of the Cave, to pursue the ultimate reality, which exists high above, where the source of all good is to be found—in God. This paper will compare and contrast the two definitions of justice and explain how justice, ultimately, as defined by Plato, is alignment of the soul with the one, the true and the good.
The first definition—that justice is excellence of the soul—is not a great deal different from the second—that justice is the repayment of a debt. If Socrates can show that all men are indebted to the higher good that has filled them with life, then he can show that no man is just who has not repaid the debt—i.e., returned that life to its source. Plato makes certain in The Republic to constantly reiterate how difficult it is to apprehend a concept such as justice—namely because it is so difficult for men to understand what is meant by the good. Without a proper conception of the good, one cannot have a proper conception of justice. And yet so many go about their lives thinking that they not only understand justice perfectly well but that they are also good men. Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave to dispel this notion. He describes most men as like those living in the cave, watching shadows on the wall, thinking they are seeing real life. But one turns around and sees that real life is outside the cave—that what he is seeing is but the shadows. He leaves the cave and pursues the light and comes closer to understanding the reality, though the others stay behind, still engrossed in watching their own shadows. Those who go to the courts and argue the law are like the men still in the cave, talking “about the images or the shadows of images of justice” (Plato, Republic Bk. 7).
Likewise, in his conversation with Thrasymachus, Socrates attempts to get his conversant to arrive at an adequate definition of justice—but Socrates and he fail to do so, leaving Socrates to lament rather comically:
So have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of justice. I left that enquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy. (21)
Plato, in other words, shows that one can waste many words attempting to define justice, but there is no use doing so unless one can understand goodness first of all.
The two definitions work to provide a sense of justice in so far as they both set up a way into discussing what justice could be, theoretically. The first situates the discussion within the framework of virtue—i.e., justice is excellence of the soul. The second situates the discussion within the framework of action—i.e., justice is repayment. Both are different in this respect, yet neither completely gives a full definition because, as Plato makes obvious, no definition of justice can be complete without a definition of the good—and that must be saved for a later conversation.
Indeed, the definition of the good is really begun in the Allegory of the Cave, where Socrates shows that men but barely comprehend the good because they spend so much time living in darkness, vainly thinking they know what they know not. He shows that only he who enters into the light of reason, which can be bewildering at first just as the sun can be blinding, is one who is preparing to apprehend the good—and only that man can go on to attempt to define such things as justice.
Thus, the two definitions of justice given here may be adequate in furthering the discussion—but at length they both fall short of a complete definition because neither gets to the source of all that is good, as Plato would have his reader understand. The source of all that is good is above and is what imprints on the soul the concepts of goodness and truth: “This is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God—when regardless of that which we now call being she raised her head up towards the true being” (Plato Dialogues 417-418). Until a man can understand these things, he searches in vain to define all else.
In conclusion, the definitions of justice—as excellence of soul and as repayment of debt—are both ways to begin to understand the concept, but neither wholly explains its meaning as both are dependent upon a greater understanding of the good. Plato insists in the Allegory of the Cave that the good can only be known by climbing upwards in the mind to the source of all things, towards the good and the true. One must leave behind the shadows of thought and encounter the Reality above.
Works Cited
Plato. The Republic.
Plato. The Dialouges, vol. 1. Online Library of Liberty. Retrieved from http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/111/Plato_0131-01_EBk_v6.0.pdf