Monday, May 08, 2006
In reading page 10 of The Republic of Plato, I seem to have become hopelessly confused over Socrates' and Polemarchus' interpretation of Simonides' definition of "justice", and as such I have decided to take a departure from the reading of their as-yet senseless ramblings, simply adopt the definition provided by Simonides based on what I already know, and see if I can come up with my own understanding of what he actually meant.
Firstly, let us start off with definitions.
Good: That which does no harm in any conceivable form, for it is not possible to know whether something can be truly harmless or truly "good". However, according to what has transpired amongst Cephalus, Socrates and Polemarchus, justice is something to be upheld, and is necessarily good. I shall have to assume that this implies that the execution of justice does no net harm; when body A exerts harm onto body B, body B should exert an equal and opposite harm onto body A. No net harm results that can be transferred unequally onto each and other bodies. As such, justice shall be considered as a proper subset of Good.
Bad: That which does net harm in any conceivable form.
Friend: A person who, at the time of reference, has not done bad things unto oneself.
Enemy: A person who, at the time of reference, has done bad things unto oneself.
Simonides' definition of Justice: To give back whatever is owed, encompassing good or bad acts, just or unjust acts.
To be Just:
-to give back to friends what is owed; what is in your possession that is theirs-- the friend which has bestowed one with good acts shall be bestowed with good acts in turn.
-to give back to enemies what is owed, what is in your possession that is theirs-- the enemy which has bestowed one with bad acts shall be bestowed with bad acts in turn.
Generic form-- the person which has bestowed one with acts good or bad, just or unjust, shall be equally bestowed in return.
To be Unjust:
-to NOT give back a friend or enemy the good/bad/just/unjust things that they have hitherto bestowed upon you. Whether this has to be necessarily good or bad remains to be seen.
To illustrate,
Consider Case 1: When a friend repays you money that you have given to him, he is being just and therefore good, and it is just to repay his just and good act with something equally just and good.
Consider Case 2: When a person repays you hurt that you have given to him, he is being just and therefore good, and it is just to repay his just and good act with something equally just and good.
Now let us consider the resultant good and bad implications of exercising justice on these two cases.
In Case 1, you have first done something neither just nor unjust, but good, in giving your friend money, and your friend, in performing an act of justice, repays you the good by returning you the money. His act of justice is necessarily good.
In Case 2, you have first done something neither just nor unjust, but bad, in giving your victim (for he cannot be your enemy if he has not done bad things to you first) hurt, and your victim, in performing an act of justice, repays you the bad by returning you the hurt. His act of justice is necessarily good, and it can be said to remedy the hurt that you have caused to him in the first place, bringing about no net gain or loss in goodness.
We can see that at this stage, the exercise of justice brings about goodness if we are to accept that justice is good. Now let us consider the further implications the exercise of justice has on these two cases.
In Case 1, your friend doing a good act of justice to you should make you repay the goodness by doing something good back to him in turn.
In Case 2, your enemy doing a good act of justice to you should make you repay the goodness by doing something good back to him in turn. of course, if one commits another act of justice whereby one returns whatever unreturned hurt that he might have caused to you in the past, that could be considered as good as well, since it is just. but in the case described, you were the one who started it, so "returning the hurt" cannot apply here.
We can see that at this stage, the exercise of justice brings about further goodness when one gives back something good to the person who has treated one justly. As such, it is safe to conclude that when justice is upheld, goodness is a necessary result.
Now let us consider unjust acts.
In Case 1, if your friend does not repay the good that you have given him, then he is unjust. Even in this unjust situation, however, goodness is still obtained, as your friend benefits and you are not harmed anyway. However, if he does justly return the good back to you and you do not return the goodness of his just act back to him in turn, then you are unjust. In this situation, goodness again still results regardless of whether or not you are just, because you benefit and no harm comes to your friend. We can see that in the absence of justice, even if your friend, or you, are unjust in not returning the good imparted upon him by the other, goodness still results. Justice in this case is irrelevant to the bringing about of goodness.
In Case 2, if your victim does not repay the hurt that you have given him, then he is unjust. However, if he does justly return the hurt back to you and you do not return the goodness of his just act back to him in turn, then you are unjust. We can see that in the absence of justice; i.e. your victim does not return the hurt, then at that stage no goodness results, for the victim has suffered hurt, which is a bad thing and indicates a loss in goodness. At the second stage, if you do not repay your victim's just act of retribution with an act of goodness, then once again, no goodness can result, and you might still go on to cause hurt to others, having no need to perform the acts of good necessitated by the exercise of justice, which would further increase this loss in goodness.
From the above two cases, we can understand that even if justice were to not exist, it is still possible for good to happen if people were to just give others goodness, receiving nothing in return. However, if people were to cause hurt to others in the absence of justice, then a loss in goodness would result if nothing were there to stop the hurters from causing hurt, or to stop the hurt from hurting. Without justice, and in the absence of any other external factors, this appears to me to be the one reason for justice to exist-- to make sure that the one who causes hurt to the victim must end up being hurt in return, and must also erase the damage initially done by doing good to the victim, such that there is ultimately still a gain in goodness.
We can readily see how justice carries out this function of "stopping the hurters from causing hurt, and stopping the hurt from hurting" in our modern day system of justice-- the legal system. Person A hurts Person B, Person B returns the favour by suing Person A, Person A is forced to do good by compensating Person B in damages. Person B's hurt is remedied both by his suing of Person A as well as the compensation received from Person A, whereas Person A is hurt in turn both by being sued as well as by having to compensate for the hurt that he has caused.
Ah! Now I think I understand Simonides... however, I still do not think that justice is absolutely necessary, or that it is the best safeguard in stopping the hurters from causing hurt, or in stopping the hurt from hurting. Perhaps there could exist an alternative method.. a nicer method, preferably one that does not involve the hurter being hurt in turn. This would of course, drastically reduce the amount of hurt that has to necessarily occur as a by-product of the preservation of goodness. But that would be another topic for another time.. we'll see.
