Given Unto a Madman

Who are we to decide what somebody deserves? Sure, if one were to commit a crime, most would say that they deserve a punishment. But why do we deem ourselves worthy to determine “what is appropriate to him, and this is what he called giving him what he is owed” (332c)? In book one of Plato’s socratic dialogue, The Republic, justice is a hot topic between Socrates and the other characters (this essay will be focusing on Polemarchus). Socrates provokes Polemarchus into describing what is just. Polemarchus responds “he said it is just to give to each what is owed to him. And a fine saying it is, in my view.” (331e). Socrates counters by saying “Clearly, he does not mean what we said a moment ago - namely, giving back to someone whatever he has lent to you, even if he is out of his mind” (331e). This sets us up for Polemarchus to state that a friend, or a good person, is owed something good, and an enemy, or a person commits a crime, is owed something bad. But is this our right to decide what is an equivalent evil? Wouldn’t an “eye for an eye” tactic simply cause us to be as immoral as the antagonist? Can justice be subjective?

In the early times of humanity, it was often believed that the law of retaliation (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…) was an efficient system of justice. If a brother of someone was killed, it was perfectly reasonable for the murderer to have his sibling killed as well. In a scenario like that, it becomes apparent that if we were to murder the enemy’s sibling,  we would be as guilty as the original assailant. We see this cycle clearly in The Oresteia, a trilogy of greek tragedies written by Aeschylus. The cycle continues until multiple people die, and some of them innocent of any crime. Not only would we be as guilty as the assailant, we could possibly me more guilty, because our victim could be an innocent person, not deserving any negative action done to them.

When we look at our job as humans, we tend to be a bit narcissistic. When someone commits a crime, we take it upon ourselves to decide what they deserve as a reciprocation of said crime. But when we do things like this, are we taking the job of a higher power? In the time of Plato’s work of literature, the Greek pantheon was the majority religion. The afterlife was generally the place that would give souls what they deserve. If dying honorably, or being worthy, you would die and go to Elysium. If your life was wasted on unrequited love, your soul would be bound to the mourning fields, etc. It seems like justice becomes a job of the gods.

So by the gods having an afterlife location appropriate to what is done in the lives of the soul, does this mean that justice is defined to them? Or could our views of justice be different from others? In our history as humans, we’ve struggled with how to treat crime. In our current time, the topic of the death penalty is controversial. On one side, people agree for multiple reasons. One of which is because if the crime is worthy, they believe that they have forfeited their life. However, the opposing side argues that we do not have the right to take a life because of what they’ve done. They deserve something, because what they have done was inherently wrong, but taking their life isn’t our right. Justice simply cannot be defined in a way that everyone can agree on, because there will always be opposition to an opinion.

In conclusion, Plato explores what justice is in his socratic dialogue, The Republic. Truthfully, justice seems to be a topic that could be discussed forever. Everybody has differing opinions, and agreeing could prove impossible on something as complex as defining justice. However, we can agree that justice is something that must happen eventually.