Chapter 3 - Polemarchus

Summary

Polemarchus defines justice as the meting out of benefits and harms to friends and enemies as is fitting; his just man therefore necessarily requires skill: At what, however, is the just man skilled? Would not the skill of justice endorse thieving if that is what will help friends and harm enemies? Since t-justice (justice as a technē) is still justice, it must correctly identify friends and enemies lest it help enemies and harm friends. Socrates replaces these categories with good or just men and bad or unjust ones and asks: Is it just to harm those who are just, those who have committed no injustice? In Socrates’ final lesson to Polemarchus, the just man’s expertise is shown to harm no one, to make no one worse – that is, more unjust. Implicit in Socrates’ analogy with heat and dryness is that t-justice helps all people by making them “better,” more “lay-just” (or l-just), more just in the ordinary way. The chapter concludes with a brief excursus on the final argument in the Hippias Minor, in which “he who does wrong intentionally is the good man.”