Definition of Justice by Simonides — It consists in rendering to every man what is owing to him.
“Is that your explanation of justice (asks Sokrates): that it consists in telling truth, and rendering to every one what you have had from him?” The old man Kephalus here withdraws; Polemarchus and the others prosecute the discussion. “The poet Simonides (says Polemarchus) gives an explanation like to that which you have stated — when he affirms, That just dealing consists in rendering to every man what is owing to him.”
Objections to it by Sokrates — There are cases in which it is not right to restore what is owing, or to tell the truth.
“I do not know what Simonides means,” replies Sokrates. “He cannot mean that it is always right to tell the truth, or always right to give back a deposit. If my friend, having deposited arms with me, afterwards goes mad, and in that state demands them back, it would not be right in me either to restore the arms, or to tell the truth, to a man in that condition. Therefore to say that justice consists in speaking truth and in giving back what we have received, cannot be a good definition.”[3]
[3] Plato, Repub. i. p. 331 C-D.
The historical Sokrates argues in the same manner (in the Memorabilia of Xenophon. See his conversation with Euthydemus, iv. 2; and Cicero, De Offic. iii. 25, 94-95).
Polemarchus here gives a peculiar meaning to the phrase of Simonides: a man owes good to his friends — evil to his enemies: and he ought to pay back both. Upon this Sokrates comments.[4]
[4] Sokrates here remarks that the precepts — Speak truth; Restore what has been confided to you — ought not to be considered as universally binding. Sometimes justice, or those higher grounds upon which the rules of justice are founded, prescribe that we should disobey the precepts. Sokrates takes this for granted, as a matter which no one will dispute; and it is evident that what Plato had here in his mind was, the obvious consideration that to tell the truth or restore a weapon deposited, to one who had gone mad, would do no good to any one, and might do immense mischief: thus showing that general utility is both the foundation and the limiting principle of all precepts respecting just and unjust. That this is present to the mind of Plato appears evident from his assuming the position as a matter of course; it is moreover Sokratic, as we see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon.
But Plato, in another passage of the Republic, clothes this Sokratic doctrine in a language and hypothesis of his own. He sets up Forms or Ideas, per se. The Just, — The Unjust, — The Honourable, — The Base, &c. He distinguishes each of these from the many separate manifestations in which it is specialised. The Form, though one reality in itself, appears manifold when embodied and disguised in these diversified accompaniments. It remains One and Unchanged, the object of Science and universal infallible truth; but each of its separate manifestations is peculiar to itself, appears differently to different minds, and admits of no higher certainty than fallible opinion. Though the Form of Justice always remains the same, yet its subordinate embodiments ever fluctuate; there is no given act nor assemblage of acts which is always just. Every just act (see Republic, v. pp. 476 A-479 A) is liable under certain circumstances to become unjust; or to be invaded and overclouded by the Form of Injustice. The genuine philosopher will detect the Form of Justice wherever it is to be found, in the midst of accompaniments however discrepant and confused, over all which he will ascend to the region of universal truth and reality. The unphilosophical mind cannot accomplish this ascent, nor detect the pure Form, nor even recognise its real existence: but sees nothing beyond the multiplicity of diverse particular cases in which it is or appears to be embodied. Respecting these particular cases there is no constant or universal truth, no full science. They cannot be thrown into classes to which the superior Form constantly and unconditionally adheres. They are midway between reality and non-reality: they are matters of opinion more or less reasonable, but not of certain science or unconditional affirmation. Among mankind generally, who see nothing of true and absolute Form, the received rules and dogmas respecting the Just, the Beautiful, &c., are of this intermediate and ambiguous kind: they can neither be affirmed universally, nor denied universally; they are partly true, partly false, determinable only by opinion in each separate case. Plato, Repub. v. p. 479 C-D: οὔτ’ εἶναι οὔτε μὴ εἶναι οὐδὲν αὐτῶν δυνατὸν παγίως νοῆσαι, οὔτε ἀμφότερα οὔτε οὐδέτερον … Τὰ τῶν πολλῶν πολλὰ νόμιμα, καλοῦ τε πέρι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων, μεταξύ που κυλινδεῖται τοῦ τε μὴ ὄντος καὶ τοῦ ὄντος εἰλικρινῶς.
Of the distinction here drawn in general terms by Plato, between the pure unchangeable Form, and the subordinate classes of particulars in which that Form is or appears to be embodied, the reasoning above cited respecting truth-telling and giving back a deposit is an example.