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Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote “One man’s justice is another’s injustice.” This statement quite adequately describes the relation between definitions of justice presented by Polemarchus and Thrasymachus in Book I of the Republic. Polemarchus ....

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... the possibility of common good through his insistence on helping friends. To Polemarchus nothing is more important than his circle of friends, and through their benefit he benefits, what makes them happy pleases him. Upon the summation of the debate between Polemarchus and Socrates, Thrasymachus enters into the fray. He states that justice “is nothing other than advantage of the stronger” (Republic 338c), and also that the greatest life is that of perfect injustice, to be found in the life of a tyrant. This definition leaves no room for the common good because it creates a life of competition and materialism, where only the strong survi ...