ABSTRACT
1 Justice, without prefix or suffix. In The Republic, traditionally subtitled 'Concerning Justice', the first suggestion is that it is 'to render to everyone their due'. This would, presumably, have been accepted by most of Plato's contemporaries as at least on the right lines, if perhaps not completely adequate. But 'Socrates', speaking for Plato, is concerned to promote a preferred alternative; a persuasive redefinition epitomizing the foundation principles of his first Utopia. So his interlocutors are here scripted to admit as a more than sufficient refutation what are instead and in truth reductiones ad absurdum of two characteristically Socratic assumptions covertly conjoined with that first suggestion.
