The Republic Lesson Plan

What does Socrates mean by referring to justice as "minding one's own business"? Do you agree with this analysis of justice? Why or why not?

Students may find fault with this definition of justice initially without being able to describe what precisely it's lacking. A starting point which the teacher can suggest is that, whereas many definitions of justice define it as a property of relations between individuals, Socrates draws his description of justice from relations between classes—and, correspondingly, between parts of an individual's own soul. It may be unusual or unsettling for students to imagine justice as something that applies to a singular entity, rather than...