As foreshadowed by the Cephalus section, when Polemarchus intervenes, he has different concerns than his father This is reflective of the fact that having wealth may allow one to not lie and cheat – Polemarchus is concerned with doing what is right because it is right.
“What you say is very fine indeed, Cephalus,” I said. “But as to this very thing, justice, shall we so simply assert that it is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another, or is to do these very things sometimes just and sometimes unjust? Take this case as an example of what I mean: everyone would surely say that if a man takes weapons from a friend when the latter is of sound mind, and the friend demands them back when he is mad, one shouldn’t give back such things, and the man who gave them back would not be just, and moreover, one should not be willing to tell someone in this state the whole truth.”
“What you say is right,” he said.
“Then this isn’t the definition of justice, speaking the truth and giving back what one takes.”
“It most certainly is, Socrates,” interrupted Polemarchus, “at least if Simonides should be believed at all.”
“Well, then,” said Cephalus, “I hand down the argument to you, for it’s already time for me to look after the sacrifices.”
“Am I not the heir of what belongs to you?” said Polemarchus.
“Certainly,” he said and laughed. And with that he went away to the sacrifices.
“Tell me, you, the heir of the argument,” I said, “what was it Simonides said about justice that you assert he said correctly?”“That it is just to give to each what is owed,” he said. “In saying this he said a fine thing, at least it seems to me.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t easy to disbelieve a Simonides,” I said. “He is a wise and divine man. However, you, Polemarchus, perhaps know what on earth he means, but I don’t understand. For plainly he doesn’t mean what we were just saying — giving back to any man whatsoever something he has deposited when, of unsound mind, he demands it. And yet, what he deposited is surely owed to him, isn’t it?”
“Yes.
“But, when of unsound mind he demands it, it should under no condition be given back to him?”“True,” he said.
“Then Simonides, it seems, means something different from this sort of thing when he says that it is just to give back what is owed.”
“Of course it’s different, by Zeus,” he said. “For he supposes that friends owe it to friends to do some good and nothing bad.”
“I understand,” I said. “A man does not give what is owed in giving back gold to someone who has deposited it, when the giving and the taking turn out to be bad, assuming the taker and the giver are friends. Isn’t this what you assert Simonides means?”“Most certainly.”
“Now, what about this? Must we give back to enemies whatever is owed to them?”
“That’s exactly it,” he said, “just what’s owed to them. And I suppose that an enemy owes his enemy the very thing which is also fitting: some harm.”
“Then,” I said, “it seems that Simonides made a riddle, after the fashion of poets, when he said what the just is. For it looks as if he thought that it is just to give to everyone what is fitting, and to this he gave the name ‘what is owed.’”
Polemarchus is a moral man and Socrates brings this out by switching back to money from a weapon. The problem of money reveals the role of self-interest. Polemarchus provides us with the second definition of justice: