This is AWESOME!

I have been captured into the world of philosophy and justice studies. I'm researching the causes/nature of violence for my professor...and getting to write about my own opinion in the process. I got totally geeked about it just now. So here's a sample of the annotated bibliography I get to turn into him...

Nichols, James H. Nichols Jr., trans. “Gorgias” by Plato. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1998. The “Gorgias” itself is one of the greatest sources of our knowledge about Gorgias’ views on justice and violence and also includes some views of Callicles. Socrates is a character in the dialogue, so we lose a bit of the “pre-Socratic” side of Gorgias; nonetheless, we have decided to include it in this portion of research.
pp. 42; 460b. “So then according to this argument, is also the one who has learned the just things just?” This follows a discussion about how one who learns music is musical, one who learns carpentry is a carpenter, etc. This is Socrates’ response to Gorgias’ statement that the teacher is not responsible if a student of rhetoric uses it unjustly. Gorgias has claimed to teach his students not only rhetoric, but also justice. Socrates corners Gorgias into admitting that one who has been taught justice is necessarily just. At this point, Socrates doesn’t push much farther. But we want to: If one who has been taught justice is just, and Gorgias has taught his students justice, why then have some of them used rhetoric for unjust means? This leads us to one of two possible conclusions: either Gorgias did not teach justice properly or justice can be unlearned. If we extend this argument to violence: Isn’t one who has been taught non-violence, by necessity, non-violent? Why then, have children who have grown up hearing of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. not non-violent? We find a simple explanation: Society (and Gorgias) may teach students non-violence and justice. But society also teaches violence and injustice. And mustn’t he who has been taught violence be violent? So now we have a student who has been taught both violence and non-violence and is therefore both violent and non-violent. Circumstances will influence which of these characteristics wins out. But from this argument, if we can find a way to teach only non-violence to a child, won’t that child be only non-violent? Socrates and Gorgias are implying rather heavily that justice can be taught. Can virtue? Can non-violence? Is violence human nature or are we taught it? The answer to this question will greatly influence how today’s philosophers are able to look at the concept of peace and justice.