Discourse On Injustice In Plato's Republic

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 initially asserts that justice is “to give to each what is owed” (Republic 331d), a definition he picked up from Simonides. Then, through the unrelenting questioning of Socrates, Polemarchus’ definition evolves into “doing good to friends and harm to enemies” (Republic 332d), but this definition proves insufficient to Socrates also. Eventually, the two agree “that it is never just to harm anyone” (Republic 335d). This definition is fundamental to the idea of a

One of the most important writers of the Enlightenment was the philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The work of Rousseau has influenced a generation and beyond and it is argued that the main ideals of the French and American revolutions arose from his works, for example The Discourse on Equality. The main concept of Rousseau's thought is that of 'liberty', and his belief that modern society forced humans to give up their independence, making everyday life corrupt and unfree. One of the central problems Rousseau confronted is best summed up in the first line of arguably his most important work, The Social Contract.

Book II of The Republic by Plato showcases the two very different views of Socrates and Glaucon in regards to the account of nature and origin of justice. Socrates and Glaucon discuss the theory presented by Glaucon that states that injustice is something that is intrinsically desired by all humans. Glaucon presents this argument to Socrates in order to understand and defend justice for its own sake. Glaucon seeks reassurance from Socrates that justice is not just only good for the positive consequences that it produces, so he asks Socrates to explain that justice is desirable for its own sake and, additionally, the consequences that it provides. In the defense of justice, Socrates begins to explain that justice is a virtue that needs to be found in the individual as well as the state. Socrates believes that true happiness can only exist with a true set of virtues that are justice and respectable morals. Socrates’ assumption is on the fact that a man committing unjust actions will never be able to have complete satisfaction with his life if he has achieved everything through unjust actions because he cannot fully claim his accomplishments. Through examination of the assumptions of both arguments presented, Glaucon’s opinion on justice is superior to the views of Socrates. Glaucon’s presumptuous claim that humans are innately greedy is able to provide an understanding that justice is only a social contract for the weaker people of society by handicapping the strength of the

Plato creates a seemingly invincible philosopher in The Republic. Socrates is able to refute all arguments presented before him with ease. The discussion on justice in Book I of The Republic is one such example. Socrates successfully refutes each different view of justice presented by Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus. Socrates has not given us a definitive definition of justice, nor has he refuted all views of justice, but as far as we are concerned in Book I, he is able to break down the arguments of his companions.

99). Rousseau viewed property as a right “which is different from the right deducible from the law of nature” (Rousseau, p. 94). Consequently, “the establishment of one community made that of all the rest necessary…societies soon multiplied and spread over the face of the earth” (Rousseau, p. 99). Many political societies were developed in order for the rich to preserve their property and resources. Rousseau argues that these societies “owe their origin to the differing degrees of inequality which existed between individuals at the time of their institution,” (Rousseau, p. 108). Overall, the progress of inequality could be constructed into three phases. First, “the establishment of laws and of the right of property” (Rousseau, p. 109) developed stratification between the rich and poor. Then, “the institution of magistracy” and subsequently “the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power” (Rousseau, p. 109) created a dichotomy between the week and powerful, which ultimately begot the power struggle between slave and master. According to Rousseau, “there are two kinds of inequality among the human species…natural or physical, because it is established by nature…and another, which may be called moral or political inequality, because it… is established…by the consent of men,” (Rousseau, p. 49).

“This fame study of original man, of his real wants, and of the fundamental principle of his duties, is likewise the only good method we can take, to surmount an infinite number of difficulties concerning the Origins of Inequality, the true foundations of political bodies, the reciprocal rights of their members, and a thousand other familiar questions that are as important as they are ill understood.” (Rousseau, Preface lviii)

Rousseau’s state of nature differs greatly from Locke’s. The human in Rousseau’s state of nature exists purely as an instinctual and solitary creature, not as a Lockean rational individual. Accordingly, Rousseau’s human has very few needs, and besides sex, is able to satisfy them all independently. This human does not contemplate appropriating property, and certainly does not deliberate rationally as to the best method for securing it. For Rousseau, this simplicity characterizes the human as perfectly free, and because it does not socialize with others, it does not have any notion of inequality; thus, all humans are perfectly equal in the state of nature. Nonetheless, Rousseau accounts for humanity’s contemporary condition in civil society speculating that a series of coincidences and discoveries, such as the development of the family and the advent of agriculture, gradually propelled the human away from a solitary, instinctual life towards a social and rationally contemplative

Ethics: An Ethical claim deals with the branch of philosophy called ethics that focuses on how we should live and defining what is right and wrong. Plato’s ethical claim is hard to pinpoint in his book, “The Republic” because he chooses to largely focus on the fact that Athens is an unjust society and proving how it is unjust rather than focusing on the definition of a just society. Plato creates a picture of what a just society would look like by showing how Athens is an unjust society and what can be done to fix it. In “The Republic”, Plato describes Athens society as a democracy. To which he says, “as long as someone claims to be sympathetic to the general populace, he is honored within this political system” (Plato 297). He also says, “So that’s how he lives, I said. He indulges in every passing desire that each day brings” He goes on to talk about how one day the person is drunk and the next he is being healthy. While sometimes this person is dedicated, sometimes he is lazy. Maybe once and awhile he works for a bit, keeping busy serving the community. Whatever draws their attention, they take an interest to. He continues on to say: “His lifestyle has no rhyme or reason, but he thinks it enjoyable, free, and enviable and he never dispenses with it.” ( Plato 301). When Plato talks about the person who is honored within their political system, he is referring to the fact that even if a person is unqualified and has no previous training or guidance in a trade or position,

To better understand Rousseau’s thesis and social contract he proposed, we must first understand why Rousseau felt compelled to write and his main criticism of society during the 18th century. In sum, Rousseau argued that states (specifically France, though never explicitly stated) have not protected man’s right to freedom or equality. Rousseau began The Social Contract in dramatic fashion. He wrote, “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (1). This quote is still used today, and is a powerful description of Rousseau’s central issue with society. He believed that every man is “born” naturally free—he has full autonomy and can do what he chooses. However, Rousseau argued that man is bound to the injustices of society.

Plato and Aristotle, arguably the most important philosophers of their time, both made attempts to define justice. Being that Aristotle was a student of Plato, their ideas share many similarities. Both viewed justice as the harmonious interaction of people in a society. However, Plato defined his ideal of justice with more usage of metaphysics, invoking his Form of the Good, while Aristotle took a more practical approach, speaking in terms of money and balance. Although Aristotle's ideal of justice may seem superior, upon further inspection, Plato's ideal of justice is the stronger.

Plato's Republic is often read as a political work, as a statement of some sort on government, society, and law. This is certainly not a rash reading of the dialogue; it is called the Republic, and over half of it is devoted to the construction of a city through speech, a city complete with a government structure, a military, an economic system, and laws. However, I believe that to read the Republic as a political statement is inaccurate. Although Socrates and his companions construct a city out of speech as they attempt to define justice, the dialogue repeatedly frames justice as something that cannot be established through a fixed system of morality, let alone through a rigid

This essay discusses and clarifies a concept that is central to Plato's argument in the Republic — an argument in favour of the transcendent value of justice as a human good; that justice informs and guides moral conduct. Plato's argument implies that justice and morality are intimately interconnected, because the excellence and goodness of human life — the best way for a person to live — is intimately dependent upon and closely interwoven with those 'things that we find

In Plato’s Republic he defines justice as “doing one’s own work and not meddling with what is not one’s own” (Plato 139, 433b). This definition begs the question what is one’s own work? Plato states that one’s own work is the work that one’s nature is best suited for, as each person is born with a different nature (Plato 101, 370b). To come to this definition Plato compares justice within the human soul to justice within a city. If Plato can find justice within the city and prove that the individual is only a smaller version of the city then he will have found the form of justice, the aspect by which we recognize justice in anything else.

Inequality, unfairness, discrimination are all some things a majority of society has struggled with for many centuries. No matter how far back humans go into the past it is something a lot of people have disagreed on, including the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The seventeenth and eighteenth century were a time when philosophers increased in prominence. They started to speak what was on their mind and tried to get others to side with them by giving them information on what their theories were. Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau ended up becoming two of the most influential political theorists in the world that had similar, yet different theories on human nature. (Cahn, Steven M. Political philosophy: the essential texts. Oxford Univ. Press, 2015.) In this essay I will argue that Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s state of nature is better than Thomas Hobbes because of their own definition of state of nature, the people have their own rights, and they are not governed by a monarch.

On the other hand, Rousseau is of the idea that human beings are good in nature but they are latter to be vitiated by the political societies which are not part of the man’s natural state. Men need to live in collaboration and help each other to face life challenges. However, with the establishment of political and social institutions, men begin to experience inequalities as a result of greed. Rousseau claims that, in man’s natural state, they only strive for the basic needs and once those needs are satisfied they are contented in that state (Hobbes & Malcolm, 2012). Additionally, Rousseau points out that after the inception of social and political institutions, humans began to be self-centered