Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Plato, and Aristotle: Morals and Ethical Codes

The Republic by Plato examines many aspects of the human condition. In this piece of writing Plato reveals the sentiments of Socrates as they define how humans function and interact with one another. He even more closely Socrates looks at morality and the values individuals hold most important. One value looked at by Socrates and his colleagues is the principle of justice. Multiple definitions of justice are given and Socrates analyzes the merit of each. As the group defines justice they show how self-interest shapes the progression of their arguments and contributes to the definition of justice.

They are educated through their strict curriculum, and due to the virtues that they learn, they are able to rule in a just manner (Plato 515a). The purpose of life for Plato is to create a just state. Through a broad education, and a democratic government, justice can be pursued. Justice is defined as the harmony that results when everyone is actively engaged in fulfilling his role and does not meddle with that of others (Plato 434e). When each person follows their role in life, stability can be achieved in the state.

“What is justice?” This is a question that men have struggled with answering for centuries. Justice should be defined for the sake of all people, especially by rulers who attempt to make fair laws so that their society functions in an orderly fashion. In Book 1 of The Republic, Plato attempts to define exactly what justice is. To help determine this definition, he speaks through the philosopher protagonist of Socrates. Justice is first brought up in The Republic during Socrates’ trip to Piraeus. While traveling Socrates ends up gathering with his interlocutors and together, they talk about justice and how one would define it. Socrates debates with the men about the definition of justice and is presented with a definition of

Now let us take a look into the background of the story. Plato gives his ideals on a perfect society and everything it should include. He basically implies that justice is rightness, and rightness is whatever he feels it should be. He breaks society down into guardians, wage earners, and auxiliaries. Wage earners are people such as surgeons or shoemakers.

Justice is one of four cardinal Platonic virtues. These virtues are said to be good by nature, and so they must be ideals that all individuals strive to demonstrate in their lives. In The Republic, Plato (through Socrates) attempts to find the definition of Justice through dialogue with his colleagues. One of his colleagues Thrasymachus proclaims that: “Justice is in the interest of the stronger.” (338c) In other words, rulers make laws from which only they reap the benefits of. Fortunately, this dark view of Justice was not the only perspective provided in The Republic. Cephalus, Polemarchus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus all offered their own unique interpretations of the word Justice and what it meant to them. Cephalus defines Justice as “rendering to each what belongs to each and being honest.” (331c) Polemarchus views Justice as “dedication to the common good whereby we help friends and harm enemies” (333d-336a). Glaucon believes that Justice is “a legally enforced compromise between doing injustice to others and having injustice done unto oneself” (359a-359b). Lastly, Adeimantus says Justice and goodness are always discussed in terms of what they provide you with in life, and how seeming to be just or good, instead of actually being those things, is all that matters. The essence of this paper is to form a rebuttal against Thrasymarchus’ view that ‘might makes right’ by use of these four perspectives Plato provides us with. The idea that Justice is ideally for the stronger is

Plato's view of Justice can be seen in his model of The Tripartite Soul. In this model Plato outlines 3 sectors of his ideal society. This theoretical society is composed of Guardians, Auxiliaries, and Producers. The Guardians were the upper class citizens who had the authority to pass judgment. Guardians were rational and wise, and could participate and become involved in politics. The Auxiliaries were positioned as courageous citizens who helped preserve the spirit and emotion of a society by "protecting and serving" much like a modern day public works department or police and fire squad. In the lowest tier of Plato's ideal society were the Producers, whose job it was to create. The Producers were to use temperance in their lives, for they were classified as appetitive souls who could easily succumb to bodily desires. The Producers were to practice asceticism, which is the eradication of bodily desires.

Plato?s view of Justice can be seen in his model of The Tripartite Soul. In this model Plato outlines 3 sectors of his ideal society. This theoretical society is composed of Guardians, Auxiliaries, and Producers. The Guardians were the upper class citizens who had the authority to pass judgment. Guardians were rational and wise, and could participate and become involved in politics. The Auxiliaries were positioned as courageous citizens who helped preserve the spirit and emotion of a society by ?protecting and serving? much like a modern day public works department or police and fire squad. In the lowest tier of Plato?s ideal society were the Producers, whose job it was to create. The Producers were to use temperance in their lives, for they were classified as appetitive souls who could easily succumb to bodily desires. The Producers were to practice asceticism, which is the eradication of bodily desires.

One might say, however, that some things are desired as a means to happiness. These, he says, are ‘ingredients’ to happiness. Happiness consists of these ‘ingredients’; they are a part of the happiness. Therefore, Mill claims that whatever is desired for its own sake is part of what happiness is, and each individual person desires different things to make them happy. They are means to the end of happiness. It is not possible, according to Mill, to desire something that will not provide some form of pleasure. Pleasure is happiness, and people only desire happiness, and happiness is therefore the only good.

Immanuel Kant refers to happiness as contentment (Kant, ) whereas John Stuart Mill refers to it as the pursuit of pleasure and the absence of pain (Mill, p.7). Kant does not base his ethics on happiness. Instead, he argues that morality is based on our duty as a human (Kant, ). To do what is right for Kant is to do what is instinctually moral without giving thought to the overall happiness. On the other hand, Mill does in fact use happiness as the bases for his ethics. He proposes that actions are right if they promote overall happiness and wrong if they promote the opposite of happiness (Mill, ). In this paper, it will be argued that Mill 's views on happiness are more reasonable than those of Kant 's because happiness should be the base for ethics.

Plato uses a description of justice to asset his position on a utopian world. His views construct a model for how society

can also help one to distinguish it as a just city. Therefore, within Plato’s definition

Each person potent, different how what they supposedly need to development which they are an individual development of the is central to happiness. Mill does not want to discuss his theory happiness to here. He is always an argument of happiness pleasure to that involve feeling and imagination. Another in words, on the depending people, use words higher faculty. Whatever, pleasures of right thing though, the feeling is fully available to other people who can think or not thinking. They do not ask what suit to the individuals. However this missed opportunity for a good part of human happiness.

Using his argument of a macrocosm reflecting a microcosm Plato was able to define the form of justice. Plato’s definition of justice can be put in a different manner. He believes that justice is a policy of non-interference. Each element of the whole, whether it is in the city or the individual, functions in its own aspect to benefit the whole, fulfilling its own purpose. Justice occurs when the elements of the whole are acting in accord with one another.

In my point of view, Plato’s theory of individual justice is a consistent way to explain what both the virtue of justice is and what its functions are. I agree with his idea of the tripartite conception of the soul as well as the idea that individual justice brings harmony to those parts. Therefore it is a good model. It might be that more than three parts exist, which have to be scaled, but that doesn’t change the function of individual justice at all.

John Stuart Mill published his theories into a book he called Utilitarianism. Within this book, Mill completes his theory on the conception of happiness. To begin, “The creed which accepts the foundation of morals, utility, or the greatest happiness principle, holds the actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” (Mill, pg. 278) Thus, utilitarianism is the basis of the promotion of happiness towards the human race, also known as utility. Mill describes utilitarianism as the promotion of trying to make everyone happy, and by happiness Mill means intended pleasure with the absence of pain. Mill believes that pleasure and the absence of pain are the only things truly desirable as ends in themselves.