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The Between Plato And Plato 's The Republic And Hobbes ' Leviathan

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How does a “just” society operate? What are the roles of the individuals? One of the earlier concepts of justice dates back to Plato and his work the Republic. Plato constructs his ideal state to find the meaning of Justice and dissects human nature and its role in society in doing so. Overall, he described justice in a hypothetical society where every individual does what they are best as. His ideal society is where individuals must perform its appropriate role and each must be in the right position of power in relation to the others. However, this portrayal of a perfect society does not bode well with Hobbes’ theory of a “just” society. Both Plato’s Republic and Hobbes’ Leviathan work to define justice but present differing views of the …show more content…

Socrates also emphasizes that society cannot be individualized as he states, “our aim in founding the commonwealth was not to make any one class specially happy, but to secure the greatest possible happiness for the community as a whole.” This specialization is important and the commonwealth would not be able to sustain itself if people were to choose their specialty. The wellbeing of the state depends on the role of guardian and it is important that man must be “perfect masters each of his own craft” or “bring the whole state to utter ruin.” This political system supports a hierarchy where the Guardians enforce justice and maintain society. He believes that humans are guided by emotion and therefore a democratic society would not work because humans are “moved be self-interest” and “men do right only under compulsion.” Socrates then goes on to define Justice after creating his ideal state. According to Socrates, “Justice is produced in the soul, like health in the body, by establishing the elements concerned in their natural relations for control and subordination, whereas injustice is like disease and means that this natural order is inverted.” Ultimately, this is what separates Socrates and Hobbes’ ideologies. In his work Leviathan,

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