Anderson And Socrates Analysis

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Even though it has been in place for many centuries, justice still remains a controversial concept nowadays. In particular, justice can be perceived from moral, ethical, and legal perspectives resulting in differing views on what it entails and how it works. Moreover, justice may also differ from one individual to another based on their personal ideas and perceptions. In addition, the concept of justice and its aspects changed historically as the societies enforcing justice developed and grew. The purpose of this paper is to overview the ideas concerning the concepts of justice and a just society as explained by Elizabeth Anderson and Socrates. The two philosophers relied on quite dissimilar views in their attempts to describe and study a just …show more content…

The author’s decision was based on the idea that the improvement of the existing society is the ultimate goal for which the entire discussion about justice is held. In this regard, Anderson considered the ideal theory used by Socrates limited. To be more precise, Anderson’s choice of the non-ideal theory was based on the fact that the world in which we live is not ideal and thus, the ideal theory and its application through the creation of an imaginary city could not be sufficiently representative and produce many suitable examples (“Nonideal …show more content…

Most importantly, the philosopher was determined to identify the aspects of the society that would make it flawlessly just prior to comparing this ideal model to the real-life society. In that way, Socrates intended to move forward in his understanding of justice itself, the processes of which it is comprised, and how it applies to a perfectly just society. Taking the descriptive approach and creating an imaginary ideal city with rules and laws he deems flawless for a just society, Socrates makes it possible for himself and his peers to visualize such a community. In fact, the perfect society, in this regard, is Greek. In this manner, Socrates uses a familiar culture and social structure to create and support this idealistic model. Within this artificially modelled society, the philosophers participating in its discussion are able to envision a diverse range of social issues that would require solutions in order to maintain a perfectly just

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