Justice: The Failure Of Justice In The Republic

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Recommended: Plato's views on government

Berto Joseph
PHIL 223/399
Professor Cocoves
5/14/14
Haiti under Tyranny
In the first book of The Republic, Plato, Socrates, Thrasymachus and a few others argue about the nature of justice. People such as Thrasymachus claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger, where it doesn’t benefit regular people, but individuals with rank in society. Plato sees society as a flawed system because; society will never be truly just, due to the flaws of humanity. Throughout history man has proven that once given power, corruption may arise and cause a decay of regimes, as Plato puts it. He believed there are 5 types of regimes or types of government Aristocracy (Republic), Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny. Tyranny is something a country called Haiti suffers from and if Plato was alive today he wouldn’t agree with their government.
The overriding question in the republic is, is it better being just or unjust. According to Plato the definition of justice is contributing to the virtue of the whole state. Plato supports the definition of justice as, doing playing your part in society. In order for justice to remain in the state each person has to do his own work and not interfere with another.
According to The Republic there are three parts of the soul. The three are rational, spirited and appetitive part which are categorized based on human desires. The rational part of the soul is wise and seeks truth and is conscious, the spirited part of the soul seeks honor(over-coming great challenges) and is high spirited, and lastly an appetitive part of the soul that desires for various pleasures like money (Plato 437c-443a).
These three parts of the soul mentioned resemble or reflect classes in Socrates’ just city. The Guardians, being r...

... middle of paper ...

...its best the rulers, soldiers and workers must all play their roles in society.
On January 12th, 2010, a dreadful earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale hit the southern half of Haiti. As many as 217,000 people died, millions lost their homes. Reconstruction and aid for Haiti is still going on.

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tyranny
[2] http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/leftover/headstate.htm
[3] http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2011/0120/5-reasons-why-Haiti-s-Jean-Claude-Duvalier-is-infamous
[4] http://universes-in-universe.org/esp/specials/2010/vodou/history
[5} http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-26-1-plato-and-aristotle-on-tyranny-and-the-rule-of-law.html
-Amnesty International. Haiti. New York: Amnesty International USA , 1992.
-Shorey , Paul. "Republic." Plato- Collected Dialogues .

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