The Nature of Justice in Society and the Individual According to Plato

The study of Ethics is a diverse one encompassing many topics and having many applications. Some of the age-old questions inherent to Ethics refer to the nature of justice. Justice is the one of the oldest concepts in existence and as such has been discussed by many a philosopher over the ages. Plato discussed Justice at length and this paper will discuss the following questions relating to justice based upon his findings: what is Plato’s account of the nature of justice for the individual, how does Plato build his account, why does Plato take it that the claim made by Thracymachus is altogether mistaken – if indeed he does?

Plato finds that justice is the harmonious balance of the three elements of the soul. He explains the elements as the desire that is that which drives or motivates you, the appetites that are that which causes you to be spirited or to act outside reason, and the reason that reigns in both the desires and the appetites. Plato likens the relationship of these three elements to be similar to that of a Phaedrus in which a driver flies a chariot pulled by two winged horses towards the sun. The horses represent the desires and the appetites respectively, while the driver represents the reason that reigns in the horses. The sun represents the truly important goals in life, but mainly justice in this case. Plato stresses that, like Icarus, we must be sure to balance the pull of the horses thus flying neither too low to the ground nor too close to the sun and in so doing achieve a true balance of all three elements. Plato believes that only through this balance can justice be achieved for the individual.

Plato makes his case for the nature of justice through the explanation that th...

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...ncepts being related. At any rate, Plato makes a good argument and in the end, it seems as though he may be just, err right, umm correct that is to say.

Bibliography

Cooper, John, ed., Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997).

Griswold, Charles, Platonic Readings/Platonic Writings (NewYork: Routledge, 1988).

Peterman, John, On Plato (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 2000).

Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, trans. Harold North Fowler, LoebClassical Library (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1990).

Press, Gerrald, ed., Plato’s Dialogues: New Studies and Interpretations (Lanham, Md.:Rowman and Littlefield, 1993)., ed., Who Speaks for Plato? (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).

Randall, John Herman, Jr., Plato: Dramatist of the Life of Reason (NewYork: Colum-bia University Press, 1970).