Reading: Plato; What Is The Value Of Justice?

Question 1

Plato: What Is the Value of Justice?

Answer 1

Plato; What Is The Value Of Justice?:

Plato (429?–347 bce), the ancient Greek philosopher, stands as perhaps the most significant of the founders of the Western philosophical tradition. He was a pupil of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. He wrote in dialogue form, generally featuring Socrates as the lead figure in the debate. It has been said that all subsequent philosophy is “footnotes to Plato.”

• Justice belongs in the most valuable category. It is the good that the happy man loves both for its own sake and for the effects it produces.
• The nature of justice or injustice consider both of them quite apart from their effects or the rewards they might bring. What are they in themselves?
• All who practice justice do so against their own will. This is so because they regard just behavior as something necessary but not as something good.
• The rationale for such attitudes is rooted in the common view that the life of the unjust man is far better and happier than the life of the just man.
• The measure of evil suffered by one who is wronged is generally greater than the good enjoyed by one who does wrong.
• Now, once they have learned what it is to wrong others— and also what it is to be wronged—men tend to arrive at this conclusion: justice is unattainable and injustice unavoidable.
• Those so lacking in strength that they can neither inflict injustice nor defend themselves against it find it profitable to draw up a compact with one another.
• To all of these they attach the name of justice; indeed, they assert that the true origin and essence of justice is located in their own legislation. TJB – Laws
• Their lawmaking is clearly a compromise
• Socrates. The compromise is between what they say is best of all— to do wrong without incurring punishment— and what is worst of all—to suffer wrong with no possibility of revenge. Hence they conceive of justice not as something good in itself but simply as a midway point between best and worst. – Plato’s Golden Mean
• As you very well know, Socrates, this is the orthodox account of the nature and origin of justice. Its corollary is that when people practice justice, they do so against their own wills. Only those are just who lack the power to be unjust.
• Let us test this proposition by altering the power distribution and assigning the just and the unjust equal power to do what they please.
• We shall then discover that the just man and the unjust man will follow precisely the same path. They will both do what all nature decrees to be good. They will pursue their own interests. Only if constrained by law will they be confined to the path of justice.
• Once he discovered the ring’s power, he hastily managed to have himself appointed one of the messengers to the king’s court. On arrival he seduced the queen and then, with her help, murdered the king. Thus it was that he became king of Lydia.
• Supposing now there were two such rings, the just man wearing one and the unjust man the other. No man is so unyielding that he would remain obedient to justice and keep his hands off what does not belong to him if he could steal with impunity in the very midst of the public market itself.
• The just man would act no differently from the unjust; both would pursue the same course.
• One might argue that here is the great proof that no one is willingly just; men will be just only if constrained. This is because every man believes that justice is really not to his interest. If he has the power to do wrong, he will do wrong, for every man believes in his heart that injustice will profit him far more than justice.
• These are the settled convictions of all those who choose to adopt them. They hold that anyone who acquires extraordinary power and then refuses to do wrong and plunder others is truly to be pitied (and a great fool as well). Publicly, however, they praise the fool’s example, convinced that they must deny what they really think so that they will not encourage unjust acts against themselves. I think I have spoken sufficiently to this point.
• Next, if we are to choose between the lives of justice and injustice, we must be precise in distinguishing the one from the other.
• First, the unjust man:
• The highest form of injustice is to appear just without being so.
• Perfect injustice denotes the perfectly unjust man. Nothing belonging to injustice must be withheld from him. He must be allowed to enjoy the greatest reputation for justice all the while he is committing the greatest wrongs.
• The just man:
• He will be noble and pure one who wants to be good rather than to seem good.
• Though the best of men, he must be thought the worst.
• Here we have charted the full course for both the unjust and the just man and should be in a better position to judge which of the two is happier.
• They will tell you that every man who is just, but whose reputation stamps him as unjust, will learn what it is to feel the lash, the rack, the chains, and the branding iron burning out his eyes. And after suffering all the other agonies he will be impaled on spikes, there finally to learn his lesson that it is better to seem just than to be so.
• He who wills to be unjust but not to seem so is the real man of truth. He is the one who does not allow himself to be governed by opinion; instead he orders his affairs in accord with the way life really is.
• Reputation for justice will gain a man public office and fortunate alliances and all the good things that Glaucon already said would accrue to the unjust man who wears the cloak of righteousness.
• justice and right living are honorable and fair but at the same time tedious and unpleasant.
• Vice and injustice, on the other hand, are easy to learn and offer a profusion of pleasures. Only law and conventional opinion condemn them.
• There must indeed be some divine spark at work in your natures that you should be able to make such formidable arguments on behalf of injustice and yet resist being convinced by your own reasoning. And I believe that you are really not convinced. I infer this, however, from my knowledge of your characters: if I had to deal with your words alone, I would be suspicious of you.