INTRODUCTION

The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. It was written around 380BC, concerning justice and other character such as just city state and a just man. In order to understand justice according to Plato, it is helpful to first understand the conditions of Athens at the time. The Athenian democracy was on the verge of ruin. They were struggling to rebuild from their defeat by Sparta. Athenian citizens, to include Socrates, were growing critical of democracy as a form of government

Plato in his philosophy gives very important place to the idea of justice. He used the Greek word "Dikaisyne" for justice which comes very near to the work 'morality' or 'righteousness', it properly includes within it the whole duty of man. It also covers the whole field of the individual's conduct in so far as it affects others. Plato contended that justice is the quality of soul, in virtue of which men set aside the irrational desire to taste every pleasure and to get a selfish satisfaction out of every object and accommodated themselves to the discharge of a single function for the general benefit. This paper explains the idea of Plato’s justice in his book “The Republic”.

PLATO BACKGROUND

Due to a lack of primary sources from the time period, much of Plato's life has been constructed by scholars through his writings and the writings of contemporaries and classical historians. Traditional history estimates Plato's birth was around 427 B.C., but more modern scholars, tracing later events in his life, believe he was born between 424 and 423 B.C. Both of his parents came from the Greek aristocracy. Born circa 428 B.C., ancient Greek philosopher Plato was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle. His writings explored justice, beauty and equality, and also contained discussions in aesthetics, political philosophy, theology, cosmology, epistemology and the philosophy of language. Plato founded the Academy in Athens,   one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world. He died in Athens circa 347 B.C.

THE THEORY AND ANALYSIS OF JUSTICE IN PLATO’S BOOK THE REPUBLIC

In Book I, Socrates entertains two distinct definitions of justice. The first is provided by Polermarchus, who suggests that justice is "doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies." The definition, which is a version of conventionally morality, is considered. Very soon though, its faults are clearly apparent. It is far to relative to serve as a formulation of the justice. Moreover, its individual terms are vulnerable; that is to say, how does one know who is a friend and who an enemy? And are not friends as much as enemies capable of evil? And when a friend acts wickedly, should he not be punished? And next, what does it mean that an action is good or bad? The perils of giving credence to false appearances are introduced early on as a major theme. It will be dealt with at length in the succeeding books. A second definition, offered by Thrasymachus, endorses tyranny. "Obedience to the interest of the stronger," is likewise mined for its value, shown to be deficient, and discarded. Tyranny, Socrates demonstrates employing several analogies, inevitably results in the fragmentation of the soul. Benevolent rule, on the other hand, ensures a harmonious life for both man and State. Justice is its means and good is its end. The philosophers continue the debate in Book II by introducing a new definition that belongs more to political philosophy than pure philosophy: that justice is a legally enforced compromise devised for the mutual protection of citizens of a state. In other words, justice is a fabrication of the State that prevents citizens from harming one another. Socrates is certainly up to the challenge.( Charles H. (2004).

Plato tries to seek answers to these question; why do men behave justly? Is it because they fear societal punishment? Are they trembling before notions of divine retribution? Do the stronger elements of society scare the weak into submission in the name of law? Or do men behave justly because it is good for them to do so? Is justice, regardless of its rewards and punishments, a good thing in and of itself? How do we define justice? Plato sets out to answer these questions in The Republic. He wants to define justice, and to define it in such a way as to show that justice is worthwhile in and of itself. He meets these two challenges with a single solution: a definition of justice that appeals to human psychology, rather than to perceived behavior.

Plato’s strategy in The Republic is to first explicate the primary notion of societal, or political, justice, and then to derive an analogous concept of individual justice. In Books II, III, and IV, Plato identifies political justice as harmony in a structured political body. An ideal society consists of three main classes of people producers (craftsmen, farmers, artisans, etc.), auxiliaries (warriors), and guardians (rulers); a society is just when relations between these three classes are right. Each group must perform its appropriate function, and only that function, and each must be in the right position of power in relation to the others. Rulers must rule, auxiliaries must uphold rulers’ convictions, and producers must limit themselves to exercising whatever skills nature granted them (farming, blacksmithing, painting, etc.) Justice is a principle of specialization: a principle that requires that each person fulfill the societal role to which nature fitted him and not interfere in any other business.

At the end of Book IV, Plato tries to show that individual justice mirrors political justice. He claims that the soul of every individual has a three part structure analogous to the three classes of a society. There is a rational part of the soul, which seeks after truth and is responsible for our philosophical inclinations; a spirited part of the soul, which desires honor and is responsible for our feelings of anger and indignation; and an appetitive part of the soul, which lusts after all sorts of things, but money most of all (since money must be used to fulfill any other base desire). The just individual can be defined in analogy with the just society; the three parts of his soul achieve the requisite relationships of power and influence in regard to one another. In a just individual, the rational part of the soul rules, the spirited part of the soul supports this rule, and the appetitive part of the soul submits and follows wherever reason leads. Put more plainly: in a just individual, the entire soul aims at fulfilling the desires of the rational part, much as in the just society the entire community aims at fulfilling whatever the rulers will. (Debra 2006).

The parallels between the just society and the just individual run deep. Each of the three classes of society, in fact, is dominated by one of the three parts of the soul. Producers are dominated by their appetites their urges for money, luxury, and pleasure. Warriors are dominated by their spirits, which make them courageous. Rulers are dominated by their rational faculties and strive for wisdom. Books V through VII focus on the rulers as the philosopher kings.

Only those whose minds are trained to grasp the Forms the philosophers can know anything at all. In particular, what the philosophers must know in order to become able rulers is the Form of the Good; the source of all other Forms, and of knowledge, truth, and beauty. Plato cannot describe this Form directly, but he claims that it is to the intelligible realm what the sun is to the visible realm. Using the allegory of the cave, Plato paints an evocative portrait of the philosopher’s soul moving through various stages of cognition (represented by the line) through the visible realm into the intelligible, and finally grasping the Form of the Good. The aim of education is not to put knowledge into the soul, but to put the right desires into the soul, to fill the soul with a lust for truth, so that it desires to move past the visible world, into the intelligible, ultimately to the Form of the Good.

Philosophers form the only class of men to possess knowledge and are also the most just men. Their souls, more than others, aim to fulfill the desires of the rational part. After comparing the philosopher king to the most unjust type of man, represented by the tyrant, who is ruled entirely by his non-rational appetites—Plato claims that justice is worthwhile for its own sake. In Book IX he presents three arguments for the conclusion that it is desirable to be just. By sketching a psychological portrait of the tyrant, he attempts to prove that injustice tortures a man’s psyche, whereas a just soul is a healthy, happy one, untroubled and calm. Next he argues that, though each of the three main character types; money-loving, honor-loving, and truth-loving—have their own conceptions of pleasure and of the corresponding good life—each choosing his own life as the most pleasant—only the philosopher can judge because only he has experienced all three types of pleasure. The others should accept the philosopher’s judgment and conclude that the pleasures associated with the philosophical are most pleasant and thus that the just life is also most pleasant. He tries to demonstrate that only philosophical pleasure is really pleasure at all; all other pleasure is nothing more than cessation of pain. .( Kierkegaard, 1992).

One might notice that none of these arguments actually prove that justice is desirable apart from its consequences—instead, they establish that justice is always accompanied by true pleasure. In all probability, none of these is actually supposed to serve as the main reason why justice is desirable. Instead, the desirability of justice is likely connected to the intimate relationship between the just life and the Forms. The just life is good in and of itself because it involves grasping these ultimate goods, and imitating their order and harmony, thus incorporating them into one’s own life. Justice is good, in other words, because it is connected to the greatest good, the Form of the Good.

Plato ends The Republic on a surprising note. Having defined justice and established it as the greatest good, he banishes poets from his city. Poets, he claims, appeal to the basest part of the soul by imitating unjust inclinations. By encouraging us to indulge ignoble emotions in sympathy with the characters we hear about, poetry encourages us to indulge these emotions in life. Poetry, in sum, makes us unjust. In closing, Plato relates the myth of Err, which describes the trajectory of a soul after death. Just souls are rewarded for one thousand years, while unjust ones are punished for the same amount of time. Each soul then must choose its next life. (Notopoulos, A. April 1939).

CONCLUSION

Plato weighed in on his interpretation of justice after hearing the different theories presented by Cephalus, Polymarchus, Glaucon and Thrasymachus, While he generally disagreed with all of their theories on justice, he did recognize that they shared a common denominator: each one treated justice as something "external," a sort of convention. Plato disagreed. He believed that justice was a "human virtue," which has a foundation in nature, and that makes an individual good and self-consistent.

Plato argues that a ruler can never be unjust. Rather, he believed in just rulers who ruled via moral virtue. According to Plato, a just ruler should not seek war because war is unjust. War is inherently evil, and "The creation of evil is not an accomplishment of justice, but a failure of justice." (Plato, The Republic, 360 BCE, pp. 15-16). Likewise, he also weighed in on injustice. "Injustice is the fool's game. It destroys individuals, as it destroys states." (Plato, The Republic, 360 BCE, pp. 35-36).

Maybe upon understanding Plato's notion of justice, the question becomes whether or not this "inner morality" is possible for the modern individual, as we seem to be increasingly more dependent on "external morality," as described by Cephalus, Polymarchus, Glaucon and Thrasymachus.

REFERENCES:

Kahn, Charles H. (2004). "The Framework". Plato and the socratic dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge University Press.

Kierkegaard, Søren (1992). "Plato". The Concept of Irony. Princeton University Press. ·  Nails publishing,

Debra (2006). "The Life of Plato of Athens". A Companion to Plato edited by Hugh H. Benson. Blackwell Publishing..

 Nails, Debra (2002). "Ariston/Perictione". The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Hackett Publishing.

Notopoulos, A. (April 1939). "The Name of Plato". Classical Philology (The University of Chicago Press)

Plato, "The Republic." 360 BCE. Retrieved at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html.

Strauss, Leo, And Joseph Cropsey. "History Of Political Philosophy, Third Ed." Chicago: The University Of Chicago Press. 1987.