Plato's Theory Of Individual Justice example essay topic

Justice as a scale. Introduction Can Plato's theory of individual justice, after 2,500 years, still provide an explanation of what is going on in the minds of today's human beings? After an explanation of Plato's theory of individual justice, I will try in a second step to support its plausibility with a few examples; then I will state objections against his theory and further give counterarguments to prove Plato's theory to be consistent and plausible. The last part provides the conclusion. B. Plato's theory of individual justice put to the testI.

Plato's theory of individual justice Plato's theory of individual justice is based on his construction of an "ideal city" that holds civic justice via an argumentum a fortiori (a maio re ad minus): "If we first tried to observe justice in some larger thing that possessed it, this would make it easier to observe it in a single individual". That is why I am going to outline first the domicile of the four virtues in the "ideal city" and explain in a second part, what individual justice is. Plato's "ideal city" has three different classes of inhabitants: 'producers', 'guardians' and 'rulers'. Each of these classes wears a main virtue: the producers have 'moderation', the guardians own 'courage' and the rulers must hold 'wisdom'. The fourth virtue, justice, is to be found if each class does "its own work in the city" and are "not meddling with what isn't one's own."It is the power that makes it possible for them to grow in the city and that preserves them when they " ve grown for as long as it remains there itself".

Justice itself is claimed to be the major virtue as injustice is "the worst thing that someone could do to his city". So this major virtue is 'embracing' all the other virtues and bringing harmony. As stated before, these four virtues can be found in the individual's soul as well. : the tripartite conception of the soul and an harmonizing individual justice as fourth virtue. The three different parts are: the 'appetitive', 'spirited' and 'rational'. They correspond each to the classes' of the "ideal city" and their function: first the 'appetitive' part corresponds to the producers' moderation, second the 'spirited' part with the guardians' courage and third the 'rational' part of the soul with the wisdom resided in the rulers.

"We " ll call the part of the soul with which it calculates the rational part and the part with which it lusts, hungers thirsts, and gets excited by other appetites the irrational appetitive part, companion of certain indulgences and pleasures". Furthermore, "the spirited part is a third element in the soul that is by nature the helper of the rational part"; and it must be different from the first, as "even in small children, one can see that they are full of spirit right from birth"; it is "the part that is angry without calculation". Individual justice is the embracing and ordering virtue that steadies the struggling tripartite. "One who is just does not allow any part of himself to do the work of another part... He binds together those parts and any others there may be in between, and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate and harmonious". II.

Plausibility and Critical Evaluation In my point of view, Plato's theory of individual justice is a consistent way to explain what both the virtue of justice is and what its functions are. I agree with his idea of the tripartite conception of the soul as well as the idea that individual justice brings harmony to those parts. Therefore it is a good model. It might be that more than three parts exist, which have to be scaled, but that doesn't change the function of individual justice at all..

Reasoning In this part I am going to stabilize Plato's theory of individual justice in a first step. After that, I will try to scatter the theory with four objections, each of them will be followed by several counterarguments. 1. Plato's theory of individual justice, as it is to be found in polite ia's 4th book, needs a more modern stabilization.

Therefore, I will try to reach a deeper understanding of his theory. a) Plato himself states an argumentum a fortiori in shape of a maio re ad minus in the Polite ia at 434d by saying that what is to be found in the "ideal city", has to be resided in the individual as well. That is a good argument, as it lives on account of the idea that the smaller, which builds the bigger, puts in it what the smaller wore first. This argument is therefore the other way around, a minor ad mai us. Both kinds of arguments a fortiori - a maio re ad minus and a minor ad mai us - do not have to be valid, because still there could be an exception that disproved the rule: the smaller does not necessarily hold the bigger and the other way around. It is rather possible, or quite probable, to draw the conclusion. Unless one does not find a counterargument, which could be hold up against an argument a fortiori to be a reason for an exception, it can stand like this, holding that the smaller holds the proprieties of the bigger and the other way around. b) My concept of Plato's theory is as follows: the three parts of the soul lie on a weighing scale.

Each part has its own importance. The scale itself is the individual justice. It is holding the three parts in balance. One time it turns more to the rational, another time to the spirited part. But all in all the scale should be in balance.

Truly each person has his own scale, so that e.g. a mentally weak person starts from a scale that isn't in balance on behalf of its rational part of the soul, but still the scale alias individual justice is doing its work. c) Anyone who has ever had an internal conflict, which had to aim to a decision, will at least immediately claim a partite co of the soul to be true. By recognizing the internal conflict one can state that the lack of individual justice - the parts struggling against each other and being not in balance - can be felt. If individual disharmony can be felt, there must be something that prevents the disharmony most times, one doesn't feel disharmony but is content and balanced. d) Let me explain the state of disharmony of the soul with two examples. Many persons throughout the so to speak 'first world' are overweight. Overbalance caused by excessive and unhealthy eating is because the individual justice didn't work in the right way: It is common knowledge what one has to do to stay slim and healthy, without reading an amount of magazines: not to eat too much and doing sports. This common knowledge is to be found in the rational part of the soul, which tries to convince us not to eat too much and unhealthy.

Nevertheless the appetitive part makes us greedy and thinks to eat more, because we desire the taste of unhealthy food. Though the rational part knows we shouldn't eat more, somehow the appetitive part conquers over and over again. Individual justice wasn't working in the right way; the result is overbalance. Another example to figure the disharmony of the soul and even show the different parts of the soul as well can be found in the disease of schizophrenia.

A schizophrenic person might even speak with different voices to oneself, each voice emphasizing a different part of the soul. The scaling process of individual justice is in a schizophrenic person therefore more obvious than in ordinary persons. 2. Now I will turn to the objections to shatter Plato's theory of individual justice. In my mind there are four major objections one could state against Plato's theory of individual justice: First that justice doesn't exist at all, second that there is no struggle in each individual that has to be harmonized, third that it is not justice, but reason, which has the ordering function and fourth that "ideal city" admits only conclusion to the "ideal soul" but nothing more. a) Because the process of scaling each argument of the souls different part cannot be seen and objectively measured in the individual itself one could claim first that individual justice didn't exist at all. The first counterargument thereto is, that it isn't necessary to see things to be sure, that they exist.

Merely the existence of a certain state of an object or the soul doesn't depend on consciousness. Further the possibility of scaling or measurement isn't necessary to show, that something exists. Let me give an example: If we didn't have any possibility to measure any volume, still the volume would exist. That is why the existence of individual justice is independent of it being sensed and being measured. b) The second objection against Plato's theory of individual justice could be that there is no struggle, which has to be harmonized. The reason therefore could be found that there are first no parts within the soul, which have the ability to struggle; second that the parts are in harmony without the need of any uppermost virtue. As I stated before individual justice hasn't to be sensed to exist, the struggle isn't to be understood literally.

Rather each part gains a certain importance, resembling a certain interest. As to the second assumption, there are enough examples, two given above, to prove it false. Furthermore, who states that there are different parts within the soul, has to admit as well that the different parts are as well struggling out of the following reason: though it might be that those aims are sometimes the same, different virtues lead to different maybe even contrary aims. That is why at least total harmony can never be achieved without an ordering virtue. c) A third objection could announce that it is not individual justice but reason that brings harmony to the individual. This claim can be supported by the way, judges as professional decision makers decide, with an argumentum a fortiori a maio re ad minus, because what can be found in the professional's habit of decision must be found in more ordinary human beings as well. Truly judges use reason and are trained to do so.

But it is not only reason that leads the way to a decision; the weighing of interests is a skill, which has more to do with experience or feeling and cannot be fully reasoned. Reason can find arguments and figure out whether the rules of logic were followed. But it is not possible to scale the different interests brought forward by whom- or whatever, just with logic. If even professionals use more than reason, it must be that ordinary men do that, too. That is why the third objection has to be declined as well. d) The last objection I can think of is that the "ideal city" leads only to the "ideal human being" that has ideal justice. Actually that is no objection, as Plato didn't claim his "individual justice" as a balancing harmony to be not the one of a perfect man.

The opposite is the case: He even shows what is going to happen, if injustice is ruling in the soul. So Plato concludes from the "ideal city" to the "ideal human being" and doesn't fail here. All the objections fail to prove Plato's theory of individual justice to be false. So his theory seems to be consistent enough to give a plausible description of reality. C. Conclusion After stating the content of Plato's theory of individual justice, I took and supported his point of view by figuring out the structure of his arguments, added another metaphor for a more descriptive explanation and two more examples.

While trying to find consistent objections against Plato's theory, the counterarguments prevailed. So Plato's theory of individual justice is after 2,500 years still a consistent model.