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Values and Justice - A new Perspective
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And philosopher has not yet answered nor to us what is beauty. But for justice Plato ventures a definition. "Justice” he says, “Is the having and doing what's one's own”.? Plato further replies to Tharasymachus, “Justice is not mere strength, but harmonies strength-desires and man falling into that order which constitutes intelligent and organization, Justice is not the right of the stronger, but the effective harmony of the whole."
Plato, as we all know, belonged to one of the best families in Athens, a family both wealthy and politically influential, His normal career would have been in politics. But Plato, after fulfilling his military services, steered clear of politics. He decided, instead, to develop a sound philosophy. He had spent over 10 years in Socrates' company and was 28 when his teacher Socrates was executed. “His lifelong passion, acquiring a thrust it did as a result of the unjust and tragic death suffered by his beloved teacher, was to arrive at a conception of a state in which such an injustice could not be perpetrated. Justice, or the just state, is thus the subject of many of his works, including the greatest and best known of these, the “Republic.”
"The nominal purpose of the “Republic" is to define “Justice”. Justice, according to Plato, consists in everybody doing his own work and not being a busy body. The Greek word “Justice” corresponds to a concept which was very important in Greek thought, but for which we have no exact equivalent.
"....The word 'Justice', as still used in the law, is more similar to Plato's conception. Under the influence of democratic theory, we have come to associate justice with equality, while for I'lato it has no such implication." "Justice', at the beginning of the Republic, means that it consists in paying debts.
In his final conclusion, he arrives at in book IV in the Republic, he says, “Justice is a kind of disposition existing in each member of the just society to mind his or her own proper business and not meddle the affairs of the others. In Plato's view a just society is a society where everything has its proper place and everyone does what is proper for him or her.
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