Essay: Justice in Plato’s Republic

In Plato’s Republic, through Socrates’s perspective, we set of on a journey to define justice. The dialogue focuses on a group of people that have been asked to define justice, as a whole and how it pertains to an individual human being. Plato emphasizes the direct correlation justice has with human nature, and that the knowledge an individual possesses to distinguish between the appearance of justice and reality itself. He also discusses how education would enhance the notion of justice and that morality is intrinsic to the structures of a well-formed society.
For Plato, who is represented by Socrates in the Republic, justice directly aligns with the analogy that societies are formed for a particular purpose. He does this by giving a comprehensive account of the ideal state. The ideal state is formed with the philosopher king, who would be free from materialism that would give him an advantage when ruling. Plato’s ideal state also included concepts like communism in the sense that communities would form for the mutual achievement of a common goal. This idea would be a predecessor to success because people would work towards one thing only and there would be a defined set or roles in society that would be fulfilled by individuals who would eventually master their craft. You would then have a division of society into distinctive classes according to the roles they would fulfill in society. However, Plato realized that somehow you would not be able to sustain society on a defined set of roles and that addition roles may need to be added and/or defined, he proposed the idea of the guardians, who would be the managers of society itself. Guardians would address disputes among the people and would be essential in the defense of the city from foreign invaders. The guardians fulfill an essential role in society, thus they needed to be the best people in terms of character and temperament with the ability to produce philosophical ideas into the society. Plato recognized that education would be the best way to address the training of the guardians, this education would include physical training, addressing their intellectual development and include musical training. Plato also raised the concept of censorship of materials used to educate, he argued that some forms of literature, drama and poetry didn’t allow the child to think, rather it made them more jaded. He feared that it would lead people who absorbed these kinds of ideas to not engage in self-reflection, which would lead to a weaker mental understanding. Plato basically had a view that society had to control what entered the public domain, and strict criteria be introduced to ensure only valued ideas would enter the society. This stringent education requirements would ensure that society would be able to assign the best role to an individual, by assessing performance society could ensure that rulers be wise, and soldiers be strong. The whole educational system would be a sort of test in which individuals would be assigned to the appropriate setting to ensure the future and role in the society itself.
Plato believed that a streamlined society would lead to an organized society. The ideal state would be compromised of three distinct classes: rules, soldiers and lastly the people. Guardians would be assigned by assessing whether they have the appropriate skills to qualify. This is where Plato believed that eventually guardians would be replaced by their offspring, leading to succession line sort of scenario. Of course there was the issue of somebody not liking what role they had been assigned, Plato stated the human beings like the metals gold, silver and bronze, were different and belonged in different categories to form a different function to ensure that society performed as a whole rather than an individual, here we lose the aspect of personal liberty and freedom, can such a society claim to be just? Plato also proposed the idea that the ruling class would be of higher stature than the civilians they governed. Guardians had some restriction in the form of not having any wealth of reward because of how superior they were compared the major populous. This division of wealth and power between the classes of people and individual roles they played inclined that they would be now power struggled for leadership because each individual would be fulfilled with the role they played in society.
Plato then defined a set of significant social qualities or virtues that would be divided up by the classes. The rules would be wise, the soldier would be courageous, and the rest of the people would follow the leaders instead of their own whims. When all three of these roles would be performed correctly, no one class would try to overthrow the other. Plato understood that the city as a whole would operate like a smooth assembly line, with each individual contributing to some part of the equation which would ensure the city was working as it was designed. This idea stems from the cardinal virtues being represented in each part of the ideal city, rules would be the wise decisions makes, soldiers would take on courageous actions and the people would practice their moderation in desired. Plato then proposed the idea of the physical bodies, the land, buildings, and other material resources to correspond to the three parts of the soul, which every human being has, which then corresponded to the three class of citizens within the states. The rational soul represents the mind or the intellect, the spirited soul represents the will or volition, and the appetitive soul represents the emotional or desirable part of the soul. Plato believed that the rational soul was driven by the spirited and the appetitive soul, for which you could not achieve intellectual abilities without the will or the desire to have them. For Plato a person was said to be just when all three souls performed together in harmony, ensuring the need to be just for the good of a person as a whole. Plato’s proposed ideal city may seem as a well-organized state, but in the larger context of the argument he is essentially arguing for why justice is better than injustice.
For Plato true justice is the combined effort of the three souls, once the three souls work together in harmony an individual is deemed as good, this is his definition of true justice. An unjust person, for Plato, is one that does not have the ability to bring harmony between the three souls and does not contribute to society, merely just existing through the motions of life rather than living life itself. In the beginning of the Republic many characters are upset with Plato for not providing a definition for justice, however for Plato justice is linked to society, what role do you play in society, where do you belong in society, how do live within society and ultimately harmonizing the three souls to form one just individual.
For Thrasymachus the counter-argument comes from the accepted idea of Sophists wanting to move away from the entire notion of justice and the moral standards that govern people itself. All previous definitions of justice have been found to be lacking in context and form, for Plato. Thrasymachus affirms that he not only has an enhanced definition of justice, but his definition also discredits the whole idea of justice as “just”. His argument is centered on the main idea that what has being just done to people who practice being just? It certainly has not improved their lives, in fact it only leaves them worse off, however being unjust has provided to be advantageous to those who practice it and therefore the whole idea that justice as “good” is flawed. Justice for Thrasymachus is the restriction of the natural desires we have to want, want more or want something we don’t have and suppressing natural desires is in no way intrinsically good, thus it can never be just. He instead wants to do away with justice and encourages to ignore it entirely because it does not benefit those who practice it by way of imposing a convention on the natural desires of a human being. Socrates’ response to this argument is that what Thrasymachus is pointing out is wrong because he is proposing injustice as a virtue rather than a wisdom, which is wrong because injustice is contrary to wisdom, which itself a virtue, so if something is the opposite of a virtue you cannot define it as a virtue. He then points out that in order to achieve and understand justice we need to understand the rules that govern a collective group of people to act towards a common good. Socrates’ final rejection of this definition of Thrasymachus’ definitions of justice concludes by defining justice was a virtue of the soul, virtue being directly related to the health of the soul.
The Republic begins with trying to define justice as a virtue, eventually we end up realizing that it is rather a wisdom. Socrates’ efforts to define justice as part of a society rather than an action leads us to examine the idea of what justice is intrinsically, because every notion we thought we knew about justice has been discredited. Plato reflects on the actual efforts that go in to form a just society and being, that mere actions do not lead to justice rather a healthy soul and the harmonization of the three souls is what leads us to justices. Justice is cannot be served without a well performing society to back it. The Republic allows Plato to not only define justices but also include the aspects of what makes society good because of justice. Plato forms this ideal state in an effort to explain what would eventually occur if this ideal state was implemented to a living, breathing society, and how justice is ultimately a resultant force of a well working society, in which everyone  be it rulers, soldiers or individuals plays a part to ensure the wheels of justice are turning.