The Nature of Justice~ Plato Aristole, buddhism
...tate. Therefore, the State in its simplest form is good. In reality, a State is not perfectly good due to its complexity. Socrates and others agree that in effort to attain this simple, utopian State virtues can be defined that directs the State towards its simplest form. Socrates and the others agreed on wisdom, courage, moderation and justice as the virtues that make a State good. The State must maintain a “happy medium” in all of these virtues. The lack of one virtue can be attributed to emphasis of another. The distinction of these virtues is the origin of justice in the State. Justice arose as a necessity to a good State. A good State provides a good for the individual. This benefit to the individual provides rational to be a just individual. Justice in the State is seen as the duty of each individual to perform the skill for which they are best suited without meddling with the task of others because it disrupts the harmony, which is essential to creating a totally simple, good State. When comparing the tendencies of the State to the person. Socrates argues that like the State, someone or something must be in charge to guide the person towards the greater good. For the individual this ruler is the soul. Like the State the soul is made up of balanced parts of which lies justice. Justice in the State was found in the willingness of each individual to perform the duty they are best suited to do, while not interfering with the duties of other individuals. In the just person, each part of the soul does what is natural for it to do without interfering with the functions of other souls. This is not to say that the just person is better off materially than the unjust person, but it is agreed that the greater good is a harmonious person. An unjust person with greater material wealth is overindulged in one attribute, sacrificing another virtue, justice. This disrupts the harmony. In the analogy of Gyges and the magic ring, it provides a case in which an individual would seem to be better off being unjust. Socrates decided that it is a greater injustice to be mistaken for a just person, when actually unjust, than it is to be the victim of injustice. The reasoning is that when the unjust person secretly gets away with injustice it is an unjust act against the soul. This is a greater injustice than an unjust act towards someone else. The soul is apart of nature and it can be inferred that an unhealthy soul, one that is injured by an injustice, creates an unhealthy person. Although Gyges may be materially better off by being unjust he is not acting in a moderate fashion. This causes an unbalanced soul of which cannot achieve total harmony and goodness. The need for harmony lies in this desire for goodness, which leads to a better life. To achieve this harmony, justice is one of an equally important number of virtues. Aristotle’s view of justice can be related to that of Plato and Socrates, although Aristotle explored justice in a different manner. Plato and Socrates started with the origin of justice to define justice, where as Aristotle looked at the nature of justice. Aristotle breaks justice into its underlying parts. These parts together create justice. The parts he defines are; the kind of actions the just and unjust are concerned with, what sort of mean justice is, and between what extremes justice lies. Virtues of the individual provide the extremes on which justice is based. Justice is relative to the individual and the manner at hand. This definition of justice suggests interpretation of justice and when an injustice has occurred, there is a duty to correct this injustice based on this interpretation. Justice is thereby, defined by the interpreter and the enforced based on this interpretation. The society and State decided on justice, and are the creators of justice. This distinction gives rise to another question, a question dealing with the ability of people to interpret justice, if justice is nothing more than the product of the people. As for Gyges, he is unjust in Aristotle’s viewpoint because he is excessive in his need for material wealth. He committed an injustice when he succumbed to greed and took more then was justly his without valid merit, even though the opportunity presented itself. This injustice can be considered an injustice against society itself, which, in Aristotle’s view, created justice. This differs from Plato and Socrates in that they defined it as an injustice against the soul. Buddhist philosophy takes a different approach entirely. Buddhism is based around Four Noble Truths which are; suffering exists, suffering is caused, suffering can be eliminated by eliminating the causes of suffering, and the way to eliminate these causes, is to follow what is known as the Middle Way. The Middle Way deals with acting right. Right conduct, right intent, right speech and may others are examples of some o...