Platos Republic, the Search for Justice and Goodness Essay

Platos Republic – The Search for Justice and Goodness Platos Republic is often read as a political work, as a statement of some sort on government, society, and law. This is certainly not a rash reading of the dialogue; it is called the Republic, and over half of it is devoted to the construction of a city through speech, a city complete with a government structure, a military, an economic system, and laws. However, I believe that to read the Republic as a political statement is inaccurate. Although Socrates and his companions construct a city out of speech as they attempt to define justice, the dialogue repeatedly frames justice as something that cannot be established through a fixed system of morality, let alone through a rigid†¦show more content†¦To find the Good, one must instead engage in an arduous journey through darkness, riddled throughout with pitfalls. On this steep, upward way (7.516A)[1] one must navigate without a map. I assert that for a moral system to be necessary and applicable, there must exist a moral agent who possesses both the desire and the ability to choose. By denoting certain actions or ways of being as better, a moral system implies that there are also other potential actions and ways of being that are worse. The individual must choose between them. Without this element of choice, an action has no moral qualification. For example, a computer acts, but it does not choose its action. Consequently, while a computer can be judged better or worse in its ability to carry out an action, it cannot be judged responsible for the action. Rather, the person who uses or creates the computer is in fact responsible, for it is that person who chooses for it to act in a particular way. In a moral system, choice, responsibility, and the viability of judgment are linked inextricably. The city that Socrates and his companions develop through their discussions cannot be interpreted as a moral system, nor even as a model of a moral system in practice, because it does not allow for that autonomy presupposed by moral agency. In Book IX of the Republic, Socrates argues that if oneShow MoreRelated Model of Justice in Platos The Republic Essay1705 Words   |  7 PagesModel of Justice in Platos The Republic In what is perhaps his most well-known text, The Republic, Plato explores the fundamental concept of justice, how it is observed in the world, and its application to the lives of men. When he identifies the good in Book VI, which is reality and knowledge in their true forms, Plato also describes the visual world of shadows and false reality that people perceive and is cast by the sun. What follows from these definitions is that, while justiceRead MoreJustice and Morality in Platos Republic3158 Words   |  13 PagesJustice and Morality in Platos Republic Explain and evaluate the reasons given by Plato in the Republic, to support the contention that justice is superior to, or more beneficial than, injustice? What is the relationship between justice and morality? Introduction This essay discusses and clarifies a concept that is central to Platos argument in the Republic — an argument in favour of the transcendent value of justice as a human good; that justice informs and guides moral conduct. 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