Comparing Plato s The Republic Of 380bce And One Of The...

Plato wrote the Republic in 380BCE and one of the key themes in the book is the theory of justice (C. D. C. Reeve, 2004). In this essay, we will follow the three main views of justice set out by , Glaucon (Ademantus) and Socrates highlighted in Plato’s The Republic. Whilst Thrasymachus explains a very simple and easily understood view of justice, seeing it as the laws created by the rulers of a city, there is no input from anybody else (Lampert, 2010, p260) In my opinion, Glaucon has a much stronger view of justice, explaining that it is split into 3 types of good, laborious good, good for the benefit of others and good for the sake of being virtuous (Ophir, 2002), he also explains about the origin of justice and the social contract signed†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬ËœSocrates describes Thrasymachus with images of wildness and vulgarity (336b, d; 344d)’ (N. Pappas, 1995). This discourteous and offensive image of Thrasymachus is useful when studying the context o f his theory of justice, because his theory of justice is just as pessimistic and despondent (Guthrie, 1969). Thrasymachus begins by describing justice as ‘nothing other than the advantage of the stronger’ (Plato, 338c). From this, it is interpreted that he defines justice as a fake system whose agenda is controlled by the rich and powerful and use it to exploit the poor and vulnerable (Cleary, Glurtler, 1998). This view can be offensive to certain sections of society but Thrasymachus continues anyhow explaining how justice does not have a set definition and is interpreted by the power structure, in the modern world, this means that justice is decided by the ruling government of the day (Cleary, Glurtler,1998). Santas (2010) argues that in Thrasymachus’ view, by observing the laws of your country, you are considered just and by breaking the laws and facing punishment you are considered unjust. The problem with this system of justice is that the ruling party make laws in their own favour and consequently there are different interpretations of justice across different nations. An example could be censorship in autocratic governments such as North Korea where criticising the government is seen as