Morality And Law: From Plato To Hobbes

The relationship between"people"and"politics"states the relationship between"morality"and"law". In the field of political philosophy, from the "politics" starting states "people" or from "people" starting rule "politics", which is the critical distinction between"classicality" and "modernity". Plato choose the thinking road from the "political" to "people" .In its view, "people" can not be assumed abstractedly, but must be placed in the context of"politics". Existence of human can be divided into existence on biological sense and existence on spiritual sense. As a existence on biological sense, the basic requirements of human is a desire to survive; as a existence on spiritual sense, the basic requirements of human is a spiritual values, its concentrated expression is "virtue." Politics in a fundamental is involved in matter of the public, and is a life reality of human. Therefore, the "political" connotation and temperament has a direct logical relationship with "human" requirement. From the "political" to "person" means, "person" will be put on the "politics" to be defined, that is, from the "overall" ruling "individual" and thus the essence of human nature is defined as the spiritual values, which is defined as "justice" by Plato and taken as an instruction from public and personal life. Thus, as existence on the biological significance, human desire to survive suffers the stern repression from the "virtue". Not only the construction of public social order depends on the value orientation as a spiritual virtue, but also the value of life does. In this context of "the sacred ", the desire becomes an object of moral evaluation. Plato believed that the ultimate value and meaning of life lies in that rationality tames desire by jointing passion, i.e. oriented to "justice" or "good." "Philosopher-king's rule" defines "politics" as the great spiritual cause that for the construction of public order, and eventually through the solemn call of "Virtue" theme, aims at achieving an infinite spirit value of human. "Virtue" is the resource of value in the path of the thought, occupies an unassailable position in Plato's discourse, and is the soul of human, political, law; Plato thinks that the "person" is not a god or hero's descent, but some profane person, which resulted in the limits of human nature, that people will order their own desires and deviate from the "virtue." So this world has crime. This is human nature; therefore, the law is necessary. This is the specific content and their mutual relations of "people" and "politics","morality" and "law".Hobbes ,who create "modernity" in the political philosophy,completely abandoned the classical Platonic road, he established the basic ideas not from the "politics" to "people", but from the "people" to " politics". In the relationship between"people"and"politics", Hobbes, who is different from Plato, places human in the "natural state" instead of in the "politics". The academic strategy has the epoch-making significance in the subsequent process of ideas history. In the "natural state", human′desire to survive obtain the first prescriptive, that is, the natural desire to survive has the legitimacy and thus, "person" is defined as one who is guided by a natural law, takes their desire to survive ( their legal expression is the "right") as the guidance, is the value root of this self-existence. This shapes a "new man" of the modernity who is completely distinct from the classical image .The meaning of life were proud to identify in the "this side of the world" by modern people .Politics is the great secular causes to respect, implement and protect the "rights" As the law is the expression of rights, therefore, rights-oriented politics must be converted to legal form. In other words, the political problem is transformed into legal issues. Law rather than ethics has become the soul of politics and the basic form of speech of politics. The definition of ethics is also changed. According to Plato, desire is the evaluation object of virtue, and virtue is the evaluation scale of desire, which is a solemn moral repression to desire. However, in the ideological context of Hobbes, the people's desires have been identified as human nature; morality is no longer on top of and above the desire to suppress the desire, but rather the expression of rights. It that meets the right (desire) will be regarded as"good", and that is discomfort from rights, will be regarded as "evil."It can be seen that desire is no longer an object of moral evaluation, but standards of moral evaluation. This is the "new morality" in the context of Hobbes: to respect and protect rights (desire), and given up the pursuit of the sacred and transcendence, while focusing on protection of the secular rights, merely emphasizing on the construction and maintenance of public order.If we say that in the context of Plato′thought, as far as the relationship between "human" and "politics" is concerned, Plato choose from the "politics" to "people", and on this basis, determine that the morality dominate the law; then, Hobbes's secular discourse choose the thought road from"people" to "politics", and identify that law as a concentrated expression of the rights dominate morality. The connotation of morality and the transformation of its historical status is shown through the dual morality (the morality of obligation and the morality of willing) becoming lingual morality (the morality of obligation). The history of legal thought after Hobbes illustrates this idea orbit in a more concrete level: Austin, Hart and Fuller describe the different image of law in the context of the modernity. Through the complex surface of their thoughts, eventually the main melody composed by Hobbes can be seen in the depths of their thoughts: from "people" to "politics"; the spirit connotations of the morality and law they discussed are the modern extension of Hobbes's theory.The uniquity of this paper is that, from this particular perspective of relationship between "people" and "politics" starting, clarify the specific connotations of "morality" and "law" and the historical transformation of their mutual relationship in the context of Plato and Hobbes. In order to deepen understanding of the theme of the history of human ideas, it is needed to grasp deeply historical documents. Therefore, the basic approach used in this paper is historical analysis and text analysis.This paper is divided into four parts:The first part:"an overview of Plato's political and legal thinking", focused on analyzing the "National Chapter", "politicians Chapter" and "Laws." Through realistic, detailed text analysis systemically depicts Plato's political and legal thinking, and withdraw "virtue" theme from its own ideas, and analyze the duality of morality in the classical context. Plato is a founders of Western classical thoughts, is an important reference to understand Hobbes. Therefore, this article has devoted much in the analysis of Plato's thinking,. So, this part is the cornerstone of the full text.The second part: "an overview of Hobbes political and legal thought," focuses on "Leviathan" and "right" topic of Hobbes thought. As considerable parts of the analysis has done in the first part of the dissertation and therefore I will not repeat here.The third part ,"relationship between morality and law and the historical transformation of their relationship ", concentratedly compare meanings of "people" and "politics", "morality" and "law" and the historical transformation of their relationship in the context of Plato and Hobbes. The thesis of the dissertation lies in it.The fourth part," the necessary supplements ", choose Austin, Hart and Fuller after Hobbes to observe further the history of ideas. The purpose of his supplemental analysis is to understand deeply "classicality"and"modernity".