The Study On Justice Thought In Plato’s Republic

Justice is the basic value orientation and the most ancient value goal of the human society that has a correlation with social stability and the well-being of people.Plato,the ever-first person in history who had systematically discussed the principle of justice,had most of his arguments regarding justice written in his book The Republic.This paper provides a systematic summary of the justice thoughts in Plato’s The Republic through a comprehensive analysis of the historical background of Plato’s times,his family background and the origin of his justice thoughts.Though born in an era of war,Plato had been receiving good education on politics as he grew up in a prominent family.At his age of 20,Plato became a student of Socrates and started to concentrate on philosophy studies,which laid the root for his composition of books and establishment of theories in a later stage.The death of Socrates,as well as a few political revolutions happened,made Plato realise that wisdom must be combined with power in order for justice to be served,otherwise there would be existence of acts that made use of the legal procedure to harm the justice.Only when a philosopher king with absolute power ruled a city-state,could real justice and political stability be realized.In Plato’s view,justice is a proper state and virtue of souls.It is about each performing their own duties,and meanwhile it is also the essential condition for cooperation and the basic principle to deal with city-state affairs.Plato categorised justice in reality into justice of the state and justice of individuals.The former is a synthesis of wisdom,courage and abstinence,whereas the latter is the justice of state in a narrowed scope that covers rationality,passion and appetency.The justice of state premises on,but meanwhile is one level higher than the state of individuals.The latter could be realised only when the law and regulation of states have justice.For the first time,Plato established a complete system of justice,which provided a guidance and crafted a blueprint on pursuit of justice for both the political society and individuals back at the time.However,its strict requirement in individuals’ virtue,and the status of city-states to be achieved turned out to be idealistic in a certain extent.As the great philosopher in Classical Greece,Plato had expressed his expectation towards justice and order,and his pursuit for the stabilisation of city-states and the well-being of individuals in his book The Republic,which had great guiding significance for China in terms of building a legal and harmonious society.It implies that while social system is being improved,moral training among leaders should also be reinforced.The authorities should persist in the principle of justice,plant seeds of beauty,goodness and truth among people’s heart,and spare no efforts to build a dynamic society where people could all achieve their own happiness,even with different standards.