Justice in Plato's "Republic"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes how Plato's "Republic" describes a society that is completely rational, based on Plato's concept of the good life and developed to create and protect that sort of life within the context of a civil state. It examines how Plato seeks in this dialogue a definition of the perfect life and the perfect state to promote and sustain that life. In particular, it looks at how in Book I, the issue is how to define justice and how the first conception of justice is justice based on traditional morality.

From the Paper:

"The concept of justice that Thrasymachos expresses is a relative concept of justice, a concept that changes according to the situation. He finds that there is one kind of justice in a just society and another kind of justice in an unjust society, as far as individual action is concerned. In fact, Thrasymachos argues specifically that might makes right, that the group in power makes the rules and thus that justice is determined by their power. He does not admit that there are any absolutes in terms of just behavior, for if there were the criteria would be imposed on the state as well as on the individual. Rather, he sees the matter as differing according to the nature of the state and believes that indeed the state has the right to make such formulations of what is right as the state deems necessary. It is then incumbent upon the individual citizen to live up to the nature of the state of which he or she is a part."

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