Justice in the American Constitution and Classical Greece

Paper Summary:

To compare the conception of justice in The Federalist Paper 51 with Plato's in the "Phaedo," might seem to be an exercise in injustice, as the two works have such different aims. Hamilton/Madison, otherwise known as 'Publius', was attempting to create a more unified form of government than the Articles of Confederation which then governed the American nation, before the ratification of the American Constitution that governs the country today. This paper shows that the true Greek Plato, speaking as the dying Socrates, had different concerns than the faux Greek Publius. Plato's concerns were more abstract than Publius. He wished to create a philosophical kingdom of oligarchic leadership where every person perfectly and justly fulfilled his or her function according to his or her abilities. The paper shows that for Plato, the purpose of government was to create a way of enabling a higher philosophical consciousness in the citizens, not enabling them to obtain the economic and physical means to enjoy a better bodily life.

From the Paper:

"For Madison/Hamilton/Publius, justice was synonymous with laying a "due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government." A separation of powers, in other words, was key to and "essential to the preservation of liberty." Each department was to have a will and function of its own. In contrast, in Plato's "Phaedo," the main division stressed is that within the person, of the individual human soul and body. The soul despises and leaves the body upon death, but while on earth the philosopher obeys the consequences of the society he or she lives in, that protected the philosophy espoused by the philosopher, and hence, the philosopher physically obeys the laws of his society without question, although his soul may resist them. Divisions in government will not achieve justice in Plato's thought as in Publius. Rather Socrates stresses the striving of the soul for unity with the perfect forms of heaven as what is important-civic government matters less than self-government."

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