platos republic essays

platos republic essays A basic outline for the reasoning behind this quotation is that justice should be given to the masses unpleasant class to enable the higher controlling classes who endow justice in return for being kept in a powerful place, however giving justice for the sake of giving justice without any reward for those guardians as in Platos Just City should be let alone at all costs. Using the word Cultivate in this quotation gives the impression that justice is being grown as in a field, surely if this were talking about true justice, justice should be a process that is being implemented or is not being implemented not a process that needs nursing and cultivation. Also the most important word justice which is implied here should be analysed; to be just is to follow the rules and regulation set down by your society. In Platos Republic Thrasymachus argues justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger. In each system of government from a dictatorship to a democracy the rules by which the rest of the population is governed is imposed on the members of that state, for example by the king in a dictatorship or the representatives in a democracy therefore whatever government a people has it is the same everywhere, namely, the advantage of the stronger. The concept of justice that Thrasymachus expresses is a relative concept, 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, especially where the individual is concerned. In fact, Thrasymachus argues specifically that force makes right, that the group with the power is the puppet master therefore making the degree of justice determinable by their power. By this thinking it would be fair to assume that being just is applied differently to the individual than to the state, ...