Thursday, March 17, 2011

Justice and Injustice

In the Republic Book II, Glaucon argues that if being unjust had no consequences people would carry through with it. But, because we have established laws and contracts with how to be just, people stay between those lines because it is the right thing to do. The idea is that people only stay just for the mere reason that they do not want to suffer injustice.

I would argue this for many reasons, but the most important being - people inherently are good. Maybe that is naive of me to say, but I truly do believe it. In preparing for our second paper, I went on a bit of a hunt for arguments against Glaucon. The one that made the most sense was from one of our first readings, Plato's Crito. In the Crito, Socrates explains the story of growing up in Athens. He says that when you have reached a certain age, you can make the decision to stay or to leave the city, and if you chose to stay then you followed the citys rules and laws. It is shown here that by choosing to live in Athens, you would be just, furthering the idea that justice is a desirable trait.

Lastly, I believe that people don't simply act just out of fear of injustice being committed against them, but because people are generally trying to better the environment that they live in.

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