Hourani's Theory Of Justice Essay

Hourani provides an alternative interpretation to Thrasymachus’s position on justice that is best characterized as deontological. Similarly to Kerferd and Nicholson, Hourani takes the position that Thrasymachus’s opening statement is designed to make an “impression of daring cynicism”; however, that justice is the advantage of the stronger is not meant to be taken as a literal definition of justice. Instead, Hourani advocates that Thrasymachus is talking about obedience to the law when referring to the advantage of the stronger, as reflected in his subsequent description of governments making laws in a self-interested manner. Hourani postulates that Thrasymachus structures his argument in a way that resembles the sophist’s conception of justice in Book IV of Plato’s Laws. In order to demonstrate this resemblance, Hourani provides a reordered schematic of Thrasymachus’s argument that follows:
(i) The rulers in each city are the stronger.
(ii) The laws are always made by the rulers for their own advantage.
(iii) Justice is obeying the laws.
(iv) …show more content…
As Cross and Woozley provide, it does not evaluate justice based on action; the practice of justice serves to reinforce the balance of the elements of the soul but these actions are not inherently just. Instead, for Socrates, if one possesses the correct virtues, one will be inclined to make decisions that produce harmony in the soul; stated otherwise, a just person will perform just acts. Socrates’s reliance on the virtues of wisdom, moderation, and courage to account for justice is also reflected in McDonald’s account of virtue ethics. While there is some contention that Socrates’s theory of justice can be manipulated to produce an act-centred account of justice, this act-centred account must be embedded within the agent-centred account and so the agent-centred theory of Platonic justice is primary while the act-centred account is a derivative of