Aristotle's The Republic: The Origins Of Political Justice

Justice is not static. It may be static, but how people interpret justice, from its origin, definition, to implication, vary by philosophers. It is also true of political justice. In terms of the origin of the political justice, some philosophers theorize it to be from “up”, meaning that they see the origins to be from the perspectives of the individuals who possess power through making orders and/or laws, when other philosophers theorize it to be from “around”, meaning that they approach it not from definite persons, but through consensus, discussion, and weighing out what is most beneficial. Approaching the political justice from the perspective of the rulers can be somewhat interpreted as following legal imperatives, and approaching it from the perspective of the mass as following moral imperatives. Both are valid …show more content…
First, Aristotle defines human beings as political animals, who need to form a group in order to survive (Aristotle, Politics 1.2). This interdependence among the people leads Aristotle to put the good of the society to the utmost priority when governing a city-state. With governance of the city-state, he proposes that the city-state should be governed as “household management” than a ‘slave management’, since the former yields win-win solution for the majority by pursuing “common benefit”, whereas the latter yields only the benefit of the master while the slaves rarely share the benefits (Aristotle, Politics 3.6). Through proposing that the good of the whole should be preferred to good of only few, namely the masters, Aristotle contends that political justice lies in the mass than specific persons; it is to say that justice is not always the same as what the rulers suggest/define what it