Daniel Hood
English 101-1
Al Robinson
The Concept of Justice What is Justice? Justice is a very important moral and political concept that has been around for thousands of years. Justice is the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness. Another definition of justice is giving each person what they deserve. Those are just two definitions of the word justice though there many different definitions, ideas and views on what justice is. Justice was a key concept for both Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle believes justice has a huge influence on humanity, “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worse”. Aristotle believed justice had a huge impact on humanity. To get …show more content…
Plato in his philosophy thought very highly of the idea of justice and what it was, “He used the Greek word “Dikaisyne” for justice which comes very near to the work ‘morality’ or ‘righteousness’, it properly includes within it the whole duty of man”. Back in that time Plato was not happy with the degenerating states that Athens was in. The government was on the edge of destruction and they were accountable for Socrates death who was Plato’s teacher. He turned to justice seeing it the only way to save Athens. He used justice to form the idea of the ideal society and in the society justice was a top priority. Plato believed that justice was the answer to many problems in the world. That leads us to believe that he saw justice as an essential code for a well well-organized civilization. Justice was around before Plato came into play so there were many ideas of justice around. Cephalus had the interpretation that justice was defined as and speaking the truth and giving back what one owes to another. His reasons being, “The view point of Cephalous was criticized on the ground that there may be cases in which this formula may involve the violation of the spirit of right and his formula does not admit of being taken as a sound universal principle of life”. Polemarchus ideas on justice also did not make the cut either because it was easy to give well to friends and evil to evil but what if the friend acting as a friend but meaning …show more content…
Aristotle was Plato’s student and he vetoed Plato’s ideas of justice because he said justice is shown by doing and intrapersonal dealings, while Plato’s was the opposite. Plato thought getting involved with a corrupted system would in turn corrupt oneself. Aristotle saw getting involved with the corrupt system as the only way to fix it. Aristotle had two big thoughts on justice, broad justice and narrow justice. Narrow justice meaning equality and proportionality. It has three parts Distributive proportionality, Corrective proportionality, and Reciprocal proportionality. Distributive proportionality meaning people who did the same crime should receive equal punishment regardless. Corrective proportionality meaning the crime should be equal to the punishment. Reciprocal meaning the price of the crime should be equal or proportionate to the value of the object. Along with those two big thoughts we also have four different kinds of justice people can seek when they have been wrong. They are Distributive justice, Procedural justice, Restorative justice, and Retributive justice these are more recent but very similar to Aristotle’s thoughts. Distributive justice is about the fairness of what someone would receive whether it be goods, money or attention. Procedural Justice is when people involved with the process know that it was a fair process. Restorative justice is about the wrong doer fixing what the
English 101-1
Al Robinson
The Concept of Justice What is Justice? Justice is a very important moral and political concept that has been around for thousands of years. Justice is the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness. Another definition of justice is giving each person what they deserve. Those are just two definitions of the word justice though there many different definitions, ideas and views on what justice is. Justice was a key concept for both Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle believes justice has a huge influence on humanity, “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worse”. Aristotle believed justice had a huge impact on humanity. To get …show more content…
Plato in his philosophy thought very highly of the idea of justice and what it was, “He used the Greek word “Dikaisyne” for justice which comes very near to the work ‘morality’ or ‘righteousness’, it properly includes within it the whole duty of man”. Back in that time Plato was not happy with the degenerating states that Athens was in. The government was on the edge of destruction and they were accountable for Socrates death who was Plato’s teacher. He turned to justice seeing it the only way to save Athens. He used justice to form the idea of the ideal society and in the society justice was a top priority. Plato believed that justice was the answer to many problems in the world. That leads us to believe that he saw justice as an essential code for a well well-organized civilization. Justice was around before Plato came into play so there were many ideas of justice around. Cephalus had the interpretation that justice was defined as and speaking the truth and giving back what one owes to another. His reasons being, “The view point of Cephalous was criticized on the ground that there may be cases in which this formula may involve the violation of the spirit of right and his formula does not admit of being taken as a sound universal principle of life”. Polemarchus ideas on justice also did not make the cut either because it was easy to give well to friends and evil to evil but what if the friend acting as a friend but meaning …show more content…
Aristotle was Plato’s student and he vetoed Plato’s ideas of justice because he said justice is shown by doing and intrapersonal dealings, while Plato’s was the opposite. Plato thought getting involved with a corrupted system would in turn corrupt oneself. Aristotle saw getting involved with the corrupt system as the only way to fix it. Aristotle had two big thoughts on justice, broad justice and narrow justice. Narrow justice meaning equality and proportionality. It has three parts Distributive proportionality, Corrective proportionality, and Reciprocal proportionality. Distributive proportionality meaning people who did the same crime should receive equal punishment regardless. Corrective proportionality meaning the crime should be equal to the punishment. Reciprocal meaning the price of the crime should be equal or proportionate to the value of the object. Along with those two big thoughts we also have four different kinds of justice people can seek when they have been wrong. They are Distributive justice, Procedural justice, Restorative justice, and Retributive justice these are more recent but very similar to Aristotle’s thoughts. Distributive justice is about the fairness of what someone would receive whether it be goods, money or attention. Procedural Justice is when people involved with the process know that it was a fair process. Restorative justice is about the wrong doer fixing what the