Plato and Aristotle and Justice

Justice is a function not of actions or behavior as such--and by implication not of material experience more generally--but rather of the just conceptualization, which must precede the just action if the action and the one who performs it are to be considered authentically just, either by oneself or by others:

[Justice] . . . is not a matter of external behaviour, but of the inward self . . . . The just man . . . sets his house in order, by self-mastery and discipline . . . . Only when he has linked these parts together in well-tempered harmony . . . will he be ready to go about whatever he may have to do, whether it be making money . . . or the affairs of state (Plato 141-2).

The mechanism of harmony in personal and civic relationships is political education and desire for wisdom, a "constant passion for any knowledge that will reveal to them something of that reality which endures for ever and is not always passing into and out of existence" (Plato 190-1). These traits are identified with the philosopher-king, whose commitment to virtue, justice, and wisdom is the basis for the community's depositing sovereignty with the ruler.

Implicit in the entitlement to sovereignty held by the "Guardian of a commonwealth and its laws" is that he must be groomed in governance and virtue with a view toward attaining the highest kind and object of knowledge, which is "the essential nature of the Good, from which everything that is good and right derives its value for us" (Plato 214-21

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and always are in the midst of class warfare on one hand or in danger of falling into the lower class by reason of indolence or avarice, which may be aggravated by the evil of inherited wealth (Plato 274-6, 277). If oligarchy is faulty because it is governance by the few, democracy is faulty because it is governance by the many, wherein citizens unqualified by temperament or education having an equal voice in governance with those who are suited for governance. But because the latter kind of citizen will be few in number, the political community is in danger of degenerating into anarchy, or mob rule. Democracy "tramples" notions of virtue and goodness because the mob cannot internalize the appropriate temperament (Plato 283). Despotic government is faulty because it concentrates power in a ruler who not only lacks the temperament of the philosopher king but also internalizes injustice as a positive value (Plato 301-2). The people may identify with the despot, but that is based not on trusting in the ruler's judgment but on charisma. The "single champion" of popular interests whom the people "nurse to greatness" (Plato 291), is basically a wolf in sheep's clothing. The temperament of the despot is passionate, not virtuous, making

Category: Philosophy - P