Justice As Virtue

The concept of justice, going through Plato's Republic, is a basic clue concept. In Republic, Plato conceived an ideal polis which studying all aspects about people's cognition, political system, the inbred virtue of people and the education to children. It includes main branches of philosophy, such as epistemology, ethics, politics, and so on. But Republic is concerning to virtue in essence, not about politics or philosophy, and it takes justice as its topics. Once owning justice, which is in great need for individuals, one can act properly in communicating with others. This dissertation takes the first four volumes of Republic as text, does research on justice at what degree can be seen as virtue and illuminates the significance and shortage of justice as virtue. On the surface, the first four volumes of Republic list three kind of justice. First, at the scene of sufficing people's needs, justice is the premise for the engendering of original polis. Here, justice is the rule which generates the laws to maintain the polis running accurately. Although, justice is the exterior restricting force, not only to polis, but also to people; it arises with the generating of polis and has special real functions which is called remedying justice by Aristotle. It has radical differences in character comparing to justice as virtue. Secondly, a polis is just when all its three estates, that is rulers, escorts and producers, do there jobs properly. Taking the polis as a whole, it is the justice principle for every citizens do their contributing to polis using their abilities of wisdom, continence or brevity. So, justice is not a kind of virtue which is paratactic to wisdom, bravery and continence. It is a kind of virtue can be used to them at a higher level. Thirdly, a soul is just when all its three parts, that is reason, enthusiasm and appetite, conciliate and correspond with each and it dictates by itself. In despite of its different sections of reason, enthusiasm and appetite, the soul is imperishable as a whole. From a much deeper level, we can study justice as virtue from the era's demand of philosophical development and the new method Plato resolving old problems. Firstly, from the era's demand of philosophical development, it has achieving the high-point in delving into the world's origin and virtue has grown into the imperious problems for philosophy to resolve. Denying the reality of things that people can feel, Sophist Protagoras takes senses as the sole source of episteme. Both Heraklit and Plato thing we can get eternal episteme about being from two different ways criticizing Protagoras'theory. Heraklit holds the idea that there is epistemology, and if they can't be found from senses, they must be found in thought. He believes of the possible theory to explain phenomenon. However, be deeply influenced by Socrates'concept of episteme is virtue, Plato holds the view that the only way to gain virtue is correct episteme and episteme is the cognition to real existence. So, if we can't find virtue in sensory world, we must find it in thought. To Heraklit, the real existence has theoretical values to explain phenomenon; comparing with Plato, the real existence has practical values and is the object of moral episteme. Secondly, justice has methodological significance of illuminating virtue problems in facing of many popular virtues in Greece. He doesn't make a definition to justice like justice is x to do epistemological research, which takes justice as idea. He does research to x is just which equals with x1 is rational and x2 is brave and x3 is moderate. It takes justice as criterion to make value judgment. This kind of operation has great value. For example, it opposes sophists'relative morality and believes the universal and collective moral; justice works in ethical realm and it has practical priority to episteme; the concept of justice dominating other virtues embodies new moral principle, that there is united inbred virtue. Plato takes humanity as foundation to construct his theory about justice and virtue. He just requires that human aspire living. Plato neither presume any requirement to humanity just like John Locke assuming metaphysical believes, nor presume any moral motility just like Locke assuming many benefits. Those attitudes latently show that all ethical values including wisdom, bravery and continence don't exist in pre-polis state, for they could only emerge in polis. In spite of this, as the virtue of justice, Plato is also facing some problems. First of all, in expatiating justice, Plato did not give a positive answer to the questions, such as what is justice and the value of its own, which are crucial to it. He just say that justice is the general harmony of wisdom, bravery and continence. This answer, of course, there is the significance of its methodology, will be transferred to the justice of morality on a variety of specific, but the helpless are classified as indirect because Plato could not find justice in its direct role on the object. In other words, we can't find the just idea corresponding directly with justice and the object that can be used directly to justice, so we can't get a substantial definition about justice. Secondly, on the question of its own good, justice is the harmony of wisdom, bravery and continence; justice can only emerge through its usage which takes intelligence as its promise, so that wisdom and justice argue for each other. This approach leads to another question: the basic role of wisdom is too strong so that it makes time the connotation of justice, making it more difficult for us to grasp the virtues of justice, as the value of its own. Even if not holding the value of justice itself and stopping at its dominating role to wisdom, bravery and continence, Plato is in urgent need to explain the following problem: it is not enough to know justice itself, for it is still a relatively independent problem that whether people will choose justice. In the first four volumes, Plato also discussed several other issues: the development from initial to improved polis showed that justice as virtue only emerge in improved polis; war is the power to drive the polis to develop and has the function to shape the virtue of people; we can't teach somebody with virtue and education is the process to recall the virtue belonging to the soul itself.