Justice During the Greek Period: As a Virtue of the Social Order

Plato—Concept of justice as moral conduct by individuals and social classes

The principle of justice is the central argument in Greek political philosopher Plato’s Republic. According to Will Durant, Plato seeks ethical solution of an ethical problem. The ethical problem is what ‘is the crux of the theory of moral conduct. What is justice? Shall we seek righteousness, or shall we seek power?’⁶ Plato treats justice as both a principle of individual right conduct and an ideal social order. The first he finds in the three faculties of the individual, the second in the three social classes. He actually seeks the basis of a just social order or the state in the very nature of human beings. This means, if each individual does what one is best suited for there will be specialization as well as non-interference in each other’s work, i.e., harmony. Richard Lewis Nettleship in his Lectures on the Republic of Plato says, ‘Justice in Plato’s sense is the power of individual concentration on duty’ which means ‘each man should devote himself to that one function in the state for which he was by nature best suited.’⁷ As such, justice is a sense of duty in the individual of doing what one is best capable of. Then, how would one know what is the best work for oneself? Plato correlates suitability with individual dominant faculty, which he presents as ‘trilogy of soul’ or what Barker calls ‘doctrine of the triplicity of the soul’.⁸

Plato correlates the cardinal virtues to which the Greeks gave importance, i.e., Wisdom, Courage, Temperance or Self-control, and justice with the different faculties that an individual soul possesses. He assigns three different faculties—Reason, Spirit and Appetite that the soul possesses. This soul trilogy is to show that there are three inherent and innate qualities of the soul in each human being. However, different human beings have different faculties as dominant—in some, reason will be predominant, in some other, spirit and yet some others will have appetite or desire as their dominant faculty. He relates virtue of wisdom with faculty of reason; virtue of courage with faculty of spirit and virtue of temperance or self-control with faculty of appetite or desire. Corresponding to the three virtues and three faculties of the soul, Plato also suggests three classes such as philosopher-kings or guardians, soldiers or subsidiary/auxiliary guardians and artisans/producers (see Table 10.1).

Table 10.1 Virtues, Soul Trilogy and Social Classes

After relating virtues with faculties of soul and the three classes in the social order, we can quote Plato saying that ‘justice is the having and doing what is one’s own.’⁹ This means, justice is performing as per dominant faculty and receiving what one produces. This is possible only when, what Will Durant says, ‘there is effective coordination and harmonious functioning of the elements in a man, each in its fit place and each making its cooperative contribution to behaviour.’ Each faculty in individual does its own work and produces just condition. It requires understanding of one’s faculties and using each faculty as best suited. This means the first step is to know which the dominant faculty is and this requires reason to tell that and direct the dominant faculty to realize its position. This results in specialization and emergence of classes that can be categorized as per the faculties.

In terms of social classes, society is ideal when each class does what it is best suited to—having reason as superior faculty rules, having courage as faculty guards and being an ally of reason and having nutritive or appetitive faculty and engaging in production and artisanship. Justice is what each class does as per dominant faculty. This results in specialization, excellence and efficiency. For Plato, a state is efficient and excellent because it is just. Plato argued that those having wisdom and reason must rule as reason establishes coordination amongst the other faculties and has the capacity to balance all the faculties. If Spirit or Appetite rules, selfish interest prevails either in search for honour or pleasure, but when Wisdom rules, it seeks unlimited Good and welfare of all. Plato identifies rule of Spirit with military character and of Appetite with economic character. It is only the rule of the philosophers that would institute an ideal state.

Plato’s justice is distributive justice and seeks to provide moral and ideal criteria for individual conduct and ideal social order. This social order is harmonious, just, specialized and efficient. Justice becomes what Nettleship says, ‘one does his own business.’ However, Plato’s categorization of soul is not based on any rational criteria and is often related with the ‘myth of noble lie’. This means it seeks origin from the myth that philosopher kings are made of gold, soldiers of silver and artisans/producers of bronze. It is interesting to note that a similar criterion is invoked to relate origin of castes in India—head/mouth (Brahman), shoulder (Kshatriya), thigh (Vaishya) and feet (Shudra). However, the difference between the two schemes appears to be the flexibility, which Plato gives in the form of circulation of individuals from one class to another with change of faculty. Nevertheless, Plato could not escape the criticism of R. H. S. Crossman (Plato Today) and Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies). Crossman and Popper find his theory opposed to liberal ideas and Popper treats him as enemy of the open society and his idea as ‘unmitigated authoritarianism’. C. E. M. Joad is also critical and finds striking similarities between his idea and ‘fascist totalitarianism’.