Introduction:
sourceIn Plato’s Republic, Socrates surmises that a just man is happier than an unjust man. To prove his point, he begins by designing a city for the purpose of defining justice and injustice.
In this city,
sourceGuardians, who are just beyond reproach, sacrifice their own happiness in order to look after the greater good of the city and its inhabitants. In so doing, justice becomes the same in the city as in the individual.
By Socrates’ definition justice is a virtue and virtue is:
“health, fine condition, and well being of the soul”
(Republic, pp444e)
Socrates further defines justice
By dividing the well being of the soul into three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite. Harmony between these three aspects of the soul infused with the principles of “do no harm” and “fulfill all just commitments” leads to happiness.
source
In his article, “Justice and Happiness in the Republic,” Gregory Vlastos further supports this argument stating,
“One is a just man, the definition tells us, if each of these three parts (reason, spirit and appetite) functions optimally, and there results that state of inner peace, amity, and concord…called “psychic harmony”
(Vlastos p 70)
Works Cited
Cherniss, Harold. “The Philosophical Economy of the Theory of Ideas.” The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 57, No.4 (1936), pp 445-456. The Johns Hopkins Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/290396.
Colson, Darrel. “Elenctic Arguments in Republic I.” Lecture on Plato. Centenary College, Louisiana. September- October 2008.
Grube, G. M. A., C.D.C. Reeve. Plato. Republic. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc: Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1992.
Vlastos, Gregory, editor. Plato II: A Collection of Critical Essays. Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1971.