Free Essays on Justice

In The Republic, Plato attempts to demonstrate through the character and discourse of Socrates that justice is better than justice is the good which men must strive for, regardless of whether they could be unjust and still be rewarded. His method is to use dialectic, the asking and answering of questions which led the hearer from one point to another, supposedly with irrefutable logic by obtaining agreement to each point before going on to the next, and so building an argument. Early on, his two young listeners pose the question of whether justice is stronger than injustice, what each does to a man, and what makes the first good and the second bad. In answering this question, Socrates deals directly with the philosophy of the individual's goodness and virtue, but also ties it to his concept of the perfect state, which is a republic of three classes of people with a rigid social structure and little in the way of amusement. Although Socrates returns time and again to the concept of justice in his discourse on the perfect city-state, much of it seems off the original subject. One of his main points, however, is that goodness is doing what is best for the common, greater good rather than for individual happiness. There is a real sense in which his philosophy turns on the concepts of virtue, and his belief that ultimately virtue is its own reward. His first major point is that justice is an excellence of character. He then seeks agreement that no excellence is achieved through destructive means. The function of justice is to improve human nature, which is inherently constructive. Therefore, at a minimum, justice is a form of goodness that cannot be involved in injuring someone's character. Justice, in short, is a virtue, a human excellence. His next point is that acting in accordance with excellence brings happiness. Then he ties excellence to one's function. His examples are those of the senses each sensory organ is excellen... Free Essays on Justice Free Essays on Justice Justice is showing fairness and equality for every student or person you encounter. Fairness, however, is not the same for each student because each student or person is different; they are different culturally, academically, morally, and in gender, so justice must be adapted accordingly. For example, if a male student of Middle Eastern descent in you class hit a female student out of anger, before issuing punishment, you would have to consider his background and culture. Perhaps in his culture males are expected to dominate over women. If this is true, then you should not punish the male student immediately; hitting women is how he was reared, therefore you cannot take actions against something he was taught in the home. You would have to explain to him the culture he is in and the rules of the classroom for inflicting harm on another student. After you are positive the child understands the culture and the rules of the environment to which he currently exists, if he hits anoth er student, male or female, you would have the right to punish him. I find this to be a fairly accurate definition of justice because as a student my professors and coaching teacher always emphasize the uniqueness of each child or situation. If the individual development of each child is considered when teaching children an academic lesson, then their morals, age , cultural background, gender, and cognitive levels should all be regarded when determining what is just. According to Piaget, children on the preoperational level of though can only focus their thoughts on one portion of a problem (Berk p 319-322). In relating my standards of justice as an Early Childhood Educator to those of my students, I know they firmly believe in equality. The also only see the actions of others, not their intentions (Educational Psychology p 102-103, Berk p 482); I believe this is why children tattle tell on one another constantly. Children know rules are in place and... Free Essays on Justice Of course I looked â€Å"justice† up in the dictionary before I started to write this paper and I did not find anything of interest except of course a common word in every definition, that implies being â€Å"fair†. This implies that justice would have something to do with being fair. I thought that if one of the things the law and the legal system are about is maintaining and promoting justice and a sense of â€Å"fairness†, they may not be doing a spiffy job. An eye for an eye is fair? No, that would be too easy, too black and white. I could cite several examples where I thought a judge’s or jury’s ruling was not fair, but I won’t cause frankly, we’ve all seen those. I actually believe in our legal system and I believe in justice. I believe in justice as an ideal that we strive for and that is what it means to me. The legal system, when looked at closer is not just justice but instead- judgement. You can be punished when found guilty , in a number of ways, but who knows if they’re â€Å"fair â€Å"punishments, its all a matter of opinion. Is life in jail, say 25 years, going to be enough punishment for the parents charged with brutally murdering their daughter Farah Khan? Her life was brief, but whoever killed her also mutilated her body parts. The possibilities for her life were endless, she could have lived to age 95. So is 25 years enough for her killers? They’ll be able to walk free at the end of their term, and perhaps few will remember them then and what they did. Why is justice important then? Because although the legal system is not always right, it needs that lofty ideal of justice something to strive for, something to hope gets accomplished, the hope for every victim of a crime in any nature. The seeking of justice is a tiring and long quest akin to the seeking of truth, for they are closely linked and without one there may not be the other. Without the understanding of what really happ ened in an event or place and time ju... Free Essays on Justice Aristotle once said,  ¡Ã‚ °It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered. ¡Ã‚ ± Justice is also defined as the use of authority and power to uphold that which is right or lawful. Justice separates the good from the evil in court while abiding by the laws through which we live our everyday lives. However, justice does not always prevail, and occasionally can send an innocent person to prison or death. Justice can also lead to a sentence in prison when it is gained through revenge or the personal satisfaction of a person. In the federal court, there is a prosecutor and a defense. The prosecutor ¡Ã‚ ¯s job is to prove the person is guilty through the use of evidence. The defense ¡Ã‚ ¯s job is to protect the person on trial from whatever sentence he or she is going to receive. They both interview witnesses, and try to win their care through the decision of the jury. A person will go to court because he or she broke one of our many American laws. A sentence is given by the judge. Depending on which crime is committed, determines the length of the sentence. For example, a person will most likely be put to death for treason, receive a life sentence for rape or murder, or receive a less amount of years for theft or assault. This is how justice keeps our country strong and together through the use of laws in a federal court. However, our country could be a much safer place to live if we did not have to fill up our prisons with criminals. Justice does not always send guilty people to jail. It can put innocent people in jail for many years of their lives. In the Shaw Shank Redemption, a man was sent to jail for life even though he was completely innocent. Justice prevails through evidence and witnesses. Sometimes the evidence is stacked up against the person, and witnesses can claim the person is guilty, but there is still a small chance he or she can be innocent. Justice is what keeps this nation together, but it ... Free Essays on Justice The subject matter of the â€Å"Republic† is the nature of justice and its relation to human existence. Book I of the â€Å"republic† contains a critical examination of the nature and virtue of justice. Socrates engages in a dialectic with Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, and Cephalus, a method which leads to the asking and answering of questions which directs to a logical refutation and thus leading to a convincing argument of the true nature of justice. And that is the main function of Book I, to clear the ground of mistaken or inadequate accounts of justice in order to make room for the new theory. Socrates attempts to show that certain beliefs and attitudes of justice and its nature are inadequate or inconsistent, and present a way in which those views about justice are to be overcome. Traditionally justice was regarded as one of the cardinal virtues; to avoid injustices and to deal equitable with both equals and inferiors was seen as what was expected of the good man, but it was not clear how the benefits of justice were to be reaped. Socrates wants to persuade from his audience to adopt a way of estimating the benefits of this virtue. From his perspective, it is the quality of the mind, the psyche organization which enables a person to act virtuously. It is this opposition between the two types of assessment of virtue that is the major theme explored in Socrates’ examination of the various positions towards justice. Thus the role of Book I is to turn the minds from the customary evaluation of justice towards this new vision. Through the discourse between Cephalus, Polemarchus and Thrasymachus, Socaretes’ thoughts and actions towards justice are exemplified. Though their views are different and even opposed, the way all three discourse about justice and power reveal that they assume the relation between the two to be separate. They find it impossible to understand the idea that being just is an exercise of power and that true human... Free Essays on Justice In The Republic, Plato attempts to demonstrate through the character and discourse of Socrates that justice is better than justice is the good which men must strive for, regardless of whether they could be unjust and still be rewarded. His method is to use dialectic, the asking and answering of questions which led the hearer from one point to another, supposedly with irrefutable logic by obtaining agreement to each point before going on to the next, and so building an argument. Early on, his two young listeners pose the question of whether justice is stronger than injustice, what each does to a man, and what makes the first good and the second bad. In answering this question, Socrates deals directly with the philosophy of the individual's goodness and virtue, but also ties it to his concept of the perfect state, which is a republic of three classes of people with a rigid social structure and little in the way of amusement. Although Socrates returns time and again to the concept of justice in his discourse on the perfect city-state, much of it seems off the original subject. One of his main points, however, is that goodness is doing what is best for the common, greater good rather than for individual happiness. There is a real sense in which his philosophy turns on the concepts of virtue, and his belief that ultimately virtue is its own reward. His first major point is that justice is an excellence of character. He then seeks agreement that no excellence is achieved through destructive means. The function of justice is to improve human nature, which is inherently constructive. Therefore, at a minimum, justice is a form of goodness that cannot be involved in injuring someone's character. Justice, in short, is a virtue, a human excellence. His next point is that acting in accordance with excellence brings happiness. Then he ties excellence to one's function. His examples are those of the senses each sensory organ is excellen...