Justice @ Rhodes

In an excerpt from Plato’s The Republic, Plato describes a heated conversation between Socrates and Thrasymachus over the problematic topic of justice.  Both philosophers are attempting to dig through the fluff and nonsensical arguments and pinpoint the exact meaning of that elusive term.  Our Social and Political Philosophy class experienced a similar predicament this past Monday.  We tried to understand the multiple interpretations of justice that each of our classmates presented. It is a useful and relevant debate, since defining this term justice is essential in the creation of respectful, productive and law-abiding human beings.

So this discussion begs the question, what is justice exactly?  Is there an accepted definition or is the term more abstract? In Book One of The Republic, Thrasymachus gives defining “justice” a shot.  His retort to Socrates' question is that "justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger" (Westphal 39).  Thrasymachus implies that justice is simply rules created by the rulers, to benefit themselves.  

Dr. Johnson asked our class on Wednesday if Thrasymachus' assertion was plausible. There were many hands raised agreeing that it was.  Many of us, I assume, were thinking initially of the legislation and statues our federal and state governments impose on us, such as the tax codes, voter registration laws, and “legitimate rape”.  These laws and assertions by politicians, it seems, were created by the powerful to exploit the weak and benefit the lawmakers based on a system created on the premise of justice.

But this is not always the case. Thrasmychus' definition of justice doesn’t hold up when you consider the Affordable Health Care Reform Bill recently passed by Congress and upheld by the United States Supreme Court.  Under the Affordable Health Care Act, fifty four million Americans who couldn’t afford preventative healthcare will now be able to receive these preventative services without any additional costs ("A More Secure Future").  Another fifty thousand citizens with pre-existing conditions who were blocked out of the system can now get insurance ("A More Secure Future"). (Along with these statistics, there is a great video that explains how this Act benefits the weaker people in the U.S. http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform.)

I could go into the technicalities of Healthcare Reform, but that would be missing the point of my argument, and ultimately the point Plato was trying to make in The Republic.  Thrasymachus wasn’t necessarily wrong. Legislation often seems designed to benefit those who have the most influence on lawmakers. But the Affordable Healthcare Act contradicts that assumption. It can also be argued that Healthcare Reform is unjust because it’s a disincentive to those who don’t work and better themselves.

Justice isn’t always black or white. Sometimes justice isn’t obvious, but requires a digging through the fluff and nonsensical arguments just as Thrasymachus and Socrates attempted to do. It can be relative and entirely gray as it applies to different groups and situations in our society.  There is no clear answer to Socrates' question, only endless examples that at times contradict one another.  As philosophy students, we must accept the fact that our discipline is one that deals with an array of gray areas, and that opinions will differ, but the validity of each is dependent on perspective.

Works Cited

"A More Secure Future." Health Reform in Action. The White House, n.d. Web. 30 Aug. 2012. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform>.

Westphal, Jonathan. "Plato, "Justice," from the Republic, Book I." Justice. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 1996. N. pag. Print.