Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do?
Republic (Plato)
The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, authored by Plato around 375 BC, concerning justice, the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man. It is Plato’s best-known work and has proven to be one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically.
In the dialogue, Socrates talks with various Athenians and foreigners about the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man. They consider the natures of existing regimes and then propose a series of different, hypothetical cities in comparison, culminating in Kallipolis, a utopian city-state ruled by a philosopher-king. They also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the role of the philosopher and of poetry in society. The dialogue’s setting seems to be during the Peloponnesian War. CONTINUE READING → CLICK HERE
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Justice is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online. Nearly a thousand students pack Harvard’s historic Sanders Theatre to hear Michael Sandel, talk about justice, equality, democracy, and citizenship. In this 12part series, Sandel challenges us with hard moral dilemmas and invites us to ponder the right thing to do in politics and in our everyday lives. The course he’s been teaching has made him one of the most popular teachers in the world.” CONTINUE READING → Watch Episodes
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A History of Western Philosophy CONTINUE READING → CLICK HERE
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Bertrand Russell: In his A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Bertrand Russell identifies three parts to the Republic:
Books I–V: from the attempt to define justice, the description of an ideal community (eutopia) and the education of its Guardians;
Books VI–VII: the nature of philosophers, the ideal rulers of such a community;
Books VIII–X: the pros and cons of various practical forms of government.
The core of the second part is the Allegory of the Cave and the discussion of the theory of ideal forms. The third part concerns the Five Regimes and is strongly related to the later dialogue The Laws; and the Myth of Er. CONTINUE READING (book) → CLICK HERE
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Moral Philosophy, Philosophical, Theology, Test – Love of Wisdom