Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Justice As Self-Transmitting Power And Just Acts In Republic 4, Andrew Payne
Justice As Self-Transmitting Power And Just Acts In Republic 4, Andrew Payne
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
In his influential paper “A Fallacy in Plato’s Republic,” David Sachs charged Plato with committing a fallacy of irrelevancy. Plato’s Socrates is asked to show that justice understood as acting in conformity with conventional morality, so-called vulgar justice, is beneficial to the just person. Socrates actually demonstrates something else, namely that psychic justice, a state of internal harmony between parts of the soul, is beneficial to its possessor. A generation of Plato scholarship has reacted to Sachs’ reading of the Republic by using discussions of moral psychology and education elsewhere in the dialogue to bridge the gap between psychic justice …