fies four of the virtues that are required for a good city: wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice and then looks at each virtue separately in terms of the perfect city-state. However, he acknowledges that of all the virtues, justice exists between men and not just in man as an individual. Therefore, justice is a virtue that requires cooperation and is the greatest virtue because it makes the other virtues work together for the common good of every man. Thus, when the other three virtues work together within the city, justice is produced. But for justice to be produced, each person must perform his natural task. In the city then, justice, is when the rulers rule, the auxiliaries perform their military duties and the craftsmen do their crafts . Having accounted for justice in the city, Plato moves directly to an account of justice in the individual. Plato introduces his notion that the soul had three parts: reason, spirit and appetites. For an individual , justice is found in the soul where reason rules, spirits are angry when they ought to be, and appetites are exerted with moderation. And accordingly, Plato believes that the soul performs best if it is ruled by reason. Thus, the idea that a person must complete one’s task is merely an image of justice and not the entire picture. To be more precise, justice in the individual is not only in relation to one’s actions but rather the harmony among the parts of the soul. Now that justice is defined, one can look at the truly just and unjust individual. Plato claims that only a just man will be the happiest man because he will have more true pleasure than anyone else And only philosophers or kings have the knowledge to understand why this is so. Plato gives three reasons for accepting the philosopher’s judgment about which life is the most pleasant. First, only the philosopher has experienced all types of pleasure including that of reason. Second, Plato claims that o...
