"They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice bad, but that the badness of suffering it so far exceeds the goodness of doing it........" (358e). In this selection from Plato's "Republic," we learn about justice. What is justice? More importantly, WHY should we be just? Are people only just when there is someone around, meaning that there is a high risk of "post action" consequences? Let us investigate this more in depth with a current event that occured in Memphis this past Sunday. An old friend of mine from high school was brutally murdered by her boyfriend early Sunday morning. According to News Channel 5, (Memphis) the young lady (19) was in attendance of an event at the Memphis Fedex Forum earlier Sunday evening. Her boyfriend (19) abducted her, strangled her, beat her several times, and ran her over with his car after she attempted to escape from his grasp. You might be asking yourself "Why?" Other resources have said that the reason he did this to her was because she no longer wished to be involved in a relationship with him. The young man's preliminary plan was to commit suicide once he had murdered his girlfriend, thus, he did as much damage as possible. In other words, he planned to escape justice by killing himself as well, which ties into Plato's statement that explains how it is possible that some humans WILL and DO commit injustices because they are aware that there is a way for them to escape the consequences. In this case, the young man was not able to escape the law. In an attempt to commit suicide, he crashed his car, but he only suffered from minor injuries.
Now, let us digress from this subject to recall a question that was asked in class, yesterday morning. "How many of you would commit injustices if there were no consequences?" If my memory serves me correctly, more than half of the class raised it's hand. A question that arose in my head was "It is correct that there would be NO law to be broken nor consequences to be faced, but what about (if applicable) the fear of a higher being (God, Allah, etc)? Would this not be a factor to consider before committing an injustice regardless of there being a law in place or not? Or have we reached a point in our society where law is more important than religion in SOME cases? Are people more afraid of the justice system than they are of a higher being? What may be the reason(s) for this?
For more information on the murder, visit www.wmctv.com and it should be under "popular stories."
-Ivonne Cornejo
First off, let me express my condolences. I do not know how well you knew her, or how close you were to her, but it can never be easy to learn of the death of someone you once knew.
ReplyDeleteSecond, to answer your question: the two are one and the same, at least as far I understood Glaucon to describe it. When thinking of consequences, you seem to be only focusing on the legal point of few, the LAW. But 'consequences' are not just legal punishments.
IF a man believes in a higher being (the if in this statement is very important, because 'if' the man doesn't then you question would be irrelevant, and my answer unnecessary), then this higher being would of course be considered THE authority figure/THE judge/THE man/THE law, which means that if no consequences were to be feared, then no consequences FROM this higher being are to be feared.
I never thought of it that way. Good thinking. My judgment was solely based on the law (a LITERAL) law, never considering the higher being to be a form of law.
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