Justice

This, then, my good sir, is what I understand as the identical principle of justice that obtains in all states —the advantage of the established government.

It was a riddling definition of justice, then, that Simonides gave after the manner of poets;

Then tell me, for the service and getting of what would you say that justice is useful in time of peace?

But just as there can be no excess or deficiency in temperance and justice because the mean is in a sense an extreme, so there can be no observance of the mean nor excess nor deficiency in the corresponding vicious acts mentioned above, but however they are committed, they are wrong;

After them we will treat Justice, distinguishing its two kinds—for it has more than one sense—and showing in what way each is a mode of observing the mean.

Let us now speak of Justice.

For as I have shown wisdom, temperance, and fortitude to be bound up with pleasure, so that they can in no way be torn or separated from it, so must we judge of justice — which not only never harms anyone, but on the contrary always brings, by its own force and nature, this benefit, that it calms our minds, and besides gives the hope that none of those things will be lacking which a nature not corrupted desires.

And so one would not rightly call even justice desirable for its own sake, but because it brings the greatest measure of pleasantness.

True reason, therefore, calls the sound of mind to justice, fairness, and good faith;

"Hush," answered Odysseus, "hold your noos in peace and ask no questions, for this is the manner [ dikê] of the gods.

but the blessed gods love not such shameful doings, and respect those who do what is lawful and right [ dikê].

I should have said that you were one of those who should wash well, eat well, and lie soft at night as old men have a right [ dikê] to do;

Nor is justice confined to monies, to the exclusion of words and deeds.

for justice is a perpetual husbanding of fruit, and injustice an uprooting that cuts off.

Your justice in words is that you not address the man of merit in the terms of his inferior, nor the learned man in the terms of the ignorant, and that you hold to praise and to blame in the measure of good done and ill done, so that your encouragement and your intimidation accord with their causes, with neither excess nor deficiency;

For he has made himself master of everything in Media, but in Persia equality of rights is considered justice.

My boy, how will you learn justice here, while your teachers are over there?

Because said he, my teacher appointed me, on the ground that I was already thoroughly versed in justice, to decide cases for others also.

To me at least it seemed that by these sayings he kept his companions from impiety, injustice, and baseness, and that not only when they were seen by men, but even in solitude;

In another conversation with Socrates Antiphon said:

I recollect the substance of one that he had with Hippias of Elis concerning Justice.

Observe, that by justice I understand nothing more than that bond, which is necessary to keep the interest of individuals united;

Necessity alone hath produced, from the opposition of private passions and interests, the idea of public utility, which is the foundation of human justice.

We have proved, then, that crimes are to be estimated by the injury done to society.

Now here, now there, they raven, rob and seize, Heedless of Justice and her stern decrees, Who silently the present and the past Reviews, whose slow revenge o’ertakes at last.

In those days, therefore, justice was so venerable, and the punishment of these crimes so meritorious, that the retribution of such offenders was honored with the same position as Pallas Athene’s own prize of victory.

For if Philip ever finds himself under the necessity of treating Athens with common justice, he will have to remodel his methods.

O Zeus, and Justice, child of Zeus, and sun-god’s light, now will I triumph o’er my foes, kind friends;

The curse of our sons’ avenging spirit and of Justice, that calls for blood, be on thee!

On the other hand, they are of all men most afflicted with unreason who concede that justice is a way of life more noble and more pleasing to the gods than injustice but at the same time believe that those who follow it will live in worse case than those who have chosen the way of evil.

But if you will only listen to me and give me your attention to the end, I believe that you will all impute extreme folly and madness to those who think that injustice is advantageous and who would hold in subjection by force the cities of others, failing to reckon with the disasters which result from such a policy.

For I observe that those who prefer the way of injustice, thinking it the greatest good fortune to seize something that belongs to others, are in like case with animals which are lured by a bait, at the first deriving pleasure from what they seize, but the moment after finding themselves in desperate straits, while those who live a life of piety and justice pass their days in security for the pres …

We can determine the former point—that is, how much positive injustice is done under the first of these two [129] systems—because the system is in full operation;

But this view of the two systems compares only the injustice done, and the justice omitted to be done, in the individual cases adjudged, without looking beyond them.

Under the other system—the system of legislative and judicial authority—positive injustice is not only done in every suit arising under unjust laws,—that is, men’s property, liberty, or lives are not only unjustly taken on those particular judgments,—but the rights of the whole people are struck down by the authority of the laws thus enforced, and a wide-sweeping tyranny at once put in operation.

If in human life you can find anything better than justice, truth, self-control, courage — than your understanding, in a word, content with itself in the things wherein it makes you act according to right reason, and content with its lot in what is allotted to you apart from your choice — if, I say, you can see anything better than this, then turn to it with your whole soul and enjoy this best thi …

At every hour give your whole attention, as a Roman and a man, to doing what is in hand with strict and unfeigned dignity, with affection, freedom, and justice, and to making yourself free from all other impressions.

dyed deep in justice;

For, if we are to take blood for blood, you surely would be the first to die, if you were to meet with justice.

But you, O my fatherland and native gods of my soil, receive me with good fortune in this journey, and you also, house of my ancestors, since I come by divine mandate to cleanse you as justice demands.

Justice took hold of him, not I alone—Justice, whom you ought to have supported, if you had been in your right mind.

An appeal to Liberty is as futile as an appeal to Justice, until we have defined Liberty.

I have tried to show that the right course for the State to adopt towards its own citizens—Group Morals—cannot be discovered by deduction from any abstract principles, such as Justice or Liberty;

whereas to deduce good laws from the principle of Justice is impossible.

and if the subjects are weak, susceptible of being set straight and brought into balance — so that, were the matter supposed otherwise than we have described, the welfare of the king and the soundness of the subjects' condition would be impossible — just so, justice of character is not ordered in the human world save by the rational soul's having mastery over the other two souls, disposing of them …

The concomitants of justice are the whole sum of these concomitants, since justice is a virtue that comes about from the composition of these virtues which entail these concomitants;

justice is the making effectual of the legal or statutory rulings which men of discernment have laid down as befits the case and the age, applied to individuals with equality.

It is very rightly laid down that in cases of murder prosecutors must take especial care to observe justice in making their charge and presenting their evidence:

and acquit me as righteousness and justice require you to do.

It is thus that you will best serve justice and the will of heaven.

They say that among them are both the two causes—the better cause, whichever that is, and the worse:

Dramatis Personae Strepsiades Phidippides Servant of Strepsiades Disciples of Socrates Socrates Chorus of Clouds Just Cause Unjust Cause Pasias Amynias Witness Chaerephon Hermes

The first of the forms of justice is that toward the gods, then that toward the lesser divinities, then that toward fatherland and parents, then that toward the departed;

Justice is the virtue of the soul that distributes to each according to merit.

and the virtues of the soul as a whole are justice, liberality, and greatness of soul.

For to praise virtue brilliantly in public and to spin out long discourses about her, while privately honouring pleasure before temperance and gain before justice—this, I would say, is like the actors on the stage who often come on as kings and potentates, being neither kings nor potentates, nor perhaps even free men at all.

Yet this is the uttermost limit of injustice, if we are to believe Plato at all:

He began his career as an advocate at the age of twenty-five, and almost immediately came to be recognized not only as a man of brilliant talents but also as a courageous upholder of justice in the face of grave political danger.

but to men he gave justice, which is far the best.

Debarred by every right that holds good in Athens, by the decisions of three tribunals, by the registers of the archons and of the collectors of taxes, by the indictment for wrongful entry in which you yourself are the plaintiff, curbed, I might almost say, by chains of steel, you wriggle and force your way through all and imagine that by weaving excuses and trumping up false charges you can overt …

and before you cast your votes, each juryman must reflect that he is being watched by hallowed and inexorable Justice, who, as Orpheus, that prophet of our most sacred mysteries, tells us, sits beside the throne of Zeus and oversees all the works of men.

But when those who have no rights enjoy rights at your pleasure, when villainy is honored and virtue spurned, when justice and expediency are sacrificed to personal spite, then we must suppose that the universe has indeed been turned upside down.

For on many occasions, men of Athens, the justice of the case has not been brought home to you, but a verdict has been wrested from you by the clamor, the violence and the shamelessness of the pleaders.

For it is known to all standing round us, as to everyone else, that in this court Leptines is contending with us, but within the conscience of each member of the jury humanity is arrayed against envy, justice against malice, and all that is good against all that is most base.

Now if, on our advice, you reject it, deserving men will receive their due reward from you, and any undeserving man (assuming that there are such) will not only lose his reward, but will pay whatever penalty you approve, in accordance with our alternative law, while all men will acknowledge the honor, justice and veracity of our city.