This paper is designed to explore the intellectual roots of the western concept of justice. Justice has been and is one of the central issues both in theology and in philosophy. Both in theology and in philosophy, basically, justice has been defined a...
This paper is designed to explore the intellectual roots of the western concept of justice. Justice has been and is one of the central issues both in theology and in philosophy. Both in theology and in philosophy, basically, justice has been defined as "giving one" s due share to each person(suum cuique)."To understand this definition of justice, I maintain that we must turn our attention to ancient Greek thinkers such as Homer, Hesiod, Solon, Socrates, and Plato because they articulated the concept of justice for the first time in human history. In my opinion, Homer and Hesiod starts defining the meaning of justice as distributing "moira" among persons which is considered "due share." Finally, Plato gives us the perfect definition of justice as "the having and doing of one`s own and what belongs to oneself" which corresponds to "sum cuique." In exploring the intellectual backgrounds of this Plato`s concept of justice, I come to the following conclusions: (1) The ancient Greek thinkers were interested in the issue of justice because they regarded justice as a necessary condition for the world of cosmos and harmony. (2) The basic concept of justice, "suum cuique," includes the two forms of justice: distributive justice and retributive justice. In other words, justice can constitute the order world of in two ways. One is by distributing due share to each person in a community, and the other is by rectifying injustice which means encroaching on other`s due share. (3) With Plato this meaning of justice becomes something new in two senses. First, Homer and Hesiod regard justice as rising from the gods, but Plato considers it the humanmade order based on human rational power. Second, before Plato the order of justice is established and preserved by the external means, but in Plato it becomes intrinsic one. That is, the order of justice is primarily related to the king`s privilege in times of Homer and Hesiod and to national law after Solon, but with Plato it is connected with the intrinsic thing, the state of soul. According to this course of internalization, the concept of justice changes from themis (customary justice) to dike (legal justice) and finally to dikaiosyne (rational justice). In interdisciplinary sense, I think that this study can contribute to the theological and Christian ethical understanding(s) of justice.