Concept

Justice

Overview

broad idea of a situation where people receive that which they deserve

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Justice is discussed.

These things, Socrates, and, perhaps also, yet more than these, Thrasymachus, and others too, might say respecting justice and injustice, perverting their power, disagreeably as I conceive:[76]—but, I, for I wish to conceal nothing from you, am very anxious to hear your refutation, and so say the most I can by way of opposition.—Do not, therefore, merely show us in your reasoning, that justice is better than…
Plato, The works of Plato
Uses the term “justice” and “just”. The author is linked to this idea in the knowledge graph.
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And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man’s own profit and interest. Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away.
Plato, The Republic
Uses the term “justice” and “just”. The author is linked to this idea in the knowledge graph.
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But Justice, it must be observed, is a mean state not after the same manner as the forementioned virtues, but because it aims at producing the mean, while Injustice occupies _both_ the extremes. And Justice is the moral state in virtue of which the just man is said to have the aptitude for practising the Just in the way of moral choice, and for making division between, himself and another, or between two other…
Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
Uses the term “justice” and “just”. The author is linked to this idea in the knowledge graph.
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There is then in all persons a natural impetus to associate with each other in this manner, and he who first founded civil society was the cause of the greatest good; for as by the completion of it man is the most excellent of all living beings, so without law and justice he would be the worst of all, for nothing is so difficult to subdue as injustice in arms: but these arms man is born with, namely, prudence and…
Aristotle, Politics
Uses the term “justice” and “just”. The author is linked to this idea in the knowledge graph.
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For injustice is censured because the censurers are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest."[68]
John Dewey, Ethics
Uses the term “justice” and “just”.
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The same principle produces, in many instances, our sentiments of morals, as well as those of beauty. No virtue is more esteemed than justice, and no vice more detested than injustice; nor are there any qualities which go farther to the fixing the character, either as amiable or odious. Now justice is a moral virtue, merely because it has that tendency to the good of mankind, and indeed is nothing but an artificial…
David Hume, Philosophical Works, v. 2
Uses the term “justice” and “just”. The author is linked to this idea in the knowledge graph.
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It appears from what has been said, that justice is a name for certain moral requirements, which, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of social utility, and are therefore of more paramount obligation, than any others; though particular cases may occur in which some other social duty is so important, as to overrule any one of the general maxims of justice. Thus, to save a life, it may not only be…
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Uses the term “justice” and “just”. The author is linked to this idea in the knowledge graph.
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And this is also to be gathered out of the ordinary definition of Justice in the Schooles: For they say, that "Justice is the constant Will of giving to every man his own." And therefore where there is no Own, that is, no Propriety, there is no Injustice; and where there is no coerceive Power erected, that is, where there is no Common-wealth, there is no Propriety; all men having Right to…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Uses the term “justice” and “just”. The author is linked to this idea in the knowledge graph.
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Justice

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Justice

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