As we followed the philosophical discussions and ideas that the first books of ‘The Republic’ and Plato himself offered, we were left thinking as a quest to find definitions on justice, its virtue and impact on the good life.
But unlike what we know, Plato is not the first to go into the philosophy for the search of the good life as there were philosophers at his and before his time that also based their discussion on the virtue on justice and the good life.
More specifically we had a slight encounter with Confucius, Lao Tzu, Buddha and Zoroaster, all great thinkers and minds of their time and still remain with the title in ours.
What Confucius was thinking of when discussing the ethical code of social conduct is what the human-like god T’ien (Heaven) had originally imposed on humankind. In order to become a worthy person one should develop moral habits and abide by the norms of society. Over time that person eventually reaches the highest level of development of his/her personality and acquires the supreme principle of righteousness. An ideal society according to Confucius would be the one where all individuals have reached the highest level mentioned before.
What makes his idea of the ideal society and justice closely resembles the idea of Plato about the perfect society or republic. The difference being that, Plato believes one does not just simply acquire the given virtues, but be trained in order to have them. And everyone has their own place in the republic and their role that they need to follow through completely in order to live the good life filled with justice, defining this as the perfect society even though the people don’t really have the required choice of what to do when being assigned their roles.