The Institute of Philosophy at Seoul National University is pleased to host Professor Jonathan Beere from Humboldt University of Berlin for a guest lecture titled “What is political justice in Plato's Republic?” We invite all interested individuals to join us for this engaging event.

• Date: January 20, 2025 (Monday)
• Time: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
• Venue: College of Humanities, Building 7, Room 309
• Speaker: Jonathan Beere (Humboldt University of Berlin)
• Lecture Title: What is political justice in Plato's Republic?

Lecture Overview:
In Book IV of the Republic, Socrates gives an account of the justice of a city. According to this account, for a city to be just is for each part of the city to do the work for which its nature is best suited. This seems like a very bad account of what it is for a city to be just. For it seems that a city might be unjust, even if each part of it does the work for which its nature is best suited. (1) It would seem that the citizens in such a city might perpetrate all sorts of injustice against one another. (2) It would seem that many goods might be unjustly distributed in such a city. (3) Even worse, the account suggests a thoroughgoing exploitation of all citizens, since each citizen's good seems to be subordinated to the good of the city; this would surely be unjust. I propose an interpretation of the account of political justice on which these problems are solved. The crux of my proposal concerns the specification of the jobs to be done: what jobs there are, and what each job is, depends on what the other jobs are and also on how all of the jobs fit together into a whole system (politeia). The whole system serves, as I argue, the happiness of the citizens.For this reason, the jobs are specified with reference to the needs and happiness of the citizensandwith reference to each citizen's ability to make themselves and their fellow citizens happy. I explain how this interpretation of Plato's account resolves the three problems I identified. My interpretation also entails that the so-called City of Pigs is just. I conclude that, on Plato's account, a just city is one in which all competition over goods -- even over goods like money, food and honor -- has been resolved: even as each citizen pursues their own happiness, each citizentherebycontributes to the happiness of everyone else -- and to the good of the system (politeia) that secures the happiness of all.

Speaker Bio: