KRITONAS: TEISINGUMAS KAIP FILOSOFINĖ PROBLEMA
CRITO: JUSTICE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM

Summary/Abstract: In an early Plato’s dialogue, Crito, a conversation be¬tween Socrates and his close friend Crito is described. The court of Athens – a phenomenon of Greek democ¬racy – had just sent Socrates to death. Nevertheless, the decision of the court, realized in a formally correct procedure, is emotionally unacceptable for both his friends and followers. Socrates does not feel guilty, either, and finds strong arguments in his favour. The conflict between Socrates and the Greek polis reveals the duality of justice and makes justice problematic. An attempt is made to reconstruct the formal and concrete premises of two types of justice. One type of justice is related to daily life and thinking and the other to the ethic kind of life and thinking. It is dem¬onstrated that each sphere of activity presupposes a different subject of activity, which results in a different kind of justice. Man is a measure of all things in the sphere of daily life and thinking. Consequently, man is a measure of justice as well. That is why justice in this sphere is relative and could be established exclusively by an arbitrary decision. In the sphere of ethical life and thinking, the value of good is a measure of man. Therefore, absolute justice is possible in this sphere: anyone in any circumstances could remain virtuous and honest. Socrates pursues the attitude of absolute justice: “we must not do wrong at all“. Thus, he obeys the decision of the Greek court and saves the soul, i. e. the subject of absolute justice. The present paper concludes with an inference about the meaning of Socrates’ choice.

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