Plato's Republic and a Just Society

In class, we learned that there are two types of “good”. Instrumental good is when people only doing good for the sake of something else. Intrinsic good is when people do good for the sake of good in itself. Glaucon’s philosophical look on the question of what is just and what is unjust is that there is never any true just to be found in a person. He believes that we only perform justice acts in order to reap the benefits or to not be looked down upon from the majority. It seems as though he looks at justice as anybody performing the instrumental good. In relation to this lesson, I found a current event that contradicts Glaucon’s philosophical look on justice. There is a Kentucky county U.S. clerk that refuses to marry same sex couples due to her religious beliefs. Now the Supreme Court has already ruled that same sex marriage is legal and is a divine right of human beings to marry who they want to. Its ironic how this woman is going against the majority of people’s beliefs and judgements in order to uphold what she believes in. Which is going against the instrumental good idea Glaucon has due to the fact that she isn’t giving into the norms of society that is already ruled by the law. It also almost completely destroys the idea of justice because she is refusing to give other people their basic human rights. Justice is defined as having just behavior or doing the morally right/fair thing. It also brings up the ideas of how the woman is acting based off her religious beliefs. Finally I’m going to leave you here with the notion of if the woman is acting off her religious beliefs, is she being morally right?

-Author: Jade Housewirth
-Phil MWF 9:00am -090215