Plato's Defense of Justice

“WHY BE MORAL?” The Cheng Brothers' Neo‐Confucian Answer

“…However, I agree with many other Plato scholars (see Demos 1964; Vlastos 1981; Dahl 1991; and Mahoney 1992) that Plato does argue that a just person in his sense must also be a just person in the vulgar sense, even though he does not provide airtight proof of it. For example, immediately after Plato presents his conception of justice as a harmonious function of the tripartite soul in Book IV, he relates it to its “commonplace and vulgar” definition and argues that a just person in his sense would not, when entrusted with a deposit of gold or silver, “withhold it and embezzle it,” would “be far removed from sacrilege and theft and betrayal of comrades in private life or of the state in public,”“would not be in any way faithless either in the keeping of his oaths or in other agreements,” and would have nothing to do with “adultery .…”

Neutrality Principles of WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism: Legal and Moral Dimensions

“…This principle serves as a cornerstone in creating a level playing field where each country, regardless of its economic or political power, has an equal standing and voice in the implementation and enforcement of international trade policies. 12 International organizations like the WTO, which oversees much of international trade law, strive to ensure that smaller or less economically developed countries have the same opportunities and rights as larger, more economically powerful nations. By adhering to the principle of neutrality, the WTO and similar bodies aim to "prevent dominant countries from imposing their will on smaller nations", thus ensuring a fairer system that benefits global trade as a whole.…”

Plato on the Rule of Reason

“…But, Sachs objects, the argument fails because Socrates does not show t h a t Platonic justice is a necessary and sufficient condition for vulgar justice. Two valuable overviews and attempts to resolve the problem the problem are Dahl 1991 andKraut 1992. This issue is relevant to the central theme of this paper insofar as it bears on t h e relation between t h e rule of reason a n d psychic harmony, especially in connection with t h e fifth Socratic policy discussed below.…”