John Rawls Equality

Crito argues that Socrates should escape and go to a well-prepared place for him in exile but he seems more focused to face his execution. Crito argues that by staying in prison, Socrates will be increasing his enemies who are judging him falsely and he will also be leaving behind his family without a father. Socrates opinion is that one should not be worried about the opinion of the people but give more attention to the wisdom and advice of the experts. Therefore, Socrates seeks to find the justification of having to escape from prison and settles with the position that if it will be just then he would go with Crito, but if the case cannot be justified then he will have to remain in prison and face the imminent

More importantly, Socrates’s relationship to the state is made clear during the dialogue with his friend Crito, when speaking as if Socrates is the state himself. When asking how important the state is, the law asks; “Is your…country to be honored more than…all your ancestors…that it counts for more among the gods and sensible men, that you must worship it…?” Rather than a statement, Socrates makes his point that the law must be upheld, even in his case of a death sentence. It is important to note that Socrates accepted his fate, even though he felt the accusations against him were false. Yet, as if speaking on behalf of the law, recognized that escaping would only turn those untruthful indictments into the truth, and as a destroyer of laws; “You will strengthen the conviction of the jury that they passed the right sentence on you.” By the definition of the word martyr, as one who dies for a cause, in this instance the laws of the state,

Even though Crito knows that Socrates does not like making decisions like these, he makes a good argument to persuade him to break out. Crito believes that his friend is just giving up, not seeing what the future could hold if he did escape. He even tells him that Thrace will welcome him in and there are people there willing to help him. Crito tells Socrates that he can use his money at will and if he didn’t want to use his money, he could use his friends. Because of Crito’s wealth, it would be easy for Socrates to escape and have a good life after he would escape. Crito thinks that Socrates isn’t thinking straight because he is so devastated that he was put in prison. The “laws of Athens” says that you should stay in jail because____________. Socrates declines his plan to get out because he thinks it is just to stay in jail and suffer the punishments for his controversial crime that put him in

These are the people not being heard by the higher powers. Rawls identifies two principles for the topic of justice. The first being that each individual should have the same rights to the liberties consistent with other people experiencing the same liberties. The second being that inequalities should be arranged so that they would be to everyone’s advantage. With these two principles, Rawls's concept of justice would be to give more attention to those born with fewer resources to achieve success socioeconomically. This type of justice is valuable because it gives the less fortunate a chance to be at the same level as a privileged person. The term justice can mean enabling any person to realize their full potential inside of their society despite certain attributes, disabilities, sexual orientation, gender, races, religions, and any other belief or culture. Everyone should be allowed equal opportunities so that they can have the chance to find their place in their community—whether they decide to be proactive or not. Giving

Socrates was charged with impiety and corrupting the youth as we see in the trial of The Apology. Crito visits him in the prison and has organised a plan for his escape, however Socrates rejects this idea, as he worries that doing so would be unjust as he would be breaking the law. He proposes to Crito that if he can prove that escaping the prison would be just, then he will do so. The two then begin to debate the duties a citizen has in obeying the laws of their governing municipality.

1). In Plato’s Crito , the Laws of Athens offers many reasons why Socrates should not escape. If he was to escape he would be disobeying in three ways, one to his parents, two to those who have brought him up and three which is his agreement with his city. He should instead honor the laws more than honoring his parents because in theory the city that he is living, has raised shaped him to be who he is. “ We have given you birth, nurtured you, educateD you, we have given you and all other citizens a share of all the good things we could” ( p. 500). Just as a parent would upbring a child and give the child the best opportunities knowing it will not be reciprocated , as does the city. It acts as a servant to its citizens, giving opportunities to its people when they are of the age to vote, thus creating their own life paths. A citizen is not bound to one city, the city allows its citizens to leave if they are dissatisfied with the laws but those who decided to stay must obey the agreement with the city. In Socrates 's case he is choosing to honor his agreement with his country and the city he lives, even though he has been wronging accused, by not escaping .

When Socrates rejects the plan of Crito helping him escape jail even with a successful plan where he would live a pleasant life in exile. Crito saw no wrong in helping Socrates escape from jail because Socrates is a victim of unjust laws. Socrates then creates a dialogue for Crito between himself and the laws of Athens that gives a view on how discipline Socrates is to the Athens laws even with being innocent and sentenced to death Socrates is still wanting to be obedient to the Athens laws. Socrates then argues the fact he is a citizen of the state “ having been born, nourished, and educated within it borders, he is a child of the state and that he owes an obligation”. Socrates speaks on the laws of the Athens and explained to Crito why it

Rawls strive to determine how we can make a society as just as possible. Rawls derives two principles; liberty principle and the difference principle. He also gives a theoretical device that he calls “the original position” and “the veil of ignorance” this device is meant to help us in the way that we picture our self behind a veil. We do not know the basic things about ourselves like our sex, age, financial status etc. This device is to help us be totally neutral in the sense that we do not know our status in society. After putting our self in a status quo if you will, we can now decide on what us just for the whole society. Rawls derives then the difference principle. To put this is Rawls own words, the difference principle is: “Then the difference principle is a strongly egalitarian conception in the sense that unless there is a distribution that makes both persons better off an equal distribution is to be preferred

In The Apology, Socrates defends himself against these accusations. Firstly he claims that if everyone has a good influence on the youth, he cannot “alone corrupt the youth”. Additionally, he identifies that if he believed in the “supernatural beings” it would be sensible to conclude he did believe in the Gods. Socrates lived through the height of the Athenian hegemony to its decline with the terrible defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian war. This was a devastating and humiliating experience for the Athenians, and Socrates who put himself against all odds due to his distinct belief systems and generating discontent from well known figures by revealing their ignorance made him a vulnerable target. Consequently during the time of political unrest, the corrupt jury system put Socrates to blame and found him “guilty”. Despite being put unjustly in prison, Socrates held the view that it would be unjust for him to leave his cell because it is never under any circumstances morally right to commit an injustice. In the Crito, we see Crito, who is particularly concerned for his friend persuading Socrates to escape from prison. Crito presents many convincing reasons, including: his death would endanger the good reputation of his friend, and if he he would be aiding his enemies in charging him unjustly, thus acting unjustly himself. However, Socrates manages to get Crito to agree that there is no sense in

In Crito, Socrates explains to his friend, Crito, that he wishes to let the Athenians decide his fate in order follow the law. Socrates’ belief is

On a more ethical level, Crito presents two reasons for why Socrates should escape prison. Crito thinks that it is not just for Socrates to give up his life when he can save it. If he stayed, he would be aiding his enemies in wronging him unjustly, and would thus be acting unjustly himself. Secondly, accepting death means that Socrates is showing no concerns for his family’s fate, and by escaping, he could live in exile and raise and educate his sons. Those reasons are what made Crito believe that Socrates should not give up his life and should escape and live in

In the Crito, Socrates is approached by his life-long friend Crito while in prison awaiting execution. Crito used many different ways to attempt to persuade Socrates to escape. The best argument Crito uses is that he says Socrates would be betraying his children if he were to stay in prison. He says that Socrates should bring them up and educate them, not leave them. Socrates, contrary to what Crito says, feels that he has an implied contract with the State. He believes that his family staying in Athens and raising him there was the greatest compliment they could have given him, so he feels that he owes it to the State to accept its laws and to remain a willing partner to the State. Socrates’ feelings were summed up on page 64 when he says:

The distributive justice theory of John Rawls concerns justice as fairness. In his theory, Rawls defines justice as demanding equality, unless inequality makes the least advantaged person better off. Rawls proposes two major principles of justice: (1) that each person should have the same equal right to basic liberties and (2) that social and economic inequalities are attached to positions and offices open to all under equality of opportunity and are to the benefit of the least advantaged group of society. This theory is determined by a social contract that assumes there is a natural state on which people will agree based on moral equality. In this social contract, all members wear a veil of ignorance through which they do not know anything about their own

In A Theory of Justice John Rawls presents his argument for justice and inequality. Rawls theorizes that in the original position, a hypothetical state where people reason without bias, they would agree to live in a society based on two principles of justice (Rawls 1971, 4). These two principles of justice are named the first and second principles. The first is the equal rights and liberties principle. The second is a combination of the difference principle and the fair equality of opportunity principle, or FEOP (Rawls 1971, 53). Rawls argues that inequality will always be inevitable in any society (Rawls 1971, 7). For example, there will always be a varied distribution of social and economic advantages. Some people will be wealthier than

In the Crito, Socrates is nearing his appointed death and his friend Crito is attempting to convince him to escape. The guard has been payed off and Socrates only must walk out the door and flee Athens. Socrates quickly tells Crito that he cannot escape, because that would be breaking the laws of Athens. Socrates main reason to care about the laws of Athens is to keep a just soul, because breaking the laws would be unjust and acting unjustly would harm his soul. This is what Socrates truly cares about, whether he is harming his soul by being unjust or living just with his soul intact. He would rather die than to