Law 19983 on

Plato:

Origin: The natural need we have of others, owing to our lack of self-sufficiency.  The reason why we not naturally self-sufficient is because we need others to acquire the goods to meet the basic material needs of life. Plato regards these materials as innate abilities, talents, and strengths.  Example: we need help finding food, cultivating crops, and building houses.

Plato also believes that there is a lack of spiritual self-sufficiency with respect to the cultivation of our excellences.  We need other people to help us develop as human beings, as opposed to just being animals.

End: Justice. The harmonious unity between the good of each and the common good. In the city of noble simplicity, callipolis, justice amounts to each person doing what his nature demands, thereby allowing the satisfaction of his nature. So, justice, is the harmonious fit between the good of each and the good of the whole. So, the good of the whole can only be achieved when everyone satisfies their nature.

The good of one’s own nature has to be consistent with the good of everyone else's nature.  The satisfaction of one’s own nature, helps another satisfy their own nature and vice versa, which satisfies the good of the whole. No gap btw the good of each and the common good.

Explain the myth of the metals

1. All citizens are born of mother earth
2. While in the Earth, metals were mixed into our souls which define our nature
3. This concept balances geometric and algebraic equality.  Citizens come from the same source but have different classifications.'

 Gold: Reason

 Silver: Thymos

Bronze & Iron: Material appetite

1. In the myth of the metals you get the simple equality and the proportional equality and the purpose of the myth is to inculcate the two types of equality to provide the framework for what just might look like.

Aristotle:

Origin: The city comes into being for the sake of living and exists for the sake of living well. It is for goal of meeting life’s daily needs that people come together, thereby creating households and, by extension, the city.

The origin is based in the family. Models of rule:

Man+Woman= Rule amongst free and equal people

Parent+Child= Kingly rule

Head of household slave= Mastery

Multiple families coming together= (a village) + (Self sufficiency) = City

The city comes into being for the sake of living and exists for living well

Include Taxonomy: See Below

End: living well (Eu Zen).  Eu Zen is met in cities that are on the basis of merit and rule for the sake of the whole.  Describe whether the ruling party is one, few of many.

Cicero:

Origin: The origin of political life is the divine spark of reason and the particular tradition, people, family into which we are born. Link to natural law, and the fact that it is law/rule governed. How is the divine spark of reason connected to natural law and our capacity to follow the law generally and pose laws for ourselves?

Human beings common capacity for reason and rationality.

The natural/ Organic, biological + historical family/people/tradition into which we are born into

The first is used to guide the second.

End:  The end of the political life is the realization of human community at the intersection of the two points of origin and employing natural law to guide and preserve the particular biological and historical conditions into which we are born.Because humans have this common capacity for reason and rationality, we must always be guided by our faculty for reason. Justice, then, are acts in accord with natural law and natural law is grounded in reason.  Thus, it follows that he who acts in accord with natural law is acting both justly and reasonably. How in depth should we go on this? Also, how does acting in accord with natural law allow for the political community to achieve its end?

Answer: The nature of the human being is rationality.  Political community employs what is common to all of us, to guide and order and integrate the material part, which is particular to each of us, depending on the community to which we are born. The same way that the end of the human being is to have the mind rule the body so that the 2 are unified, the end of the city is to have what’s common to all human beings, guide what is particular to the human beings of the community to have unity in the same way.   This also makes it possible for the human being to act in accord to the flourishing of the entire community.

Human beings common capacity for reason and rationality.

The natural/ Organic, biological + historical family/people/tradition into which we are born into