According to Socrates a man is unjust if he is not fulfilling his function “assigned job”. However what if a man works in a job he is not meant to, but does it for security, family, bills or any other factors that may go in to a job. Can we really call this man unjust? If a man works hard even in a job that he is not meant to work in is the man really unjust? Is he not only searching for his means of survival? Socrates himself stated that those meant to be philosophers abandon their calling because they live in a society where they are seen as mad or useless. Is the true philosopher unjust for simple looking to find a relevant tecne within his own society?
Karen, I disagree, not with your message in this post, but with the interpretation of Socrates' concept of function that forms the basis of it. In describing Socrates' 'function' as being an "assigned job", you are, I believe, mischaracterizing it. The concept of function is not an appropriation of certain tasks amongst people. It is the activity which fosters the most productivity in the individual's balance of abilities and capabilities, this productivity being the way in which people contribute to the maintaining of society.
ReplyDeleteYour questioning is reflective of the capitalist society in which you and I live. Our society is based off of individuals maintaing themselves instead of society. In fact, you said, "Is he not only searching for a means of survival?" implying that the purpose of the productivity is a way to survive, or to maintain oneself. Unfortunately, our society is structured so that people must be made to struggle by replacing basic necessities with the concept of money, making money the primary way in which we survive. This, and I think Marx would agree, degrades society as it makes us focus primarily on our immediate well being instead of our long-term mechanism for survival, society, and subsequently alienates us from our fellow humans.
Socrates' society is no such society. In his society the goal of function is to perpetuate the organization of society, in the way in which an individual's organs perpetuates his/her own existence. Each individual person fulfilling his or her own function acts as an organ, providing a necessary activity for the larger body that is society. I believe the society that your questions reflect would, itself, be termed "unjust" by Plato and Socrates, as it disallows people from being able to fulfill their function. After all, do we not live in one of the "imperfect societies" that Socrates describes? If a perfect society operates based on the knowledge of the form of the good, thereby making it just, shouldn't we expect an imperfect society to not operate based on the knowledge of the form of the good, thereby making it unjust?
In the scenario you have posed, I do not believe it is the individual that Socrates would have called "unjust". It is, instead, the society as a whole.