PLATO, BENJAMIN CONSTANT AND JOHN STUART MILL ON JUSTICE AS A POLITICAL VIRTUE AND ON POLITICAL CONFORMITY

Most often political conformity is taken as a prerequisite for the establishment and implementation of justice, even in the most democratic of states. Nonetheless, it remains as a question whether the particular conformity meddles positively or negatively with the way individuals realize their political goals within a Polity. In our analysis, we attempt to explore how three different thinkers conceive of this necessity of the political conformity and to what degree. On the one hand, John Stuart Mill sides with a conception of justice that defends individual freedom and prevents a great deal of political conformity, whereas he wishes this freedom to be exercised along with reason. Like Plato, he defends the admission that a person’s character is paramount in social progress but also in the pursuit for human happiness. Constant, on the other hand, declines ancient theories of political participation and sovereignty as outdated, claiming that individual rights and the pursuit of personal interests are highly significant. As Constant risks a higher degree of conformity, with the further risk of abolishing justice under the rule of a demagogic government, Plato states as a necessity the hierarchical precedence of the Polis to the person but with an eye to the self-fulfillment of the individual, without disregarding the political basis