Abstract
Justice, fairness and truth In Platonic and contemporary perspective: ancient values in South African context
The concept of justice (dikaiosyne) in the thought of Plato was only one of the four cardinal virtues described by him, the others being wisdom (sophia), restraint (sophrosyne) and courage (andreia). Justice was inevitably linked with fairness or equity (epieikeia), a concept more fully developed by Plato's most famous pupil, Aristotle. It was likewise associated with the concept of truth (aletheia) as a virtue and as part of a purifying process. Later generations ofphilosophers, from Cicero to Rawls, were fascinated by such Platonic and Aristotelian thought, although they interpreted it in various ways. In a changing world many ancient values are as relevant today as they were in the distant past. They are basic to fundamental human rights, which have become so prominent in modern times. They are essential ingredients of peace and reconciliation, as amply recognised in South Africa, which has only recently joined the community of democratic nations and is dependent on instruments, such as its new Bill o f Rights and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to achieve transformation.
Copyright information
- Ownership of copyright in terms of the Work remains with the authors.
- The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the Work, provided attribution is given to the place and detail of original publication, as set out in the official citation of the Work published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the Work on the authors’ or their institutions’ websites or institutional repositories.
Publication and user license
- The authors grant the title owner and the publisher an irrevocable license and first right and perpetual subsequent right to (a) publish, reproduce, distribute, display and store the Work in any form/medium, (b) to translate the Work into other languages, create adaptations, summaries or extracts of the Work or other derivative works based on the Work and exercise all of the rights set forth in (a) above in such translations, adaptations, summaries, extracts and derivative works, (c) to license others to do any or all of the above, and (d) to register the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for the Definitive Work.
- The authors acknowledge and accept the user licence under which the Work will be published as set out in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (Creative Commons Attribution License South Africa)
- The undersigned warrant that they have the authority to license these publication rights and that no portion of the copyright to the Work has been assigned or licensed previously to any other party.
Disclaimer: The publisher, editors and title owner accept no responsibility for any statement made or opinion expressed by any other person in this Work. Consequently, they will not be liable for any loss or damage sustained by any reader as a result of his or her action upon any statement or opinion in this Work.
In cases where a manuscript is NOT accepted for publication by the editorial board, the portions of this agreement regarding the publishing licensing shall be null and void and the authors will be free to submit this manuscript to any other publication for first publication.
Our copyright policies are author-friendly and protect the rights of our authors and publishing partners.