The statement "Family values teach us many wonderful things -- but justice .
is not one of them," seems to follow very closely with the opinion of Plato .
in his Republic. He maintains that the teaches unity which, when applied on .
a grand scale, can lead to justice but that the unity of private families .
will only lead to unjust favoring of one's kin and to factionalism that is .
inherently unjust. From this, Plato develops a plan in which he establishes .
a communal family for his entire Just City that he believes will bring both .
unity and justice to his city. However, it is my contention that not only .
can the private family teach and lead to justice but that Plato's plan for a .
communal family will not lead to justice. .
The second major contention is that Plato's means for dealing with the .
private family in his Just City will not bring about justice. Plato's plan .
seems to rest upon the notion that by implementing communal child rearing .
and by treating the entire city as one family, he can have the benefits of .
the private family, namely the unity it creates amongst family members, .
without the injustice it creates. However, from this course of action it .
appears only two scenarios can come about, neither of which will create .
justice. .
First, if one were to follow Plato's logic and assume that everyone will .
truly treat everyone else in the city as a family member then initial .
reasoning for why a family is unjust will still hold true but now it will be .
on a far grander scale. The problem Plato has with the private family is .
that members of the family would favor each other more and would defend each .
other even when a defense was impossible simply because a member of my .
family is "my own."" By Plato's definition, such favoring would be .
considered terribly unjust. .
The problem is, if Plato's believes that it is unjust to favor one person .
