A just society is one in which people dedicate themselves to the common good, practice civic virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation and justice, and perform the occupational role to which they are best suited. Aristotle thought the state was an association of associations that enables citizens to share in the virtuous task of ruling and being ruled.Middle Ages . Saint Augustine wrote his City of God, in which he subordinated belief in a natural law of society based on reason, to one based on faith in God. Submission to the will of God, as elucidated by the fear-inducing institutions of Church and State. Martin Luther and John Calvin. Their main contribution to the idea of ​​civil society was not that the State should be similarly replaced, but rather that people should be; free to choose their own religious commitments while demonstrating charity and service to their neighbours.Age of Reasoning. Hobbes stated that social relations are to be based on equality and mutual trust, and each person must "performe their covenants made", which is to say they must live up to their agreements and contracts. John Locke, argued that the power of the state should be limited so as not to threaten the basic rights of the citizens. Thus, he advocated that individuals be allowed to meet together, form associations, and enter into relations of their choice. Particularly in reference to churches, he said the state had no authority to set religious doctrines.devised the idea of ​​the social contract as a means whereby citizens would make the common good their highest priority. This is accomplished by each person subjugating their right for the individual pursuit of happiness to that of their community s right for collective well-being. Smith held that the binding principle of civil society was a private morality predicated on public recognition by one s peers, joined through bonds of moral sentiment. Immanuel Kant s main principle regarding civil society was that people should treat other people as ends in themselves rather than means to the ends of others.In this regard, he was the first to suggest that a functional civil society should be seen as distinct from the state.envisioned civil society as a separate sphere from the state, one in which people were both workers as well as consumers of other people s work. As consumers, people strive to be equal to others, yet to satisfy a need for recognition they must consume distinctive goods. Karl Marx. Under capitalism, wealthy owners of the means of production treat workers as a commodity, using them as machine tenders in increasingly sophisticated technologically-based systems of goods manufacture. They expropriate the surplus value of their labour, and use this capital both t...
