Justice?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Where does the Idea of justice come from? There have been many human attempts at it. Hammurabis code, philosophers and their ethics, socialism, capitalism and all other forms of goverments, and the Torah which brought about the major religions of today.

Religion spreads around notions of justice but does this give them any more credibility then someone like Karl Marx who was after the same thing or confusious? Who is to say the Torahs justice is divine and Marx’s manifesto is not, after all both are merly Ideas.

Does justice give crediblity to religion or is it just a man made idea, because so far this has been my only draw towards religion.

2

I believe that one of the things that makes Mankind an [metaphor!] offspring of the “divine” is the fact that he thinks about the quality of being just, and requires some kind of fairness even as a child.

It’s the principle of moral rightness and equity that Mankind is trying to find. Societies require conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude - or “righteousness” - however they define it, and the Religious believe that there is some kind of principle that emanates through our natural world, requiring of us that we conform.

The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law is built upon the notion of a “Prime Mover” or Deity that set everything in motion. Whether or not you believe in God, it would be unwise to completely push this idea aside. The “godless” of history were effectively the lawless or those without a moral codex - and outlawed in all societies of the world.

Shalom
Bob

3

The notion of justice involves the notion of fairness, due rewards/punishment, righting a wrong, restoring a good, etc. It involves a comparision to a standard, eg of acts to a moral code. But why one measure instead of another? Why this moral code or that moral code? And why measure acts at all, ie what is it that should be truly measured for true justice? What is it in our innermost being that compels us to seek or to fear justice?

If we proceed from the notion that good and evil is in a person itself, in his heart, then true justice should weigh the heart of a person, instead of his acts, which are merely the discernible manifestations of his heart. But then against what? A notional, fictitious “pure” heart? How do we measure a person in his being?

Also is it inherently fair in the use of an external, “objective” measure? For example, are equal opportunities truly equal? For only if all have the same capacity and ability to exploit an opportunity to the same degree are equal opportunities equal.

Jesus have said, “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” [Matt 7:2]

Now does that - an inter-subjective measure - not appeal to our spirits as a fairer system of justice than a merely objective external measure?

Let me posit the following: that the true measure of justice is our own being: that whom we ought to be. In other words I define true justice as, Ontological Congruence: that which is due to who you are.

The restoration of the departure from who you are truly to be is what I seek for in justice. Goodness or fairness is the degree of match to that ideal being of yourself. And true justice is the attainment of the perfect and complete match.

And who I am to be is my “name known only to me” [Rev 2:17] that God have reserved for me in heaven. And thus only God is the True and Righteous Judge.

However even if Justice is indeed what I posited it to be, there is still the issue of practical justice on earth, which will by necessity and nature be something imperfect. The objective and intent of earthly justice is not to do what God will do, but merely to remind and make people know that there is something call justice, and to deliver a foretaste of what it could be.

4

I have a question about this. This somehow doesn’t make sense to me and heres why. It sounds like moral subjectivsim. Everybody has a different idea of what is right and wrong. What this statment seems to imply is that if I find murder wrong and judge someone else harshly for the act I will be judged in the same light if I commit the act. However if I do not find murder wrong I will be judged according to how I personally view the morality of the act. To me the idea of justice is implemented in society because of the victums.

Look at it this way for a second. The Highjackers of 9/11 surly in their hearts felt they were doing something righteous and good. They hold a sincere belief that they are killing worshipers of satan they are doing a good in fact great act in their minds and hearts.

Do you see how short your argument for justice falls? You are basicly your own judge in such a system and where do you get your own personal moral code from? You develop a moral code when you grow up where someone must teach you that murder, stealing ect. is wrong. If someone teaches you there is nothing wrong with murder, stealing ect. you will find nothing wrong with it. Isn’t that the basic reason that we need an external moral code set in stone to follow because in order to be fair we should all be playing by the same rules.

5

I agree, which is why societies need to find consensus on what kind of behaviour is to be deemed acceptable as well as what is to be deemed unacceptable.

Shalom
Bob

6

Why is the consensus of the majority a “fair” standard?

7

I dont think playing by the same rules is fair, not unless we have agreed to play the same game.

And you have implicitly defines fair as “playing by the same rules”. But nothing can be more unfair if we are playing different games in the first place. Imagine playing American football to British football rules.

So the issue is what is the game we are playing? And this game in general is the “game of life”. And each of us has his own life: his own history, his own genes, capabilities, limitations, gifts, circumstances, etc, and his own purpose for living (if you believe in such a thing). And I certainly didnt agree to be in this game. I didnt decide or choose the circumstances, time and place of my birth and growing up.

If you or I have been born in Saudi Arabia would you think and say things they way we do today? If you and I have been born a Palestinian in a refugee camp, who never know a home other than tents, would we think, feel, see and say the things we say? If you or I have been born in a ghetto in Indonesia, raped, abused, beaten and tortured when we can barely talk, and grew up life stealing, murdering and lieing just to keep our own life, would we not see that murder is a legitimate if not the only way of life, and see evil as good as it fights evil.

Do we all play the same game? Or each and every life is a different “game” in itself, as each and every life was nurtured in very exceptional and very unique circumstances and conditions. Not even identical twins, growing up in the same family, grow up to be identical persons, do they?

If there is a common game, that is the lowest common denominator, it is being human. But what is this game of being human?

8

Let me quote what I wrote earlier

So you see I’m in agreement with you. Yes everybody would have to be playing the same game. And the only way this system would work is if there was a god who would be able to judge not only based upon the external objective laws that would have to be implemented but also by the subjective circumstances that are intertwined with every act.

And let me just yell Ahhhhhhhh out of my fustration :angry: Justice is an impossible, unattainable human ideal. This world is cold, cruel and unjust. Why am I even talking about this!? Without god talking about justice is the same as talking about time travel, I give up.

9

I think the notion of “human rights” is perhaps the closest to defining the “common rules” for playing the universally common “game” of being human. It is sound conceptually and noble in its intent. However the issue is whether this is at all possible and secondly, if this is possible, what should these specific rules be, eg the right to life (whatever that means).

Now is justice a human ideal? Why do humans bother about justice at all?

I think it is a basic instinct in us: a instinctive desire to make right a wrong, to restore the thing corrupted, to conform a thing to goodness, etc. It is, to paraphrase Bob, because we are made in the image of God. And there are many other instincts that cannot be explained without recourse to the possibility, at the least, that we take after our Creator, eg our appreciation for Beauty, our Creativity, our Rationality, our strive for knowledge, etc. (We dont see animals having such attributes or behaviour.)

I do not think true justice is attainable on earth. The purpose for our instinct for justice is but another means by which God makes himself knowable, ie merely looking ar ourselves, the reflection of God. And the exercise of justice on earth, or the attempt at it, however flawed, by godly or ungodly people, is in itself achieving the same purpose. And this is the measure by which earthly justice is to be judged as just.

10

Because majority votes are the closest we can get to what we all believe to be right within a society - those who don’t vote have themselves to blame. You have to remember that the “free” were originally those who were safe within the walls of a city (hence freeman) and whoever wanted this freedom, also had to play by the rules agreed to by the citizens of the city. That is what was deemed right and “just” and which also had to do with being safe.

But I follow your question. In Roman days, those who disturbed the peace (by simply not playing the game everybody played) could be thrown into prison or even executed. The game included attending religious rites and sacrificing, buying idols and paraphenalia, contributing to “public” life etc. The “game” was a little too closely defined and cost the lives of anyone looking for their own “game” - like Christians for example. The majority didn’t just rule - it dictated.

I would expect a modern day consensus of opinion - a general agreement or accord - would include a tolerance of those who choose to do things their own way, as long as it didn’t undermine the general agreement of the majority. If we have an agreement that all citizens should be willing to protect the city when attacked, anyone who ran away or refused to fight wouldn’t have right of access. You could accept a small minority of pacifists, but a large minority could place the city in jeopardy.

Shalom
Bob

11

The issue here is “fairness” and not whether what the majority believed is right.

Then there is the issue of voting itself. For is it, in the first place, a philosophically sound means of attaining truth at all?

I do not think it is. Voting is more about politics - a delusion of freedom and power for everyone where there is really none - than philosophy.

And are you sure you are voting freely or that you are conditioned by the one with the most money and the most slick PR campaign. The poor quiet voice of wisdom and truth is seldom heard, but rather you hear what you want to hear.

And as I have mentioned somewhere all the world thought the world was flat until one man called Columbus came along. To be in minority does not mean you are wrong. It is just that the majority dont see it.

Also consensus leads to mediocrity rather than creativity, by definition. For if something is already in the knowledge of the majority then it is common art and not original creation.

Alternatively you can think of consensus as averaging, and the average of +1 million and -1 million is exactly zero!

So consensual politics is no guarantee for truth - if it is, it is incidental -what then of fairness?

Further you seems to suggest the instrumental or utilitarian measure of what is right, ie what is right is that which leads to increased chances of survival. But are we not in a modern progressive enlightened world? Why do we still subscribe to values originating from the primitive barbaric tribal past? If something endangers a community that is wrong. Surely our societies today, with education and enlightenment, have advanced and matured to be robust and able to think and hold all ideas and thoughts without fear of disintegration and anarchy and chaos. Or are we still fearful of ideas and thoughts that we do not agree and thus for the sake of diminishing the threat to the survival of the majority we think it right to imprisoned even the thoughts of some.

And surely we are more than just animals only concern about survival? Are there not higher ideals upon which to base something so lofty as justice, freedom and fairness than our base animal needs?

And paradoxically you have suggested to be “free” you have to make yourself slave to rules imposed by the impersonal majority.

12

I beg to differ, but the issue is “Justice” and to arrive at the measure for Justice we need to agree upon some common standards we want upholding … to agree we need to choose and to choose we need to vote. At least that is the connection I see.

Fairness in these terms would require impartiality, and a freedom from favouritism. That is why democracy calls upon all to vote - as against single persons dictating - and finds out who is favoured by the majority. It may not be the best way, but it is the best way we have.

No, which is quite apparent when you read some of the things written in Forums. We are living in a world that has forgotten what it took to get as enlightened as we were, in a world with people who heap themselves with riches they can never spend and who love to use the world as a chess board. We live in a world where certain people, having overcome the dangers of the cold war, immediately started looking for another conflict to make money with. We are living in a world where there are puppets and puppetmasters.

Which is why “freedom” is an illusion in the way it is used. There is no freedom without rules - even if they are the rules of the jungle. Those who imagine themselves “free” and dress alternatively or behave differently are only free as long as they pose no threat to an otherwise thinking majority. Once the threat is identified, they are assimilated - resistance is futile!

Growing up has to do with realising that much of what I believe to be true is an illusion - and making the most out of what I can scrape out of the barrel. Freedom is a frame of mind, not a physical condition.

Shalom
Bob

13

Justice comes from the idea that as society looks to escape a natural state of war, a social contract (setup by a government and/or religious institution) in which members of the society seek liberty and freedom, also seeks justice. The state of war being man’s natural tendency to “not get along” whereby man can choose to live alone in a state of nature, or as a member of society under such a social contract.

14

If I accept, uncritically for the moment, that the fundamental notion of justice is indeed about comparision and measurement then it consistently follows from this idea that we need some reference to measure against.

But is it necessary in this simple idea of justice that the reference be a common one? Justice is just to compare. There is no implication of commonality, that ALL are compare to the SAME reference. And as such your proposed mechanisam to establish this common reference, namely via agreement, choosing and voting are all irrelevant.

But even if I concede that there is a need to for a common reference - again suspending my need for its reasons - why must the common reference be something that anyone, even less a majority, agreed to? If I am all powerful, say Nebuchadnezzar, or Ceaser, or whoever (God?), I can decide that this is the standard and I compel all to conform or else …

We have mixed up three issues here, namely standards (ie reference), common standards, and fair common standards. (And fair common standards may be an oxymoron.)

What you are saying is that whatever the majority chose is fair. And what I am saying is that it is not necessarily so. For is it necessary that common standards are fair? That individual standards may be detrimental to society, if at all, is beside the point altogether. Not unless fair to you is that which profit society - or just the majority (and 51% is still a mjority) - most as in furtherance of its continued existence or prosperity or whatever.

The mechanism of the majority vote is just something politically expedient - that you keep everyone happy, no revolt, obtain compliance without arms, etc - and not that it is derived from the notion of fairness itself. If indeed the outcome is “fair” it is entirely incidental and nothing to do with the process at all. (Thinking about it in democracy you have substituted one tyrant for another: namely a Caeser for the impersonal, inhuman, abstract entity called ‘the majority’. I do not know which is worst.)

But before we proceed we need to examine the notion of fairness which instinctively is embedded in the notion of justice itself, in that justice is not necessarily merely about comparision but it is about a “fair” comparision? But even more fundamentally is the question why compare at all?

But that for another post.

15

Oh, I get it - you have your rules and I have mine, and the policeman knows what your rules are, what mine are, what the next persons rules are… In short, you want anarchy.

OK, what omnipotent ruler do you know personally, besides George W. Bush? Wasn’t the need mentioned to be playing the same game? Mustn’t I know what rules I have to play by? If so, wouldn’t it be important to have heard the opinions of others? I know that this is getting very rare in western society, especially in America, but I still think it is important.

No, I say that the majority vote is the best method we have - not the best method over all. I don’t know of anything better - do you?

Only if you are a dissenter - otherwise everything is OK. I know as well as anyone that there are weaknesses in democracy, but what you are suggesting takes us way back before democracy - have a look at what people were fighting for in those days…

Shalom
Bob

16

Justice largely doesnt exist on the macro scale. With this many people, its hard to legislate justice, and even harder to enact it.

The idea of justice and fairness are good things to strive for, but humans are by nature unjust.

17

I am trying to be an idealist here for the moment - to distinguish between true justice in its purest form before seeing whether it is something applicable or realistic in the real world. I have already acknowledged elsewhere that true justice is unattainable on earth. Some may think this is presumptuous. The issue is then how far can we go with true justice in its pure form or has it to be abandoned altogther and earthly justice is something else altogether.

18

OK, then tell me when you have come down from your ivory tower, I’ll just get on with life in the meantime…

Shalom
Bob