Yes, in my highschool philosophy class it was quite shocking to hear two people’s idea of justice. One kid, Dan, told me that it would be justified to outright shoot all the New Orleans-Hurricane looters. Another told me, that it is in fact justice, to let the people outright loot because of the hurricane; ie. because we are providing them with shelter no longer, we must allow them do whatever we want. Dan countered this argument by saying that the government offered them shelter and protection before the storm, but the people foolishly rejected it.
It is indeed rather ironic, but justice is a very subjective term in and of itself.
What do you mean by “justice?” How do you know the beliefs are bias if you do not have a valid concept of justice to compare them to? If you do have a valid concept of justice, how can you say that justice does not exist at least as a valid concept? If you do not have a valid concept of what just is, then you have no way of deciding the matter affirmatively or negatively.
Yes but like the word “subjective” the word “justice” was posited by society before you and I were born. We were born to the concept with its denotations and connotations. We have some idea about what it means. The word “subjective” is subjective is subjective too. Does that make it an invalid concept? Perhaps no two people agreed totally about what justice means. Does that mean it doesn’t exist? If you had no had no concept of justice why were you shocked at the ideas of justice in your high school calss? If your idea is merely subjective, then why is it any better then theirs?
From the Grecians in our society and it varies for each society. The novelty lies in the moral code which embraces the idea of justice. Our society is a bit of a religious deontologist influence and a bit Utilitarianist.
I’m curious: Why didn’t you conclude instead that one or both of your peers had an insufficiently developed concept of what justice is?
You mean and “Partytize” myself or “Socratize” myself? Dan is an extreme republican, in that he is “rebelling” from his democrat father; kids these days huh? He has an extremely skewed perspective of the world, in that he believes everything should be like his rich, Roman Catholic, neighborhood back in Rhode Island. The other arguer, Grant, who is a politician to the bone (he is the president of our class and always agrees with common consensus, argued with Dan, but all he argues with is a girlish emotional perspective to make the girls in the class say “aww.” While is emotional appeal is convincing, it goes against everything justice is all about really.
All justice really is is a fancy, convincing way to express written law. Hammurabi’s ‘justice’ system is equal to the American justice system; the only thing that matters is which one is able to come out as the law for the people.
By “law for the people” i mean whatever law prevails over the people. How can you distinguish that Hitler’s Law was of any more benefit for “the people” than Germany’s law of today. The benefit just went to different, specific people in Hitler’s time, and if you know what Germany is like today, it goes against the people that Hitler benefitted.