If you had to choose between love and justice and you can only choose one, which one would you choose? Is there an absolute here that one should choose justice or choose love and not the other?
Personally, I’d make my choice based on the context of the situation. Let’s say if someone in my family committed a crime against another who is not my family, then I’d choose love and not justice and so not tell upon them. But if the crime was against me then based on how it affected me, I’d choose love or justice accordingly.
What are your thoughts? I’m really curious as to should there be an absolute regardless of the context because otherwise we can say that no one can be righteous all the time if we don’t choose justice, and yet choosing to remain faithful to our loved one who committed some crime seems in itself a sort of justice. What do you think? What would you choose and why?
The problem is that love can sometimes BE a form of justice and what you might have with love vs. justice is two competing forms of justice. There’s also existential justice vs. moral or political justice. It’s just not that simple.
Ultimately whichever you choose turns out to be justice…your form of justice.
Gamer, so what you’re saying is if I remain faithful to my family member for some crime committed then I’m choosing moral justice over existential/political and so my remaining quiet is a good thing?
You know what, I was really meaning to ask in my original query that, if say your quardian who took very good care of you does not approve of something or someone you love, then what would you choose? Would you choose abiding by your guardian’s wishes or go for the thing or person you love? Oh! I guess you would choose love and explain to the guardian why because otherwise it means that the guardian never really cared for you and so why should you? Whatever…
Sorry! I edited this post because it was nothing like mundane babble. I initially started this thread in the philosophy section, where I believe it belonged but it was moved to mundane babble so I edited the entry here as there was ENORMOUS RESEARCH behind just this entry and mundane babble does not do justice to it. Sorry!
This sort of reminds me of Alexis’s post about love…and another one about honor. Justice is really very personal. It actually takes courage to do the WRONG thing sometimes, and there’s a certain justice in doing what you want to do even if it’s wrong. I for one love the US legal system and my sense of justice is more or less alligned with it, except for my civil and economic libertarianism. I just think justice can be anything that takes courage. I imagine Hitler thought he was being just…seeking a higher purpose for all. I think a better question would be how do we determine the best course of action in a given situation. Choosing between justice and love is a false dichotomy (meant to be your hypothetical, I know) but I’d argue it never comes down to that. Perhaps it could come down to Country vs love, or nationalism vs. love, or law vs. love, but I maintain, it NEVER comes down to justice vs. love, because the prevailer in that case would be justice. In your case, there’d be no justice in avoiding a love interest cause your “guardian” doesn’t like them. That’s where I stand on that.