Justice (E4 DLR Fall 2012)
Course Notes
Day 1: What is Justice?
Clayton: Since I have never thought about justice before, I started with a search on dictionary.com and the definition states that it is the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness. Basically when I think about justice, I always seem to think about laws, courts, and government, because we continually debate whether our government is being fair and just with all citizens of the US. Justice, to me, is more of a principle that people base their behavior off of. When a judge decides on his/her ruling, they have to take into account the severity of the crime, and give out punishment that they believe will be sufficient. Justice goes hand in hand with fairness, as taken from the title of our class. Both of these words are a part of moral responsibilities, not just for people in a position of power, but for everybody. Fairness, a word more commonly used with justice, is a governing principle in our country, school, and home. Justice, I think, is the thinking and reasoning behind fairness, and therefore the two are commonly used together. Many parts of our life are not fair or just, but we should not just accept that, especially with our parents. I never just say okay when my mom says "because we said so." They may have authority over me, but I deserve a just answer behind their choices. In school, our honor code serves as the principle that holds our community together and makes it strong. Justice sits at the core of our honor code, whether in an honor trial with SAC members or everyday in class when teachers decide what is fair information to put on a test. Therefore, justice is a part of our daily lives, and more people should try to understand and define it rather than just use it.
Clay: Justice, as it is most commonly defined as, is the act of seeking retribution against a person or an institution for previous wrongdoings. It is usually determined in a court of law by a group of peers, known as the jury, although it can be handled other ways (ie bargaining). However, justice is not a universal moral constant (as some might claim) and it varies from culture to culture and by the era. For instance, both the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials caused the deaths of several people because they were called out as pagans and witches respectively. The only pieces of evidence held against them were accusations from local individuals (which did not need to be backed up any further) and forced "confessions" from the accused after they were tortured by officials. In contrast, the modern justice system assumes a person is innocent until proven guilty and they are provided with a fair trial. While the moral aspect of justice is a grey area, it is (and always will be) the way that people get even when they are wronged.
Spencer: Justice, clearly an abstract term to represent shades and certain degrees of fairness, holds true meaning within the individual. To me, justice comprises a notion that every action performed, good or bad, should have a equal response to it. Clearly since all actions cannot be monitored by one's peers, government or bystanders, these responses cannot be appropriately given. Opposed to a more traditional view of justice being a punishment, good actions can be served justice if they are acknowledged and promoted. My thoughts on justice, as the "flip side" of actions, can (and probably do) conflict with several of my classmates views on justice. With any idea so non concrete, this could create miscommunications as well as arguments. No one individual can be correct in the other person's eyes; however, because being correct to the other person would involve a complete relenting of personal belief by the other person. (Real world example: If someone goes on for hours about how God is important in your life but you don't know it yet, if your true beliefs are that God doesn't exist, you won't--and shouldn't be expected to-- relinquish your true beliefs. Thus both individuals are "correct" to themselves because they have total belief in their views of something intangible). As a class, we can probably agree that justice would involve some sense of punishing the bad doers in our society. But past that basic belief, on a deeper level of quantities of justice, why justice should be implemented and by whom it should be implemented, no two ideas can possibly coincide. So putting other words equally as ambiguous to define justice can lead an individual to a certain level of understanding, but the leap to fully understand something like justice requires the invocation of basic personal beliefs.
Josh B: Justice is a form of retribution that the state inflicts upon those who violate a predetermined set of rules agreed upon by the majority of the populace. The populace may decide upon rules that are objectively unfair, however presuming that the rule does not violate The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in which case punishment administered by the state is oppression, not justice), all citizens of that state are bound by those rules - simply by continuing to live in the community, they are implicitly agreeing to remain within the bounds of the law. If a person violates the law, the state must prove guilt through a fair trial (not necessarily by jury, but in an unbiased court) before sentencing the lawbreaker to a reasonable and proportionate punishment. This punishment should either provide compensation for the victim, prevent the lawbreaker from committing additional offenses through rehabilitation or confinement, or perform some combination of the two.
Avi: Justice is an inherent part of any civilization. Justice is praising the virtuous and punishing the wicked and perverted. Starting with Hammurabi's Code--"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," civilizations have progressively defined what justice is in the context of their societies. Justice is an important aspect of society because without justice law would be dysfunctional. There is no point of having laws if they are not going to be enforced; if someone breaks the rules, he or she is to be punished through the "justice system." Justice is also what teaches us to behave in a morally correct manner. Justice has two primary methods of teaching people to behave righteously: the reward system and the punishment system. As our Humble and Friendly Narrator Alex in A Clockwork Orange learns, punishment is a very effective form of teaching righteousness. Similarly, rewarding good behavior helps to ingrain morality into people's minds. Justice has multiple functions and is indubitably one of the biggest necessities in any society--a functioning society, that is. When the justice system becomes corrupt, the society becomes corrupt too; this corruption can lead to a drastic change in the society or the collapse of the society altogether. Just look at A Clockwork Orange; when the "millicents" become corrupt and start beating up innocent citizens, people begin to fight back in order to overthrow the current "Government." A properly functioning justice system is the first step to a properly functioning civilization and society.
Blake: Justice, according to Nietzsche, is a bargaining system among the equally powerful. One could think of human justice as a stock exchange: the trading guidelines are society's code of morals, while the actual trades are thepassing of judgement itself. For example, we execute those who have murdered someone else in cold blood; we killthe murderer as recompense for the one who was murdered. Likewise, we fine those who speed on the street as recompense for their endangering the lives of other drivers with their reckless driving. Hammurabi embodies this ideal plainly in his law code: an eye for an eye. Thus, when we dole out justice, we are essentially judging whether theconsequences of an action on one person match the consequences of that same action on another. If the scale weighs evenly on both sides, then a just decision was made. If the scale leans more towards one side than the other, then an unjust decision was made. Justice, as Nietzsche explains in his writings, is essentially an elaborate bargaining system focused on human interaction. The catch is that the notion of justice exists solely among the equally powerful. One has to be empowered enough to seize the justice that is his. For example, we glaze over the fact that we hold animals behind bars in places we call zoos. The animals have no say in whether or not they'd like to be there; we just put them there for our amusement. However, if one were to take human beings, and place them behind bars without their consent, it would be labeled as something unjust. These two groups are thrust into the same situation with the exact same parameters; it's just that one group is empowered enough to claim justice while the other is not. Thus, the notion of the scale becomes distorted once one starts to deal with groups of unequal power, and any true notions ofjustice cease to exist.
