Justice is one of those things that doesn’t get talked about much, so forgive me if this post is mostly just me teasing out what justice is. It is hard to discuss its place in the world if I don't first have a good grip on what it is.
Quite recently we had an exchange that was driven by justice right here on the compendium. I would refer you to TruthOrDeal's comments in the Frustration Thread:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,4445.msg182203.html#msg182203And also to Lord J’s response:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,4445.msg182211.html#msg182211To sum up a situation, Sajainta posted a wrong that was done to her, ToD posed a response in which physical retribution was wished upon the offending individual, and Josh followed up by stating that calling for physical retribution originates in the same “place” and the original offending action.
I must disagree with Josh in that regard as there is no indication that the original offender hurled the distasteful slur with a motivation of justice in mind. Truth’s reaction, however, did. He perceived a wrong done and wished for that wrong to be righted. That is, in part, a foundation of the concept of justice. ToD wished for the offending individual to get his “just desserts,” to put it deliciously.
Physical retribution for a wrong committed is a very old form of justice. We see it in the Code of Hammurabi and other historical law codes: do X, and Y will be a punishment. Call someone a slut, get kicked in the nuts. However, Josh’s objection highlights a problem with this depiction of justice; not everyone agrees one what constitutes a proper response. If one does “X,” should “Y” occur, and if so, what form should “Y” even take? Truth essentially claimed that kicking the offending in the nuts was a just form of “Y,” while Josh disagreed; he portrayed such violence as unjust.
So justice is an exchange, attempting to make up for a deficit though the adding of a punishment. By hurling an insult, the offender incurred a debt to Sajainta (and, one could argue, to society). Getting kicked in the nuts, under ToD’s perception, is an attempt to pay off that debt. Pain caused, pain received. But note, it was emotional pain caused and proposed physical pain that would have been received. There is a concept of an exchange rate, then, that is part of justice.
This might lead us to suppose that justice is fair, and while it may be in some cases, we generally seem to hold that it is not so in all cases. This point is best illustrated by an extreme: consider a serial killer who tortures in various manners all his victims. He is caught, put to trial, and found guilty. We cannot say that the loss of his life would be an exchange of like values (aka, fair) for the lives of those he killed. If we were generous we might say a life for a life is fair, but a single life for ten people? Hardly. Nor, as a society, do we tolerate such an individual being put through the same experiences that he put his victims through. It would be unjust of us to torture the man as he tortured others.
But what about all those words that can appear before the word “justice?” I am surprised that, given the nature of those present, no one has yet discussed
social justice. This ties into the conceptions illustrated above, but takes a more… positive approach. While we often perceive justice as “if you do X, then Y will be the punishment,” but social justice takes the approach of “if you have not done X, then Y should not be the punishment.” Or, in other words, it might be just to restrict the liberties of an individual if they have committed crimes, but it is unjust to restrict the liberties of an individual if they have not committed crimes. If we combine this with the perception that all humans are, at a base level, entitled to the same liberties, we come to the idea that blacks shouldn’t be slaves, that women should have the right to vote, etc.
Social justice, then, causes us to attempt to remove elements from society that are unreasonably oppressing a group. As this includes laws, it helps elucidate the relationship between laws and justice. Justice is not subservient to laws, but it is the other way around; laws exist in the hopes of promoting justice. Thus we can have good laws or unjust laws.
That part of the American pledge of allegiance states that there should be “liberty and justice for all” indicates that this is not merely a wishing for legal equality, but rather that there is an equality more fundamental, something that laws can only hint at because it is so basic we tend to be unaware of its existence.
Returning to TruthorDeal, I would suppose that his reaction was not an intentional one but a reflexive one. Anger and violence are common instinctual reactions when humans are faced with something that is wrong. The Hulk resonates with readers because the Hulk (particularly the unthinking version) is so believable. How many of us, when we are greatly offended by a wrong, have never had the reaction of “HULK SMASH!”?
Of course, instinct isn’t always a good thing --hold your breath and after a minute you’ll have the instinct to breathe again, which is a very bad idea if you are under water -- but the cause of the instinct tends to be (breathing is good, after all, and tends to be necessary for life).
Since justice is an exchange, Y for X, and such an exchange is subjective (even in extreme cases of X, a less extreme Y may be called for), we might be tempted to say that justice is the reflex of our ethics or morals. But those seem to be too high-ordered for the cause of our Justice Reflexes. Perhaps the word “sensibilities” might be a bit more valid. Certainly, it is still influenced by our ethics and morals, but we might describe those as ourselves intentionally doing what we perceive as right while our sensibilities cause us to unintentionally do what we perceive as right. This is not a static thing, but rather a part of us that grows with the rest of ourselves.
Our sense of justice is almost like our sense of balance; it can be trained to endure a variety of perspectives, but it instinctually keeps us upright in an uneven world of social interactions. Indeed, we might even go so far as to say it is fundamental to the social universe. Just as for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, for every social violation there is an equal and opposite social repercussion.
