posted
Both the death penalty thread and the insanity thread have evolved into a discussion of the abstract concept of justice. I thought it might be appropriate to broaden the debate and bring the two discussions together in one meta thread on the concept of justice.
Some of the questions which have been raised include:
What defines justice? Do you see justice as an important principle and if so why? Do you see a necessity for temporal justice or is the existence of some sort of eternal justice (God or Karma) sufficient? Is temporal justice a good of first intent (something sought for itself) or a good of second intent (something which should be sought as a means to some other end.) If something is not demanded by justice, can it still serve justice? What is the proper balance between justice and compassion in society?
So far the discussion has revolved primarily around criminal justice. I'd like to expand the debate to encompass social justice in general.
Let me start by attacking the first question. I think that justice means equity. In the criminal setting, it means that the punishment for the crime be equal to the severity of the crime. In a work setting, it means that a laborer is paid a some equal to the value of work done.
In that sense, things can't really be more just or less just. They are either equitable (equal) or they aren't. Still, since we are rarely able to achieve true equity, it makes sense to distinguish between rewards/punishments which are very far from being equitable and those which come close.
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Nothing defines justice, anymore than something defines "apples" or "pizza" or "one". Justice is whatever justice is. We can come up with definitions to try to capture the nature of justice in words, but justice will remain what it is regardless of how we try to define it.
I think justice is the proper balance of things. It is when everyone gets exactly what they deserve. In fact, it is the whole idea that one can deserve one particular treatment.
quote:Do you see justice as an important principle and if so why?
I think justice is an important end we should pursue, although I am not sure why.
quote:What is the proper balance between justice and compassion in society?
I think compassion IS justice, in a sense. It is what justice becomes when you understand a person and why they do what they do - the viewpoint they have that leads them to commit evil thinking it is the right choice to make. It is what justice becomes when you understand that all people are inherently good, and thus that they deserve to be treated compassionately.
Anything short of compassion is unjust.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
1. It sounds like you got the formal principle of justice just right. Similar cases must be treated similarly and dissimilar cases dissimilarly.
2. I see it as the most important principle, but I've been thoroughly influenced by Plato.
3. Any legal system must act from the assumption that there is no God or other external "punishment" for immoral behavior. This is not to say that such things don't exist. It's just for the sake of fairness. People can't prove that their gods, religions, and codes prescribed by said religions are right, so how is that a good basis for society?
4. Good in itself, but if you're going to use justice as a means to the end of peace, I won't argue.
5. What exactly are you asking?
6. I don't see justice and compassion as being two ends of a spectrum. See Tresopax's response.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I don't think you can talk about Justice without talking about God or gods. In latin, justice is issued from God in Greek, Dike(justice) is the goddess who shows mortals their place in the totality of beings, and if you've committed a crime, it's a severe and horrible view. Kind of like what Tresopax said.
I don't think there is a neat secular answer for justice. Right now, we kind of do whatever we think will keep the society stable, which means that we don't bust rich people doing cocaine as long as they are functional, etc. But this conception isn't justice, it's housekeeping. It's concerned with stability and efficiency, not morality.
_________
As an aside, justice from external forces is already tricky business, which is why the Erinyes, the greek executors of Dike, drove people crazy until they killed or mutilated themselves, rather than were by external forces. Later on, Aristotle has a line where he said something, roughly, that one should not commit murder because one would not want to associate with a murder, and not only would you constantly be associating with a murderer in the body of yourself, you now look out in the world and see everyone as a latent murderer.
Rabbit, justice is different than equity. The "leveling down" argument, that is, if a person has 8 units and another person has three units. Equity demands that we take five units away from the person with 8 units.
I'm pretty far out there. I find Dike attractive, that is, if everyone knew their place in the totality of the world, including the intimate and fragile dignity of everyone other person in the world, then justice would just kind of happen. Heidegger argued that the work of Art is to disclose a being as situated within the totality of other beings, revealing its past, present, and future. I think that to a large degree, this is the case, but then again, I also believe in the humanizing power of art.
A sense of justice is just that. A sense, and I don't think that it admits any hard and fast principles.
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To me, justice is creating equity out of inequity. The reasonable and moral redress of some wrongdoing.
quote:Do you see justice as an important principle and if so why?
Yes, I do, a very important principle. I believe justice is an important principle because in the world we live in, iniquity is commonplace. A princple for dealing with it is thus extremely necessary to ensure greater peace, harmony, and safety for human beings.
quote:Do you see a necessity for temporal justice or is the existence of some sort of eternal justice (God or Karma) sufficient?
I believe that both are necessary. I believe that temporal justice is necessary because we as human beings must deal with the here and now in addition to whatever happens to each individual when we die. While I believe we will all stand before God at some point in the future, that future isn't now. Furthermore, I believe that God does not want us to merely wait for divine judgement and retribution. I believe God would not be pleased with what, to me, would be a cop-out.
Also as a practical matter, the idea of divine and eternal justice beyond the grave simply will not be an effective means for addressing all iniquity in the world, since not all human beings believe in it or do so strongly enough to let that be their guide.
quote:Is temporal justice a good of first intent (something sought for itself) or a good of second intent (something which should be sought as a means to some other end.)
Hmmm...I believe it should be sought for itself, but that's really because I believe that justice brings balance, peace, security. My own personal goal in pursuing justice is to secure these things in greater quantities and qualities than they're currently enjoyed. Justice has value because those things have value.
quote:If something is not demanded by justice, can it still serve justice?
Yes, I believe it can. Justice is very flexible. There is never simply one possible just outcome to a given iniquity. Therefore justice must not necessarily demand any one given response.
quote:What is the proper balance between justice and compassion in society?
I believe justice and compassion are intimitely related. The proper balance should ideally be very, very flexible. It should take into account the level of harm done, motivations for doing so, what the expectations of harm actually were, how much and in what ways the victims and society are impacted, how much if at all they invited wrongdoing in some way, and what will happen to both victim and wrongdoer after doing something to either party.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
1. What is Justice? Before reading some of the above, I might have ventured an answer. Now I have to think about it some more. I'm intrigued by this that Irami wrote:
quote:I find Dike attractive, that is, if everyone knew their place in the totality of the world, including the intimate and fragile dignity of everyone other person in the world, then justice would just kind of happen.
To the degree that I understand this, I can agree with it. However, this simply underscores that True Justice is impossible at this time among human beings. I think it also demonstrates that you cannot "define justice" outside of context. The "justice" in the quote from Irami seems to me to be a different creature than the "justice" of "Justice under the law". Also, you can have Justice under the law, but you can also have an unjust law, further leading to disagreements over the definition.
2. I believe that justice is important. Justice under law is supremely important if the law is to have validity in a given society. However, unjust laws corrupt the justice meted out under them. In this sense, there can be a "higher justice" that should supercede a lower one. I believe that the more we learn about humanity the more we can serve the "higher justice".
3. Temporal justice is the only justice that a society can serve. No one can serve "eternal justice" because no one knows what that is. Only God can mete out Divine Justice and as far as we can tell, he does not do that in any way sufficient for the establishment of a stable society. Therefore we only have our own concepts of justice to work with and those are by definition temporal.
4. To the degree that justice is a temporal construct, it is simply the means to an end. I believe it is theoretically possible that there exists an ideal Justice, and perhaps that would be a "good of first intent", but we are impossibly far from approaching that ideal at this time. (See answer #1 above).
5. Ideal justice demands all things that serve it. However, there can be many things that serve Ideal justice that are not demanded by temporal justice.
6. Compassion should always supercede temporal justice insofar as it can be shown that it serves a higher ideal of justice.
Caveat: This is a work in progress. Feel free to tear it apart and thus help me refine my thoughts. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
(Note: In my post, criminal is short for perpetrator, etc.)
To me, justice has a very narrow definition of coming as close as one can to restoring a victim to the condition they were in before the crime was committed if such restoration is possible.
According to my definition justice can only be achieved in crimes like theft, property damage, or breech of contract (I may be forgetting a few). But, in those cases the criminal can theoretically repay his or her debt to the victim. If the criminal doesn't have the money, their wages are garnished or they work in prison until the debt is repaid or they die or are no longer able to work, whichever comes first. You should not be able to escape your debt to another individual through bankrupcy or retirement.
I do not believe poking out the criminal's eye satisfies justice for poking out the victim's eye because that does not serve to restore the victim to the condition that they were in before. Instead the criminal should pay for transplant surgery for a new eye, or come as close to that as he or she can.
It goes without saying that there is no way to bring the dead back to life, therefore, there can be no justice when murder has been committed. I believe the murderer should spend life in prison without the possibility of parole and work in prison to pay the family whatever life insurance would typically pay the survivors, amount to be determined by the courts.
To me, justice does not exist for breaking societal laws such as parking or moving violations. However, punishment should and does exist in cases where justice does not. Punishment is designed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior occurring.
In cases where justice does exist, mercy should only be meted out by the victims in the form of not demanding the full repayment of the stolen item, etc. If a victim wants justice (remember my definition of justice), the courts should not be able to extend mercy.
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There is no justice There is just me guess who Or as the Muslims say: Allah is Justice. There is no justice when there is just us.
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Before you call the League of Superhero's to throw me in jail, let me explain.
Every crime, from petty theft to genocide, has been excused, ratrionalized and described as a search for Justice.
I worked with people who stole from the company--took pens and paperclips, gasoline and tools because they felt the company they worked for treated them unjustly.
Welfare Moms and Embezzeling CEOs claim in a Just World the money they are recieving would be theirs anyway. They are taking it in their attempt to obtain justice.
Date rape is often explained by the rapist in terms of justice. "I bought her an expensive dinner. She should have put out."
True and perfect justice is an impossible goal for the limited and inherently imperfect human to achieve. One man's justice is another man's injustice. Few in jail feel they are getting justice, and seek to even the scales against the society that put them there.
No, I am anti-Justice. I am pro-Compassion, pro-Social Contract, and pro-Individual, but I am anit-Justice.
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Dan: Every example of justice you gave could be called vigilantism (meaning taking justice into one's own hands). I am against vigilantism where there is some powerful arbitor to decide between "me and thee". Can the two concepts justice and vigilantism not be separated for you?
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You have just earned yourself the awesome vengence of the Justice League of America, Dan_Raven. They will show you justice....no matter how much of your planet they have to destroy to do it.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
What is justice? It seems that we can't answer any of the other questions until we provide our definition of choice. Instead of answering the normal way, let me provide you with a quote from Robert M. Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence
quote:"What do you think [quality is]?"
[Phaedrus] paused for a long time. "I think there is such a thing as Quality, but that as soon as you try to define it, something goes haywire. You can't do it."
...A few days later he worked up a definition of his own and put it on the blackboard to be copied for posterity. The definition was: "Quality is a characteristic of thought and statement that is recognized by a non-thinking process. Because definitions are a product of rigid, formal thinking, quality cannot be defined.
The fact that this 'definition' was actually a refusal to define did not draw comment. The students had no formal training that would have told them his statement was, in a formal sense, completely irrational. If you can't define something you have no formal rational way of knowing that it exists. Neither can you really tell anyone else what it is. There is, in fact, no formal difference between inability to define and stupidity. When I say, "Quality cannot be defined," I'm really saying formally, "I'm stupid about Quality."
Obviously, I'm comparing Justice to Quality. Pirsig's arguments are spot on. Justice cannot be defined, but one can know it. Is it justice when a murderer is imprisoned? We all say it is (excepting perhaps the murderer). Is it injustice for one to be cheated out of what you should have? Yes. Is it wrong, then, to make your own justice? That's where everything gets iffy. As Enochville pointed out, that's vigilatism. But is that wrong? We know Justice in most cases; when I read tresopax and enochville's ideas of Justice, I couldn't help but nod. It fit my sense of Right.
Is my sense of Right the same as yours? Perhaps, but I doubt it. If you are Catholic, you disagree with me on the matter of birth control. I look at it, looking at the whole picture, population problem and everything, and I say birth control is Right. There are too many people! We don't need many more! A Catholic, on the other hand, looks at the minutiae, saying This life is important. We can make do.
I'm not trying to argue about birth control. But many things change your Right. Perspective. Culture. Numbness.
Ferinstance, I'm sure that the execs Dan mentioned think that what they do is Right. Did they always? Did they have to numb themselves to the feeling of Wrong they got from stealing? I hold that they did; they would fell no need to justify themselves if what they did did not, in some way, defy their sense of Right.
I'll continue my discussion of this later. Feel free to tear apart what I've scribed thus far.
Posts: 135 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
One of the things that put me and Dag at loggerheads in the thread on Insanity was the question of how justice is structured.
Dag took the view that justice is a feature of actions by themselves. To him, an action is just if it respects the rights of others, doesn't harm anyone who doesn't deserve harm, and meets a bunch of other criteria that we can spell out. But in particular, these criteria will have nothing to do with the consequences of the action -- how things turn out isn't going to matter for right and wrong. This is how I understood him at the time, anyway.
For my own part, I think that Dag's model works well in most cases, but can't ultimately get at the truth about justice. Because I think what's just or unjust is not actions, but situations -- states of affairs or ways the world could be. The world could contain a bunch of free people who have equal rights and very little suffering, in which case things would be very just. Or the world could contain people who have very few choices about how to live, as well as great disparities in power and happiness. This would be an unjust world.
My view agrees with Dag's about most particular moral questions, I think. But we disagree about some cases. Punishment is one such -- I think punishment is only justified insofar as it brings about a better world, and reject the notion of desert. Another case is the example of a plauge victim, who can only be stopped from infecting and killing others by violating his rights, incarcerating him against his will. I think it's evident in such a case that the just thing to do is to prevent the great death and suffering that will result from the epidemic, even if it means harming or restraining the plauge victim in ways he doesn't deserve.
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posted
I would say, in an abstract way, Justice is the balancing of karmic debt. I believe that the idea of Justice is an abstract, so it must be discussed in terms of other abstracts, such as karma.
In other words, Justice is payment for the good and bad that a person does. Whatever benefits and services a person performs for others, they should be repaid in equal measure. Whatever suffering and detriment a person inflicts upon others, they must be repay or have equal inflicted upon themselves.
Justice is slippery though, because there are many actions which cannot be accounted for. If a person kills people, they can never restore those lives, and their one life is no payment. If a person steals and throws away an amount of money which they can never repay, they are incapable of restoring the balance. Any harm that is inflicted cannot be taken back, it is already done.
In order to imagine true Justice, one must posit a supernatural form of Justice, such that wrongdoings which can never be fixed on earth have the possibility of redress by some supernatural means. A multiple murderer can suffer eternally for his crimes, a victim of murder can receive eternal bliss.
Then of course, we run into ideas of supernatural injustice, such that a multiple murderer can be forgiven his sins, and a saintly person can suffer eternally for his lack of faith. Finite earthly Justice is difficult enough to reconcile, without the scale being shifted to incomprehensible extremes and arbitrary rules that seem to completely defy the logic of earthly Justice being enforced.
In other words, it's a huge mess, and it's difficult to imagine any form of true Justice. I think when most people speak of Justice, they really want people who do bad things to be punished, and people who act in a manner consistent with values we cherish to be rewarded.
Justice in this case, is simply reward or punishment befitting a person's actions, within the reasonable constraints of human existence. Still messy, but at least something we can cling to, in the dark, uncertain world.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
This is a good thread and a good question, Rabbit. It has made me question some pretty basic things.
I found I can't define justice except as "people getting what they deserve" which has lead me to a very Tresopax line of thought... (tres)"Is Justice a Good Thing?"(/tres) At least from a Rule Utilitarian point of view...
I hope I can get my thoughts together on this and I'll post more...
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Dag took the view that justice is a feature of actions by themselves. To him, an action is just if it respects the rights of others, doesn't harm anyone who doesn't deserve harm, and meets a bunch of other criteria that we can spell out. But in particular, these criteria will have nothing to do with the consequences of the action -- how things turn out isn't going to matter for right and wrong. This is how I understood him at the time, anyway.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to really participate in this thread right now, but this is an extremely inaccurate summary of my views on justice.
Rabbit, a quick question: It seemed from the insanity thread that you believe that retribution is part of justice but that human systems are incapable of instituting retribution justly and therefore human systems should not attempt it. Is that correct (if necessarily incomplete)?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Obviously, I'm comparing Justice to Quality. Pirsig's arguments are spot on. Justice cannot be defined, but one can know it.
I think that there is a relationship between Justice and Quality but that it is inaccurate to say that Justice cannot be defined.
Every action we make has intrinsic quality or value. An event is just, when the results of our actions, whether they are rewards or punishments, have equal quality or value to the actions themselves. When I said originally that justice means equity, it is this kind of equity I meant and not the leveling sort of equity Irami refers to.
If you were to buy a car from me, the transaction would be just if the money you paid me for the car had equal intrinsic quality or value to the car. If I perform some work for pay, the transaction is just if the work I perform has the same intrinsic quality as the pay I receive.
From this definition we can begin to identify actions that would be clearly unjust. For example, if I own some object which I have obtained through just measures, it would be unjust for anyone to steal this object from me because I would suffer a net loss of quality. The thief, on the other hand, would experience a net qain in quality at my expense.
One difficulty arises because it is difficult if not impossible to determine the precise intrinsic quality of most actions or things. An object or act may in fact have more or less intrinisic value based on time, place or the persons involved. Most of the things we exchange in our society, are goods of second estate -- that is they are tools we use to obtain what we really want, goods of first estate.
In the car sale example, both the car and the sale are goods of second estate. They are tools which you and I will use to obtain other things we want such as transportation, food, entertainment etc. For this reason, the car may have greater intrinsic worth to you than it does to me. If for example, I was unable to drive the car it would have little intrinisic worth to me.
A second difficulty arises for a completely different reason. Consider the example of theft I mentioned earlier. Under my definition of justice, if I give an object which I have justly obtained to someone who is undeserving, it is equally as unjust as if that person has stolen it from me. This is an act that I define as “merciful”. I have chosen to reward another individual with something of greater intrinsic value than they deserve.
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posted
Perhaps, on a societal level, justice is those things we do to assure that qualities other than the ability to wield brute force are valued.
That's society; what the "we" do in order to make society as we know it possible. There are any number of things that don't fall under that strict definition that set off my own sense of injustice. I can't immediately come up with an easy definition for the causes of the latter, but then, it's 2 AM. I'll get back to you.
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quote:Unfortunately, I don't have time to really participate in this thread right now, but this is an extremely inaccurate summary of my views on justice.
Sorry, I tried.
Perhaps the difference between us isn't qualitative, as I indicated, but rather a matter of degree? (That is, you think outcomes are important but usually not as important as features of the action?)
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Rabbit, a quick question: It seemed from the insanity thread that you believe that retribution is part of justice but that human systems are incapable of instituting retribution justly and therefore human systems should not attempt it. Is that correct (if necessarily incomplete)?
I wish I could come up with a simple, short answer to that question. But I can't and I'm too busy right now to do it justice. As soon as I have time, I promise to try to answer.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Dest, I could be wrong here, but I don't think Dag was offended or put out by that definition, but that it missed some of the things he considers very important and wanted to say that.
I am sure he will come back where he has more time to define it, and to state if I am correct or not. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Dest, I could be wrong here, but I don't think Dag was offended or put out by that definition, but that it missed some of the things he considers very important and wanted to say that.
Yes, there was no offense, and I see why you summarized it that way. It's about a topic I care very much about, though, and didn't want people thinking those were my views.
quote:I am sure he will come back where he has more time to define it, and to state if I am correct or not.
I have time to say you're correct, but not time to define it more precisely.
quote:I wish I could come up with a simple, short answer to that question. But I can't and I'm too busy right now to do it justice. As soon as I have time, I promise to try to answer.
Thanks. I understand the time availability thing and I appreciate any expansion you get a chance to do. I've really enjoyed going over this with you and wish I could participate more fully in the thread.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Every action we make has intrinsic quality or value. An event is just, when the results of our actions, whether they are rewards or punishments, have equal quality or value to the actions themselves.
Dr Rabbit,
I think that your view of equity presupposes that these qualities are commensurable, that is, that there is a common currency from which we can assign and measure one means with other means, one end with other ends, or means with ends and the converse.
To follow your example, either there is a number we can assign intrinsically to the value of the car.
Or there is a number we can assign to the value of the car in your esteem, which is compared to the number we assign to the value of the car in the thief's estimation.
Both scenarios involve a story about rightly assigning a value to a thing. Both scenarios have a problem. I actually think that you are arguing from the first of the two disjuncts above. In addition, in your example, I think that you are presupposing a view of property rights that is controversial.
Lastly, Nozick is famous for reducing the just society to the notion that a just society is merely a society where all individual transactions are just, and that the basic unit of justice is the individual transaction, not the society. His view also resides on a story of property rights, which while common fashionable, is not at all self-evident.
I think that for Nozick's view of justice to be viable, the myth of property rights has to hold sway throughout an entire society, then on the foundation of that myth, individual just transactions may occur. __________
The foundation of justice is going to be myth, and that's not a disparagement. I respect myth. I think that they are necessary to give this human condition a sort of dignity. Some myths are worth dying for. Some myths are even worth killing for, but it's always going to reduce down to a myth, and the current myth that I see pervasive in our discussions of justice includes an elaborate story of property rights, and even more suspect, the biggest myth of all is that we've somehow founded a principled system of justice on a hard facts and evidence rather than the compelling attraction of a particularly nuanced myth.
At bottom, it seems to me that we are looking for myth about the foundation of justice that is both coherent and accords to the world as it strikes us, and confers some sort of anticipatory power so that we have a rough guideline on how to approach future problems.
quote:The foundation of justice is going to be myth, and that's not a disparagement. I respect myth. I think that they are necessary to give this human condition a sort of dignity.
I don't see what you could mean by "dignity" here except a pleasant sort of self-deception. I hope you'll pardon those of us who think we can have more than that.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Some myths are even worth killing for, but it's always going to reduce down to a myth, and the current myth that I see pervasive in our discussions of justice includes an elaborate story of property rights, and even more suspect...
Also, how can one myth be "suspect," if all you have to offer by way of alternative is another myth? You say "some myths are worth dying for." What demarcates the ones that are worth dying for from those that aren't?
The answer would seem to depend on some sort of objective truth about what is valuable. But if so, you're not really disagreeing with the ethical objectivist, are you?
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: There is no justice There is just me guess who Or as the Muslims say: Allah is Justice. There is no justice when there is just us.
While it's true that justice is a human construct, that doesn't make it non-existent.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I don't think myths are self-deceptions. I think they are what we have, and that they represent the keenest wisdom of our age.
quote:Also, how can one myth be "suspect," if all you have to offer by way of alternative is another myth?
When at myth dies, or no longer represents the best wisdom of the people, but is still propped up as true, then it is suspect.
quote:Also, how can one myth be "suspect," if all you have to offer by way of alternative is another myth? You say "some myths are worth dying for." What demarcates the ones that are worth dying for from those that aren't?
There are somethings that are more important than life. Exactly what these things depends on the shape of ones consciousness. That last phrase is a bit of Hegel, but in a nutshell, I think that the nature of justice changes substantively depending on culture, sure, there are some facets that are universal, but that's largely contingent on similar external circumstances, kind of like those old theories of simultaneous evolution.
There is always going to be a play between objective truth and subjective consciousness at the foundation of justice, or beauty, or anything of these qualities, and it seems to me that myth is one of the few ways that this play reveals itself. Or in other words, how often does a good story tell the truth about justice better than factual newpaper article.
Even analytic ethical philosophers rely on myths to ground and motivate their theories. Rawls relies on the choices of hypothetical "parties" in the original position, ripped out of time and stripped of their knowledge to motivate and ground his ideas of social justice. Nozick cites Locke's mythic state of nature, and Hobbes and Rousseau similarly rely on other mythic states of nature. We ground our justice in the idealized Founding Fathers, and they grounded their justice in the "self-evident" design of God.
Suicide bombers are working under one myth, and Bush is working under another, and I am working on a third. Which one is the most appropriate myth? Nobody can say for certain, but we go to the one that is formed by our thoughtful consideration of this world. The only thing that makes one myth better than the other is that the vast majority haven't actually thought about their myth, which should be undergoing constant revision, in the light of all of their external experience and internal intuitions.
Instead, they have accepted someone else's myth, or most likely, stopped thinking. And even more common is that some people profess one myth and believe another, or purposefully shut out contradicting experience, which is just as disingenous.
In their defense, it's hard to build a strong moral edifice if you are constantly undermining your foundation. And the current myth we are working on prizes people who "Get things done," rather look at the propriety of the foundation.
quote:I think that your view of equity presupposes that these qualities are commensurable, that is, that there is a common currency from which we can assign and measure one means with other means, one end with other ends, or means with ends and the converse.
Not quite Irami, I am arguing that th concept of justice itself is based on the presupposition that everything has a true value. Evey dictionary I've looked in use the word equity or equitable in defining justice. If someone claims that, $15/hour is a just wage for a particular job, they are saying that some sort of equity exists between the value of money and value of labor. If one claims that 15 years in prison is a just or equitable punishment for some crime, they are in fact claim that the harm done by the crime is in some way equal to the punishment assigned. Simply by claiming that X is a just outcome of Y, assums that X and Y have equal ivalue. I can't see how we can even begin to talk about justice unless we assume that all things have an intrinsic value. If you can provide some clear discription of justice that does not require the existence of a common currency by which the true value of all actions and things can be compared, I am sincerely interested in understanding it
Second, there is a differce between claiming that something has an intrinsic value and being able to determine unequivocably what that value is.
Finally, none of my claims rest on any assumption of private property rights. In fact, what I thought I had done was to derive a possible private property right based on a simple definition of justice. If $15/hour is truly and equitable compensation for labor (note this is a conditional statement), then anything that results in the laborer receiving less (or more) than $15/hour of labor is inequitable or unjust. It doesn't matter whether the inequity occurs because of generosity, misunderstanding, or theft. If the equations of justice are satisfied by $15/hour, then $14/hour and $16/hour are necessarily unjust.
Please note that I have never claimed that we can know with certainty what is just.
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quote:Rawls relies on the choices of hypothetical "parties" in the original position, ripped out of time and stripped of their knowledge to motivate and ground his ideas of social justice. Nozick cites Locke's mythic state of nature, and Hobbes and Rousseau similarly rely on other mythic states of nature. We ground our justice in the idealized Founding Fathers, and they grounded their justice in the "self-evident" design of God.
The disanalogy between Rawls's and Nozick's views and the "mythic" ones you mention in the second sentence is that both Rawls and Nozick acknowledge the objective falsehood of the idealized states they rely on. They each give an explanation (convincing or not, you decide) about why the idealized states, though false, have important implications for what is objectively true about the real world. So to argue that they're engaged in a myth-making enterprise by giving these examples is mistaken.
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Rawls grounds his principles of justice based on what free and equal citizens would choose without the benefit of circumstantial knowledge.
Trying to imagine those people(assuming that they were distinguishable) under in that condition as well as the primacy and role of freedom and equality presupposes a controversial understanding of the world and the self.
It's a myth different in kind but in not quality to the Aeneid's finding of Rome, or the Oresteia's grounding of procedural justice. At least with the latter two myths, the people are portrayed as robust and thick with humanity as opposed to Rawls' parties who must be some sort of blank self, unencumbered by the vagaries of the world.
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The one thing that I feel I can add to this conversation is the non-human perspective. I think that can put the whole question into a different light.
When you realize that we humans are horribly unjust to animals all the time, then you see that justice is always a function of your mental construct that defines who counts as an agent. From the point of view of a dairy cow, our whole society is horribly unjust.
The Nazis are such a good example of so many things, which is why I think they get brought up so often. They acted in ways that were not unjust to their manner of thinking. They felt they were clearing out an infestation of vermin from places they wanted to live, and that it was right for superior beings to rule inferior ones, and they were superior and so in the best possible world they would rule.
If their view had been true, that is, if it had fit the actual circumstances of reality, then it might have worked. But because it was so disasterously false, because Jews were fully human, (including the physics they came up with, for instance), because old people and sick people have actual value and shouldn't be shot to clear the way for the strong and healthy, because Germans were not superior humans, their ideas came to an inevitable disasterous conclusion.
Everyone's view of what is just comes from their own narrow view of reality. Every view of justice that exists in this world is extremely limited. Complete justice requires complete knowledge. It's a matter of faith, but I do believe that complete justice exists. I think our best attempts at it now fall far far short. I think recognition of that shortfall requires us to tread lightly, to first do no harm, lest we do more harm than good.
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Tatiana, your point is absolutely true. The only way that people can justify the horrible things they do to others is to dehumanize them. Abortion comes to mind.
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I think it's true of animals too. Not that we dehumanize them, of course, but that we pretend they have no feelings, no desires, no terror or affection or .... selves, in order to do the things to them that we do... in order to treat them like industrial machinery. I think that's an enormous injustice in our society today, but most people don't see it that way.
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quote:If their view had been true, that is, if it had fit the actual circumstances of reality, then it might have worked. But because it was so disasterously false, because Jews were fully human, (including the physics they came up with, for instance), because old people and sick people have actual value and shouldn't be shot to clear the way for the strong and healthy, because Germans were not superior humans, their ideas came to an inevitable disasterous conclusion.
I get worried when people talk about inevitability from a historical perspective. It's a winner's argument. The German's lost by the strength of our arms. For that same reason, Stalin won.
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Yes, you're right, only societies do shoot themselves in the foot by believing stupid things. For example, if they believe that jewish physics is nonsense, and then the other side ends up with nuclear weapons and they don't.
Also, societies that figure out how to allow the intelligence and ambition and hard work of all their members to be rewarded and acceptable, do better than those who arbitrarily refuse to accept input from half or more than half the intelligent adult members, such as very racist or very sexist societies.
There's nothing inevitable about it, but they put themselves at a severe disadvantage in contrast with freer societies, by their very stupidity.
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quote:Also, societies that figure out how to allow the intelligence and ambition and hard work of all their members to be rewarded and acceptable, do better than those who arbitrarily refuse to accept input from half or more than half the intelligent adult members, such as very racist or very sexist societies.
There's nothing inevitable about it, but they put themselves at a severe disadvantage in contrast with freer societies, by their very stupidity.
Some of these facts are contingent. The forces of science and economy are muscular forces that don't always bend to hard work, ambition, and intelligence, nor do hard work, ambition, and intelligence necessary make a society I'd want to live in. To be honest, some of grossest people I know work hard, are ambitious, and intelligent, they usually win, too, but I still find them gross.
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