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Originally Posted by DonQuigleone
I don't think you can necessarily equate Justice with equality. I said "that people get what they deserve", as that's the broadest definition possible. What you think people deserve is very subjective though.
For instance, under the ideology of the divine right of kings, it is just that a king rule with absolute power, because it is heavenly mandated, the king gets what he deserves (power), the peasantry get what they deserve (to serve their superiors). Under a more modern (democratic) way of thinking, this kind of arrangement would not usually considered just.
The above arrangement could also still be considered fair, so long as all kings are treated equally, and all peasants are equal, because the king is of a higher substance then those he rules over.
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Fair point. Perhaps I overextended a bit.
What if we interpret justice as an extension of human morality? Morality, by its nature, is something that is subjective and variable. Now, if we happen to expand that subjective concept to encompass something much larger like, say, an entire society, that morality then becomes what we refer to as ethics. With that perspective, ethics (which are eventually sublimated into laws or cultural norms) can also be called a sort of consensus between the different individual values that make up a society or a particular community.
In that context, Justice then becomes a system by which a society evaluates actions based on its own subjective ethical system.
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Originally Posted by Triple_R
But I think that justice is a bit more innate than just some idea that people thought of some day. I don't think that justice is "discovered" the same way that you discover an advancement in Sid Meier's Civilization game, for example. Justice is more than just some "good idea" that somebody had someday to try to push forward civilization.
I think that, due to basic human empathy and some other factors, people have an innate sense of what constitutes justice and what constitutes injustice. And I'm inclined to think that people always had this sense of justice, at least once humans gained higher thinking capacities.
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No. I agree with you. Justice is a necessity for any society or civilization to exist. For one thing it is the vehicle by which a society's norms and values are consistently upheld and protected. If we take the social contract theory in mind, it is the people that make up society that willingly give up a portion of their individual freedom in return for the protection and opportunity that society provides. Such has already been observed in many other animal communities. That much I can agree with.
However, one point I have to stand firm on is that the perception of "Justice" varies across different societies and cultures. You could even say that it varies across individuals. So I'd say that a large portion of it is determined by environmental factors and socialization. Yes. Part of it is somehow biological, but that would only consist of a small part of the entire picture.