2013-01-11, 15:15 | Link #1 | |
Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
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Philosophical Question - Justice and Fairness
1. Does Justice exist?
2. What is Justice? 3. Does Fairness exist? 4. What is Fairness? 5. Can Justice be Fair? 6. Should Justice be Fair? Quote:
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2013-01-11, 16:01 | Link #2 | |||||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Physically no. But it does exist in the minds of people, and is a powerful thing.
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At least that is what I think. There is very good argument to say that fairness and justice are the exact same thing, but I thought that would be cheating... |
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2013-01-11, 16:04 | Link #3 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
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My opinions:
Fairness exists, but it is subjective. e.g. Some people may think gender equality is fair, but think it's (more) okay for women to be violent toward men than the reverse, which may not be okay at all. Justice is then fairness from the subjectivity of a government in a particular society, which can be influenced by some sort of a consensus from the people in that society. e.g. An eye for an eye ... |
2013-01-11, 16:20 | Link #4 |
=^^=
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: 42° 10' N (Latitude) 87° 33' W (Longitude)
Age: 45
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1. Does Justice exist?
Don't mess with Karma. 2. What is Justice? In the eyes of most people, it's "compensation" or "consequences" for undesired actions. 3. Does Fairness exist? It does, but humans are horrible at enforcing it. 4. What is Fairness? The concept regarding "equal value". Being humans, our concept of "value" differs from person-to-person. Because of that, we cannot objectively define "equal value". 5. Can Justice be Fair? 6. Should Justice be Fair? Yes and Yes. But per question 4, it may not often be the case. In order to enforce justice, there must be a system of power. Unfortunately, the concept of "power" is even more unequal than that of "value".
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2013-01-11, 16:53 | Link #5 |
Banned
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1. Does Justice exist?
Yes, in books and in people mind. 2. What is Justice? Agree. People must get what they deserve. 3. Does Fairness exist? No, as long as hypocrites exist. 4. What is Fairness? Equality of gain? 5. Can Justice be Fair? Yes and no. There is always on side that is not happen after reading the verdict in courts. 6. Should Justice be Fair? Yes... to the victims side. |
2013-01-11, 16:53 | Link #6 | ||||
Senior Member
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Yes. Justice is about people being held accountable for their words and actions, and receiving proper thanks or punishment for them, depending on the nature of those words and actions.
We tend to focus on the punitive side of justice, of course, but there's also justice in a person receiving proper recognition, thanks, or even material compensation for going above and beyond in helping others. I can think of some situations where justice was done, at least in my opinion. So yes, I think that justice exists. Quote:
In everyday life, not really. Perfect equality does not exist, and it very likely will never exist. Quote:
In everyday life, Don is right. Equal outcomes for equal action/effort. Quote:
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2013-01-11, 17:01 | Link #7 | ||||||
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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The only problem is that the values for different actions cannot be judged quantitatively, only qualitatively. As such, the perception of Justice can vary with individual perception. One way to go around this obstacle of relativity is by agreeing upon a common standard of in valuing certain acts, so Justice then becomes more of a society thing than an individual thing. These shared standards are what we now refer to as "Law". Quote:
To make my point, it's necessary to distinguish society's perception of "Justice" and the individual's perception of "Justice". Justice, for the sake of not contradicting itself, must abide by society's perception of fairness, which is to say that it must be lawful. The Law is the end all and be all of the "Justice" of any particular society. Now, the individual's view is at most a single drop within the shared idea of "Justice" that the entire society holds. As such, it holds no power to overturn the general perception of society by itself, be it in America or ancient Babylonia.
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2013-01-11, 17:13 | Link #8 |
Senior Member
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I'm not sure it's accurate to say that justice is just a social construct. Unless by that you simply mean that for justice to exist, you must have people (i.e. sentient beings), which is true. Justice is meaningless and practically non-existent in a barren wasteland, of course.
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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2013-01-11, 17:55 | Link #9 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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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. |
2013-01-11, 19:49 | Link #11 | ||||||
Also a Lolicon
Join Date: Apr 2010
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Personally, considering what fairness really is, no. Quote:
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2013-01-11, 20:01 | Link #12 | ||
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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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. Quote:
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.
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Last edited by Qilin; 2013-01-11 at 20:12. |
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2013-01-11, 20:50 | Link #15 | |
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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I won't deny what Triple R stated in his post as well. There are particular biologically-based predispositions that indicate trends in how human societies form value systems, but I see that as a different thing from "Justice" altogether. While such things may have been the basis of its conception, they are still two separate ideas.
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2013-01-11, 20:53 | Link #16 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Wouldn't a better question be "Can Human society continue without Justice?
"Can Human society continue without Fairness?" Constructs or not, we still have them. Can out society continue without them?
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2013-01-11, 21:01 | Link #17 |
Romanticist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Age: 33
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Probably not. If we interpret Justice as the vehicle by which a society upholds and protects its collective values, then it would be indispensable. A society thrives on its shared value system via social contract. Without it the whole thing would likely descend into anarchy, or at least disintegrate.
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2013-01-11, 21:26 | Link #18 | |
Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
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2013-01-11, 21:31 | Link #19 | |
:cool:
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Idaho
Age: 32
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Fairness is balance. If something is fair, it's balanced. It's how things are "supposed" to be. If a murderer were "put to justice" and sent to prison for the rest of their life, people would consider that to have been "fair" (assuming that it was deserved and kerblahblahblah). Can it exist, and can something ever be truly fair? Not really, because there's no precedent for what is absolutely fair. The fairness of justice is arbitrary. It's an opinion. I personally would consider a lot of punishments in the U.S. legal system to be unfair when you look at the socio-economic background and psychological state of offenders of many minor crimes, and sometimes even slightly more serious ones. Justice should be fair. Justice is just a balancing act, and a subsidiary of fairness in a sense. We know what justice and fairness is, the arbitrary part is whether or not we think that either has been achieved in a given case.
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